Those who’ve already bought the book can read the new beginning here—and those who haven’t read it can read it as a sample!

CHAPTER 1

MIRI

The mountain looms ahead, it does, rocky slopes rising into the low cloud. Our farm track peters out, becoming a hiking trail, far too narrow for a pony-trap.

Or is it?

“Woah,” I tell my clever little pony, and she halts immediately without me needing to pull on the reins I hold so loosely in my damaged hands.

There’s a little hook at the front of my specially-adapted cart to prevent the reins falling to the ground, and I drop them over it, using my elbow to press the button to activate the powerful brakes. Of course, Maggie flicks her ears and stands perfectly still, the way she always does.

Without looking around, I know that the view behind me over the valley is glorious. The perfect spot for Annie and I to picnic tomorrow. Moved to the valley just recently, she did, so it’s fun showing her all the good places.

Today, I’m only interested in the mountain, I am. What’s the view like from the top? When there aren’t clouds, I mean.

As always, when I look at it for too long, it throws me back to that holiday, six years ago, shortly before my ninth birthday, when Dad—my birth dad—took me to Snowdonia…

Dad checks my hiking boots are laced firmly, then stands up and takes my little backpack from the car and hands it to me. “What do you think? Not too heavy?”

I slip my arms through the straps, fasten the waist strap, and bounce impatiently on my toes. “Mae’n Iawn! It’s fine! Come on, let’s go! Right to the top!”

Dad laughs. “A regular little Pier Giorgio Frassati, you are.”

“Who’s Pier Ger-go Frati?” I ask as Dad shoulders a much larger backpack and locks the car.

“A saint my dad used to tell me about whenever we went hiking, he is. Italian youth who climbed mountains.”

“Saints climb mountains?”

“That one did. ‘To the summit!’ That’s what he used to say. Anyway,” he gestures ahead of us as we walk towards the beginning of the hiking trail, his well-worn army boots crunching in the gravel, “Yr Wyddfa—Mount Snowdon in English—is the—”

“Tallest mountain in England and Wales, it is!” I jump in.

“Yep. The view is amazing, it is. And wait until you feel the wind up there! Little lad like you might blow clean away!”

Mountains tower all around, and I’m not sure which one is Yr Wydffa. Dad sees me scanning the horseshoe ridge on the horizon, and points to a peak in the middle.

That’s it! I can’t wait to get up there—I know Dad won’t let me blow away! We’ve gone on lots of hikes the last few years, but Dad’s only just decided that I’m old enough to climb an actual mountain.

Dad’s phone bleeps. He pauses, fishing in his pocket, then checks the message. His face closes, and my heart clenches up.

Na, na, na!

Finally, he looks at me. “Miri… Mae’n ddrwg gen i.” When he apologizes so formally in Welsh, I know it’s bad, even before he goes on, “I’m so sorry. The rest of my leave has been cancelled.”

“But your leave finishes tomorrow anyway…”

“Ddrwg gen I, Miri. They want me now, they do. We’ll come and climb Snowdon for your birthday, we will. It’s not that long.”

He turns and starts walking back towards the car. Reluctantly, I follow. “This stinks!”

“I know, Miri. But duty before pleasure, huh? Birthday weekend, or as close as I can manage, Yr Wydffa, okay?”

“Yeah,” I mutter. Only a few months, it is, but it feels like forever. “Are you going abroad?”

“I don’t know yet. Probably.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know yet. And…”

“…I couldn’t tell you if I did,” I finish.

He grins and tousles my hair. “You said it, Miri.”

My dad’s job is so classified I don’t even know what it is exactly. Just that he’s away a lot. He says it’s not as exciting as I probably think, but maybe he just says that so I don’t boast to everyone at school and cause a “security risk.”

“I’d better call Esme, and see if she’s home yet,” Dad says, pulling out his phone again. “Otherwise…” he hesitates, “well, Colonel Oliver’s wife is always happy to help. Or Lieutenant Clara, if she’s off-duty.”

This won’t be the first time my nanny’s been away on her own break when the army suddenly decide they want my dad back in a hurry.

I stare up at the mountain, trying to block it out as Dad speaks to people on the phone, finding someone to look after me until Esme is back. I want to be up there so much, I do. I want to feel the wind. See the view. I want this last day of my holiday with Dad. I want it so much my chest aches and tears prick my eyes. I fight to hold them back. I mean, I’m eight now.

Dad still notices. He slips an arm around me, putting his phone back in his pocket, and touches my scarred cheek gently. Lieutenant Clara is coming around. She’s fun, but I’d rather have Dad... “Ah, Miri, we will go up a mountain another time, okay?”

“Yeah.” My voice trembles, so I try to talk tougher as we get into the car. “Are you sure we haven’t got time to climb it today? I mean, if we really got a move on?”

Dad laughs. “No, it’s just too far, it is. I have to report back to base immediately, so we’d better get on the road.” With that, he starts the engine and pulls away.

Snowdon falls behind. My gut churns. Disappointment, and that awful ache I always get whenever Dad leaves. A few tears make it down my cheeks.

Of course, Dad spots them.

“Ah, Miri,” he says softly, “I know it’s hard. I really am sorry. But I promise one day you will climb a mountain and feel the wind in your hair. I promise. Just not today.”

But that year, the only thing my birthday brought me was Colonel Oliver and two social workers at the door the day before, to tell me that my dad was dead.

I shake the bad memory away, and stare some more at the mountain—my home mountain, not Mount Snowdon—my eyes picking out a path between the rocks and boulders and crags. Dad-L—my adopted dad—said he can’t even get an ATV up to the summit of our mountain. And there’s no way I can walk up it, these days. But maybe—just maybe—the higher ground clearance of my pony-trap will give me a chance. Right?

I elbow the button again to release the brakes, and pick up the reins. “Walk on, Maggie.”

Maggie steps forward obediently.

The ground becomes rough immediately, bouncing me from side to side in my custom foam support seat. I grit my teeth and endure, I do, but Maggie comes to a halt, turning her head to give me a doubtful look from one eye.

“Walk on, Maggie.” The trap lurches forward again. It’s so bouncy I have to drop the reins back over their little hook, and use my feeble hands to brace myself against the cart. Ow. Ow. How much of this can I take?

I won’t get to the summit today, I won’t. Of course not. But if I could even figure out the first part of the route…

“Left, Maggie, left!” Using voice commands, I guide my clever pony toward the gap that I’ve spotted in the rocks. But she stops when we reach it. “Walk on, Maggie.”

She tosses her head, snorts, and gives me another doubtful look.

“Walk on, Maggie.”

Reluctantly, she steps forward. Will we fit? We have to fit. The only way we can get through this first boulder field, this is…

The cart scrapes against the rocks. But maybe we’ll just… “Walk on, Maggie.”

We inch a little further, then Maggie comes to a halt. “Walk on!” But I can see her throwing her weight into the harness, and we’re not moving.

My heart sinks like a chunk of lead thrown into thick mud. We can’t get through. My insides quiver with disappointment as I call, “Back up, Maggie. Back up.”

She tosses her head and strains backwards—but nothing happens. My gut clenches. Oh no. Did I urge her forward for too long? How badly are we stuck?

“Back up, Maggie. Come on, good girl. Back up, come on. I know you can do it. Harder, Maggie.”

We’re not moving. Maggie whinnies, tossing her head violently, and paws at the stony ground, frightened at being trapped like this.

“Steady, Maggie! Stand! Stand! It’s okay, girl.”

She calms, she does, now she’s expected to stand still, but I look around in dismay. What do I do? I didn’t tell anyone I was looking for a way up the mountain because I knew they’d say it was impossible.

And they were right, they were.

Can I free the cart by myself? So I don’t have to tell anyone what an idiot I’ve been? But what can crippled Miri do? I suppose…if I can even lean against it a bit with my shoulder, maybe it will be just enough to un-wedge it.

With effort, I rotate my swivel seat, push the button to lower the ramp, then get my special crutches under my arms and stand. I stare at the rocky ground at the end of the ramp. Can I really walk on that? Maybe I should call Dad-L?

No, it’s just too humiliating, it is. How did I think I really had a chance of getting up this mountain even a little way? I feel such a fool.

Slowly, I limp down to the ground. Shuffle from stone to stone, teetering precariously as I try to reach the front of the pony-trap. Ouch. This is not going to end w—

Ah! A rock turns under me, and I’m down on the ground. No, no, no! Ow.

I try to get myself sitting up, I do, but without my custom seat pads, pain spikes immediately from my pelvis and legs. Quickly, I ease myself back down into a lying position. Even that isn’t as comfortable as usual, on such a hard, bumpy surface.

Well, that’s that. I can’t get up from right down flat like this. I have to call for help.

Not Dad-L, though. Him and Mum have been so supportive of me since the accident. Resisted the temptation to wrap me in cotton wool. Dad-L adapted this pony-trap, they got me Maggie, as highly-trained an assistance pony as they come. I feel like I’ve let them down by being so stubborn and stupid about this mountain. Or that they’ll feel like I have.

But it’s starting to rain, and I’m shivering in the wind, I am. I can’t stay here long.

My phone hangs on its cord around my neck. I don’t bother wrestling with it with my useless hands and just use voice control. Soon Annie’s cheerful, slightly nasal voice rings in my ears. “S’mae, Miri!”

“Smae, Annie.” I reply in Welsh as well, and my voice comes out tenser than I intended, disappointment and pain tightening my throat. “Uh, I’m up at the very top of the higher farm track, I am, past the grove. D’you think you could come and give me a hand?”

“I’ll be there now in a minute, I will. I’ll just finish feeding my lambs.”

Her uncle’s orphan lambs, they are, but she already looks after them most of the time. There’s nothing to do but lie here and wait. My body and my heart ache more and more as the mountain mocks me with its misty awesomeness. Despite my best efforts to hold them back, a few hot tears seep from my eyes as the truth I’ve been trying to deny ever since my accident finally becomes a fact of my life.

Dad didn’t mean to lie to me that day. But he did.

I’ll never climb a mountain.

Ever.

CHAPTER 2

MIRI

The purr of the ATV engine is a welcome sound, but I quickly wipe my face on my sleeve, even though the rain will have washed it clean of tears already. Annie cruises to a halt and jumps off, hurrying towards me with her ungainly but energetic gait. “Miri! Sut wyt ti? Are you okay?”

“Iawn, iawn. Fine, I just lost my footing.” I try to sound very calm and not-in-pain. “You know I can’t get up from the ground.”

“Why is Maggie stuck in there?” Worry makes her sound more nasal than usual and thickens her slight lisp, but I understand her just fine. “What happened? Did she bolt?”

“No,” I say indignantly. “Maggie did not bolt! You know she’s bombproof. I just misjudged the gap, I did.”

Annie’s distinctive eyes widen in her slightly moon-shaped face. “You thought you could fit through there?”

If I wanted tact, I called the wrong helper, I did.

“We almost did!”

Annie peers to each side of the vehicle, then informs me, “No, you didn’t.”

I sigh as she scrambles over to me and begins the agonizing process of getting me vertical again. Then I lean against a boulder, watching, as she resorts to using a towline and the quad bike to free my trapped trap and patient pony. The rain stops and the mist blows away from the mountain peak, it does, but I refuse to look.

Finally, I’m back in the cart, rolling down the hill with everything aching worse than ever. Annie heads off along the lane, as Maggie clops back into the farmyard of the farm which has now been my home for over a year and a half.

I drop the reins over their hook, then activate the brakes. When I’ve made my way painstakingly down to the ground again—lovely flat tarmac, this time—I go straight to Maggie’s head.

“Merch dda,” I praise Maggie in Welsh, then in English, “Good girl. I’m sorry.” I make a fuss of her, rubbing her hairy cheeks and soft nose with my knuckles since my fingers don’t work very well. “Good girl. You did good. Let’s get you out of there.”

Like practically everything in my life, her harness—trimmed with hi-vis ‘Assistance Pony’ signage—is adapted so that I can put it on and off her myself. Most of it fastens with heavy-duty Velcro, with big cloth loops on the back allowing me to slip my hand through and pull with my stronger wrists.

A slow, painstaking, and exhausting process, it is, but finally, Maggie is in her stall, as well rubbed down as I can manage after her fright, and I can head back to the farmhouse.

Slowly. Very slowly.

My legs shake under me and every once-broken bone aches fiercely. Ugh, why didn’t I bring my power chair out to the stables this morning?

Because it was morning, and I felt energetic and didn’t think ahead...

“S’mae, Miri,” Dad-L greets me in Welsh as he appears from the workshop. Then he frowns. “Look like you’re about to fall down, you do. Perch on here, and I’ll get your chair, I will.” He kicks the tire of one of our ATVs and strides into the farmhouse.

Reluctantly, I rest my aching butt against the rear rack of the quadbike. Sometimes it’s still hard to come to terms with how disabled I am now. Fourteen going on ninety-four.

No, the mountain may have defeated me, but I’m not having a pity party. I can walk a little. There are small things I can do on the farm. I can drive my pony-trap. If I hadn’t been able to go up the hill even as far as I did, I wouldn’t be this zonked.

Okay, Annie was chattering on with her usual innocently thoughtless enthusiasm the whole time she got me unstuck about how her uncle had promised to take her on a hike right to the top of the mountain one day very soon. Okay, I’ll never do that. I get that now.

But I can do enough. I refuse to feel sorry for myself. I mean, a year ago, just after the accident, I thought I’d be lying in bed for the rest of my life.

Dad-L comes out driving my chair like it’s a rather slow go-cart. After the usual discomfort of getting sat down, the custom contours of the seat cradle my geriatric body. My useless fingers grip the joystick, just enough. Then I’m zipping into the house at speed. Well, at speed compared to me on my feet.

I love being able to walk that little bit, but it’s nice to have my wheels back afterwards!

As I cross the kitchen, my phone bleeps at me. I slip my fingers through its hand loop and pull it away from my chest so I can see the screen.

A text from Daniel:

Can we talk?

My chest tightens. Not long after I first met Daniel, when I was in a top children’s hospital in London after my accident, and he was there having chemo for his leukemia, he confided in me his strange feeling that he would “never be going to university,” as he put it. Since then he’s become a really good friend to me, despite being a couple of years older, so I live in fear that his prophetic feeling will become reality.

Seventeen, he is, so university is two years closer for him than it is for me. But the last I heard, his leukemia was still well in remission.

Please God, don’t let that have changed.

Mum sticks a slice of fresh buttered bread into my mouth as I zip past her—I nod and mumble “Diolch” around my mouthful. Thanks, Mum.

Once in my room, I park in front of my computer, disentangle my wrist from my phone loop and balance the bread on the back of my hand, because it’s easier and less painful than trying to grip it. Very good at balancing things, I am now, even if I sometimes feel a bit like a dog doing tricks.

The bread is soon gone. I unhook my phone from around my neck, placing it on the desk.

“Start listening,” I tell it. Then, “Call Daniel. Speaker.”

Dialing sounds begin almost at once.

I love voice control.

“Hi, Miri,” Daniel’s cheerful voice soon answers. His face fills the screen, pale skin, brown hair, and calm grey eyes just now gleaming with excitement. “How are you?”

“Iawn,” I answer, switching between Welsh and English because he knows me well enough to understand the basics. “I’m really good, I am. Sut wyt ti?”

“Oh, I’m great. I’m finally on the football team, can you believe it? I’m crediting Pier Giorgio Frassati for that.”

“Who did you say?” For a moment it feels like I’ve had an electric shock. “Say that name again?”

“Pier Giorgio Frassati? You’ve heard of him?”

“I think so. Just once. Did he climb mountains?” I hear a faint note of longing in my voice that I didn’t mean to be there. I have to forget about climbing a mountain, standing on top of the clouds, on top of the world. I’ve accepted it’s something I’ll never ever do.

I have.

“That’s the one. His sainthood is finally confirmed!”

Only now confirmed? Maybe he was just a baby saint when Dad mentioned him. A “blessed,” I think Daniel said they’re called.

“Was getting you onto the football team the miracle that swung it?” I joke.

We both laugh, me a little harder than it warrants because I’m feeling so relieved. If Daniel’s just got onto the football team, then he must be okay. Fitter than he’s been since I’ve known him, in fact.

“Anyway,” Daniel says, “on the subject of the—no doubt—future-patron-saint-of-student-sports-and-mountaineering, my youth group is organizing a Pier Giorgio Frassati pilgrimage to Italy this July. And everyone agrees it would be awesome if you could come too.”

Takes me a while to work through all this and figure out what he’s saying, it does.

“What, come to...to Italy? For real?”

“Yeah. We’re going to Turin—that’s where Pier Giorgio was born and lived most of the time, and Pollone—that’s where his family spent their holidays. And we’ll spend the most time at Oropa, a sanctuary up in the mountains.”

“Up in the mountains?” I picture high peaks and clouds. My heart pounds like a post driver.

“Yeah, there’s literally this huge basilica and pilgrim complex just sitting up there. They call it ‘the shrine between earth and sky.’ It’s amazing.”

My over-excited heart suddenly plunges into a pothole. “Hang on… How much does it cost?” Mum and Dad-L won’t be able to afford it, they won’t. No way. He must know that. A spark of anger stirs. Why did he even ask me?

“No, that’s the cool part. We’re all fundraising as much as we can and putting it into a common fund. So money isn’t an issue.”

I’m silent for a long moment. I really, really, really want to go. But... “You know I’m going to be rubbish at fundraising? I mean, I’ll try my best, I will, but there’s so little I can do...”

“It’s fine. Your best is all that’s required, even if it’s one pound and fifty pence.”

I laugh. “I hope I can do better than that. I’m sure Annie will help… Hey, can Annie come? She’s Catholic too. And she’ll be doing more of the fundraising than I will, you know that. Which doesn’t seem fair if she can’t come, it doesn’t.”

“I don’t see why not. There’s space. And you said she’s in a normal class at school, right? Very high-functioning, or whatever the official term is? So she doesn’t need to bring a carer or anything?”

“Of course not!”

Daniel smiles at my indignant tone. “Calm down. There’s a really wide range of abilities when it comes to people with Down Syndrome, you know. Anyway, we’re putting down a deposit on the accommodation at the end of this month, then we’ve got three and a half months to raise the rest, okay? I really, really want us to go this July if we possibly can.”

“Heck, yeah! I’ve gotta call Annie. We need to think of some ways to raise money!”

“I’ll email you a list of ideas, though they’re geared to London and might not all work out there in the Welsh countryside. Happy fundraising!”

When we’ve ended the call, I stare at the wall for ages without seeing it. Italy! Could I really be going to Italy? I can’t believe it.

I open my mouth to tell my phone to call Annie, then shut it again. No, first, I’ll just check that Mum and Dad-L are okay with this. Annie’s mum will never let her go by herself. Despite her Down’s Syndrome, Annie keeps up okay at school, but she’s slightly younger than me, she is, and definitely a little too trusting for her own good.

“Mum?” I drive back out into the kitchen at top speed. “Mum!”

There are a few small alterations elsewhere in the book, but the changes are mostly in the first 2 chapters.

Get the ebook or paperback of the Second Edition HERE (choice of stores).

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

Read a sample of the story below or listen to the audiobook preview HERE.

+

‘Man or Beast’ by Corinna Turner

It was going to be a bad day.

Keygar knew this because when he looked out of the stable loft, someone was walking away with his horse. Bad enough that the innkeeper refused to house a partiya with no soul-mark in the inn itself, even a partiya with human status. He was all too used to that. Bad enough that the horse was worth more than most of Keygar’s other possessions put together. Bad enough that even this large town was unlikely to have another mount big enough to carry his half-breed self.

It was all bad.

Pausing only to clap onto his head the shield that more usually did duty as a hat to shade his trollish skin from the sun, Keygar was out of the loft in an instant, landing lightly despite his bulk. He sped after the thief, barely avoiding knocking down an old monk who was shuffling along the street. In a few massive strides he blocked the thief’s path.

“That’s my horse.”

The would-be thief smirked up at him. “Says who, partiya? Your word against mine.”

“That’s my horse,” Keygar repeated.

“You lost it to me in a game of chance last night? Don’t you remember?”

“That’s my horse.” If you repeated yourself often enough to full-humans, sometimes they actually got the message.

“It’s my horse now, you soulless troll. Is that your entire vocabulary?”

What more words were needed? Keygar’s eyes narrowed. His fist clenched. The man saw his size, bulk, and shaggy troll-mane and assumed him a soulless beast, yet dared rob and taunt him?

Stupid human. He’d say it one more time.

“It’s my horse.”

“Beat it, partiya. Before I call the Watch.”

The Watch? Right. Keygar bent his knees and drove a fist the size of a child’s head into the man’s belly. The blow sent the thief flying across the street, and over the wall of a nearby tanner, to land head down in a vat of something that smelled so indescribably bad to Keygar’s nose that it must have smelled awful even to a human.

Keygar gripped his horse’s bridle. “It’s my horse,” he shouted to the man’s twitching legs as the tanner rushed toward the vat, cursing. Keygar considered extracting the man from the vat himself and taking his purse—as an equine hire charge, you understand—then decided it wasn’t worth getting that stink on him.

He turned the horse back toward the inn. He’d collect his bedroll and find some breakfast before moving on from this benighted place. Hopefully there would be a caravan that needed an extra guard. The only work he could ever find.

“Hey! Here, quick! That partiya is a horse thief! I just saw him take this man’s horse from him in broad daylight!”

Keygar’s head snapped around with a grinding of trollish bone. A squad of the city Watch already rushed headlong along the street toward him.

“It’s my horse,” he bellowed. “I just unstole it!”

The Watchmen ignored him.

“Let’s see your paws, partiya!”

Keygar showed the man his “paw.” Very close up indeed, as he slugged him in the jaw. His backswing took down a sergeant, while he kicked two privates in their rank in quick succession.

When the other three stumbled back out of range, Keygar gripped his horse’s pommel, ready to mount. To enyon with this place!

Behind him, steel whispered against leather...and the grey haze instantly claimed him. His hands went up behind his head, closed around the hilt of his broadsword. No whisper of metal against leather as he drew, more a shriek.

He spun to meet the lunging Watchmen, his separately tracking eyes calculating the trajectories of their blades. That one was aiming for his neck, that one his wrist, that smart—or especially short—one, his femoral artery.

Watchman One lost his head at Keygar’s first swing. Number two his hand. Number three his leg—all his blood would follow soon enough.

The sound from the sergeant’s high-pitched whistle struck Keygar’s sensitive ears like an axe-blow, splitting his head asunder. The grey trollzerk haze receded.

He wiped the huge blade clean on the nearest fallen Watchman’s cloak, sheathed it, and mounted at last.

“This is my horse,” he told the sergeant. “Always was. Don’t follow me.”

With a nudge of his heels, he sent his mighty cob trotting away down the street.

~+~

They followed him. Of course they followed him. Two dead Watchmen...well, Takford wasn’t the sort of town to stand for that kind of thing.

But it was easy enough to lose them in the foothills of Merinian.

So he thought. Until he woke one morning to find himself staked down under enough nets to hold a full troll, let alone a half-breed.

“It’s. My. Horse!” he roared, heaving upward with all his strength. Ropes stretched. Pegs shifted. The nets held.

“What now, sir?” asked a nervous private, standing with his legs too far apart. “Kill him where he lies?”

Keygar roared inarticulate fury and heaved again.

“I hope so.” The sergeant sounded equally nervous as he pushed back Keygar’s shaggy grey troll-hair with the point of his sword, checking his prisoner’s temple. “Ugh. No. See the tattoo? Human status. The magistrate was very particular that we bring him back if he had it.”

A brief reprieve, but what difference would it make, if Keygar couldn’t get free? A wagon already creaked toward him with a troll cage on the back. Keygar wrenched with everything he had. One rope snapped. But he still wasn’t free. He could smell at least thirty men around him, too many for even him to overpower.

Too many, but he must not be taken back to Takford for trial!

He wrenched and heaved and punched and kicked and bit and scourged and head-butted. But in the end, there he was in the cage, while mangled Guardsmen slumped around the forest clearing, panting and sobbing and clutching their wounds.

“Resisting arrest. Again!” snarled the sergeant, from a safe distance. “We’ll tell the magistrate!”

“What’s the penalty for resisting arrest around here?” asked Keygar, licking a smear of human blood from around his bloodied mouth.

“Flogging,” said the sergeant, with a smirk. “That’ll teach you.”

“And for killing Watchmen?”

“Death, you stupid troll.”

A couple of less-injured soldiers eyed their sergeant, then exchanged glances.

I don’t think I’m the stupid one, thought Keygar. But he said no more, hunching his head down between his shoulders. The morning sun was weak, but he still wished for his shield, with the little metal boss in the center that doubled as a helmet, and the thick, wide leather rim that kept the sun off so well. It lay somewhere under the discarded nets, but he knew better than to bother asking for it.

As the wagon rolled out, he whistled to his horse. The huge animal took control of the Watchman who was trying to lead it and dragged him straight over to the cage, falling in behind.

“See? It’s my horse,” Keygar growled.

But no one was listening.

No one ever was.

Not to a talking beast.

~+~

“Death,” barked the magistrate.

For unstealing my horse, or for being part-troll? Keygar almost asked, but didn’t bother. He knew the answer.

Fear whispered down his spine again, fear with as many legs as an ice-centipede. His father had gained him human status before dying all those years ago—about the only good thing he’d ever done for him, and more to salve his own pride than anything. But he’d never troubled himself to sort out a soul-mark for his embarrassing son. And without a father to vouch for him, a soul-mark was hard to come by.

Keygar had visited mystics, monks, hierarchs, and even famous bards while seeking confirmation of his soul-status, but he had never acquired the tattoo on his forehead that would get him past the Gatekeepers of the Underworld. Without it, even if he did have a soul, he would be left outside to dissipate into nothingness.

We can’t be sure. That was the answer everyone had given, after examining him, sometimes at great length, but more often all-too-briefly. We can’t be sure enough.

They saw him as an animal. His size, his bulk, his shaggy mane, all concealed that he’d inherited a good human mind from his debased father. And with it, a soul? Surely?

“Death,” the magistrate repeated pompously. “Takford does not hold with horse theft.”

They’d pay for this. The moment they unfastened him from the floor to take him to the scaffold, he’d surely go as trollzerk as he usually did in the face of danger. He’d take as many of them with him as he could. They’d fitted troll shackles to him, iron loops on neck and wrists and ankles, connected by too-short chains. But even those could be weapons.

Once he was trollzerk, the ice-centipede would be gone. Animals didn’t worry about what came next. If they said he was a beast, then he’d go out like a beast.

His head rose as he registered many feet scuffing on the floor of the courthouse. A line of guardsmen stood at the opposite end of the hall. Each holding a bow.

With a notched arrow.

Drawing it back...

Keygar tensed, wrenching against the ring that held the shackles to the mighty oak floorboards.

The floorboards splintered...not enough.

The guards around him had already withdrawn to the walls.

The bows were being aimed...

Keygar let out the mightiest roar of his entire life, fed by every insult, every slight, every injustice he’d ever suffered. The windows rattled in their frames. The floorboards quivered. Arrows hissed and thunked as archers flung their hands over their ears without un-notching. An unlucky guard screamed.

Keygar held the roar until he had not a puff of air in his lungs. Then he wrenched at his tether again as he drew in more breath.

The bows came back up. New arrows were fixed to strings and very swiftly drawn...

Keygar opened his mouth, although this time the arrows would surely find their mark in his flesh.

“Hold.” A voice quiet with calm authority kept the arrows on the strings. “Lower your bows and wait outside. I must speak with the condemned.”

The speaker was a smartly-dressed nobleman. A tiny bent old monk stood beside him. Both stepped into the hall as the archers glanced at their sergeant for orders, and the sergeant to the magistrate.

“By what authority...” the magistrate began, scowling, but the nobleman moved to him and spoke in an undertone, too quiet even for Keygar to catch the words. The magistrate’s cheeks grew bloodless, and he scurried, rat-like, from the room. At the sergeant’s nod, the archers followed him out.

Clever, though. Darn clever, to bring the archers to him like that. The magistrate was dangerous as a rat, no question. Keygar heaved yet again, making more of the old oak boards splinter.

“Please stop destroying the hall for a moment, or I will have to get the archers back in.” The nobleman spoke crisply, and halted what he clearly thought a very prudent distance away from Keygar. It wasn’t.

The monk tottered far closer, peering at him.

“Careful,” the nobleman murmured.

“I am not threatening him. Why would he hurt me?”

“Why would he not? He is to die for a crime he probably did not commit.”

Keygar’s attention snapped from the bold monk to the bossy nobleman. “It was my horse.”

“I am willing to take your word for it. But it is not within my power to force the magistrate to acquit you. However, I have leaned on him to commute your sentence—under certain conditions.”

Keygar scowled. The man was lying, bare-faced and shamelessly. The nobleman clearly could force the magistrate to free Keygar—it was just more convenient for him not to. Discreetly, Keygar tested the wooden boards. One more good wrench and he’d be free. He could reach Lord Liar in three hobbling strides and smash in his skull with his troll shackles.

And then what? Being turned into a pincushion by the archers would be a bad way to end the day. Patience was not Keygar’s favorite thing. But he could employ it when the benefits were great enough.

“Talk,” he said.

“Brother Carek needs to get to Anyexos-in-the-Mountains. It is extremely urgent. Take him there, and you’ll be a free man.”

Keygar snorted. “Anyexos? That’s a six hundred league journey, all the way around the coastline and the Jarra desert.”

“I said urgently. You will go direct.”

“Direct? Through the Dead Forest and over the Passes of Antran?”

“Yes.”

“No one has passed that way and lived in a century. More. Between the forest and the bandits and the Chasm itself...”

“Nonetheless. That is Brother Carek’s path, so you must go with him and keep him safe. You’ll receive one hundred zistenas at the other end, in addition to your freedom.”

Keygar snorted again, letting his nostrils flare to their full trollish diameter. “Money doesn’t spend when you’re dead. Why don’t you just send the archers back in? An army could not keep him safe on that road.”

“Likely not. But a single smart man-troll just might. Take him. It’s a better chance than a chest-full of arrows.”

Keygar snorted yet again. To march into the Dead Forest and up the Passes of Antran was more certain death than a chest-full of arrows, as Lord Liar must surely know. On the other hand, once Keygar was free, he need not go anywhere near either dire locale.

“A better chance, yes.” Keygar could lie too. “Very well. I will take your old monk to Anyexos, and my slate will be clean, yes?”

“My word on it.” Lord Liar bowed slightly, hand held elegantly to his chest.

~+~

Lord Liar gave Keygar back his own horse to ride, having purchased it from the horse thief as the only mount in town large enough, along with his hat, broadsword, and other effects retrieved from the Watch. The little old monk mounted a very undersized mule with strange, pale fur and fuzzy, flip-flopping ears that were long, even for its kind. Keygar’s horse watched it emotionlessly. Keygar liked his horse’s unflappable nature—although it could go properly horsezerk when under attack, which was useful too.

Lord Liar chased them out of town without giving them time to gather any further supplies, leaving Keygar with an ominous mutter of, “Until I have made your pardon official, that magistrate could still dispatch you. Be gone, the pair of you, and quickly.”

Keygar rode in silence. Better to journey as far as possible from Takford before ditching the old monk. Then, if he took the mule as well, the old man would have to walk all the way back, ensuring Keygar a substantial head start.

“I expect you think Lord Loftan a bit of a fool, do you not?” The mule stepped alongside Keygar’s mount, ears bobbing. The old man’s face tilted up towards him, eyes bright as brown gems in a face as wrinkled as an old apple.

“Not completely. He knew I wasn’t a horse thief,” said Keygar evenly.

The monk snorted. “I wager everyone in Takford knew that. Having you around just made them nervous.”

Keygar said nothing, although his fingerbones grated as he gripped the reins too tightly. If only he had a soul-mark, people would not fear him so.

“I’m sure you mean to take the mounts and go on your way very soon,” the old monk continued.

“However did you guess?” purred Keygar.

“But I do need your company on the road.”

“Sorry. A hundred zistenas aren’t enough.”

“Ah, but I can offer a far better bargain than Lord Loftan ever could.”

Keygar looked the old man up and down. The ragged tunic. The threadbare pouch that pulled the belt down so little that it must be as good as empty. The battered sandals. His turn to snort. “I very much doubt that. One hundred thousand zistenas might tempt me to travel that road. But not a zistena less. If you have even two zistenas, I’ll eat my horse. Raw. And your mule for dessert.”

The monk simply smiled. “I do not offer money. Get me there, and I’ll have your forehead tattooed that very day with the soul-mark.”

Only when his horse stopped dead did Keygar realize how tightly he held the reins. He glared down at the monk, buffeted by conflicting feelings.

The monk’s road was near-certain death.

Yet he offered the ultimate prize.

Someday, Keygar would die. Some day very soon if that magistrate had anything to do with it, but even assuming he made a clean escape, as he probably would... There was no work for one like him but the sword, and one day his luck would run out. Death awaited him, more surely than any pay or plunder. No draft of ale or platter of roast meat had ever been large enough to completely wipe that knowledge from his mind. Without a mark, he was nothing. A mere beast, blown away on the wind.

The monk still smiled up at him, as though oblivious to the dangers of the road he sought to take.

Or as though he knew.

Knew that to Keygar, the one thing better than a hundred thousand zistenas…was that mark.

+

To find out what becomes of Keygar (and Brother Carek) you can get the ebook or audiobook HERE (Audible audiobook and choice of ebook stores).

The audiobook is also available from Amazon and from iTunes.

[Please note, this is a fantasy story that takes creative license with real life metaphysics!]

Our three unSPARKed protagonists Joshua, Darryl, and Harry are expecting an uneventful Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday. But when a risky mission to sterilize T. rex eggs goes wrong, fasting is the least of Joshua, Darryl, and Harry's worries. Can they survive a protective Rex Momma and a pack of raptors, or will their Lent begin with tragedy?

Read the first half of the story here:

HARRY

“So I just toss it up into the air?” I eye the contents of the frying pan.

“What? No!” Josh takes the pan from the stovetop and gives it an exploratory shake, making the pancake slide from side to side with a papery sound. “You have to do it just the right way so you can catch the pancake again. Watch, I’ll do this one.”

He steps into the open part of the Habitat Vehicle’s living area—such as it is with the table out—then gives the pan a sharp flick. The pancake soars up into the air, turns over—and drops neatly back into the pan, uncooked side now downwards.

Darryl smiles and claps, then raises a hand to stroke Kiko, who had recoiled slightly at Josh’s sudden movement, hunching into his four long wing-limbs. The little quadravian—or microraptor as their scientific name is—quickly relaxes, settling more comfortably on her shoulder.

Nope, my big sis doesn’t look at all bothered that we’re about to try doing what Josh just did. I am definitely going to drop mine.

“Remind me again why we don’t just turn them over with a spatula?” I say.

“Tossing pancakes on Shrove Tuesday is traditional,” says Josh. “And it’s more fun.”

“Isn’t any Fat Tuesday tradition I’ve ever heard of.” And spending all evening clearing up pancake from the floor or ceiling isn’t what I’d call fun, either. We do enough cleaning as it is, cat-like, trying to avoid the notice of any predator large enough to breach the Habitat Vehicle.

“It’s a hunter tradition. This guy came over from Britain soon after the Rewilding and married into a big hunter family and brought it with him. Soon everyone were doing it. And...there we are.” He slides the finished pancake onto a plate and holds out the empty pan, glancing from me to Darryl. “I tossed it, I getta eat it. Who wants the next one?”

I want the next one, I just don’t want to toss it, so I let Darryl take the frying pan. Josh only has one—no space for clutter in a HabVi.

Josh ladles out some of the edmontosaur mince that’s keeping warm in the OmniProcessor and rolls the pancake up neatly.

Darryl pauses, pushing her long brown braid behind her back, and gives me a meaningful look. Oh, right, it’s my turn to say grace. Once I’ve finished, Josh digs in.

Of course, Darryl tosses her pancake so neatly you’d think she was hunter-born not farmer-born. And then it’s my turn.

I catch it! With an undignified lunge, but I catch it. They clap and don’t laugh—much.

“So, what do Hunters eat on Ash Wednesday?” I ask curiously, in between tasty mouthfuls of my now meat-filled pancake. Something traditional, no doubt.

Josh’s eyes widen slightly. “Nothing.”

“At all?”

He shakes his head, still looking bemused.

Darryl’s eyebrows go up. Oh boy. Dad always planned jobs on the farm so we didn’t do heavy work on Ash Wednesday if we could avoid it, so we could fast. But we always had one meal and two snacks. Nothing? Seriously?

“You’re only fourteen, though,” Josh adds, tossing his pancake without missing a beat, “which is real borderline for manhood so you can eat if you wanna. If that’s okay with Darryl.”

Darryl nods. Josh is the boss, but Darryl’s my big sis so some things he defers to her. But this... My cheeks burn. “I’m not going to eat if you two don’t! Though Father Ben said you don’t have to fast until you’re eighteen, right? Darryl’s only seventeen, so only Josh has to fast ’cos he’s nineteen—and even he doesn’t have to eat nothing at all!”

“Ain’t right to eat on Ash Wednesday,” says Josh firmly. “Not if you’re young and healthy. But you two are farmers; you can do what farmers do.”

“We’re hunters at the moment.” Darryl sounds stung. “I’ll fast like a hunter—unless it isn’t safe.” She hesitates. “Are you sure you want to do that T. rex nest tomorrow? Why not leave it until the day after, when you won’t be hungry?”

Josh shoots us a sidelong glance, eyes crinkling, as he slides his second pancake onto his plate. “If I do it mid-afternoon, I’ll only have missed two meals. What’s that gonna matter?”

Ugh, hunters. Tough as rex hide. At home on the farm, large, regular meals were such a fixed part of the day. Whereas Josh thinks nothing of missing one because we’re too busy or it isn’t safe to stop for it.

If we’re doing the nest, then one of us has to be on watch all night and most of tomorrow, until finally—if it’s safe—Josh will creep up into those crags and sterilize the she-rex’s eggs. All without a bite to eat until the following morning. Oh yeah, the next thirty-six hours are going to be super-fun. Though I guess Ash Wednesday isn’t about fun, is it?

DARRYL

I guess it’s no surprise hunters do a full fast on Ash Wednesday, since they tend to imitate Saint Desmond, the beloved patron saint of all those who live unSPARKed—outside an electric fence—and that’s what he did. I’ve almost finished rereading The Memoirs of Saint Desmond the Hermit so that fact is fresh in my mind as I dig into another pancake.

It’ll be tough, but I’m determined to do it. I wish Josh wasn’t planning to tackle such a risky contract tomorrow, though. We all ought to be at our best for that. Maybe Josh will change his mind.

After two or three meaty pancakes, we switch to sweet ones, piling on sugar and honey and the chocolate sauce Josh has saved untouched in the cupboard since New Year. Kiko gets a few morsels that he shouldn’t really have since he doesn’t brush his teeth, but never mind. It’s only once a year.

Sugar granules ping from Harry’s plate, making Josh glance around from his pancake-making, frowning.

“Harry, stop spreading sugar everywhere,” I say, “or you’ll be deep-cleaning the ’Vi before bed!”

“Do you want that she-rex to make sardines of us?” adds Josh sharply.

Harry’s winter-pale skin goes bright red, and he puts down the sugar shaker. After almost a year in the ’Vi, he’s basically internalized the scent procedures, the same as I have, but I guess in all the pancake-making excitement he forgot that he wasn’t at home behind the farm’s electric fence, where ants are the worst thing sugar is likely to attract.

At home. It barely feels like home anymore. Home is here in the ’Vi, out in the wilderness, with Josh. Sometimes it feels like we’ve always known him, like we’ve always been a family, even though we aren’t actually related.

Harry’s already fetching a cloth; good. We don’t want that nesting she-rex popping down this hill, ripping the roof off and eating us up. After guarding those eggs for maybe a month already with little food, she’ll be hungry. The ’Vi is raptor and allosaur proof, but armor heavy enough to protect against a rex just isn’t practical.

Josh seems slightly on edge, despite the pancake fun. Maybe he doesn’t really like the fasting much...no, it isn’t that. It’s the rex nesting. One of the most dangerous hunter jobs, second only to hunting raptors on foot. His dad died rex nesting.

“Oh, and we’ve got two rex nesting contracts,” West told him, last time we met with Josh’s ‘uncles’ for re-supply.

“Give us one, then,” Josh said, sounding slightly too casual.

And West hesitated, then did it. Had to treat Josh like a man, ’cos he is, even in city-eyes. But not being prepared to avoid something isn’t the same as Josh looking forward to it.

When we’re stuffed too full of pancake to eat another bite—Kiko sprawls over my shoulder, snoring softly—Harry pays for his sugary lapse by getting stuck with clean-up, while Josh and I settle down on each side of the table with a hot drink.

Josh leans back in his chair, sipping and staring at the photo frame on the wall. His dad’s rosary hangs from it, along with a mysterious blue raptor feather that he still won’t explain. The familiar family pictures cycle past—his dad, his uncle, and child-Josh at different ages, with the odd photo of West and the others. He doesn’t seem to want to talk, returning brief answers to anything Harry says, so I pick up my handPad. I’m hoping to finish Saint Des’s ‘Memoirs’ tonight, because I want to read The Imitation of Christ during Lent, the first proper grown-up book of that kind I’ll have tackled.

This last chapter deals with the different theories about how Saint Des survived living in that cave of his for twenty years with no electric fence or armored walls to protect him from predators. A miracle, sure, but how did it work?

Supporters of the Eucharistic miracle theory point to an episode in the life of Saint Clare that tells how, once, a fierce Saracen army invaded San Damiano, entering the very cloister of the virgins. Terrified, the nuns ran to their Mother Superior, Saint Clare, who lay ill in bed.

Fearlessly, she got up and prostrated herself before the Lord. “I pray You, Lord, protect these, Your handmaids, whom I cannot now save by myself.”

A voice like that of a little child resounded in her ears from the tabernacle: “I will always protect you!”

So, taking a monstrance of silver and ivory containing the Blessed Sacrament, she confronted the intruders, while her nuns—losing their fear—followed behind. Upon which, quite unaccountably, the Saracens took flight and fled, leaving them all unharmed.

Although the miracle of Saint Clare is categorized as a Eucharistic miracle because of the voice from the tabernacle, it is not clear whether it was the actual presence of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament that put the invaders to flight, or the sheer faith of Saint Clare and the nuns, or some other intervention from God. In the same way, we will never know for certain in this life exactly how Saint Desmond lived, preserved from all harm for twenty years amidst fierce predators. But that is all right.

We do not need to know how. Only that he did.

Thanks be to God.

The End.

“I do like the Eucharistic theory,” I say, putting aside my handPad as Harry finally settles down with his own drink. “You know—that Saint Desmond had a little oratory in the cave with the Blessed Sacrament, and that was what kept the predators away?”

Josh nods, glancing at the gun cabinet, inside which our own little home tabernacle nestles in the carefully converted explosives box. We are so blessed—a home tabernacle isn’t a right, it’s an immense privilege. Farms often have one, but HabVis don’t usually—long story.

“Yeah, but he didn’t carry Our Lord around with him,” Josh agrees. “So who knows? I asked Father Ben, and he said that if you left the Blessed Sacrament lying outside most often an animal would simply come along and gobble Him up. When an animal does respond to Him, it sure is a miracle, no question.”

He glances from me to the gun cabinet again. Right, he wants Adoration. What did I expect, bringing the subject up? It’s Josh’s ’Vi, but I’m the only one who has permission from Father Ben to expose the Sacrament, even though all I have to do is turn the knob to open the spiral lattice in the front of the pyx.

“Sure,” I say. “When Harry’s had his hot chocolate.”

Josh gets busy folding the table up out of the way and checking the living area is clean and tidy enough to host a divine Guest. By the time Harry’s finished, Josh has placed two unlit candles ready on each side of the gun cabinet and is eyeing me hopefully again. Josh is really badly catechized, even now, despite my efforts to pass on what I know—but he’s always ready for Adoration. He reminds me of that wonderful, loyal dog Uncle Mau had when I was a child. The way it would just gaze at its master, not understanding, but loving so much. Josh puts me to shame.

When I get up and head for the gun cabinet, Josh and Harry kneel, Harry with only a small, resigned groan.

It is Ash Wednesday tomorrow, after all.

JOSHUA

“Harry, you take the first watch. I’ll take the small hours. Darryl, dawn shift.”

We’ve finished Adoration, had another drink, and we’re ready to turn in. Harry’s face falls and Darryl gives me an anxious look.

“Josh, are you sure we should do this contract tomorrow? Why not start stake-out on Thursday night and do it on Friday?”

It wouldn’t be a bad plan but—I just... “We’re doing the nest tomorrow.” I know I’m coming off as bossier than usual, but I really don’t know how to explain why I wanna. Tomorrow is a holy day, and I need that...

Fortunately, they’re well-enough trained now to accept that what the boss says goes. Farmers don’t argue back quite like city-folk, but they don’t always obey quite like born hunters, neither. That settled, we disperse toward our berths—or rather, me toward mine, Darryl toward hers and Harry up the ladder to the observation turret.

+

By the time I take over from a bleary-eyed Harry the moon is out, illuminating the nightscape in a wash of clear light. Not that it matters, with the heat-sensors. But it does make the watch more enjoyable.

I scan the landscape by eye, then check the thermal images on the console screens. I send the drone out as frequently as the battery will allow, monitoring the whole of the surrounding area, going a lot farther out than I usually would.

The maze of boulders ahead blocks us from getting the ’Vi closer than a half-mile to the nest, so we need to be very, very sure there ain’t no predators nowhere nearby before I set off. Trouble is, raptors can move real fast and we can check as carefully as we like, it still ain’t impossible a pack could show up before I could get back to the ’Vi, especially if there were the slightest delay. And that ain’t speculation—I know. Sure wish I didn’t …

But the nest has to be done. The Dinosaur Activity and Population department want the eggs sterilized, with one left untouched. Time to let a baby rex hatch in this region. The goal is always to have enough rex to keep the herbi’saur population stable, with as few extra juveniles around to blunder through farm—and even city—fences as possible. It sure ain’t worth going out there tomorrow for the money—I’ll be going out for the farmers, for Darryl and Harry’s neighbors and all the others. Even the crazy city-folk.

Usually I like doing a nest where you get to leave an egg. Nice to imagine the she-rex as a proud mother.

I stare up at the dark line of the crags against the night sky. Anger...hate...bubbles inside. This rex... I’d rather lug my rex gun up there and shoot the creature.

No. No. I struggle to let the horrible feelings go, breathing slowly, remembering sitting quietly in the presence of the Lord earlier. I do love having that tabernacle onboard.

The hate—thank God—fades away again, like water flowing downstream. Unfortunately, that leaves nothing to mask the fear, the fear that’s had me on edge all evening. Every time I think about going up to that nest tomorrow it coils through my belly, freeze-drying me from the inside out.

It ain’t so much fear of dying—first time I truly thought I were about to die I were eleven years old—that’s just life, I can deal with that. No, it’s the fear that when it’s actually time to get out of the ’Vi and head up that hillside, I simply won’t be able to do it. That the past will overwhelm me and I’ll freeze. That the fear will win.

Saint Des, please help me.

Lord, give me courage.

’Cos that...that would be worse than dying. To lose myself like that. To lose to myself.

No, the nest has to be done. And I’m gonna do it.

DARRYL

The dawn light bounces off the mist, touching the rocky slopes with gold. It’s harder to appreciate the beauty with my eyelids this heavy—usually I’m just getting up about now. Tired or not, I should enjoy the greenery while I can. We’ll be heading back to the high snowy mountains as soon as we’ve completed this contract.

Josh and Harry are sleeping in, no surprise. I scan the landscape, then check the thermal imaging carefully. No sign of any carni’saurs. Time to launch the drone again.

Kiko lands in my lap, seeking attention, but I don’t let him distract me. Later on today, Josh’s life may depend on how well we keep watch.

It isn’t much longer before slight movements of the vehicle tell me that Josh is up. He’s always awake before Harry. Usually before me.

Soon the hatch opens and his head appears, dark hair and terracotta skin damp from the shower. He settles in another seat, leaving the hatch open, of course, since it’s just the two of us, and offers me a mug. I accept it and sip eagerly, though it’s only boiled water. After sitting up here for hours, the night chill is getting to me, even in this milder region.

Josh stares up toward the crags as he sips his steaming water, his expression bleak. Has he done a rex nest since his dad died? I’m sure he talked about doing some with his Uncle Z. It seems to be a point of pride among hunter-borns that each HabVi does one or two nests each spring.

Despite the danger.

Finally, Josh gives his head a slight shake and turns his chair around, putting his back to the nest. “Any activity?”

I shake my head. “It’s quiet. There are various herbi’saurs around. I kept a record, but if you stay alert and don’t walk into them, nothing dangerous.”

“Good.”

HARRY

Hot water for breakfast. Nothing else. Then Josh burns a little pile of dried willow clippings up in the turret and mixes the ash with some Holy Water, reciting several hunter prayers seeking Saint Des’s intercession for a safe and holy Lent.

He ends up with a pot of soggy ashes not unlike the ones Father Ben gives each household shortly before Lent—though I think Father Ben makes his out of old palm crosses. Occasionally he’s even at the farm on Ash Wednesday to administer them himself, but a rural priest can’t be everywhere.

As the eldest, Josh stands in for Father Ben, the way Dad always did, carefully marking a cross on my forehead—“Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return”—then on Darryl’s. “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

For once, it doesn’t make me want to giggle, everyone getting smeared with ashes. Today, out in the wilds, it feels really...real. What Josh is going to do later is dangerous, and there’s no getting around that.

“Harry, you’re the youngest.” Josh offers me the pot.

Oh, do I have to do him? I take the pot and dip my finger—he bends his neck. I wipe the ash onto his forehead, trying to make a neat cross. “Uh...remember you are dust, and...to dust you shall return...” Annoyingly, my voice vibrates slightly, but Josh just smiles a thank you and takes the pot back.

No doubt there’s a tradition for disposing of what’s left!

JOSHUA

It’s mid-afternoon. Almost time to make my move.

My heart’s pounding in my chest.

I’ve gone over and over each scenario with Darryl and Harry, since they’ve never rex-nested before. They only need to fly the drone and lure the rex away and, above all, keep lookout. I trust ’em to do it. It ain’t them I don’t trust today.

Sweat trickles down my spine.

All three of us have stayed on watch for most of the day and we ain’t seen no carni’saurs. No need to postpone. Part of me’s disappointed, but part of me’s glad. If I’m finding it this hard, even on this special holy day, how much worse will it be tomorrow?

I make one last check and force myself to stand. “Right.” Ugh, my voice sounds like Harry’s when he were ashing my forehead. I strengthen it, sounding too loud instead. “I’m gonna go below, get ready. Darryl, come down in a minute and collect the meat for the bait. Put Kiko in the critter cage—no distractions.”

I slide down the ladder and move to the table, where my rex-nesting backpack sits—Uncle Z’s, it were before—with its proper silent-release buckles. Not a scrap of Velcro, no zips, nothing to clink or clank and draw eight tons of motherly wrath with a mouthful of ten-inch teeth.

Opening it, I check the contents, though I only packed it earlier.

In my head, I hear my own voice, younger, higher pitched:

“Can’t I do it? I’m fourteen now. I’ve done several rex nests already. Don’t I need the practice?”

Sterilization fluid. Syringe. Odor neutralizer. Check...

And Dad’s voice:

“Not this nest, Josh. You’re not doing this nest, not while your Uncle Z or I are around to do it.”

They ain’t around to do it…no more. I’m the oldest and most experienced. I have to do it. Though I no longer wanna.

Oh, why did West give me this nest?

Please, Saint Des, give me strength!

DARRYL

When I slide down the ladder with Kiko on my shoulder, Josh is carefully applying scentBlock cream, pushing up his sleeves to do well above his elbows and smearing it down under his shirt at the neck. His hands shake slightly. I thought the only thing that bothered him this much was going in-city.

The cream is mottled brown-green for extra camouflage, which the now-smeared ashes on his forehead only help with, though Josh’s darker skin always gives him an advantage over Harry or myself—except in snow.

I shut Kiko into the cage. “Josh?”

“Everything’s ready.” He grabs the little pack and swings it onto his back.

“Josh, are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

He steps toward the side door—but when he gets there he places his palms against it, leaning over, staring at the floor, breathing hard. Still shaking.

The possibility of being eaten is ever-present for a hunter, but it’s never seemed to faze him. Why is this different, here, today? Is it just because it’s a rex nest, and that’s how his dad died?

Or is it... Oh, no, surely not!

“Josh, is this where your dad died?”

JOSHUA

When I don’t reply, Darryl grabs my arm, pulling me around to face her. “Oh, Josh, it isn’t, is it?”

I nod without speaking. My gaze rests on the floor beside the door—for a moment I’m down there, wrestling with Uncle Z as he tries to stop me from rushing out to help Dad—’cos it’s too late.

“Josh! You don’t have to do this nest!” Darryl’s fierce voice breaks in on the memory. “You don’t! Ever.”

“The nest needs doing, and we got the contract.” My voice comes out tight and flat. “So I do.”

“No! How could West give you this nest?”

“He didn’t know!” I snap, hating hearing my own accusation coming from her mouth. “He had two rex nesting contracts, and he simply gave me one. I didn’t even open the file until later that day. Why would he? There’s a lotta rex nests in this state!”

“You don’t have to do it, Josh! Look, I’ll... I’ll go do it!”

“No. Absolutely no short-circuiting way!” I’m wearing a throat mike, and I lower my voice to double-check it’s working. “Harry, all clear?”

“Y-yes?” Clearly he’s heard what we’ve been saying.

“Good. I’m going. Darryl, be ready to lure the she-rex away.”

“Josh—!”

I feel one hair from sitting down in the corner and sobbing and never moving again; the only thing that might get me out of this vehicle is the thought of her going up to that nest instead of me. Yeah, that works...

I hit the door’s “open” button and leap to the ground.

“Josh!”

Letting it slide closed behind me, I set off up the hillside at more of a blind sprint than a jog.

No, calm down, Josh. You’re out-’Vi. Get it together.

I pause behind a large boulder and draw in deep breaths, fighting for control.

“Josh, you okay?” Darryl’s voice comes through my earpiece.

“Fine.”

“Please come back.” Her voice catches slightly. “You shouldn’t have to do this.”

“Shouldn’t? What the heck does that even mean? It’s a rex nest that needs doing, and that’s all there is to it. We’ve done everything just the way we should. It’ll be fine.”

I turn and move up the slope again, at a gentle jog this time, watching for danger.

Harry’s nervous voice comes from my earpiece. “But I thought your dad did everything just the way—ooph.” He breaks off as though his breath has been driven from him by a sisterly elbow.

Yeah, thanks, Harry. Dad did do everything just right, but that ain’t really the most helpful thing to hear right now.

Or mebbe it is. Dad did everything just right and he still got et up, which means it were his time. And if it’s your time, it’s your time. What am I worrying about? I just have to do my part the very best I can and the rest is up to God and Saint Des. Yeah, stop being an idiot, Josh.

I keep moving, nice and steady. My hands have finally stopped shaking. Good. I guess making it out of the ’Vi were the hard part.

“Darryl,” I say, as I get higher up the slope, almost out of their sight. “Start luring the rex away. Going silent now. Don’t speak to me unless it’s critical.”

…

Read the rest of the story:

In the ebook ‘A Very Jurassic Lent’

In the paperback THREE CLAWSOME TALES

Or in ASHES: VISIBLE & INVISIBLE (Catholic Teen Books anthology)