And what had she done at the sight of it? Clung to this small life with a tenacity and forcefulness few others on this world
had contrived. Perhaps that was going to be the way of it. A future of perpetual schizophrenia as the inner struggle between
yin and yang went nuclear.
Far easier not to think about it. Yet even that was unwelcome, implying she had no mastery over her destiny. Instead, being
content to await whatever fate was generously awarded by the Confederation, a charity dependant. Something else contrary to
her nature. These were not the easiest of times.
She finished levelling the top of the bush and pulled a couple of recalcitrant shoots out of the thick lower branches where
they’d fallen. The secateurs moved down, slicing into some of the older branches. Apart from the five main forks, a bush should
be encouraged with fresh outgrowth every six years. Judging by the wizened bark and bluish algae streaks starting to bubble
out of the hairline cracks, this one had been left long enough. She quickly fastened the new shoots she’d left into place,
using metal ties. Her wrist moved automatically, twisting them tight, not even having to look at what she was doing. Every
Norfolk child could do this in her sleep. Others in the team were tending their bushes in the same way. Instinct and tradition
were still the rulers here.
Carmitha went down four rungs on the stepladder, and started cutting at the next level of branches. A little knot of foreign
anxiety registered in her mind. It was gliding towards her. She hung on to a sturdy trellis upright, and leaned out to look
along the row to spot the source. Lucy was running along the grass, dodging the piles of shoots, waving her arms frantically.
She stopped at the foot of Carmitha’s ladder, panting heavily.
“Can you come, please,” she gasped. “Johan’s collapsed. God knows what’s the matter with him.”
“Collapsed? How?”
“I don’t know. He was in the carpentry shop for something, and the lads said he just keeled over. They couldn’t get him to
stand, no matter what they did, so they made him comfortable and sent me to fetch you. Damnit, I’ve ridden the whole way out
here on a bloody horse. What I wouldn’t give for a decent mobile phone.”
Carmitha climbed down the stepladder. “Did you see him?”
“Yes. He looks fine,” Lucy said a shade too quickly. “Still conscious. Just a bit weak. Been overdoing it, I expect. That
bloody Luca thinks we’re all still his servants. We’re going to have to do something about that, you know.”
“Sure you are,” Carmitha said. She hurried along the row towards the thatched barn where her own horse was tethered.
______
When Carmitha rode into the stable she dismounted and handed the reins over to one of the non-possessed boys Butterworth/Johan
had promoted to stablehand. He smiled in welcome and quietly muttered: “This has got them all shook up.”
She winked. “Too bad.”
“You gonna help him?”
“Depends what it is.” Since she’d arrived at Cricklade, a surprising number of its residents had popped over to her caravan
to ask for her help with various ailments. Colds, headaches, aching limbs, sore throat, indigestion; little niggling things
which their powers found hard to banish. Broken bones and cuts they could heal up, but anything internal,
less immediately physical, was more troublesome. So Carmitha started dispensing her grandmother’s old herbal potions and teas.
As a result, she’d taken over tending the manor’s herb garden. Many evenings were spent pounding the dried leaves with her
pestle, mixing them up and pouring the resulting powders into her ancient glass jars.
More than anything, it eased her acceptance into the manor’s community. They’d rather turn to naturalistic Romany cures than
consult the few qualified doctors available in the town. Properly prepared ginseng (sadly, geneered for Norfolk’s unique climate,
so probably with its original properties diluted) and its botanical cousins remained preferable to the kind of medicines which
Norfolk’s restricted pharmaceutical industry was licensed to produce. Not that their stocks were very large; and Luca had
given up trying to negotiate more from Boston. The townies hadn’t got the factory working.
She found it strange that the simple knowledge of plants and land which was her heritage, and which had hidden her from them,
had earned her their respect and thanks.
The carpentry shop was a tall single-storey stone building at the back of the manor, in amid a nest of bewilderingly similar
buildings. They all looked like oversized barns to her, with high wooden shutters and steep solar-cell roofs; but they housed
a wheelwright’s, a dairy, a smithy, a stonemason’s, innumerable stores, even a mushroom house. The Kavanaghs had made sure
they had every craft the manor needed to be virtually independent for its basic needs.
When she arrived, several people were milling around the entrance of the carpentry shop with the embarrassed air of someone
who’s been forced to endure a family row. Not wanting to be there, yet unwilling to miss out. She was greeted with relieved
smiles and ushered through. The electric saws and lathes and tenoning machines were silent. The carpenters had cleared their
tools and lengths of wood from one of the benches and laid Johan out on top, head propped up on spongy cushions, body wrapped
in a tartan blanket. Susannah was holding a glass of ice water to his lips prompting him to drink, while Luca stood at the
end of the bench, frowning down in thoughtful concern.
There was a grimace on Johan’s rounded adolescent face, turning his usual lines into deep creases. Sweat glistened on his
skin, sticking his thin sandy hair to his forehead. Every few seconds a big shiver ran down his body. Carmitha put a hand
on his brow. Even though she was prepared for it, she was surprised by how hot his skin was. His thoughts were a bundle of
worry and determination.“Want to tell me what happened?” she asked.
“I just felt a bit faint, that’s all. I’ll be all right in a while. Just need to rest up. Food poisoning, I expect.”
“You never eat any,” Luca muttered.
Carmitha turned round to face the audience. “Okay, that’s it. Take your lunch break or something. I want some clear air in
here.”
They backed out obediently. She motioned Susannah aside, then pulled the blanket off Johan. The flannel shirt under his tweed
jacket was soaked with sweat, and his plus fours seemed to be adhering to his legs. He shuddered at the exposure to the air.
“Johan,” she said firmly. “Show yourself to me.”
His lips tweaked into a brave smile. “This is it.”
“No it isn’t. I want you to end this illusion right now. I have to see what’s wrong with you.” She wouldn’t let him look away
from her eyes, conducting a silent power struggle with his ego.
“Okay,” Johan said eventually. His head dropped back onto the cushion in exhaustion after the small clash. It was as though
a ripple of water swept down him from head to toe: a line of twisted magnification that left a wholly different image in its
wake. He expanded slightly in all directions. His flesh colour lightened, revealing the veins underneath. Patchy grey stubble
sprouted from his chin and jowls as he aged forty years. Both eyes seemed to sink down into his skull.
Carmitha drew in a startled breath. It was the sagging jowls which clued her in. To confirm it, she unbuttoned his shirt.
Johan wasn’t quite a classic famine victim; their skin was stretched tight over the skeleton, with muscles reduced to thin
strings wound round their limbs. He had plenty of loose flesh, so much it hung off him in drooping folds. It was as if his
skeleton had shrunk, leaving a sack of skin that was three sizes too big.
There were big hints that this wasn’t just caused by lack of eating. The folds of flesh were strangely stiff, arranged in
patterns that mocked the muscle pattern belonging to an exceptionally toned twenty-five-year-old. Some of the ridges were
pink, as if rubbed sore; in several places they were so red she suspected they were long blood blisters.
Shame welled up in Johan’s mind, responding to the dismay and tinges of disgust in the three people surrounding him. The emotional
oscillation was so powerful Carmitha had to sit on the edge of the bench beside him. What she wanted to do was turn and leave.
“You wanted to be young again,” she said quietly. “Didn’t you?”
“We’re building paradise,” he told her in desperation. “We can be whatever we want to be. It only takes a thought.”
“No,” Carmitha said. “It takes a lot more than that. You haven’t even got a society that functions as well as Norfolk’s old
one.”
“This is different,” Johan insisted. “We’re changing our lives and this world together.”
Carmitha bent over the trembling man until her face was a couple of inches from his. “You’re changing nothing. You are killing
yourself.”
“There’s no death here,” Susannah said sharply.
“Really?” Carmitha asked. “How do you know?”
“We don’t want death here, so there is none.”
“We’re in a different place. Not a different existence. This is a giant step back from reality. It won’t last; it’s built
on a wish, not a fact.”
“We’re here for eternity,” Susannah said gruffly. “Get used to it.”
“You think Johan is going to survive eternity? I’m not even sure I can get him through another week. Look at him, take a bloody
good look. This is what your ridiculous powers have reduced him to; this… wreck. You haven’t been granted the power to work
miracles, all you can do is corrupt nature.”
“I’m not going to die,” Johan wheezed. “Please.” His hand gripped Carmitha’s arm, a hot, damp pressure. “You have to stop
this. Make me better.”
Carmitha gently pulled herself free. She started to study his self-inflicted impairments properly, trying to work out what
the hell she could realistically achieve. “Most of the healing will be up to you. Even so, this convalescence will stretch
the concept of holistic medicine to its limit.”
“I’ll do anything. Anything!”
“Humm.” She ran her hand over his chest, tracing the creases in the flesh, testing them for firmness as she would ripe fruit.
“Okay. How old are you?”
“What?” he asked, bewildered.
“Tell me how old you are. You see, I know already. I’ve been coming to this estate for the rose season for over fifteen years
now. My earliest recollection is of Mr Butterworth supervising the grove teams. He was the estate manager even back then.
He was a good one, too; never shouted, always knew what to say to get people going, never treated the Romanies different to
anyone else. I always remember him dressed in his tweeds and yellow waistcoat; when I was five I thought he was king of the
world he looked so fine and jolly. And he knew the way Cricklade worked better than anyone other than the Kavanaghs. None
of that happens overnight. So now you tell me, Johan, I want to hear it from your own mouth; how old are you?”
“Sixty-eight,” he whispered. “I’m sixty-eight Earth years old.”
“And how much do you weigh when you’re healthy?”
“Fifteen and a half stone.” He was silent for a moment. “My hair’s grey, too, not blond. I don’t have much of it anyway.”
The confession relaxed him slightly.
“That’s good. You’re beginning to understand. You must accept what you are, and rejoice in it. You were a soul tormented by
emptiness, now you have a body again. One that can provide you with every sensation that was taken from you in the beyond.
What it looks like is a supreme irrelevance. Allow the flesh to be what it is. Hide from nothing. I know, it’s tough. You
thought this place was the solution to everything. Admitting it isn’t to yourself will be difficult, coming to believe it
even more so. But you must learn to accept your new self, and the limitations Butterworth’s body imposes. He had a good life
before, there’s no reason why that can’t continue.”
Johan was trying to appear reasonable. “But how long for?” he asked.
“His ancestors were geneered, I expect. Most colonists were. So he’ll last decades more at least, providing you don’t pull
a stunt like this again.”
“Decades.” His voice was bitter with defeat.
“Or days if you don’t start to believe in yourself again. You have to help me help you, Johan. I’m not joking. I won’t even
waste my time with you if you don’t stop dreaming that you’re destined for immortality.”
“I’ll do it,” he said. “I really will.”
She patted him comfortingly, and drew the blanket back up. “Very well, you lie here for now. Luca will arrange for some of
the lads to carry you back to your room. I’m going to go over to the kitchen and have a word with cook about what sort of
foods she’s got available. We’ll start off giving you plenty of small meals each day. I want to avoid putting any sudden stress
on your digestive system. But it’s important we get some decent nutrition back into you.”
“Thank you.”
“There are some treatments I can use which will make this easier for you. They’ll need preparing. We’ll make a start this
afternoon.”
She left the carpentry shop, and walked back to the manor’s rear courtyard. Cricklade’s kitchen was a long rectangular room,
bridging the gap between the west wing’s storerooms and the main hall. Tiled with plain black and white marble, one wall was
lined with a ten-oven Aga radiating a fierce heat that the open windows couldn’t eradicate. Two of Cook’s assistants were
taking loaves from the baking ovens and knocking them out of their tins onto wire racks below a window. Three more assistants
were busy by the row of Belfast sinks, chopping vegetables ready for the evening meal. Cook herself was supervising a butcher
who was cutting up a sheep carcass on the central island. Copper-bottomed pots and pans of every size and shape dangled from
a large suspended rack overhead like segments of a polished halo. Carmitha had hung bunches of her herbs between the pots
along the side facing the Aga, helping them to dry faster.
She waved at Cook and went over to VÉronique who was sitting at the last Belfast sink, scraping carrots on the wooden chopping
board. “How’s it going?” Carmitha asked.