The Pack (4 page)

“Or,” the Old Woman continued, “you may see the fat shadow of an owl skim the tops of the forest; the tips of its huge firs a smoky blue. But you're not finished yet. For when the track runs out, there is a small path, trodden by rabbits and deer, that leads you through the darkness of the forest a little way, till you come to a wide lake shore.

“You have been so closed in by the firs for so long, the openness of the lake, the light of the water, the vastness of the sky—all make you feel as if you've lost some weight you've been carrying with you. And it's true, for it's time to rest.

“You take off whatever bundle you've been carrying and pick the early spring strawberries that grow there, each the size of the smallest glowing coal. They are so sweet, you roll them in your mouth, crush them with your tongue. Try one…”

The Old Woman passed her cupped hand between the three children. Bradley and Floris took a strawberry each and placed it in their mouths. Victor looked from one to the other and frowned.

“Go on, take one,” said the Old Woman.

“What is … a strawberry?” asked Victor.

“The sweetest, most delicious thing you can think of,” said the Old Woman, and Victor jabbed his hand into the Old Woman's palm and sucked in the imaginary strawberry from his fingertips. He closed his eyes briefly, the better to taste it, and Floris smiled at his seriousness.

“Enough,” the Old Woman said, “it will be dark soon and you still have a way to go. To the left of a sandy cove you will see a bush arching over the water. The bush is covered with bright red berries, but you must not eat these, even though the strawberries may be white and green with unripeness and these berries say,
Try me, just one,
you must not. It is the purpose of this bush to tempt you.

“Lift a few of its branches up and you will find a small rowing boat. Yes”—she nodded—“you would all fit in. Pull the boat from under the bush and get in. Take turns in rowing, because it is a big lake to cross. Save a handful of strawberries for the journey.

“You will be rowing quickly to escape the darkness; already the lake is fringed with black. There is a small island you must pass where two herons live, birds with long necks and sharp bills, like these…” The Old Woman snapped her fingers at each child in turn. But there was no need; they were all in the boat, watching the two herons, as they had often done before, spread their great wings and sail across the darkening sky.

“Where are you headed for?” she asked.

“The cabin,” they answered together.

“Yes, the small jetty by the cabin. And when you have landed there, you are in the Land of Wolves. But of course, we all know that the Land of Wolves does not exist any more.”

What did and did not exist—or had ever existed—beyond his particular Zone, the Pack and the Old Woman, Bradley could never be sure of. Nor whether the slivers of memory which surfaced in him were ones the Old Woman had implanted or were all that remained from a previous life, long forgotten.

“The story. The story,” said Floris.

“In the Land of Wolves, long ago, the wolves kept to themselves, as did the cabin people, though sometimes they sang to each other, when the moon was so beautiful and neither people nor wolves could stop praising it. And the wolves would come close to the cabins and the people—the very few that were there—would put out some scraps for them and watch, just for the pleasure of seeing their silver coats, their bright yellow eyes and the way they flowed out of the forest and back again on silent feet.

“And so they lived together, not happily, not unhappily, but simply being people and being wolves. Till the Dead Time came …

“And in the worst of the Dead Time, when people had nothing to eat and the harshest winters to endure, the boldest of them—or the most desperate—left the cities and came north to see what they could find. And they found the wolves and they found cabins they could stay in, while they trapped and skinned wolves that had lost their fear of people. And so successful were they at what they did that soon there were very few wolves left in this huge area; and those male wolves, which bayed at the moon with such sorrow now, had no females with which to mate.

“And that's when the wolves began to travel. In winter they moved in their tireless flowing strides across the frozen lake, down the path, through the forest by the road and across the farmland, till they came—only the strongest and the wiliest—at long last to the edge of the Zones, where people lived in tents and boxes and places made of mud and where stray dogs lived, scavenging among its refuse. And there they found their mates.

“One magnificent wolf, his shoulders three feet from the ground, as long as Bradley is tall, his eyes burning like candle flames, chose a bitch as black as coal, almost as big as himself, but with a heart in pain from being driven away from a family's love. No dogs were allowed in the Invisible City—or were welcome anywhere else. And so the great wolf found her and both bayed their fierce joy beneath the moon and from their union—”

“Hunger was born,” said Floris.

“Hunger was born and was the best of both his parents. No dog has ever been as courageous, as intelligent or as loyal.”

These words,
Victor was thinking.
What do these words mean?

Hunger always seemed to know this was his moment. He sat up, attentive, waiting for Bradley to put his arm around his neck and hug him.

“And Fearless and Shelter too, they also have some wolf in them and, if you look deep and long into their eyes, you will see, reflected there, lakes, forests and stars.”

The children smiled.

“Now, what is the world made of?”

“Ashes. Du—”

“But what of the people who came to the Land of Wolves?” asked Bradley.

“Ah,” said the Old Woman. “That, as you know, is another story. For it happens that if you eat certain animals that are not meant to be eaten—like the wolf—the spirit of these animals will rage within you, such that you will become a cage for them and then a partial home for them. So these settlers in the Land of Wolves who had sung their hunting songs as they roasted the stripped wolves over spits by the lakeside, by morning held their stomachs, as something inside them harried their own flesh, circling and stabbing. And at night they clutched at the howling in their heads that would only stop when they staggered out of their cabins and turned their worn faces to the moon.

“Some tried to return to the city, but they were shunned for their babbled horror stories. Others accepted their curse and took to a life in the forest. Half man, half wolf, they are at home in the worlds of neither, yet the darkness of the forest can at least cloak their shame.”

Beyond the brazier's glow, Bradley saw the wolf men circling in the shadows. They were slim and sinewy, their movements graceful. What was human and what wolf was a blur to him, but when they turned to the light, Bradley saw their sharp ears twitch, as their human lips told him of a loneliness that made him shiver.

The Old Woman was holding out her palms. “Now. What is the world made of?”

“Ashes. Dust.”

And the first few flakes of snow fell, dampening what ashes and dust the breeze did not blow away. She wiped her hands on her skirts.

“Ashes and dust … All worlds … All worlds … But what cannot crumble, what cannot burn or be broken?”

“Stories.”

“Stories. Now be gone and let an old woman get some sleep.”

5

THE ATTACK

Floris's cough was getting worse. An early winter had taken root in her chest and in the night she rasped herself awake. Victor was so used to it by now that he slept through it, though at times in his sleep, he cuddled himself against her when she coughed.

Even in the darkness, Floris could see how Victor's face changed in sleep, how the tension that kept his jaw tight all day left him—and the harsh years of experience fell from him. She slipped out of his arm and came over to where Bradley was lying. Hunger watched her. She stifled another cough and touched Bradley's shoulder.

“You said you'd tell my story tonight,” she whispered.

“We had a story,” Bradley said.

“Yes, but you said
my
story. You said.” Tears stood in the rims of her eyes.

“Yes, all right. But there's not much to tell.”

“I know, but it's mine.”

“All right.”

Floris smiled and sat back on her heels.

“Your name is Floris because you were born beside a florist's shop.”

“What is a florist's shop?”

Bradley knew all the questions Floris would ask, as she knew all his answers. It made no difference. There was not much to tell, but this was one way to make it more.

“A shop where they sell flowers.”

“Tell me, what flowers did they sell in my shop?”

“There were huge vases of roses, the size of both my fists—yellow, red and pink—all the colours you could think of. And lilies—lilies white as snow, the size of trumpets.”

Fearless had found Floris in the doorway of a shop with a missing T. It was long past the time when anyone in the Zones bought flowers—you couldn't live on flowers, after all—and the shop now pretended to be a butcher's. It sold the occasional pig's trotter, a cow's tail that could be boiled for soup. The butcher let Floris sit in the doorway during the day. “Brings in the custom,” he used to say. For a while, at any rate, beneath the grime, you could still tell she was a pretty child. “Though looks still need fed,” he'd said. It was a common expression of hard-nosed sympathy for those who had struggled to keep a child.

Floris would find scraps of meat for Fearless and one day Fearless brought her to the basement. It was warmer than the butcher's doorway and she had not wanted to leave. Bradley, seeing what she was like with the dogs—down on her knees, her earnest blue eyes brightening—had pointed her to a corner where she could sleep.

“Who bought the flowers?” Floris asked and put her fist to her mouth to stifle a cough. Her shoulders shook with it.

“People bought them for their houses,” said Bradley, “or to give to people.”

“Who? Who do you give flowers to?”

“Anyone you like.”

“I'd like someone—to give me—flowers. Flowers—to me and Victor.” There was a shiver in her voice. Bradley stroked the curved knuckles of her spine and she crept back to her nest with Victor.

There had been times when the Old Woman had tried to give Victor the gift of a story of his own too. But Victor had turned from her gaze and become agitated. He put his hands over his ears and rocked back and forth: “No-o-o-o-o-o,” till Floris had held him and calmed him.

No matter how circuitous the route, there was no way Victor would revisit his past, and the Old Woman saw that his story, whatever it had been and would come to be, was indivisible from the one he and Floris would make together.

*   *   *

Hunger's eyes flamed in the night. They were fixed on Bradley—wide and alert.

“What is it, Hunger?”

Hunger turned his head from Bradley. His ears leaned forward into the darkness, as he sniffed far into the distance.

“It's the wind. Only the wind…” It whispered through the slats in the windows, between the camouflage of the door. Bradley rubbed Hunger's silver chest, but he would not be calmed. The Pack all shared an instinct for danger; they could all live on very little, they could all make decisions that appeared cruel if necessary and they could all cover ground quickly and silently—as cats. But Hunger could do more. In a dangerous time, he could sift patiently through the air, discarding the common dangers for ones that threatened Bradley and the Pack. He had a sense of something now—only the wind, perhaps, but when dawn came angling through the cracks, Bradley was unslept and all the next day he could never shift the feeling that something lay in wait for them over which he had no control. It could simply be a change in the weather or something more calamitous. In these uncertain times, one could never be sure which.

*   *   *

That night, a snowfall muffled footsteps. Warning smells carried in the air were swept off track, swirled above the rooftops. Hunger padded the basement, confused. Fearless and Shelter too took a long time to settle. It seemed Victor had gone back to his old ways, squatting on his blanket, his head swivelling like an owl's, his eyes burning through layers of darkness.

He had almost convinced himself of safety, when he heard too late, as Hunger did, the crush of snow as a foot steadied itself. A moment later, a club splintered the window slats and the camouflage door was wrenched open.

The torches soon followed. Flaming rags wrapped around sticks. The flames drove the dogs wild, but they angered as much as scared them. They stood at the doorway, their hackles up, as four shadowy figures advanced and retreated, banging dustbin lids. Victor meanwhile yowled and stamped and half rolled on the flames.

Hunger and Fearless snarled and snapped, baring their perfect rows of teeth. The attackers showed no inclination to try their luck—none of them appeared to be much bigger than Bradley was himself—but still they stood their ground, each banged lid goading a growl from the dogs.

“Come any further and my dogs'll tear you to pieces,” Bradley called. “I mean it.”

“Come any farther. I don't think so.”

“Into your stink hole.”

“Smell it from here. Piss-the-beds.”

“No thank you very much…”

“Cheesy-feets.”

“Good one!”

“So what do you want?” Bradley shouted above the banging.

“What do we want? What do we want? What do we want?” echoed the sing-song voices.

But in the commotion—the flare of flames and the darkness—they could not see what was happening in the back of the basement. The weasel man had slipped in through two ripped-out slats and grabbed Floris, who had been cowering, limp with terror. He had shoved her back through the slats and was almost free himself. He was pulling his legs through, when Fearless spotted him. She bounded over and leaped up, fastening her teeth round part of the weasel's bare calf. The weasel howled in pain and kicked at Fearless's head with his other foot. Fearless fell to the ground, but even in the darkness you could see the spill of blood on the concrete floor and the weasel could be heard outside: “Bastard dog! Bastard dog! I'm going to poison the lot of them!”