6. Outside

Henry Grey is hunched up under the sun, running awkwardly through the grass, his knees complaining. Days of stillness have left him aching and stiff, and the dart gun tucked in his belt is digging into his side. It is a physical shock, the sound of it all, even muffled by his helmet; the harsh cries and melodic song of birds he does not recognize, the whirring and buzzing of insects around him and he wants to capture it all, to keep it and study it and learn, but there is far too much, he cannot possibly hold it in his hands.

He has no need now for spoken prayers, for what is this but an act of praise? Sunlight through the leaves dapples the ground. He looks up at the trees—silver birches, their pale bark shedding like delicate paper. How apt, a symbol of purity. But no. What he'd taken as the fissures of aging bark are streaks of deep red, thick and oozing. It is sap, he realizes, red sap, as though the trees are bleeding. That a landscape may be so imbued with meaning—how can one not see symbolism here? He reaches into his knapsack for a glass vial and pipette, hands shaking in excitement. But the red sap seems to withdraw from his touch—the moment he places the pipette close it coils back on itself. He stares. Perhaps it is the brightness of the sun, an optical illusion. But no matter how hard he tries, he collects no sap. Extraordinary… Is it protecting itself? Protecting the tree? Frustrating, but nonetheless fascinating. Yet time is too precious, he cannot afford to linger when there are other wonders to discover.

He veers away from the track, but not too far. He has thought little of his return. That will come later. For now, he takes out his traps and his nets. The edge of a body of water, that is always a rich place to be, and if he stays very still, yes, just like this, they come to perch on his arms, to investigate his boots—species of dragonflies, beetles, hoverflies, all unknown, unknown to anyone. Translucent wings flicker near his cheek; delicate legs brush across his jacket. Any of them could bring death; instantaneous or drawn-out, agonizing. He thinks about the maps he has pored over. Before the changes, this region was arable land, forest, lakes. You could have found death, perhaps, in the malarial swamps, but no other small creature could kill you. Now, though, who knows what poison the miniscule bodies of these flies contain, what toxins these delicate feet might leave on your skin?

He should be afraid. But he knows how to be still, he knows about mimicry—borrow the appearance of a predator to keep enemies away. Or borrow the appearance of something benign; make yourself into a rock or a tree, this is what he learned to do over many years on the moors back home; to slow his breathing, slow his movements, so these creatures who live so quickly do not perceive him as living at all.

Something brushes across his helmet. He swipes at it, suddenly panicked. Just a vine. He feels a stab of embarrassment, then allows himself a smile at its absurdity—the social burden of an Englishman. The vines drip from branches all around, glistening red. They look like giant spiderwebs, hanging in complex patterns between the trees, shining in what thin sunlight pierces through the branches. No, spiderwebs are the wrong analogy, there is no careful symmetry here, no patient repetitions; they are terrifying in their irregularity, their arbitrariness. Nature is deliberate, he understands this; it is mathematical. But not here.

A rustling from above. He looks up in time to see a huge bird, pale and ghostly, fly through the top-most level of the trees, wings tipping and turning to navigate the branches. He wipes at the glass of the helmet, frustrated by the way it deadens all sound. He wants to feel the air on his face; he wants to smell and touch it all, and he cannot help himself—he takes off his helmet. Instantly, he is overwhelmed by a myriad of scents, dazzled by the cacophony of birdsong. He gazes upward. The bird's beak is sharp and curved and dripping red, and he watches in fascination as it coughs up a thick liquid. When a long thread hangs from its beak it perches on a branch and dips it in the red sap then takes off again, flying between two trees, weaving a web of dripping silk. He scrabbles for his notebook, wishing desperately for more time. If only he could stay longer, there is so much more he could discover, so much to drink in, to smell, to touch, to pin down. But how long would be long enough? It would take a lifetime to understand it all.

Something pushes past him, hard, and he falls. The ground is full of sharp stones and twigs, and the pain brings him back to himself, tears smarting at his eyes. He looks up, his vision blurred, then falls backward. Somehow, he is right in front of the bird's web, though he can't remember walking toward it. But now there is something caught in the web, something between an insect and a bird but as big as a horse, its wings black-feathered and its body furred, though it is struggling so much that he can't fit the pieces together in his mind. Already wet and dripping in the red sap, already beginning to move more sluggishly when the pale bird swoops down headfirst from its perch, wings outstretched, glassy eyes fixed on the struggling creature in the web. There is a desperate moment of thrashing wings and stabbing red beak, of hideous cries that echo around the wood before being cut off, abruptly. Then the pale bird settles itself on the web and falls on its meal. He looks away. Whatever it was, the creature had saved him with its headlong rush into the trap.

What do the webs do? Is it a kind of hypnosis? He has heard of insects tricking their prey in this way, but never birds. The weaving of webs is itself astounding, but for them to have this effect on the mind—on the human mind, not only the animal… If he could only take back some proof. If he could show it at the Exhibition… Shakily, he climbs back onto his feet, ignoring the pain. An entirely new species, a previously unobserved behavior. What better illustration of New Edenic Thought?

He edges toward the web. If he can just take a sample, that's all he needs… He stretches out his hand—

And the trees grow wings and come to life.

Birds launch themselves upward from branch after branch with discordant shrieks until the air is full of pale wings and bright-red beaks. They soar and dive and they cough up the thick, sticky silk and Henry Grey begins to run, but glistening red threads appear across his path and settle on his hair and stick to his skin. He can't get the gun out of his belt, though he tugs and tugs, and what good would a tranquilizer dart do, anyway, against these numbers? Blinded, he plunges on, the shrieks mocking him, the sound of wings ever closer, beaks snapping as the ground beneath him gives way and he stumbles into water, gasping in shock at the cold. The threads weigh him down and the birds tear at his arms as he raises them up to protect his head. He slides farther down. He has always hated water, the dark reservoirs on the moors dead and inert, dragging the sky down into their depths. They made him feel the pull of oblivion. He is a boy again, thrashing in the shallows of a river while his schoolfellows dive and splash, taunting him, grabbing hold of his legs, trying to pull him under. He is sinking; strong arms have wrapped themselves around him, pulling him further and further down, away from the beaks and claws of the birds but toward another kind of darkness. He struggles, scrabbling at whatever is holding him but the arms grip tight. No. Not like this, knowing I have failed… He tries to open his eyes in the murky water, but it is hard to see anything at all and blackness is gathering at the edges of his vision. Weeds float before him, hair-like, a flash of iridescence.

Then—firm arms around him, lifting him up, lifting him out of the pool and setting him down on the ground. Weeds and water becoming human-like. Woman-like. No, a fragment of a dream. His lungs ache. A hand on his face, at his lips. He gasps for breath, coughing up water. How is it possible he is saved? He grasps for the hand, feels a slim wrist, catches a glimpse of skin and eyes. Human but not human. Familiar. He knows this figure, he saw it in the storm. A vision, he had thought, but now he sees that he was wrong. A Wastelands creature.