Sundial by Catriona Ward

Author:Catriona Ward [Ward, Catriona]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

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NIMUE HAS GONE wandering, and Jack and I walk the perimeter fence, to see if she has broken out. We call her name and listen for the soft ring of her bell. We pass the sundial, and the spring. The rose is not in bloom. It looks like a dead piece of stick with some leaves on it. Something’s caught in the wire fence, somewhere, and it keeps making a thudding ding as the wind swings it, again and again. It’s really irritating.

My resentment is a fiery seed in my stomach, growing each day. I watch how they fuss over her, how they note how much she eats for breakfast. They try to tempt her to smile with her favorite books and food. The seed burns harder and brighter until my chest is filled with a burning star.

“I don’t understand why you’re here, I don’t need you to look for a cow,” Jack says.

“Mia told us to stay together.”

“You do everything they say. This place is nonsense. Falcon and Mia are such fakes—look at all that stuff they do with the dogs; it’s cruel.”

“It’s important research,” I say. Research is a sacred word at Sundial.

“Really, Rob? You think so? That MK Ultra thing with the controller—it’s not even their own idea. The CIA did the same experiment with electrodes in dog brains back in the sixties. Making them run in a square, lie down, bark … They gave up because it had no practical application. Falcon and Mia are just hippies who want to be important.”

“Why do they do it then?”

“You just don’t think, do you?”

The thudding carries on, regular, something hitting the fence. It seems designed to give me a headache. I find the perfect dart to wound. “Did the guy with the Chevy tell you that?”

Jack goes white and her teeth nibble her lower lip. Her escape has never been mentioned between us until now. “Shut up!” She picks up a rock and hurls it at me. It whirs by my head, sending pulses of horror through my chest.

“At least I know what’s real.” Jack’s voice is high and uneven.

“I don’t, I suppose.” I mean to say this but it comes out more like yelling. “Fine. Go. Do whatever. What the hell is that sound?”

Thunk, thunk.

She’s staring behind me at the fence. I turn and follow her gaze. A jackrabbit stands in the distance. After a moment, it comes down on all fours. It runs straight at the fence. Thunk. The rabbit picks itself up again and wanders. Then it runs at the fence again, making for the desert. It doesn’t seem to understand that there’s a fence between it and all that open space. Thunk. I see, then, that there are two red holes where its eyes should be.

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