Solaris Rising 1.5

by Ian Whates

  She’s horrified when she sees that it’s past nine—she’s two hours late to feed and water the chickens. She can’t let them suffer. But how can she bear to go outside with that thing running free?

  She waits another hour for Zelda to call her back. No longer able to bear the thought of the thirst the chickens must be experiencing, she arms herself with a knobkerrie and eases open the front door, the blazing sun doing nothing to reassure her. Trying to convince herself that Zelda would never bring something to the farm that might harm her, she walks around the side of the house, eyes scanning every inch of the sparse vegetation around the cottage. There’s nowhere for the monster to hide. Could it have fled—disappeared into the landscape? She shields her eyes to scope out the abandoned shells of the other labourers’ cottages in the distance, but can see no sign of movement in the rubble around them.

  When she reaches the back yard, something makes her turn to look back at the cottage. She yelps, claps a hand over her mouth. It’s there—lurking on the wall next to the kitchen window, half hidden in the shadows cast by the stoep’s roof, its abnormal size giving it the appearance of an optical illusion.

  She shudders, backs towards the chicken coop. She doesn’t dare take her eyes off the thing. Then the worst happens. It twitches, raises a front leg, and leaps.

  She can’t believe how fast it moves—limbs pump with a fluid, obscene efficiency, blurring towards her. She trips over her feet, lands painfully on her haunches. She throws herself onto her stomach, squeezes her eyes shut, hears herself whimpering. Wet warmth spreads down her thighs as her bladder lets go.

  She waits.

  Hears a crunch.

  Opens her eyes.

  The spider is just metres from her, something glistening in the dust in front of it. Ellen props herself up on an elbow, sees blood, pale yellow innards, white curved bone.

  Realises she’s looking at the remains of a snake.

  Ellen wracks her brain for the voice commands Zelda taught her before she left, tries to speak, but nothing emerges. She tries again, “Charlotte, in your box.” The spider doesn’t move. She clears her throat. “Charlotte. Home.”

  Ellen almost heaves with relief when the spider backtracks, moving with that same sickening mechanical grace. It skitters up the steps, disappears inside the crate.

  Ellen struggles to her feet, runs her hands over her body. She’s been lucky, she can’t feel any obvious damage. Ants are already investigating the snake corpse, which is nothing more than ripped innards and crushed vertebrae. Judging by a scrap of dark brown skin attached to a bloody chunk, it was once a cobra. She kicks dust over it; she doesn’t have the energy to bury it now.

  It takes every ounce of courage she possesses to step up onto the stoep. Using the knobkerrie, she pushes the crate’s door closed, nips forward to secure the latch.

  She casts her eye over the stoep. One of her herb pots is overturned, but otherwise there’s no sign of anything untoward—no indication that whoever was here last night suffered the same fate as the snake.

  She retreats into the house, shuffles to the phone, dials Zelda’s number again.

  This time, her daughter answers immediately. “Ma? Are you okay?” Zelda sounds distracted. Ellen can hear the bing of an intercom, the blur of voices in the background.

  “I want you to take it away, Zelda.”

  A pause. “Look. Just keep her for a bit longer. I’m at the airport—I have to head to London, emergency meeting. Please, Ma?”

  Ellen swallows a sob. “I can’t. I can’t live with it.”

  Zelda sighs. “Then just leave her in her box. After a week or so, she’ll die.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If she isn’t recharged, her solenoids will deteriorate. I’ll pay for someone to come and collect her body. Look, I’ve got to go. Take care of yourself.”

  Zelda hangs up and Ellen listens to the dial tone until it dies.

  ON DAY THREE, Ellen can no longer live with herself.

  She can’t stop thinking about the day that Manny arrived home, a skeletal shivering puppy wrapped in his work shirt. He’d found it in a ditch as he was driving home from fetching supplies from town, planned on killing it humanely out in the back yard—a swift slice of the axe—but something had made Ellen stop him just in time. She knew nothing about dogs then, feared them, had always kept her distance from the boss’s trio of ancient, hard-eyed German shepherds. She had no clue how to deal with an animal that whimpered and flinched every time she came near it. But little by little, she and the puppy had learned to trust each other. Ellen still doesn’t know what she would have done without Zizu when Manny started to get sick.

  Telling herself that the spider saved her from an excruciating and possibly fatal snakebite, she unlatches the crate, backs up, uses the end of the knobkerrie to flick it open before fleeing down the steps.

  She waits, heart in her throat, for it to emerge.

  It doesn’t.

  “Charlotte,” she forces herself to speak. “Heel.”

  Nothing happens at first, and then, limb by limb, it creeps out into the light, moving stiffly, with exaggerated jerks, all of its former grace gone.

  It collapses as it tries to navigate the steps, lies in a ball in the dust.

  Ellen feels a wash of pity for it. “Charlotte?” she whispers. It doesn’t move.

  She walks slowly towards the chicken coop. Pauses, turns around. The spider has managed to heave itself onto its legs; Ellen is almost certain it’s watching her. It inches forward.

  “Charlotte. Stay.”

  It stops dead.

  Ignoring her throbbing legs and the sweat trickling down from her scalp, Ellen stands in the centre of the yard without taking her eyes from it. Zelda said that it needed an hour to recharge itself.

  It’s the longest hour of Ellen’s life.

  THE NEXT DAY it’s easier. She opens the crate, hurries down the steps, and when Charlotte emerges, she allows it to crawl halfway across the yard before she loses her nerve and instructs it to stay.

  This time, she turns her back on it, and as she tends the vegetables and hangs out her washing, she starts to relax. She collects the eggs, bends to pull a weed that’s wrapped itself around a spinach stalk. As she does so, her fingers brush against one of Zizu’s tennis balls.

  Before she knows what she’s doing, she throws the ball, hears herself saying, ‘Fetch, Charlotte.’

  The spider doesn’t move. “So much for that,” Ellen mutters, wondering what on earth made her do such a stupid thing.

  She moves to switch on the irrigation, hears a soft thud behind her. She turns around, breath catching in her throat. The spider is less than a metre from her—if she wanted to, she could reach out and touch it. She peers into its inky expressionless eyes; she can’t tell if it’s staring at her or not. Then she looks down, sees the ball—now a misshapen lump scored with puncture marks—lying in the scrub. Charlotte backs up, legs padding in the dust, as if it’s eager for her to throw it again.

  Ellen bends down mechanically. Picks it up. Throws it again, can hardly believe it when Charlotte skitters off after it.

  Ellen only stops the game when her shoulder muscles scream. She sends Charlotte back into her crate, but this time, she doesn’t bother to secure the crate’s door.

  That evening, the heat of the day waning, she takes one of Zizu’s old blankets out of the cupboard, unlocks the kitchen door and steps out onto the back stoep.

  “Charlotte, heel.”

  The spider emerges tentatively, as if it’s unsure what’s expected of it. The sight of it in such close proximity still gives her an initial panicky jolt, but then her mind adjusts and her heart steadies.

  Ellen places the blanket on the stoep, even finds herself smiling as she watches Charlotte turning around three times before settling down, curling her legs under her body.

  She walks back into the kitchen, makes herself a bowl of soup. Before she can talk herself out of it, she pl
aces the bowl on a tray and carries it outside. She sits on the steps while she eats, the spider curled on her blanket behind her, and watches the sky melting into a dusky pink, just like she used to do with Zizu.

  She stays where she is until it’s time for bed. “Good night, Charlotte,” she says. “See you in the morning.”

  ELLEN WAKES THE next morning feeling lighter and more refreshed than she has since Zizu died. Realising she’s actually looking forward to her morning chores, she forgoes her tea and hurries around to the back of the cottage. Charlotte is waiting for her at the base of the steps, the battered tennis ball in the dust in front of her. The spider dances backwards, lifts her front legs.

  Ellen’s never heard Charlotte utter a sound, but she thinks she’s beginning to read her body language.

  “Ha!” she smiles. “I know what you want.”

  Ellen picks up the ball, throws it into the mealie patch, laughs as Charlotte scurries in pursuit.

  While she weeds and turns the earth, Ellen finds herself talking to Charlotte in the same way she used to talk to Zizu, discussing the weevils ravaging the corn, the chickens and their various foibles.

  She looks up, sees a distant dust cloud on the rise, the flash of sun on metal, and remembers Rina is due to fetch her to drive her into town for supplies. She is almost sure that Charlotte’s head droops in disappointment when she instructs her to return to her box.

  “It won’t be for long,” Ellen promises. She decides she’ll buy some more tennis balls at the Pick ‘n Pay this afternoon. Maybe even a few dog toys. Ja, she thinks. Charlotte will like that.

  ELLEN’S GETTING WORRIED. The vehicle she’d seen earlier hadn’t been Rina’s after all. And now it’s past three—too late to make the two-hour drive into town before the shops shut. She tries phoning the main house again—listens to the empty sound of an unanswered ringtone. Rina’s cancelled their outings at short notice before when Jannie’s shown up unexpectedly, but she has always let her know.

  Rationalising that it’s unlikely that Rina will pitch up at this time unannounced, Ellen calls Charlotte from her crate. She places Zizu’s old rug in a shady area a few metres from her chair on the front stoep, and settles down with one of her romances.

  ROUSED BY THE sound of a car engine, Ellen jerks awake, sees the twin yellow orbs of approaching headlights shining through the fence. There’s no time to usher Charlotte into her crate—the car is nearly at her gate.

  Partially blinded by the headlights’ glow, she squints, makes out the shape of the old farm bakkie. A silhouette steps out of the driver’s side.

  “Who’s there?” she calls, pushing herself out of her chair.

  “It’s me, Ellen. Koebus.”

  Charlotte twitches her way out of the shadows. “It’s fine, Charlotte,” Ellen murmurs. “Stay.”

  “Ellen?” Koebus calls again. “You have someone with you?”

  “No, just me.” She wills him to stay where he is. “It’s late, Koebus, what is it?”

  “The madam,” he says. “She is hurt.”

  Ellen feels the dull pang of inevitability—she knew something wasn’t right. “What happened? How bad is she?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been in town all day, left before dawn. Got back now. The madam is weak, but she is asking for you.”

  “Wait there, I’m coming.”

  “Stay, Charlotte” she whispers. She rushes down the path, praying that Charlotte will obey her, keep out of sight.

  She joins Koebus in the cab, wincing as she’s hit with the odour of stale smoke and sweat.

  Koebus yanks the bakkie into reverse, gears screaming. “The boss is here, Ellen. He’s not happy that I’ve come to fetch you.”

  Ellen remembers seeing the car she saw earlier. “When did he get here?”

  “Now now.”

  “You sure?”

  Koebus shrugs.

  He parks next to the farm’s sagging tractor and Ellen scrambles out, hurries towards the front door. She’s forced to stop when a figure steps out from behind Rina’s rose bushes, blocking her path. It’s Jannie, stomach sagging over his shorts, a half-smoked cigarette drooping from his fingers. She waits for him to greet her. He doesn’t.

  “What happened, Jannie?”

  “Found her at the foot of the stairs. I think her hip is broken. She must have slipped.” His face contorts with grief. Even in the poor light, Ellen can see it’s put on for her benefit.

  “Why aren’t you with her?”

  “Waiting for the ambulance. It’s on its way.”

  As Ellen pushes past him, he grabs her arm, his breath laced with the chemical odour of brandy. “She’s saying strange things. Must’ve hit her head.

  She yanks her elbow out of his grip.

  “Hey,” he slurs after her. “Did you get another dog?”

  She whirls around, doesn’t bother to hide her disgust. “Why would you ask that at a time like this?”

  He shrugs. “Just something I heard.”

  Ja, Ellen thinks, heard from the scabenga he sent to intimidate her. The scabenga who got more than he bargained for when he looked inside Charlotte’s crate.

  She walks briskly through the kitchen, seeing tea things and a plate of rusks set out on the huge table. She finds Rina lying on the hardwood floor in the hallway, her head resting on the bottom step, a blanket draped carelessly over her lower body.

  Ellen crouches down next to her, ignoring the twinge in her knees and the overpowering odour of urine. The least Jannie could have done was clean his mother, make her comfortable. Swallowing her anger, she takes Rina’s hand.

  Rina groans and raises her head, her usually smooth cheeks lined with grief and pain, her breath escaping in laboured rasps. Ellen fights to hide her shock—she never thought she’d see the old boeremeisie looking so defeated.

  “What happened, Rina?”

  Rina opens her mouth to speak, sighs, then lets her head fall back. Ellen can see in her eyes that there are things that Rina wants to say, but she doesn’t have the strength, or the will, to voice them.

  Ellen can see that Rina has given up.

  There’s a clatter of footsteps, and a pair of grim-faced paramedics shuffle their way in. Giving Rina’s limp hand a last squeeze, Ellen steps back to give them room. She heads out into the night to join Koebus. They watch in silence as Rina’s body is wheeled out of the house.

  Koebus drops his head, wincing as the ambulance doors slam.

  “I’ll follow in my car,” Jannie calls to the paramedics.

  He lights another cigarette and nods in Ellen’s direction. “She say anything to you?”

  “No.”

  “Even if she makes it, you know she won’t be able to live out here anymore, don’t you, Ellen? At her age, she’ll need fulltime care.”

  Ellen doesn’t reply.

  “I’ll come see you tomorrow morning,” Jannie says, heading for his car. “To discuss terms. It needs to be done, Ellen. One way or the other.” He pauses before he climbs into the driver’s seat. “I was sorry to hear about Zizu, by the way. Poison, wasn’t it? Bad way to go.”

  Ja, but there are worse ways to die than poison, Ellen thinks, remembering the shredded corpse of the cobra.

  She waits until the blink of the BMW’s tail-lights are swallowed by the night, wondering if protection was the only reason Zelda sent Charlotte to the farm. Wondering if that even matters now.

  She insists that Koebus drops her off at the end of the dirt track. She walks slowly to her gate, heart lifting a little as Charlotte scuttles up to meet her. Ellen reaches out a hand, touches the spider’s head for the first time. Expecting to feel wiry, unforgiving hair, she’s surprised when her fingers sink into a soft, silky pelt. Charlotte tilts her head and presses it into her palm just like Zizu used to do. “Good girl,” Ellen whispers. You can love anything if you put your mind to it, she thinks, gesturing for Charlotte to follow her inside.

  Ellen makes herself a pot of Rooibos tea, then she sit
s, giant bioengineered spider curled at her feet, to wait for the morning.

  THE GIFT

  PHILLIP VINE

  Phillip Vine is a former ghostwriter and editor of the literary magazine Words International. His published works include a collection of poetry, The Long Frosts of Cromwell, and Radio Free Palestine. He is currently writing mainstream, slipstream, and speculative fiction, as well as working on a sports biography, Football’s Greatest Visionary: Michael Knighton and Manchester United, which is scheduled for publication in 2013. He lives in Norfolk with his partner, Liz, and a cat called Frank. Further information is available on his website: www.phillipvine.co.uk.

  IT WAS NOT the kind of positive thought his surgeon had encouraged him to think, but it was the only one he had at the moment.

  If you do not come for us, we will surely come for you.

  The letter this morning had been delivered to him personally by someone whose features were disturbingly unfamiliar. The dark glasses, too, added to his sense of unease.

  “Here you are,” the woman had said, her words like notes struck from a cracked bell. “Matron said this one was important.”

  He studied the outline of her body, as if that might unlock the clue to her identity. Even here, however, he was frustrated, as the white, knee-length jacket swirled around her like a cloud about the sun.

  “Thank you,” he said, although it was difficult to speak with the reset bones of his face screaming at one another as he moulded his words.

  The envelope was dreary and brown with one word, his name, scribbled upon it. Even that had been somehow smudged, the cheap black ink smeared like dried blood. He opened it with the remaining fingers of his good hand.

  Inside, he found one sheet of paper, untidily folded, with printed material, something about a yardsale of old books and paintings way over in the Bronx. He was amused to see a couple of his own novels were listed there, Same Day, Sad Hearts, his ten-cent cowgirl-comes-to-town story, and the trashy vampire tale, Thirst. Neither had sold more than a broken handful of copies. His smile, though, was smacked from his face when he saw what was written on the reverse side of the flyer.