OUTCAST by Madeleine McDonald, sake

The outcast stumbled over tree roots in the dark, and her feet slithered in mud. The moon appeared fitfully between curtains of rain. The tree-lined road had become a narrow track that petered out in the forest. Even if she retraced her steps, even if she found the main road again, she would find no shelter there. Military vehicles painted with the American flag forced their way through hand-pulled carts, hooting with impatience and spattering mud over foot travellers. An asthmatic bus had laboured up the hillside, but she had no money for the bus fare to the city. Nor did she have money for an inn. She had hoped to find a big village where she could hide in an outbuilding.

Mindful of the kami, the outcast looked neither left nor right. If she showed proper respect and humility to the spirits resident in the trees, rocks and streams, they would let an unworthy person like herself pass without mischief.

She lost one sandal in the mud. She waited in case the fitful moon revealed its location, and hopped a few uneven steps before advancing barefoot over stones that jabbed her feet.

‘I did it for you,’ she whispered.

The listening trees quivered in sympathy, and rustled an invitation.

The outcast tripped and fell full length, too exhausted to rise. If fate took her here, there would be an end to cold, hunger and sorrow. Yet if she died here on the forest floor, she might herself become a kami, a vengeful spirit scouring the highways and by-ways for her faithless lover, ever ready to torment those who had fallen into similar disgrace. The thought propelled her upright again, and she advanced with caution.  

Rain hammered on the canopy of leaves as wind and rain played catch-chase. She pulled the blanket tighter around her, arms aching from the absence of her precious burden. Her daughter was not here, lost in the forest. Her daughter was safe with the gaijin and his wife, in a warm home where she had food and clothes. She had never met the wife, but the gaijin had kind eyes.

He had spoken to her in clumsy Japanese. ‘My friend betrayed you. Your family has disowned you. My wife and I will raise your child in her father’s country. I promise you, she will lack for nothing.’

Only when the child’s father announced his return to America had she learned that a ceremony conducted by a priest was not valid in law. She had struggled to maintain a dignified façade in response to his careless insouciance. ‘Hey, why the long face, baby? We both knew it wouldn’t last.’ She watched him stride back to the army jeep and heard his comrades’ laughter before the door slammed shut. Then she stood alone.

Her mother confiscated the money he left.

The other gaijin, the one with kind eyes, had taken the child into his arms with such care. When the little one whimpered, he had spoken so softly that she strained to hear. ‘Aren’t you the pretty one? We’ll have to find a good American name for you.’ She watched him stroke her child’s hair. After that, the gaijin had pressed money directly into her hands, in breach of the rules of etiquette. ‘Take it, I insist. You need all the help you can get.’ She had rid herself of the handful of notes at the nearest roadside shrine. Placing her offering in the bowl, she bowed, and begged all the deities and kami of the shrine to extend their protection to her infant daughter. A child who would grow up in her father’s country, speaking her father’s language, and forgetting her Japanese heritage. That her daughter’s future was secure did nothing to lessen the knot of sorrow and shame under her breastbone.

The sodden blanket no longer protected her from icy rain. There was no visible path to follow. The bag containing her meagre ration of dried fish was empty. All that mattered was that her daughter was safe, asleep on another woman’s lap.

Remember me, she prayed. Remember your unworthy mother. With her remaining breath, she sang a lullaby to her lost daughter.

A flickering light danced through the trees in front of her; shrill, yappy barks drifted on the wind. The kitsune-bi, the fox fire.

The outcast struggled to her knees and touched her forehead to the ground in sign of respect. ‘Honourable One,’ she stammered. When it bowed in return the kitsune displayed seven tails, whose bushy white fur glinted in a shaft of moonlight.  The apparition became a bride. The bride dissolved into a fox again, the folds of her kimono separating into silvery tails.

‘I was his bride, I was,’ she shouted. ‘You cannot take that away from me.’

The kitsune ignored her impertinent words. It waited, tails swishing with impatience. The wind howled. The listening trees quivered.

The outcast touched her forehead to the ground once more. ‘Honourable One, what must I do?’ The kitsune vanished and the dancing lights beckoned, but a tendril wrapped itself around her ankle, gentle as a lover. She attempted to pull free, although the stem held her close. ‘Stay,’ the rustling leaves pleaded. Pine needles pattered to the ground. Another tendril encircled her knees. ‘The dishonour was not yours. It was his. Become one with us. Stay, and we will cover you with a blanket of fallen leaves. We will leave you sleeping until the buds of spring pierce your skin to herald the returning sun.’

She stroked the tendrils before she disentangled herself. ‘Kodama-sama, I thank you for your benevolence to this unworthy person. My child lives. It is not yet time for me to leave this world of tears. As long as I live, my prayers go with her.’

She ripped a thread from the lining of her food bag and left it at the base of the nearest trunk. As an offering it was pitiful, but the tree spirits would understand that she left part of herself with them.

She blundered towards the teasing lights, which led her out of the forest and onto a road where two stone demons guarded a gateway. In her exhausted state, their bulging, all-seeing eyes and bared teeth appeared almost friendly.

Their presence signified a wealthy house, one where the kitchen maids might give her food and allow her to sleep in an outhouse. Her stomach growled at the thought of food.

Music and laughter came from inside the building. She avoided the lantern-lit front entrance, and slipped unseen towards the back.    

The tang of pine needles lingered on the wind, a soft caress calling her back to the trees, but the mouth-watering aroma of fried dumplings lured her on. A door opened, shedding yellow light on the veranda. and a muscular cook stepped out to throw a pail of dirty water into the yard. He shouted for her to show herself.

‘Well, what’s this blown in on the wind?’ He sounded amused rather than scornful. ‘Let’s have a proper look at you.’ He beckoned her into the warmth and ladled out a bowl of soup. She shrank into a corner and swallowed the hot, onion-laden broth in haste, afraid he might change his mind and throw her out. Instead, an elderly woman appeared, dressed in an painted silk kimono, her face covered in thick white powder. The cook bowed. ‘Here she is, Mother.’ 

‘Stand up.’ The command was issued without a formal greeting, the voice peremptory. The muddy blanket was snatched away and dropped on the floor. ‘Show me your teeth.’ The older woman turned away, telling the cook, ‘She’ll do. I’ll send one of the girls to clean her up.’

The cook bowed low as she swept out.

‘Omae-san, fortune smiles on you,’ he said, handing her a rice cake. ‘Don’t worry, there’s plenty more,’ he added, when she crammed it whole into her mouth. ‘Mother looks after her girls – although she’ll expect you to learn some table manners.’

When someone came to take her to the bath house, the cook winked. ‘Remember me when Mother finds you a rich protector.’

*

The outcast luxuriated in the hot bath. She stabbed a hair stick through the heavy coil of hair and sank into the water up to her neck. It had been many days since she bathed. Clean clothes lay ready beside the tub. The cheap cotton robes were those of a servant, but how long before she was put into a fine kimono and told to earn her keep?

This then was her penance. The kitsune-bi, the fox fire, had lured her here. The stone demons at the gateway had not protected her. Instead they grinned in derision at her puny human efforts to outrun fate.

Under her breath she sang a lullaby to her lost daughter, safe on another woman’s lap.

 About the author 

Madeleine McDonald is a versatile writer whose published work ranges from flash fiction to romance novels.  

 

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Wandering Teeth by Madeleine McDonald, horlicks

‘Bloody relatives!’ The manager banged the phone down. ‘That was Betty Turner’s son. He’s one of them. Doesn’t come near the place all year round but gets an attack of conscience at Christmas and decides to visit.’ 

 ‘Oh! What about–’ ‘

Exactly. What about her teeth!’ 

Charlie Chaplin, the care home cat, chose that moment to pad into the office. ‘Out, Charlie,’ the manager ordered, without malice. ‘Unless you can tell us where to find those teeth.’ 

 Betty’s dentures had been missing for a week. She had developed the unfortunate habit of removing both the upper and lower plates and putting them on the table while she ate, although her table companion Cora complained loudly that this was unhygienic. Betty countered by pointing out that Cora cleaned her reading glasses with the same handkerchief she used to blow her nose. The two women had struck up a companionship of sorts in the care home, largely based on sniping at each other’s habits. 

The overworked and underpaid staff took little notice. The ones who stayed in the job learned to accept the residents’ various versions of reality, and to work around their foibles. They also learned to let distress and grievances go in one ear and out the other. Too much compassion led to burnout. Mealtimes were a matter of routine, so long as each resident was seen to eat something, and so long as the awkward customers did not throw food on the floor or at each other. 

What usually happened was that the carer who cleared away the dirty plates wrapped Betty’s teeth in a paper napkin and returned them to the wash glass in her bedroom. This time, no-one remembered having done so. 

Cora kept quiet. She had taken the dentures to teach Betty a lesson, but had no real idea where to hide them until she spotted the Christmas tree. As always, it took pride of place in the residents’ lounge, a reminder to many of happier times. A carer hurried across the room when she saw Cora fiddling with the strands of tinsel wound in and out of its green branches. ‘Cora, love, let’s leave the pretty decorations for everyone to enjoy. What have you got there?’ 

Cora opened her hand to reveal a felt reindeer minus one antler. The carer dropped it into her pocket and settled Cora back in a chair. She failed to notice Betty’s upper plate, gleaming pink and cream among the profusion of fairy lights, tinsel and sparkly decorations. 

Delighted with her own cunning, Cora forgot about the lower plate, which was still in her trouser pocket when the carers collected the week’s washing. 

Charlie Chaplin got the blame, as he got the blame for many minor incidents. ‘What have you done with Betty’s teeth, you naughty cat?’ The question was rhetorical, a way for the carers to acknowledge his presence as they went about their work. 

With his glossy black coat, white shirt front and white paws, Charlie Chaplin was a firm favourite with residents and staff. Oak Tree Lodge had once been a grand Victorian villa, but an extension built in the 1980s had doubled its size. Charlie patrolled both parts of his territory tail held high, slipping out at night to hunt mice in what was left of the garden. 

During the day, he headbutted his favourite residents on their ankles and left black and white hairs over all the cushions. Both manager and staff felt that vacuuming up a few hairs was a small price to pay for putting a smile on the residents’ faces. 

Many residents led confused, resentful lives, abandoned by relatives who could not cope with their decline. For some, Charlie was the only living being who showed them affection. Like Annie, who so wanted to keep busy ‘helping’ the care staff. Usually, they asked her to dust the windowsills of the entrance hall, which she did, back and forth, over and over again. Unless she encountered Charlie sunning himself on one of the window ledges. Then she tickled his ears and talked to him. Charlie flicked his tail in acknowledgement. 

He found an enemy in Ms Miller, the new cook. Ms Miller had graduated from catering college with top marks; the manager lost no time in placing her photo and certificates in a prominent position on the home’s display board. Apart from a genuine love of food, Ms Miller had a passion for cleanliness, leading by example and scrubbing the kitchen equipment to within an inch of its life. ‘I want that floor clean enough to eat off before you go home,’ she barked at her team. They obeyed, grudgingly, but since no-one could accuse her of idleness, the grumbles were muted. 

In theory, the manager and her staff agreed with the requirement for scrupulous hygiene, but life had taught them to turn a blind eye to some regulations if that kept the residents comfortable. Good cheer was too much to hope for, but a comfortable atmosphere eased the load on the staff. The manager knew certain residents enticed Charlie into their bedrooms, and even up onto their beds, although the rules forbade it. She made sure Ms Miller’s diktats stopped at the kitchen door. 

Until the night Charlie Chaplin found the kitchen door open. Betty’s upper denture had fallen out of the Christmas tree in the lounge right under his nose. The smell was irresistible and Charlie worried at it like prey, rolling it over and batting it along the corridor. 

Somewhere a door banged. Stopped in his tracks, Charlie’s ears swivelled. The wind rattled the windows, but the house remained sunk in slumber. Charlie followed a new, enticing smell to the door of forbidden territory. The scent was all the more enticing for that, and he squeezed his lithe body through the now open door. 

With a leap onto the counter worktop, he discovered a chicken carcase that had been left to cool under a mesh dome. He knocked dome and plate onto the floor, on top of the teeth. 

What were plastic teeth compared to succulent chicken bones? Charlie crunched, nibbled, slept, and nibbled again. 

The first person to arrive in the kitchen the next morning was a trainee. By now Charlie was digesting his feast in the residents’ lounge, and all she saw in her panic was a broken plate and scattered bones. She scooped up the bones and set them on another plate. A quick mop of the floor and all appeared normal. No need to report the unfortunate accident to that pernickety Ms Miller. She would only make a tremendous fuss and want to fill in an incident form. Besides, didn’t she always boast you could eat off her floors? 

Thus Betty’s upper plate, trapped under the chicken’s breastbone, found its way into nourishing, homemade soup. Despite her martinet tendencies, Ms Miller knew the art of using up leftovers, and conjured up tasty dishes on a limited budget. It was one of the reasons the manager put up with her. 

Ladled out by a distracted member of the care staff, Betty’s denture plate plopped into Priscilla’s soup bowl. As ill luck would have it, Priscilla decided the teeth looked sparkly clean – as indeed they did after simmering for hours in chicken broth. When no-one was looking, Priscilla swapped the sparkly white teeth for her own yellowing ones. They did not quite fit, but that did not matter. She admired herself in the mirror every day and the carers were too busy to notice that her top and bottom teeth no longer matched. 

On the other hand, they beamed with relief on reuniting Betty with both dentures. ‘Betty, love, we found them!’ True, Betty’s teeth were no longer the same colour but that was not surprising when the upper plate had been found in a soup bowl and the lower plate had been through a hot wash. 

‘There’s a poltergeist at work,’ one carer declared. ‘Something has disturbed the spirits in the old house. There will be more trouble, you’ll see. ’ But she was known for the doom-laden interpretation of her own daily horoscope, which she downloaded in the tea break and read aloud, so the other carers took no notice. Some happenings were destined to remain a mystery. 

 Poor Betty could only mumble that her teeth did not fit properly, but the staff patted her hand and moved on. Betty’s family made little sense of her mumbling either, and their Christmas visit did not last long. Betty’s face crumpled with distress and her rheumy eyes filled with tears. 

‘Bloody relatives,’ the care home manager huffed as she locked the security door behind them. ‘One visit a year, and he thinks that gives him the right to interrogate me like he’s the Spanish Inquisition. Try doing the job 365 days a year, sonny.’ She paused to compose her own ruffled feathers before scooping up Charlie Chaplin and placing him on Betty’s lap. ‘Look, here’s Charlie come to say hello. You know how much he likes you.’ 

Charlie Chaplin, his crime unpunished, purred a greeting. Betty, recalling the warm weight of long-deceased pets, stroked him in silence. If she did not attempt to talk, her teeth felt almost comfortable. 

About the author

Madeleine McDonald's published work ranges from newspaper columns to Shakespearean sonnets and historical novels. 

Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half towards supporting the project (web site maintenance, preparing the next Best of book etc.)

Grammatically Correct by Madeleine McDonald, espresso

‘You know why you’re here, Elizabeth.’

Three people sat on the other side of the desk, their expressions unfriendly. Her immediate superviser and two women without name lanyards. The younger one had a blue streak in her straggly hair.

‘No, Andy. Or should I say Mr Holmes. I have no idea why you asked to see me.’ Elizabeth laid slight emphasis on the Mr, since this was clearly a formal meeting of some kind. She had never warmed to Andrew Holmes.

‘Allaire was extremely upset. They had to take the afternoon off. Your words exacerbated their underlying anxiety issues.’ That was Blue Streak. Elizabeth reflected that if you were going to call attention to your hair, you should at least invest in a good haircut.

‘And you are…?’

Blue Streak bristled at the challenge. ‘Sam Winters. She/her. EDI.’

Oh! Interesting that the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion department made no mention of Liberty, Elizabeth reflected. Liberty, Equality and Fraternity had been a grand idea – until it led the French to the guillotine.

‘I’m sorry,’ she began in a mild tone. ‘Who’s Allaire? What did I say to upset him?’

‘Them. Please respect their choice of pronoun.’ That was the other woman, fiftyish, wearing a smart grey suit. ‘You questioned their mental health.’

The three waited.

‘If I have upset someone, I will apologise, face to face. But what am I supposed to have said?’

‘I sense hostility in that reply, Elizabeth.’ That was Andrew Holmes. He was not one to defend his staff.

Grey Suit intervened. ‘You sent a memo to all departments asking them to update the inventory of their office furniture.’

Elizabeth agreed. ‘It’s part of my job. I do it every year.’

‘And you added a comment on Allaire’s inventory, a negative comment on his mental health.’

‘What? How? All I do is forward the inventories to the supplies department. They decide what needs replacing.’

Elizabeth stared at her adversaries, bewildered. She could not begin to imagine what had gone wrong with such a simple task. ‘What do you mean? I told you, I don’t even know the guy.’

‘Please use gender inclusive language. Guy is not an appropriate word.’

Elizabeth drew a deep breath. ‘I do not know this person. I also do not know if this person is male or female. I used guy to mean both.’ Even Elizabeth, a stickler for grammar, admitted that ‘he or she’ was a clumsy formulation.

She should have kept her mouth shut. Blue Streak glared at her. ‘Gender-critical views are incompatible with the company’s ethos.’

‘Quite,’ Grey Suit sniffed. ‘Transphobic comments are only to be expected of someone who disparages the mental health of other employees.’ Grey Suit pushed a paper across the desk. One word was highlighted in yellow. ‘We have the evidence.’

‘Oh!’ Elizabeth exhaled her relief. ‘That’s sic, S, I, C, not sick. This is a silly misunderstanding.’

The faces remained hostile, so she tried again. ‘Sic is Latin. You learn it in secretarial training. It stands for thus it was written.’

Andrew Holmes sniffed. ‘Do you really think your secretarial training 40 years ago is relevant in a modern digital office? Latin! That’s dead as a dodo.’

Elizabeth tensed at the reference to her age. The younger generation was so bad-mannered. They didn’t realise they too would grow old one day. Yes, she was 58, but her pension would not be paid until she was 66. She needed a job until then, any sort of paid job. Although she wondered if this particular job was worth it.

She forced herself to remain calm. ‘I’m not aware of any modern alternative. You insert sic in brackets, like I did there, if the original text contains errors. Well, look at the way he filled in the form. List of shares, tables and other ferniture.’

‘Allaire’s native language is not English. The company’s equality, diversity and inclusion policy mandates that we make allowances.’

‘Allaire belongs to a minority group. Are you prejudiced against minorities, Elizabeth?’

The dual onslaught made her grit her teeth. No, I’m prejudiced against people who don’t speak proper English being paid twice as much as me. Aloud, she attempted to defuse the ridiculous situation. ‘I know a lot about prejudice, as it happens. My younger daughter is lesbian. I don’t often talk about her—’

‘Because you’re ashamed of her? Admit it, Elizabeth, you are a bundle of prejudices.’

‘I’m proud of my daughter,’ she snapped. What did these arrogant idiots know about the hurdles her daughter had overcome?

#

The interview panel were not to know that Elizabeth’s daughter’s partner Melanie was a lawyer. Only last month, Mel had moved into a new job specialising in constructive dismissal. People were suing their former employers, and winning considerable compensation, if an unpleasant atmosphere at work drove them to resign. Harassment and hurt feelings could be worth thousands of pounds, Mel had explained.

Elizabeth had an excellent memory. She gave the appearance of listening to the strictures of the interview panel, outwardly agreeing to attend a diversity course, inwardly noting their comments.

She would give them enough rope to hang themselves, and Mel would guide her. Already she envisaged her letter of resignation. A proper letter, impeccably typed, with no grammar or spelling mistakes. 

About the author

Madeleine McDonald's published work ranges from newspaper columns to Shakespearean sonnets and historical novels. Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half towards supporting the project (web site maintenance, preparing the next Best of book etc.)

ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL? by Madeleine McDonald,whisky

 A man elbowed and pushed his way through the tightly packed crowd of revellers, triggering angry complaints. ‘Let me through. It’s an emergency! Let me through.’ Squeezing round a street corner, he stumbled out of breath into the late-night pharmacy, and banged on the screen that protected the counter staff from drunks and drug addicts.

‘Hurry, please. It’s for my baby.’

A woman took the crumpled prescription form with a reassuring smile. ‘You made it just in time.’ She pressed a button and metal shutters clattered down over the front door. ‘I’ll let you out the back way.’

As he waited, the customer’s ragged breathing subsided. He looked round the ordered shelves under harsh strip lighting. A digital clock above the door showed the time and date. It was 23:59 on December 31, 2023.

The street fell silent, waiting. Somewhere a loudspeaker started the countdown and the crowd joined in.

The baby’s father ignored the jubilation. His mind was at home, with his beloved daughter. Would he make it back in time?

A roar erupted outside. The blue figures on the digital clock turned.

Backwards.

 

‘Here you are.’

The distraught father clutched a small brown bottle. ‘God bless you, sir.’

‘Don’t thank me. Thank Alexander Fleming. These antibiotics are lifesavers. Off with you now, and don’t forget, one teaspoonful in her milk, four times a day.’

The pharmacist watched the relieved father run along the deserted street until fog swallowed him from view. He bolted the door, walked through to the back room, and stoked the fire before pouring himself a whisky. He pondered a philosophical conundrum.

The newly discovered antibiotics worked miracles, according to his medical colleagues. He had just handed over medicine that would save a child’s life. However, that very morning he had read an interesting article on overpopulation, predicting wars, famines and migrations on an unprecedented scale.

Only a year ago the parents would have wrapped wet flannel round their daughter’s tiny, feverish body and prayed, unable to afford medicine for her. Now post-war England offered free health care to all. Now the child would survive. She might have a half a dozen grandchildren, and what if they in turn all survived with the help of the new wonder drugs?

He dozed in his chair, and woke in time to raise a glass to the New Year and the post-war world. The socialist government spoke of building a New Jerusalem on the ashes of war, and even their political opponents—of which he was one—acknowledged that the old order could never be restored. One way or another, victory meant change. Were the optimists on the right side of history?

He raised his glass again in mock salute. ‘Dr Fleming, Comrade Atlee, do you know what you’ve unleashed?’

About the author 

Madeleine McDonald's published work ranges from newspaper columns to Shakespearean sonnets and historical novels. 

Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half towards supporting the project (web site maintenance, preparing the next Best of book etc.)

MICE FOR CHRISTMAS by Madeleine McDonald, hot chocolate with marshmallow

 ‘If you don’t laugh at life, you’d cry,’ the card from her best friend said.

A reluctant laugh escaped Jenny when she unwrapped the gift paper and opened a box of ‘alternative’ Christmas tree decorations. Half a dozen pink sugar mice sat among bluebirds and white hearts.

Mice were the least of her problems.

She looked round the bare front room. A new Christmas tree stood in the bay window, festooned with lights. That was Jenny’s way of telling the neighbours she was here to stay. Richard’s house had lain empty for a year and the mice had taken over. But Amanda had also stripped the house of anything valuable before Jenny changed the locks. Her strident claims to possession had convinced the neighbours. ‘That’s Amanda’s house by rights,’ were the first words her next-door neighbour had said.  

As if! Amanda was only the last in a long line of women seduced and later abandoned by her blood father. Somehow, her embittered mother had kept track of his life, and it was Mum who insisted Jenny claim her inheritance. ‘Your father won’t have made a will. He wasn’t that sort. He only married me because you were on the way, and that didn’t stop him running off with that tart.’

So here she was, a homeowner at last. It did not feel cosy, with Amanda challenging her in the street and putting unpleasant letters through the door.   

For Mum’s sake, she would stick it out. Defiantly, she switched on the Christmas lights.

*

It was not until summer that Jenny discovered a briefcase in the shed, pushed behind a box of half-used paint tins. The mice had gnawed through the leather but she identified the remains of a legal document. Richard had indeed made a will, and appeared to have hidden it in a safe place. But its provisions were illegible. Every page had been destroyed by little teeth.

Like so much of his selfish, rackety life, Richard’s last wishes remained a mystery. Jenny, Richard’s daughter in more ways than she knew, scooped the pieces into a little heap and tossed them in the air like confetti. Fortune’s wheel had turned. Thanks to those pesky mice.  

 

About the author 

Madeleine McDonald's published work ranges from newspaper columns to Shakespearean sonnets and historical novels.

Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half towards supporting the project (web site maintenance, preparing the next Best of book etc.)

Dedication

Ahead, the first car blocked the road, doors hanging open. The driver lay collapsed by the front wheel. His dying words were “Shaman ride the wind.”

Closing the man’s eyes, Professor Anton Romanovich sighed. There were no injuries; the man had simply died of fright. Why had Mother Russia ever expanded its empire into the lawless, heathen Stans?

He turned to his assistants. Maxim had dragged Alexandra out of the car and was cradling her across his knees, staunching her blood with his T-shirt and crooning reassurance.

“She needs a hospital.”

“Impossible, Maxim Nikolayevich. We cannot go back. Everyone at the research station was dead when we arrived. Whatever the cause, that building is a reservoir of infection and must be isolated. Even the village must be quarantined. As soon as my phone has a signal, I will send a message.”

“Alexandra needs help now!”

“We are 500 kilometres from the nearest hospital. Even if they send a plane, it would be too late.” The professor knelt beside Alexandra. “What happened?”

“Horsemen,” she gurgled. “In a cloud of dust. They took the samples, professor. I could not stop them.”

“I know, my child.”

He produced a pistol. “Maxim Nikolayevich, make your adieux. This offers a merciful end.”

“Professor, no!” His howl of protest split the sky. There was a flicker of assent in Alexandra’s eyes and the professor smoothed her hair before he pulled the trigger.

Anton Romanovich’s words were fierce. “She understood. What is one death weighed against millions? If what we suspect is true, if it is virus LM14 that has mutated, it is imperative we contain it. If a mutated version reaches China’s cities, the world stands no chance.”

“But how? Those devils will break open the package and smash the sample tubes.”

“No, they will offer them to the shaman. He is our only chance. Hurry now.”

“Yes, we will explain our mission. He will understand.”

“Don’t be a fool, Maxim. The shaman won’t co-operate. He is a parasite, a smelly old man who lives a life of relative ease, because his spells and potions frighten the villagers into giving him food and firewood. He has made trouble for the research station for years.”

“Professor, with respect, Alexandra and I studied local beliefs. Far from being crude superstition, some of their ideas are compelling. Modern medicine has been slow to acknowledge the feedback between mind and body. As you know, the locals believe every living thing possesses a spirit: humans, animals, trees—”

“And viruses? Do they have a soul?” the professor interrupted.

Maxim had no answer.

“We have no time to argue. I must find the shaman. If you wish to leave, go now.”

“What will you say to him?”

“I do not negotiate with charlatans. If he will not surrender the samples to me, I have a grenade of poison gas that destroys everything within a two-kilometre radius. I too will die, but that does not matter. I have dedicated my life to fighting disease, but I am 69 and my best work is behind me.”

Maxim’s voice channelled resolve. “My life ended here, with Alexandra. If our spirits are reborn, I wish mine to be reborn here, alongside hers. I come.”

The second car turned back.

About the author:

Madeleine is the auhtor of  A Shackled Inheritance, Enchantment in Morocco