by Goss, James
‘Why?’
‘To make you happy.’
‘Why would this make us happy?’
‘That’s all I want you to be!’ protested Sebastian.
There was a dreadful pause. ‘What kind of world is this?’
Without thinking, I spoke. ‘It’s a bloody great one. You’re just looking at the wrong bit of it.’
‘Explain.’
‘This isn’t what we’re about. We’re nicer. We’re smaller. We’re just kind of weird and awkward and all of us trying our best to get through the day. Ordinarily we don’t want to kill, or to take what doesn’t belong to us, or to do anything nasty.’
‘What are you… about?’
I pushed a hand through my hair, ‘We’re about an extra hour’s sleep. About another slice of toast, about getting a seat on the bus, about never having enough money, about getting a message from an old friend that makes you drop everything. About having bad ideas but doing them anyway.’
‘But why aren’t our children like this?’
I shook my head. ‘They look like us. But they’re not.’
Sebastian shoved me aside, screaming at the Tree. ‘Don’t listen to her. We are better than them! Her evidence is selective!’
‘Of course it is!’ I shot back. ‘This is just my point of view. It’s not evidence. I’m not arguing for my species.’ Well, maybe I was. ‘We do terrible things to other people and to each other for the stupidest of reasons. We have such short lives and we waste them. We are dreadful. I can’t think why anyone would want to be like us.’
‘But we do. That is how we learn.’
‘And what have you learned?’ I asked it.
The vines twisted, awkwardly. ‘It has been a good way. Previously.’
‘My way is better,’ snarled Sebastian. ‘Look at me! They stole your children, perverted their creation… but have made something magnificent.’ He pounded his chest, proudly. ‘I am a wonderful accident. Your children are the true owners of this planet. Not these…’ He indicated me, Eloise and Tom with a wave that said ‘these old things’. ‘Me. I am the child of the future. I offer you this world.’ And he smiled.
The Tree fell silent.
Eloise stood up, warily and joined me. ‘Imagine that,’ she said. ‘All those other planets welcoming these seed pods. A race of kindly, noble explorers. And we spend so much time imagining invaders… that we turned their children into them.’
‘It’s so human of you, Mummy,’ taunted Sebastian.
Eloise stepped forward and stared up at the plant. ‘I am so sorry. It’s all my fault.’
The Tree stirred again.
‘You accept responsibility?’
Eloise nodded, ever so quiet and sad. ‘Just… just enough of it.’ She made a gesture, her hands helpless. ‘My parents taught me to own up before you got found out.’ A tiny, sad little smile. ‘My brother and I used it against each other, terribly.’ She paused. ‘But it was a system of sorts. It worked for us as a family. So…’ She patted Sebastian on the shoulder. He turned away from her. ‘I’m saying now. I’m sorry, Sebastian, for what I did to you.’ She looked up at the Tree. ‘And I am sorry for what we have done to your children. There is much you could have learned from us. Instead you’ve just learned to fear us. And I can’t say I blame you.’
There was another pause.
‘Are you finished?’ asked Sebastian.
Eloise nodded.
Sebastian broke her neck.
‘There!’ he beamed.
Rhys
We all stared up at the sky. Anwen started to howl again. She clearly had her mother’s instinct for knowing when the world was going to end.
‘It’s all right,’ I said, lifting her up to my eyes. ‘Daddy’s here. Daddy’s going to make it all OK.’ Daddy was lying through his teeth.
I had hoped we’d escaped all of this. We’d left Cardiff, our old friends, our whole life behind us.
We’d started again. Because of Anwen.
But suddenly it was business as usual. Strange lights in the sky, and Gwen elsewhere. Trying her best to sort it all out. I had thought that, if ever something like this happened again, at least we’d all be together. Instead, no such luck.
Which left me with very little to do, other than to look after Anwen as best as I could, while the sky above us glowed blood red.
Josh and Megan Harries were standing next to me. ‘Never seen anything like this before,’ announced Josh. He had the forced casualness of someone who was determined to talk about the weather, no matter what else was happening.
Megan clearly didn’t think much of this as a line of conversation. She was pacing around nervously, and then began to play with Anwen, an element of nervousness in her cooing and finger-waving. As though, if Anwen smiled, then maybe it would all be all right.
I looked around us. At Nerys, with soot in her hair, at Davydd, slumped despairingly on the gravel of the pub car park. At the rest, looking up into the sky. No one was telling us anything. There was nothing to go on. No one was even going to lie to us and say there was nothing to worry about.
I just hoped that whatever happened would be quick.
Gwen
Eloise’s neck broke with a wet snap.
There was time for three different expressions on her face – surprise, fear and pain. Then she fell to the floor with a sigh, her empty brown eyes staring up at the Tree.
‘Bones and water,’ announced Sebastian to the Tree. ‘That’s all they are.’
Tom was making a noise, so Sebastian hit him. I stayed quiet, sizing up what to do.
‘One down,’ Sebastian shrugged, then implored the tree. ‘Now, more. Give me my brothers.’
The tree shook and rustled, the leaves peeling back and the pods swelling. They started to droop to the floor.
Sebastian rushed to the first one. The pod split and ruptured, shrivelling to a husk as a copy of himself forced its way out.
The newborn Scion stood up and opened its eyes. They were clear and blue and they stared around at the world in momentary wonder, taking it all in. He reminded me of Anwen when she first wakes up of a morning. Surprise, wonder, working things out in equal measure. Then the Scion’s face changed. It knew why it was here. It smiled, but it was a smile of triumph. He and Sebastian grasped each other warmly.
‘Welcome,’ said the older Sebastian. ‘There is no time to waste.’
Around them other pods split and cracked and dozens of other Scions began to fight their way out. It was beginning. The air filled with the terrible stench of those flowers.
This was Sebastian’s moment, and the triumph flowed across his face. The new Scion’s features moulded themselves into a mirror of Sebastian’s, and, for an instant, the two wore identical expressions. Then the new Scion frowned, puzzled.
‘What?’ demanded Sebastian, but the new Scion didn’t answer him. Instead his eyes passed over the room, confused. His mouth opened, and a series of clicks emerged. A hand reached up to his head, holding it like it hurt, and then he broke away from Sebastian, staggering backwards, reeling.
‘What is happening? What?’ cried Sebastian, reaching out for his brother. The Scion fell back, withering and collapsing into his shell with an agonised hiss.
Around Sebastian, the other new Scions were flailing unsteadily. Some had not even managed to leave their pods, and a steady hammering came from inside them as the half-emerged figures started to writhe.
Sebastian, surrounded by dying copies of himself, screamed. ‘What’s wrong?’
The Tree shook. ‘You.’
‘What?’ He glared up at the twisting branches. ‘What do you mean?’
The leaves rubbed against each other, rustling and crisping.
‘You… sicken us. Your thoughts are poison.’
A giant leaf drifted to the ground by Sebastian. The edges were brown, autumn spreading to the heart of the leaf within seconds.
‘What?’ Sebastian cried.
More leaves
started to drift to the ground, crumbling as they went.
‘We will have nothing more to do with you. You are not our child.’
It was the last thing the Tree said.
Sebastian stood there screaming, but the only sound from the speaker was a rising whine of feedback which ended in a crackle..
More leaves fell around Sebastian, along with rain, pouring through the roof, pelting the tree, shaking the branches bare. The floor of the hangar turned to a mulch of decomposing leaves and worse, a brackish sludge that covered Eloise’s body.
Still the leaves tumbled slowly down, and still Sebastian shouted at the barren Tree.
Tom and I held on to each other. There was nowhere to run, no shelter, just this endless downpour.
Eventually, Sebastian stopped shouting. The skeleton of the Juniper Tree stood over him, the air thick with the smell of decaying leaves.
Sebastian turned around, and faced us. He did not look defeated, or sad. He just looked angry.
‘You.’ His voice was hoarse from the shouting, and rain poured down his face like tears. ‘This is your fault. This is all your fault.’
‘No,’ I told him. ‘This is all you.’
Sebastian strode towards me, his face twisted with unthinking, childish rage. Just like Jenny, he was suddenly so very, very human.
Sebastian’s walk broke into a run, his arms balling up into fists. I didn’t really see him coming. Or perhaps I didn’t know what to do. I was just tired and wet and cold and he was bearing down on me like a lorry.
Tom stood in between us. ‘No!’ he shouted, but Sebastian struck him aside, and he went down, vanishing in the dead leaves.
Then Sebastian was there, grasping hold of my shoulders, hissing with rage and fury, pushing me down to the ground, his hands sinking into my neck.
It was all happening so fast. Old Gwen Cooper would have done something more than this, at least have fought back. But I was just lying there as he strangled the life out of me. Funny that. The last thing I’d ever do was to let myself down.
The hangar doors swung open. I heard the noise over the pounding of blood in my ears.
Figures walked in. I saw their feet as they crunched through the slush of fallen leaves.
The Children of Rawbone had come home.
Sebastian noticed them, panting with exertion. His grip on my neck slackened and he stood up, facing them. The smile sprang back to his face.
‘Your father welcomes you,’ he said.
Rhys
Tense moment.
You know there are some people who are just out-and-out shits? Life’s Teflon-coated weasels. It’s never their fault, they did nothing wrong, every breath is a chance to make themselves better and you worse. They’re in every school, every football team, every office. And they’re always getting another chance.
The most important thing in that hangar was Gwen. Sitting in the mud. Alive and well. I ran to her, helping her up.
She grabbed Anwen from me and laid her across her shoulder, delighted.
‘What are you doing here?’ she mouthed.
I smiled. ‘Finding out what happens next.’
A neat young man stood over us, his handsome face made ugly by the emotions on his face. You could tell he was a nasty bit of work and he was bloody delighted to see the Scions.
The children of Rawbone walked silently towards him. So was this what had been controlling them?
‘Come to Father,’ he beckoned. ‘I have work for you.’
And they came, kicking up the leaves like it was autumn. He stretched out his arms to them like he was preaching to Saturday shoppers outside Topman. The children stood, heads bowed, unaffected by the rain still pouring in around them.
‘Good.’ The man smiled. As well as the triumph, there was a definite note in his voice. A sound that said, ‘I am getting away with it.’ I decided then and there that this wasn’t really the kind of bloke that I’d have much truck with.
Which was, of course, when Jenny stepped out of the crowd.
‘No, Sebastian,’ she said. There was something in her tone. Disappointment.
He glared at her.
‘No,’ she repeated.
‘You are all my children!’ Sebastian repeated.
Jenny shrugged. And all the children of Rawbone shrugged too.
‘You don’t deserve to be our father,’ she said. ‘You’ve made us do bad things. You’ve destroyed the source of our life.’ Sebastian was shaking his head at her, desperate, but she carried on talking. ‘You’re not up to the job. You’re rubbish.’
‘What?’
Jenny grinned, a natural, unaffected grin. ‘We don’t need you any more.’
The rain stopped and the sky above us started to clear, blue forcing its way through the strange clouds. A little bit of sunlight fell on Jenny, as saintly as a Disney Princess. All she was lacking was a bluebird landing on her shoulder.
Jenny didn’t break eye contact with Sebastian. She carried on speaking. No longer to everyone in the room, just to him. ‘We’re alone now. They’ve gone. It’s time to grow up.’
Her grin broadened, becoming more encouraging. ‘It’s OK, Sebastian. It’s over. Come here.’
Personally, I’d have happily watched him bugger off, but I guess that’s family for you.
Sebastian took it calmly. He walked slowly through the sludge, his head held down, compliant. He reached Jenny and stood before her, motionless.
Jenny reached out as though she was going to hug him, but stopped. Sebastian didn’t respond. Didn’t move.
Finally he spoke, his voice a whisper. ‘It is never over.’
He looked up at Jenny then, his eyes narrow with fury. He was literally shaking with rage. A hand flew up to strike her… but then it froze.
Sebastian, Jenny, everyone in the room was staring at that hand. It was withered, an old scarecrow’s twig fingers. The sleeves of his coat fell away, the fabric drifting to the ground, exposing a stick-like arm. Repelled, Sebastian flexed and stretched the arm, the fingers of the hands snapping and crumbling, the joints turned to powder. He twisted to face the giant tree above him, and as he did so, one of his legs gave way under him, with a snap. As he fell, his head flew back, vanishing into the wet leaves with a dry rasping shout: ‘No.’
‘Sleep now, brother,’ said Jenny, very quietly. Her voice was no longer empty of expression. There was a gentle sadness to it.
She patted her palms together, as though removing invisible dust from them.
She stretched out her hands, and the other children formed a ring, all standing there, staring up at the strangely sad sight of that giant dead tree.
Later, she’d stand on the village green, the other children behind her. As the sun rose, those strange plants finally opened their buds up, spreading out the most beautiful flowers, in every colour, and releasing a rich, sweet scent.
‘We are orphans now,’ Jenny said to the whole village. ‘That is…’ And she paused and looked up at the people of Rawbone. Then she smiled that winning little smile. ‘If you really want us to be.’
Gwen
That was kind of it, really.
We’d spent so much time projecting onto those creepy kids we’d made them what we wanted them to be. Somehow wrong. Somehow bad. But they weren’t. They were blank slates.
Life got back to normal. Megan Harries started her school up again. Nerys helped out pretty much full time. I’d like to say Rhys and I finally got a decent night’s sleep, but miracles don’t happen. People just got on with their lives. For some of them, it had been a very long time coming.
I’m not saying it was easy. People don’t forget being terrorised easily, even if it was of their own making. Davydd moved away. He wasn’t the only one. A few people just slipped off into the night. They were helped by a sudden and large amount of money.
Tom arranged that bit of it.
Tom
Hey Jasmine!
Can I run something past you quickly? Small thin
g, but the Rawbone Project is over. Eloise is dead. Sebastian is dead. The Juniper Tree is dead. The children are all growing up. They’ve got a new leader. One who isn’t interested in being a soldier, but in being a normal teenager. Already they’re looking a bit older, dressing differently. The other day, I caught one trying to drink cider in the rain behind the bus shelter.
What I’m trying to say is that Rawbone has children again. Your experiment has failed.
The other thing you should know is that we have all your emails. Sebastian – the real, proper Sebastian – printed them all out and filed them. Along with every other piece of paperwork associated with the project. We’ve used the photocopier in the village shop (five pence a sheet, receipt attached) and we made lots of copies. One for each family and child. I think that, if you ask very nicely, you can come to some kind of arrangement. They’re not greedy people – but you’ve done a dreadful thing to them.
That’s the other thing. Sebastian found the records on those old computers of how it was done. And dutifully printed it all out. How the villagers were denied children. That was the real start of the dreadful experiment in Rawbone – over thirty years ago, a piece of alien technology was tested here, to see if it really would sterilise an entire village. A very (well-documented) success. God alone knows what you’ve used it for since, but you left quite a mess behind. It’s not all bad news, you’ll be thrilled to hear. Jenny Meredith (that’s their leader) has looked at it all. She reckons there’s a way to overcome it. To give Rawbone real children. But she says it’s going to be costly. Luckily, we’ve got you to call on, and we know you’ll give this project your full support.
Like I said, the people of Rawbone aren’t greedy. They just want what’s due to them.
Don’t, by the way, think of sending anyone in. Some people are moving on from here. And they’ve got all the information they need to bury you.
Anyway, I hope all that makes sense and I’d really appreciate you having a look at this if you’ve a moment to spare. Bank details are on the shared server. Let me know if you have any problems.