Motes of pollen swirl in the air, the drone of bees almost enough to drown out the distant pounding of the waves.
Emory’s staring at the lighthouse with an appraising eye, as if it’s something she’s going to have to rip out of the ground and take home.
Clara crunches over the dry grass to inspect the flowers surrounding the lighthouse. They’re knee high on thick green stems with two crisp leaves apiece. Each one has a perfect crown of symmetrical petals, and none of them are wilted. The entire field is swaying back and forth metronomically. Hypnotically.
And against the wind, notices Emory.
‘They’re beautiful,’ gasps Clara, closing her eyes and lowering her nose to sniff one. The nearest four flowers turn in her direction, the beautiful petals peeling back to reveal a ring of thorns, leaking a clear liquid. The leaves tilt, aiming their blades at her.
‘Dad!’ screams Emory, calling to her father who’s behind Clara.
Seth leaps forward, grabbing his granddaughter by the shoulder and yanking her away, just as the leaves shoot a large cloud of spores into the air.
Clinging to each other, they stare at the flowers in horror. The blooms are straining forward, rustling madly, desperate to reach the three of them.
‘What are these things?’ asks Clara, her voice trembling.
‘I always walk through these flowers and they’ve never reacted that way before. I didn’t think they could do much more than make you sneeze.’
Emory points to the sleeping deer, its ribcage rising and falling. Over thirty of the flowers have attached themselves to it like leeches, their thorns silently slurping the blood from its veins. Its limbs are twitching, its heartbeat weakening. It’s dreaming itself to death.
Clara untangles herself from her grandfather’s protective grasp, and creeps towards the edge of the field. Sensing movement, the plants become eager once again.
‘What are you doing?’ hisses Seth.
‘I want to have a closer look,’ says Clara.
‘Why?’
‘Curiosity.’
‘Why would you be curious about –’ Discovering he doesn’t have the words, Seth makes a chomping motion with his hands.
‘Because they’re something new,’ responds Clara. ‘And new is wonderful.’
Even as Seth gathers the words to protest, Clara kneels in front of the plants, making sure to keep her face out of spore distance.
She lowers her index finger until it’s an inch above one of the pink flowers. Its head tips up and rustles, the petals peeling back eagerly. Clear liquid drips from its thorns.
‘Careful, love,’ warns Emory softly, coming up behind her, ready to drag her away.
Clara ignores the warning, moving her finger to the left, where it hovers over a purple flower.
‘It’s not doing anything,’ mutters Clara, sharing an excited glance with her mother.
She flicks it with her fingertip, then snatches her hand back out of striking range. Once again, it doesn’t react.
‘The purple ones are harmless,’ says Clara, blowing out a long breath. ‘I noticed they didn’t go for me when the pink ones did.’
Emory laughs, delighted by her daughter’s cleverness. ‘There’s a trail of them leading all the way to the lighthouse,’ she points out. ‘They’re sort of disguised, but they’re there. Niema left a path for herself.’
‘And us,’ says Clara.
FIFTY-EIGHT
It only takes a few minutes for Emory, Clara and Seth to walk through the carnivorous flowers, but they would swear that civilisations rise and fall while they’re doing it. They can feel every twitch of every muscle holding them upright, as the pink flowers twist on their stems, watching them pass, waiting eagerly for any slip.
Clearing the field, the family immediately double over, blowing out long breaths of relief.
‘Let’s not do that again,’ says Seth weakly. ‘Once in a lifetime was quite enough.’
‘Twice, for you, Dad,’ corrects Emory, pointing to the bandage on his ankle. ‘That circular gouge on your leg is the same pattern as the ring of thorns the flowers use to latch onto their prey.’
Seth reaches down, gingerly touching the wound.
‘I must have followed Niema up here the night she died,’ he says, confused. ‘Why would I do that? She told me to wait in the boat.’
Clara wipes the sweat from her brow, then wanders over to the lighthouse.
The tower is built on a small, square cottage with arched windows covered in wrought-iron bars. The shutters are painted blue and the walls white. There’s enough heat coming off them to bake bread. The fading sun is hoisted on the tip of the lighthouse, the blue sky empty around it. Even the clouds won’t come here uninvited.
‘This isn’t like the other pre-apocalypse buildings I’ve seen,’ says Clara, running her hand over the brickwork. ‘It isn’t crumbling, or being consumed by vines. The shutters haven’t rotted, and the paint could have gone on yesterday.’
‘There’s a door here,’ says Emory, pushing it open.
Clara follows her mother inside. She was expecting to walk into a damp, empty room, not a brightly lit laboratory. There are nine pieces of equipment on tables, arranged in rows of three, endless streams of information pouring across their black screens, conveyed in words and symbols, equations and graphs.
Clara roams between them, her eyes snatching greedily at the miracles.
A strange white liquid is floating in the air, where it’s being stretched and contorted by invisible forces. Purple dust forms itself into a snake and a mouse, only for the mouse to leap on the snake, digging its teeth into its back. They collapse into dust, and are replaced by a rabbit hunting a fox. One of the pink flowers from outside is being dissected by rippling light, then put back together, while another machine weaves balls of gel from absolutely nothing.
This technology is so far beyond the equipment used in Thea’s lab that it might as well be made of starlight.
‘Thea definitely came here last night,’ calls out Clara, as she peers at a dog made of plant matter, which has a root system growing out of its stomach. ‘I recognise this place from the shattered memory stone we found in Hephaestus’s bunker. This is the room where she argued with Niema.’
There’s a medical screen at the far end of the lab, and Emory’s about to pull it back when Hephaestus emerges from an adjoining room, wiping his bleary eyes.
He stops, startled by their presence. They’re sopping wet, their clothes tattered, and their hair wild.
‘What are you doing here?’ he demands.
‘Investigating Niema’s murder,’ says Emory.
Thea descends a wrought-iron circular staircase at the centre of the room.
‘I checked the storerooms, but –’ She stops dead at seeing the three of them. She’s red-eyed and dishevelled. ‘What are you doing here? How did you get past the security systems?’
‘Security?’ repeats Emory. ‘Is that what the flowers are? And the rough water?’
‘That’s what they’re supposed to be, but they’re clearly not very effective if you three can just stroll in whenever you want,’ replies Hephaestus.
‘We think Niema activated them the night she died,’ says Thea, coming the rest of the way down the staircase, while clapping dust from her hands. ‘Do you have any news? Have you uncovered the killer?’
‘Adil blamed you,’ replies Emory blandly.
Thea’s body stiffens, the colour running out of her face. She straightens her back and shoulders, trying to face down this nothing woman, with her bright eyes, innocent face, and that great head of curly brown hair.
‘Does he have evidence?’ she asks, keeping her voice cool.
‘He has a grudge,’ interrupts Hephaestus loyally. ‘The accusation’s ridiculous. We’ve been on this island together for ninety years. Why would Thea suddenly decide to kill her?’