The Beauty

Part Three

I lie in a proper bed, blankets piled high against the cold, Bee beside me, and I think of the line.

The line is invisible, but it exists. It runs from the edge of the wood, through the centre of the campfire, to the graveyard. On one side there is William’s hut, the communal huts, the school hut and the fields, and on the other side there is the big house where Ted now lives with Thomas. And where I spend all my time, waiting for a miracle.

For the birth of this baby will be the miracle that will unite us once more. The line draws its strength from its invisibility. Nobody wants to talk about it and I am forbidden to mention it, so the line grows longer and stronger. William, Eamon, the farmers, the older men: they all think there will be no baby and they hate the idea that there could be hope. Because hope takes the form of a joining rather than a continuation.

We will meld to grow. Part human, part Beauty. Could anything be more wonderful, more terrifying? The offer of salvation in the form of a baby who is not a baby. I can finally begin to understand why men kill.

And yet Uncle Ted, the killer, stands firmly with us as a protector of Thomas, never leaving him, grim-faced whenever one of the others approaches. I don’t understand this change in Ted. But then, his motives have never been up for untangling. For all his calmness, I feel there is a mess of man underneath. He loves, he hates, he hides the emotions where he thinks nobody can see. And then his eyes burn and his lips draw up, like a threatened dog.

It has occurred to me that my mother was afraid of Ted, of what he might do to others if he thought they were drawing too close to something. To what?

It has been a long six months of consideration and revelation for me; and in that time Thomas has swelled, not to the front like the pictures of pregnant women in the books, but to the side, low on his hip, then pushing out his stomach and distorting his chest. He wears the dresses that once belonged to Miriam – she was a large woman – and still he cooks on, with no perturbation on his face. Thomas emits a serenity that affects all who spend moments with him.

It sneaks into my bland stories of the past, stories that have become more and more fantastical. I tell stories of fairies and goblins, and tea parties for trolls, while the real meanings pretend to be invisible. The goblins go to war or the fairies squabble over a golden crown, hidden deep in the woods. And meanwhile the meanings squat low, so low in the words, that Ted cannot complain.

William and Eamon sit on one side of the fire and we sit on the other, and everyone listens to my stories, long serials that go on night after night. They all wear the expression of hearing pleasant diversions.

We have become excellent liars all round.

Sleep is a truth that will not come readily to those who fill their minds with pretence, so I sit up and watch my breath billow out into the December cold. Then I get up, wrap myself in one of my blankets and think of hot milk in the kitchen, the warm froth of it. One of the delights of living in the big house is the ease of raiding supplies.

Bee sits up and I send it an image of milk. It lies back down with a low hum. In the past months it has become less interested in staying beside me at all times. We can spend a few minutes apart; we no longer even meld every day. That flush of first need has mellowed into a companionship that brings its own pleasures. I could never be without my Bee, but physical presence is not always necessary. I’ve noticed the same with some of the other Beauties, such as Ted’s Bonnie, but by no means all.

As I tiptoe down the stairs it occurs to me that the Beauty are showing differences between themselves. Could it be that this has always been the case and I simply didn’t know them well enough to see it? I don’t think so. Maybe they are no longer of one mind. Like the Group, there are fresh divisions. We grow and change – all of us. Will we all grow together?

The smooth surfaces of the kitchen still this thinking. I find the milk jug and pour a little into a small pan, then place it on the cooker. The bottom of the pan makes a hiss as it connects with the heat. It must still have been wet from washing. I picture Thomas methodically cleaning up late at night after my story, finding peace in his movements. For a moment I am jealous of him.

The moon is bright and full through the window. I look on it and see a forever face, a permanence. Some things will always remain the same.

In the stillness it comes to me that I am not alone.

I go to the pantry and listen by the door. Is that breathing I hear? I open the door and at first there are only the black lines of the shelves against the grey jumble of the night. And then I see Thomas. He is crouching, his back against the bottom shelf where the large jars of pickled onions live. His hands are over his face, but I know him.

Betty stands beside him. It takes a step forward, radiating energy, and I get the feeling that it might be about to hit me. ‘I won’t hurt him,’ I tell it, and it stands back and lets me through. I kneel down and put my blanket around him; he is a puddle on the floor in his floral dress, with his big white socks and his blue knitted jumper. I say words of comfort and feel them sink into him, penetrate his misery and bring him back to himself. Eventually he drops his arms and I sit back on my haunches.

‘It’s freezing in here,’ I say.

Thomas says, ‘It’s a larder. It’s meant to keep the food cold.’

‘I know that.’

‘Help me up.’ He holds out his hands, and it takes all my strength to pull him to his feet. Then I collect the blanket from where it has fallen and try to put it around his shoulders once more, but he shrugs it off. ‘Too hot anyway,’ he mutters. ‘You have it.’

But his skin is so cold as I help Thomas to the kitchen. Should I call Doctor Ben? But he has washed his hands of us, that is what he said to Ted. ‘I can’t treat a patient who doesn’t believe he is sick,’ Ben said.

Besides, he thinks Thomas is dying. He stays true to his diagnosis.

The milk has bubbled over in the pan. Thomas tuts. ‘I’ll have to clean that up tomorrow.’ He props himself against the sink and I pour the milk into a mug. When I hold it out to him he shakes his head, so I sip it and feel it as a solid, welcome heat in my mouth and between my hands. Another thing I can be sure of.

‘I’m an idiot,’ Thomas says.

‘Nothing new there.’

‘Well, now I’m a bigger one than usual.’ He pats the soft roundness of himself with gentle hands. ‘A huge one.’

‘Does it hurt?’ I ask him.

‘No. But it makes me… slow. And awkward. And I can’t sleep at night for its turning and poking.’

‘It moves inside you?’

‘All the time, but worse at night. Sometimes I love it and sometimes…’ He looks at Betty, who has emerged from the pantry and shut the door behind itself. ‘…I hate it and I want it out of me. It drains me. I can’t explain it.’ His face contorts again. ‘It makes me so ugly.’

I put down the mug and give him my most serious face. ‘I hate to tell you this, Thomas, but you were always ugly.’

He punches my arm. It actually hurts.

I say, ‘Ow!’

‘You deserve it.’

I move to the window and relish the constant moon. The garden is flat and leafless, like a picture. Nothing moves. I wish I could speak to my moon, charm it, make it smile.

‘What’s going to happen?’ says Thomas.

‘With you, or with everyone?’ I ask.

‘I don’t know. Both.’

I understand what he wants from me. I say, ‘You’ll have this baby and it will be – it will be – people will take one look at it and they will realise that it needs our love, our unity. Babies bring people together. That’s what they are for. Everyone celebrates the arrival of a baby. I read that somewhere.’

‘And everyone will love it?’ Thomas says, a husk, waiting for me to fill him with hope.

‘Everyone.’

‘But it will be mine.’ He puts his hands on the swelling and his face becomes peaceful as he closes his eyes. Is he trying to communicate with it in the way that I communicate with my Bee? Are pictures passing between them? After a moment he opens his eyes, and says, ‘How come you’re so sure?’

‘Sure of what?’

‘That it is.’ He makes a gesture, palms unfolding, like the blooming of a flower between his fingers. ‘Is a baby.’

‘I just am. And so are you.’

‘You’re my confidence, ‘ he says. ‘You’re my confidence, Nate.’ He reaches for my hand, and squeezes it.

‘Get some sleep,’ I tell him. ‘Let Betty put you to bed.’

Betty comes forward, and scoops him up. He sighs. I think he might sleep now.

I return to my room to see Bee lying there, and my space in the bed beside it. For the first time I ask myself – is that truly where I belong? Is Bee an integral part of me?

I am Thomas’s confidence and Bee is mine. But what if Bee has lied to me, just as I have lied to Thomas? I can’t bear to think of it, of Thomas’s hands on that swelling and Doctor Ben saying there is no hope. And I doubt. I doubt.

Once, in the school allotment, when Paul and Adam mixed up all the labels on the seeds for a joke, Miriam made it their job to care for all the seedlings personally until they could identify them all. It took them months and every time they asked Miriam for help, she said, ‘You made that bed, now you have to lie in it.’ It became a well-worn phrase for a while, behind her back, although I’m sure she heard us whispering it, trying to emulate her teaching tone.

There are two types of understanding in this world. There’s the kind that comes from the reading and the hearing, and it doesn’t penetrate the skin. It is surface knowledge, like a soft blanket that can be placed over the shoulders. And then there is the understanding that comes from doing. That kind of understanding is not soft. It is water that soaks into the rocks and earth, and makes the seeds grow. It is messy, and painful, and impossible to hold.

I get back in my bed. I lie in it.

Thomas moans deeply. The sound, dense with pain, fills his small room. It sinks into his peeling wallpaper and the thrown-back bedsheets.

I talk to him, but he is in a place beyond listening. I say ridiculous, hopeful things, as the skin over his left hip suppurates and oozes, a red mess of blood and pus. Doctor Ben examines it. From my position, sitting next to Thomas’ head, I have a view of Ben’s expression and also down the length of Thomas’s naked body. The swelling is giant, grotesque, the wound on it sickening. Nobody knows how it happened. There were screams in the early morning and I found him this way, Betty hovering over him, shaking its featureless head back and forth.

Thomas’s shiny skin is pulled tight across his chest and stomach, stretched to the point of splitting. But my eyes are not drawn to this as much as to his cock and balls. The balls are shrivelled like walnuts, tiny, in a wrinkled pouch that nestles under a tiny worm of a cock. There’s no hair on him there. And the smell is so sweet and terrible, like death.

Bee, Betty and Bella squeeze up against each other in the corner of the room, blocking the light from the window so we are in semi-darkness. They are motionless. I can see now how it is possible to hate them. Did Betty do this to Thomas, or is this suffering part of the coming of the baby? Is this part of their plan? His eyes roll back in his head and he moans again. I have to say something. I have nothing to say.

‘Thank you for coming out,’ I say to Doctor Ben.

He nods. I think my desperation persuaded him to attend.

‘The injury must have happened days ago. It’s become infected,’ he says.

‘No. He was fine yesterday.’

Ben shakes his head, then says, ‘Can you hold him down? You’ll need to be strong.’

‘I’ll try.’ I clamp my hands on Thomas’s shoulders, try to prepare myself to put my weight against him. Ben lowers one hand on to the swelling. It could only be a light touch, but Thomas lets out a noise that I have only heard animals make, a cry beyond meaning, and the vast lump inside him moves, independent of his body, rippling under Ben’s hand.

Ben falls back, stumbles, and I can’t hold Thomas. He has a strength that I could not have imagined as he pulls himself up from the bed and throws me off. He turns on to his knees so that he is crouching, and Thomas puts his own hands to his wound and pulls it apart.

I see his fingers reach in, peel back the skin and dig through the thick yellow mess that spills out of him, coming free from his body, hanging in strands and globs and soaking into the sheets. He pulls free a solid, grey-streaked mass and it falls on to the bed. It writhes and flails and Ben cries out, a noise of such terror. He gets to his feet and reaches out to the mass. Thomas screams.

The Beauties move so fast that my eyes see it as a trick in the dim light. Two of them take Ben’s legs while the third puts its hands on either side of his head, and squeezes. There is the sound like the cracking of an egg, and then Ben is gone. He is all gone. His eyes and nose and mouth are gone to pieces, a mess, and all I can recognise is the tangle of grey hair that my Bee scoops up in its hands and carries from the room. Bella takes the rest of Ben, carried in its arms. I am left alone with Thomas, Betty and the thing on the bed.

The baby.

Thomas’s eyes are clear and free from pain. He sits back and gathers the baby to his chest. And it is a baby, recognisable in its arms and legs, its scrunched-up eyes and moving mouth. It lets out a noise that is undoubtedly a baby noise. I saw a brand-new baby once before, all pink and swaddled, when I was very young, and it was being passed around a room filled with women who softly held it close. I’m certain that’s what this is. A baby. A baby. The word is a delight in my mind. The baby’s skin is yellow, as yellow as the Beauty, but in every other way it is a baby.

‘It’s a girl,’ says Thomas.

I don’t even understand. ‘A girl,’ I repeat. Yes, between the legs there is a smooth, split bud. A vulva. A vagina. A womb. This baby has a womb.

He breathes out, and Betty comes to him and puts its head on his shoulder, close to the baby. I move back from the bed to give them some time together and I look at Thomas’s wound. Yellow mucus has formed a crust over his hip and there is no blood, no visible injury. I think Thomas will survive this.

Instead, as Betty hums to its newborn daughter, I realise I have a new fear growing inside me, ready to end everything that I thought I once knew.

…and the man and his wife of clay, who was a present from the earth itself, wanted a baby so badly that the man ripped at his flesh, crying out in need.

Then a miracle happened.

He took a handful of his flesh and it transformed, before his eyes, into a child that was half of the clay and half of the man. It was a girl, a gift beyond price. The man and his wife loved their baby girl instantly and were overjoyed, but then it came to them that not everyone in their village would rejoice with them. There were those who rocked jealousy in their arms each night, and those that fed hatred in their bosom. Did they harbour enough of these terrible emotions to hurt an innocent baby? Surely nobody could be that scared, that jealous, that evil?

So the man called a meeting and held the new baby up high in the firelight, so everyone could see how tiny and beautiful she was. ‘Look at my baby,’ the man said. And everyone was struck afresh by the miracle of new life, and they swore to protect her from that moment on, and on, and on, until the end.

On cue, Thomas comes forward and I retreat from the centre of the circle so that all eyes are on him, and the bundle he unwraps. In the glow of the fire, that yellow skin is the colour of butter, warmer than the mustard skin of the Beauty. She is getting lighter.

She starts to cry, from the cold no doubt. There is a frost tonight and the circle is tight, so I can see everyone’s face clearly as they look at the arms and legs, the head, the littleness of the limbs. The Beauty sit outside the circle, as usual, in their own Group – but all their bodies are turned to the baby.

‘This is Holly,’ says Thomas, with the pride of a father. ‘Merry Christmas to us all.’ He covers his baby over. Behind him, Betty hums with pride. I like to think it’s pride.

William is disgusted and Eamon is mirroring his expression. Such ugliness. But Ted sits beside William and his face is thoughtful. He does not speak. Nobody speaks. I feel the knife that separates us keenly. Can Holly heal this wound?

‘Are you trying to feed us this shit, Nate, and make us like the taste?’ says Gareth. His face does not give away disgust. He and Hal are stuck fast to their hatred of the Beauty. They are dangerous men.

I glance at Ted, but he does not move. ‘It’s only a story,’ I say. ‘Just to help us along the way.’

‘And what if nobody wants to go your way?’

Thomas falls back to Betty’s side and it puts its arms around him and the baby. I feel the tension in the Beauty growing. Bee and the others raise the tone of their humming, just a little.

I say, ‘You can do what you like, Gareth, as long as you let others do the same. Live and let live.’

‘Like they did with Doctor Ben?’ Gareth asks.

The Group is silent. I feel the knife of their attention pressed against my neck. I say, ‘That was an accident.’ And maybe it was. I would love to be sure that it was – that he had deserved what happened. The Beauty must have seen in his mind and known his intention. Of course, that must be true. It would make it easier to forget kind Doctor Ben, my friend in days gone past, who now visits me in my sleep and watches me with accusatory eyes in a disembodied head.

‘Hal and I saw them burying that accident, and his head was ripped clean off. He didn’t want that thing you call a baby to live, so they got to him first.’

‘He threatened the baby,’ I say.

Gareth says, ‘He swore an oath to take care of all human life! If he was prepared to kill it, then he knew it wasn’t human.’

I hear approval in the murmurings of the Group. Gareth is gaining ground. If I can feel danger in the air, then so can the Beauty, and I know how far they’ll go to protect Holly.

‘Listen,’ I say.

‘We’ve had enough of your stories!’ calls Hal.

‘Then let me tell you straight that you’ll all die.’

The Group quiets. They want brutality tonight, either in words or actions, so I’ll give them what they want. I continue, ‘When you killed one of the Beauty, Gareth, they didn’t retaliate. And we made laws to deal with such things. Well, now the Beauty have made their own law. Nobody will harm that baby. Nobody will touch that baby without the permission of the Beauty, or they will rip off your heads. It’s their future as much as it’s ours.’

Ted stands up in the silence. Everyone looks to him. ‘It’s a new rule,’ he says. ‘The Council will ratify it.’

‘No,’ says William. ‘No, they won’t.’

He leaves the circle. Eamon follows, then Hal, Gareth and others – mainly the elders. Their Beauties do not go with them. They stay, gathered together, close to Thomas and the baby.

Ted sits back down and puts his head in his hands. We, the remains of the Group, watch him. I want him to do something, say something. I want him to be stronger than ever before, but he does not speak.

In the end it’s Thomas who breaks the spell.

‘Holly’s getting cold,’ he says. ‘I need to take her inside.’

‘Did it hurt?’ says Adam, suddenly. He and the teenagers have all stayed.

‘I’ve never felt pain like it,’ says Thomas. ‘It was like dying.’

‘As bad as that?’

‘But it healed so quickly. And then it was like it never happened. I know it was terrible, but I can’t remember what the pain was like. It’s strange.’

Adam and Paul exchange long looks. ‘And do you love the baby?’ says Paul.

Thomas says, ‘Oh yes. She makes my life complete.’

At least I got something right tonight.

Adam and Paul whisper for a moment. Then they stand up together, and throw off the blankets they have been wearing over their shoulders. They both wear thick woollen dresses, and the bulges on their left hips are small, but visible.

‘Oh Jesus,’ says Uncle Ted. His hands fall from his face. ‘Oh, Jesus Christ.’

‘We didn’t want to say until we knew what would happen with Thomas,’ says Adam. ‘But it’s all right, isn’t it? It will be all right?’

He asks it of me, but it’s Ted who replies. ‘Move into the big house,’ he says. ‘Keep as quiet as you can. Don’t go anywhere alone and keep those lumps hidden.’The fear in his voice is like the charge in the air before a lightning storm.

‘They’ll come around,’ I say.

‘No. No, they won’t.’ And with that he leaves the circle too.

The knife has fallen and we are split. With the death of our doctor, there is no way to heal this wound.

It’s raining. The cold has seeped into everything. We all complain of it, but I think maybe we are really complaining about our fear. It is the same feeling – icy fingers around us, squeezing, as the silence stretches on from the other side. Those we once recognised as part of us will break it all, just as winter breaks the world down into death.

We sit in the large room where Uncle Ted once threatened me. That feels like a very long time ago. The table has been pushed back against the wall, and blankets and cushions cover the floor.

The teenagers like this room. The tall windows let in the sun, if there is any to see. Not today, though. This is the slowest Sunday I can remember. I’ve told all my old stories so many times over the past weeks, and there are no new ones in me. I hoped Holly might inspire me, but she is a clean sheet of paper. Even her cries do not move me. They sound automatic, like the cheeping of a bird for its mother. Mindless. This scares me too, and adds to the cold.

Thankfully, Holly sleeps a lot in Thomas’s arms. Thomas has commandeered a corner of this room, and it’s rare that he moves from it. He keeps blankets piled high around him, covering his body and the baby. He smells terrible. Betty is the only one who does not seem to mind. It stands near to him, unmoving. I’ve not seen it touch him or the baby. I don’t even hear it hum.

The cooking duties have fallen to Adam and Paul, to keep them out of mischief during their own swellings. Alas, their cooking is terrible! They take the dried ingredients we have left and serve up lumpy stews and leaky grey omelettes, which Thomas eats with gusto. He’s the only one.

It can’t be past two in the afternoon, but already it’s getting difficult to discern any edges to the room. Is Thomas asleep again? He doesn’t move as I stand and stretch out my legs. Uncle Ted is out. I don’t ask where he goes. The others are doing chores, or at least watching their Beauties do the chores for them. All of the manual tasks have been taken away now and our muscles are dissipating, leaving us with weakening arms. We have become reliant.

‘Want to hold her?’ says Thomas. So he is awake after all, looking at me with the hope of kindness in his eyes. It occurs to me that his new role might not give him everything he needs. There is loneliness, fear and even guilt in such heavy responsibilities. And he is the first to feel these things. Thomas never did like to go first, even in the classroom.

I walk over to him. Bee does not bother to follow. It has stopped sharing with me lately and does not show me visions. Or maybe I stopped sharing with it. I don’t know which. All I’m sure of is that I often find myself checking my hip for signs of a lump and feel such relief when there is nothing to be found.

‘All right then,’ I say. The smell is awful, like curdled milk. He throws back the top blanket and Holly is there, crinkled yellow skin, sticky brown hair in clumps and a face like a painting, not quite human, yet too human to be real.

Thomas holds out his arms. The image of Betty taking off Doctor Ben’s head comes into my mind. I say, ‘No, I’ll just watch her.’

‘Okay.’ Is it my imagination or does he seem relieved at that? He wets his lips with his tongue, and says, ‘I don’t really like to let her go, and Betty can feel it.’

‘Of course.’

‘But if you wanted to hold her, then I’m sure–’

‘No. It’s fine.’

He looks around the empty room. ‘Everything has changed, hasn’t it? I wouldn’t say this in front of the others, but it’s not what you promised.’

‘Later,’ I say. ‘It all comes good later. When has there ever been a bumper crop without a harsh winter? Maybe we don’t get the benefit of this harvest, but Holly does. I didn’t understand before.’ I still don’t understand now, but he needs something to imagine, and I’ll give him a long straight road in his head that leads to better times. I don’t have to believe it to make him see it; I’ve learned that now.

I talk and talk about Holly’s life-in-waiting, and he laps it up. It’ll be like before, I tell him. She will be the mother of new women, and humans and Beauty will live in harmony. The Beauty will be our benevolent guardians, stopping us from listening to the worst things in our hearts, making everything perfect this time around. Maybe there will be cities again, but with no crime, no pain; harmony in form and intent. And what will it matter if some of us are pink-skinned, and some of us are brown and some of us are yellow? We’ll overcome such unimportant matters.

I could go on forever, spinning this new world of tall towers and hand-holding, but Holly is opening and closing her mouth, wriggling in her blanket. No sound comes out, but I feel her hunger. She transmits it. I’ve never felt something so clearly from a Beauty, even from Bee. It’s intense and painful. Unwelcome.

‘She’s hungry.’ Thomas hesitates, his body curved over her.

‘You want me to get some milk from the kitchen?’ I ask him.

‘Listen, I’ve not been giving her milk.’ He swallows. ‘Please don’t freak out if I show you this.’ He takes off more blankets and reveals his familiar fat pale body; I’ve seen it many times. I expected a long red scar where Holly pushed her way through – but the skin looks clean and whole, apart from one puckered red mole on his hip.

He manoeuvres Holly to the mole. Her mouth puckers. The mole expands in response to her need. It opens, uncurling, the edges pulling backwards, and inside is a moist purplish hole that begins to weep a white liquid. Holly’s head cranes forward – I didn’t know she had such strength already – and she latches on, her lips fitting around the folds. Thomas shudders and his eyelids flutter.

‘It feels good,’ he whispers.

To watch this makes me feel wrong inside, like nothing has before, even death. That blind expression of pleasure on both their faces, and the sucking sound; I am repulsed and excited. It sickens me and attracts me and my body responds to the idea of it, even as my mind tells me it is horrible, horrible.

I don’t move. I watch Thomas feed his baby.

He opens his eyes and says softly, as she feeds, ‘Are you disgusted? I am, sometimes. Do you know what’s even worse? Betty uses this new hole too. When we… Betty has a long thin yellow tube that comes out of it. Between its legs. And it puts that in there. It feels like nothing I’ve ever felt before. So good. I couldn’t stop it. I don’t want to. It’s like when I come with my cock, but ten times stronger. And longer. It lasts for minutes.’

‘Don’t tell the others,’ I say.

‘Not even Adam and Paul?’ he asks.

‘No. Let them come to it on their own. Like you did.’

‘Yes, maybe that’ll be better.’

If the other side found out, William and Eamon and the others, they’d find a way to kill Thomas and Holly, for sure. And the teenagers. They’d find a way, or they’d die trying.

‘I guess it’s a good thing I’m not using my cock for it anymore,’ Thomas says, with a shrug that makes the baby grumble against his hip. ‘Look.’ He flips back the final blanket. At first I see only a hairless flap of skin, like the medical books said a woman should have, but then I see the stub of his cock, no more than a nub. There are no balls in the remains of the pouch beneath. ‘I use it to piss with and that’s it. No feeling in it.’

‘None?’ I ask.

‘Just enough to tell me where I’m aiming.’ He smiles, but I can’t make my face mirror his. ‘It doesn’t hurt,’ he says. ‘None of it does, now. Having Holly; that was the worst pain I’ve ever felt. Maybe that’s why all of this seems so petty now. Who cares where the milk comes out of? She has to be fed. Doesn’t she?’

‘Don’t tell anyone,’ I say. ‘Not anyone. For Holly’s sake.’

‘I won’t. Besides, Betty will protect me. And all the babies, when they come. I wonder if you’ll have a baby. I didn’t think – it makes you complete, Nate. In a way I can’t explain.’

Holly keeps feeding. Thomas pulls the blankets back around them both and I am glad not to have to look at his changing body any more. He is like a fattening caterpillar. I can’t bear to think of what is happening inside him to make him a producer of babies, of milk. And yet he remains Thomas. I don’t understand how he can be Thomas and a mother and a caterpillar, all at the same time.

Behind us, there is a sound.

I turn around smartly and see Bee moving to the door. It leaves without waiting for me, without hesitation. Betty remains still, beside Thomas.

‘What?’ he says.

‘I don’t know. Stay here.’

By the time I’ve reached the front door I can hear the shouting. William’s voice is as loud as I’ve ever heard it; I scramble to the campfire, shoeless, feeling the bite of the icy ground under my feet. William’s strident voice becomes distinguishable words. He says, ‘…must be done. Stay back, we’re making the rules…’

…and I see the men who wait outside William’s house. On the ground there are two beheaded bodies of the Beauty, leaking yellow-grey liquid from the stumps of their necks. The other Beauties have formed a line, Bee in the centre, walking slowly towards the house.

The men hold out hoes, shovels, knives: weapons that jut from their readied hands, making the sharp shapes of battle. Hal and Gareth are as tall as pillars and sitting between them, underneath the bell, are Adam and Paul, their faces the colour of paper.

William shouts: ‘It must be done, for the sake of us all. We have ruled that it’s a crime to put such things in us against our will.’ Are his words directed at the Beauty? They walk on, showing no sign of stopping, and William’s voice pours on in a scream. I see it like a ribbon spooling from his mouth: ‘Judgement has been passed, and now must be carried out, do it, do it–’

Hal and Gareth raise their long knives and swing them, down and round, into the sides of Adam and Paul. The knives stick in the bumps. I see Hal and Gareth working to tug the blades free and Adam and Paul’s blood is like glue on the knives, their bodies moulding to the blades, and red and yellow intermingle while their arms and legs and heads twitch. They slump down dead in deference to the knives, the knives are the masters of the body now. And yet the blades won’t come free. Hal and Gareth tug, tug, tug, and the knives don’t work free.

The Beauty reach them. They start to pull Hal and Gareth apart, beginning with the heads, which are twisted round and popped off. Then the arms, then the legs. The knives are forgotten. There is blood as copious as a river after rainfall. It soaks and sprays William’s porch like the painting of a child who can’t resist the thrill of the deep rich red.

The Beauty go on, moving through the other men. I see William disassembled, and Eamon, and Landers and Keith D and other men I have known so well. Some of them run for the woods, and some even make it, but a few of the Beauty peel off in the shape of an arrow and follow to the trees, in silence, with certainty.

The other teenagers, Jason and Oliver, come out of the orchard. They stand stock-still, their faces a picture of terror. I think, if I am to describe this day, I must remember their faces, and so I fix the stretched cheeks, the peeled-back lips, in my mind. Then I touch my face and realise I am making the same expression.

Jason and Oliver stumble away into the woods. I am alone.

I reach for Bee with my mind and feel nothing. There is the sound of wailing amidst the trees. It goes on and on. It’s surely not a human sound. The Beauty must be making it. I listen to it, waiting for it to stop, for something to happen. Maybe Uncle Ted will appear and start to issue commands, clean up that mess, bury those bodies. But there’s nothing. Just the ceaseless wailing.

Eventually the cold penetrates my feet, and brings me to the knowledge that I must move. So I do. I return to Thomas, who sits in the room just as I left him, Holly in his lap, his eyes closed.

‘No,’ he says. ‘Don’t. I can’t hear it. I can’t hear it.’ His voice shoots up, spiralling into shrill denial.

But I must speak. I say, ‘They’re dead.’

Thomas says, ‘No.’ When he opens his eyes, they are alive with confusion and dread. ‘Don’t let them hurt her.’

‘Nobody will. They’re all dead. The Beauty killed them all.’

‘All of them?’ The worst thing is the hope in his face. Holly is more important than the rest of us, to him. ‘The whole Group? William? Everyone?’

‘Some ran. The Beauty have gone after them.’

‘Everyone,’ he says. Then he adds, ‘I’m very tired.’

‘Me too,’ I whisper.

I can hear the wailing of the Beauty through the window. I crawl up next to Thomas and Holly, and I make us into a protective pile. I need an answer, a different ending to this story.

An answer must come to me.

The icy depths of the graveyard remain undisturbed come the morning. The frozen cobwebs hang in tatters from the bare branches and the Beauty bury their dead lovers elsewhere, out of sight. In the woods, I think. With the bodies of the women that Uncle Ted strangled once upon a time, to protect us. The things that get done in the name of protection.

Maybe new Beauties will erupt from the fresh corpses. Is this a circle, a journey in which we come back to the beginning and feel so much more complete in our knowledge? I’m losing my taste for such easy words.

I sit next to my mother’s grave. Bee stands outside, silent. I am never truly alone now. Bee will always pull on my senses and I would give my voice, all my stories, to go back to how things were. Loneliness – that was a rare gift, like a hole in the brain that I worked hard to fill with my thoughts. Now I no longer have a hole to fill, and so I do not think so much. I only feel. How I hate such feelings.

My mother would flick through her glossy magazines and sigh. ‘We never appreciate what we have until it’s gone,’ she would say, and I used to think in my head, never out loud, that it wasn’t too late. If she wanted that life so badly she could go back. How little I understood.

I put a hand on the cold wooden cross that marks her spot. It’s not that different from touching Bee.

A voice says, ‘I thought I’d find you here.’

Ahh, the relief I feel in hearing that voice! I can’t help it; I spring up, I go to Uncle Ted and I put my arms around him. He has a smell so familiar that I close my eyes and imagine myself young again, young enough to be swung up into the space between his arms where happiness lives. But when I open my eyes I see his Bonnie standing next to my Bee and I step back. I pick up my problems once more, and own them.

I say, ‘I thought you were dead.’

He says, ‘They knew I was no threat. I hid in the woods. I know them well enough to keep out the way when it’s needed, and to come out when trouble passes. I wish I could say the same of you. You can’t hide in here all day. There’s work to be done. I’ve called an emergency meeting.’

I laugh. I didn’t know I could make such a sound again. The graveyard soaks it up. ‘A meeting?’ I say. ‘Did you not see what happened? Who do you think is going to show up?’

‘Typical overblown Nate. You’re alive. I’m alive. Thomas and that thing he calls a baby, and Oliver and Jason. No doubt more of these bastard crosses will start growing inside all of you soon, and if we want them to be more human than mushroom then we need to have order. Agreement.’

‘And you,’ I say. ‘A baby will probably grow in you too.’

I see the flare of disgust on his face. He steps back and rests his hand on the stick on his belt. ‘That’s not going to happen,’ he tells me, and Bonnie makes a strange wail. Then I understand – the way he makes Bonnie keeps its distance, walk behind him, never touch him. This is not only in public. He does not touch it at all. I can’t imagine the strength of will this must take, or what it might do to a man. I wonder if it isn’t sending him crazy.

‘How can you–’

He cuts me off. ‘Meeting. Now. In the kitchen. There aren’t any answers in here, Nate.’

‘I know.’

There are no answers anywhere in this place. Not in the graveyard, the kitchen, the vegetable patch, the orchard, the clearing or the clifftop. Ted will try to inject us with meaning, but it cannot be done. At least, not the meaning he wants. I wait until he is gone, and then I lean over and am sick next to my mother’s grave. The vomit is stringy and yellow. It tastes of mushrooms.

The kitchen is warm, and comforting. It would be easy to imagine nothing has changed.

I’ve not had much to do with Jason and Oliver before. They are still young, training to be carpenters and woodsmen, and the life of an apprentice is a busy one. I saw them at the campfire and my eyes would skim over them as I told my stories, but the truth was I considered myself to be above them and I did not bother to make friends.

I see now that this was a mistake. They know Ted well and they are loyal to him, in the way that men of manual labour are. They trust others who work with their hands and think those of the mind are sly and consider themselves above others. What can I say? They are right. So now I have no ally but Thomas, who hears nothing I say any more unless I put the word ‘baby’ in the sentence.

‘All the hard tasks have been taken over by the Beauty,’ says Ted, leaning back against the stove, a position of power. ‘So we only have to cook for ourselves from our supplies and raise Holly right. These are our tasks now.’

I notice he does not mention the idea of other babies to Oliver and Jason. They stand close together in front of the pantry door. Thomas has been cajoled into having a wash and getting dressed. He wears a woollen dress and holds Holly to his chest, jiggling her up and down while she makes small mews of discomfort, projecting her need for Betty who has been left outside with the other Beauties.

I wonder if the others do not feel her pain. From her mind she pushes forth a feeling, her desire for a figure that can only be described as father. She sees Betty as her father.

Jason raises a hand. He has a smooth, pleasant face, without the scars of acne that one might expect at his age, and he wears a red band in his long brown hair. ‘So are we all cooks now?’ he says.

Thomas jerks up his head, and Ted says smoothly, ‘Thomas remains the lead cook. The rest of us will listen to him in this department. And we can start to plan for the future. When Holly gets old enough, there will be lessons to teach. A future to plan for.’

This must be the reason he has not simply left us and gone off into his beloved woods for good. I picture Holly as a toddler, a child, a woman. Other children to follow. Yes, Ted has the future of all mankind in his sights, the continuation of the race, bred back to humanity. If the Beauty have different plans for Holly, what will we do?

I don’t want to think on his plans, his battles. I feel sick, so sick. I want to crawl away and never speak again. But that is not the fate Ted has plotted out for me.

He says, ‘Nate, you remain the storyteller. You speak of our past. There are so many to remember now. William, Eamon, everyone who has fallen. And the women, of course. You must still speak of the women.’

The others murmur agreement as I shake my head. I say, ‘I can’t. I’ve lost the taste for it.’

‘You think this is about your taste?’ says Ted. He speaks slow and soft, his narrowed eyes on me. ‘This is about those who died for you, and we will remember them. You will make their sacrifices worthwhile, and in their memory we will find the strength to go on. Can you not agree that it is the only fair and just thing to do?’

He has me and he knows it. Even Thomas will not side with me; he loves his stories too much.

I don’t reply. Ted takes it as assent so he forges onwards like a machine, with his blunt, brutal words. He has no skill at this. He is not weaving a world with his words. He is only smashing down on us, hammering on our heads. Ted says, ‘We must go on. We must take care of Holly and each other. That is all we have now.’

I hold my tongue as he looks around the kitchen and then drops his eyes. The meeting is over. Jason moves to the kitchen door and opens it to admit our Beauties, then yelps in surprise. I look past him, to the yellow yellow yellow in the corridor, filling the space. All of the Beauty, and more besides, back from hiding the dead, are squashing into each other, all of their blank faces turned to us. I sense a wave of longing, of expectation that is so strong, so very strong.

‘What are they doing?’ says Ted. I hear fear in his voice and that is terrible, worse than when he is fearless.

Thomas pushes forward, Holly held out in his arms. ‘Get out!’ he squawks at the crowd of Beauty. ‘You’ll hurt the baby!’ And that works. The tide is turned. They shrink back, still facing us, but their need is a terrible thing to feel. It is a force that they can barely control in themselves. They want love. Their partners are dead and they all want to be loved.

‘Come on,’ Thomas says, and we move behind him, down the corridor, to the open front door. The Beauty fall back to the outside. Only the ones to which we are bonded remain with us – I feel Bee’s strength beside me. It helps Thomas and I to close the door upon the others. The loneliness they exert is giving me a headache.

Once they are locked out, I run to the dining room window and look upon them as a sea of longing.

Bee touches me gently on the shoulders, and I feel its determination to keep me safe. It puts one hand on my left hip, upon the small lump that has grown there. It thinks of love and of family. How human it is becoming.

I do not shy away from Bee’s embrace. I let it hold me and take comfort, while there is still comfort to take.