A Different Kingdom(35)

'Come on, you'll catch your death.'

She had her head tilted to the rain and was catching it in her open mouth, her tongue stuck out to suck it in. She paused to look at him for a moment, then shrugged and joined him in the hut.

It seemed suddenly very crowded in there. She was wet through. What was it she liked so much about getting wet? The smell intensified. He could feel the warmth of her, and steam was already beginning to curl from her bare arms. A dark nipple looked ready to pierce the wet material of her dress. She pressed against him and he drew the musty blanket round both their shoulders, dizzy with apprehension, drunk with her nearness. Her dampness sank into his clothes. Her hair smelled of earth, rain, and a catch of that gorse blossom, summery as mown hay. He kissed her wet temple, her eye, the lid quivering under his lips. Her hand slipped inside his coat, wormed its way past his jumper to lie cold against his ribs. She had chilled fingers, though the rest of her was steaming, warm, reeking.

She was asleep. 'Cat?' Whispered.

Nothing.

So even fairies had to sleep. He leant back against the wall of the shelter, hearing it creak ominously, and watched the fire fight the battery of the rain. Cat grew cold, goosepimpled, and he drew her across his lap, hugged her tight to his warmth and wrapped his coat around her.

I'm in love, he thought, and laughed quietly at the rain and the empty wood.

THE RAIN STOPPED after a while and he shifted his burden to let his arms breathe again. She was awake instantly, eyes open and pupils wide and black in the dimness. The fire was down to a lump of glowing log that smoked fitfully. Night had come upon them in the wake of the rain.



She sat up, shivering, her hair in wet rats' tails. Michael was damp, too, and cramped. An hour, she must have slept in his arms. He creaked his way out of the hut and stood up, stretching. Overhead branches dripped water on to his face. The fire was all but dead. He should be getting home.

Cat was sitting with her arms about her knees and the blanket over her shoulders, staring at him. 'What's the matter?' he asked her.

'Not a thing... Well, I'm cold, if you must know.'

'You should wear decent clothes.'

'Decent he says.' She rubbed her raw elbows gingerly. 'It's all right for you.'

'What do you mean?'

'It doesn't matter. Get the fire going. This is not my season. Chill rain, the leaves dying, nights a day long. Oh, no.'

Michael set about resurrecting the fire, wondering what she was talking about. She seemed suddenly petulant, snappish. Warmth would cheer her up, he decided.

Yellow light flickered over their faces. Cat's shift was still dripping and Michael wondered if he dared suggest she take it off.

A crow of laughter, ending in a giggle. She had found his spear.

'A mighty hunter you will be, with a weapon such as this!' She wrenched the stone blade from the shaft with a flick of her wrist.

'Hey!' He was outraged. He tried to wrest it out of her grasp but she wriggled like an eel and sent it flying out of the firelight. He bore her to the wet ground and set his weight atop her, not entirely sure what he was doing, but before he could decide she sent a narrow fist flying into his nose and stars exploded in his head. He rolled aside clutching at his face whilst her laughter rose in the night.

'A little over-eager there, Michael!'

'You ... bugger,' he muttered, feeling the slow slide of blood down his upper lip. It smeared the back of his hand.

She was beside him in a flash, knees sinking in the wet clay.

She touched his battered nose with her fingers.

'I'm sorry . I did not mean to pain you.'

'Aye, right.'

She pulled him close. 'I would not hurt you, Michael.'

Was the fire somehow in her eyes or was there a light there, yellow as candles?

She licked the blood from his lip like a cat lapping milk. He could taste it as her tongue pushed inside his mouth. There was that tightness, that blooming warmth below his stomach. Her fingers brushed him there and he flinched, the breath sawing in his throat.

'Who are you?' he whispered.

Her mouth silenced him. They lay down beside the crackling fire and she tugged her shift above her waist. He saw the dark pelt between her legs, thick as fur, and fumbled with his trousers. Cold air and warm flame on his naked skin. He lay on her and she guided him, spoke to him in a low voice as though he were a horse to be calmed. And he was there, in her.

'God.'

He pushed and thrust, something within him taking over. Her hands were like claws on his shoulders and he heard her whimper as he pressed her buttocks into the cold earth. The wind was in the trees, oddly like the sea in a seashell: the circulation of his churning blood. And then there was a paroxysm that shuddered through him. He cried out into her shoulder, feeling her hand on the back of his head.

He was in the wood, inside the wood, spliced into the fabric of the trees. And it was within him also, its roots the network of his arteries. For a brief moment he thought he knew what the Other Place was, where it lay.