Filaria - Brent Hayward [10]
“Another project?” She was bored by this digression; she only wanted the catacola bianca.
“What do you know about pheromones?”
“Oh boy. Pheromones. Leave me out of this one, Sam.”
“They’re scents that moths use to attract — ”
“I know what pheromones are,” Deidre said. “And for the record, not only moths use them. Really, though, I don’t want to know about this project. It sounds positively creepy.”
“But D, in just a few days — ”
“I’m serious. I don’t want to know. Just let me hunt the Underwing a bit more. My dad doesn’t have to know you made it. It could’ve survived here for hundreds of years, without being discovered. Or it might have come up from some level below — no one knows what goes on down there anyhow. Or maybe it could’ve escaped from a lab somewhere?”
The dead boy shook his head. “Your father doesn’t miss anything. He is a . . . profound Orchard Keeper.”
“That’s the wrong word, Sam. You’re losing what little mind you have left. And anyhow, if my dad doesn’t miss anything, how can you explain you going undetected all these years?”
The grin flashed again. “I’m more wily than a moth, D. Like I said, me being discovered will never happen.” He paused, as if listening. “The bianca is dead. It’s on its back, twitching one foreleg, over there.” When the boy stood on the rock, to point, the gashes on his neck opened again, making a wet, audible sigh; Deidre grit her teeth.
Sliding down from the rock, and into the water, he came wading toward the bank of the feed stream, shoulders straining. “I’ll take you to the body. You can still mount it — if you promise not to show it to your dad.”
“I’m not an idiot, Sam. You treat me like a kid. Every morning you make me promise the same damn thing.”
Stepping, dripping, to stand before her, the boy, of course, was much shorter; Deidre was fourteen, alive, and still growing. She marked her height on the doorjamb of her bedroom, up in Elegia. She had grown a lot since last summer.
She did not want to take the clammy hand, which was now held out: though she made a concerted effort to treat the many facets of Sam — scattered as they were, throughout her father’s plantation — as equals, she could not help being squeamish at the idea of touching this particular one. She much preferred the formalities of the main console, or the company of the bluebirds, who never said anything and demanded very little. The dead boy always wanted to be held, or hugged, or otherwise touched.
She did not approve of his nudity either, to say nothing of those ghastly gashes on his neck.
Still feeling somewhat angry at not being able to continue chasing the moth, Deidre folded her arms and produced her best pout; the boy, knowing better, did not press the matter any further. Instead, he shrugged, lowered his hand and, without another word, picked his way over the terrain ahead. His damp white feet always looked soft, almost bursting, like ripe fruit, the skin sensitive and thin, so he moved slowly, taking every precaution to avoid stepping on sharp stones or ancient things hidden in the soil — absurdly, thought Deidre, since he was already dead.
After a short while, the boy looked over his shoulder. He pointed up beyond the thin clouds with one finger, to the ceiling, toward Elegia, and asked, “How are things, D? Up there? Any issues? Because I just heard that parts of the sky were falling.”
“The sky?” Deidre scowled. This was more than an attempt to resume conversation and possibly ease tensions between the two: though the plantation supervisor and his incarnations could appear omnipotent, Sam actually knew little about life, and the conditions in which life existed, outside of his jurisdiction. Concerning the estates overhead, distant communities down here, and the mysterious levels beneath this one, he was virtually blind.
Previous to these mornings of big moths, as an experiment, Deidre had tried to get a bluebird to fly up the lift shaft so that Sam could see, through the bird’s little black eyes, visions of where Deidre lived: the vast lawns of Elegia, her father’s mansion,