Cloner A Sci-Fi Novel About Human Clonin - By Emma Lorant
CHAPTER 1
It was when she found the four-leaf clover that Lisa Wildmore knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that she’d give birth to twins. What Lisa did not, could not, know was that that would just be the beginning.
She was walking Seb to Crinsley Farm for his first birthday party. Meg Graftley had absolutely insisted on it.
‘Born and bred in Lodsham,’ she’d laughed at them both, brown eyes twinkling, sleeves rolled up above her elbows. ‘That do call for a proper Somerset cream tea. Come along about four, when us be finished with churning butter.’
Seb’s legs dangled over Lisa’s bare shoulders. She clasped his hands and jogged him to their gate. Alec would be driving them back. No need to trundle the pushchair the long way round by road.
‘Look at that, Seb!’ Lisa called to her little boy, amused, as a lone duck plodded heavily along the road in front of their drive. ‘Look at that big fat duck!’
The drab bird turned to squawk annoyance, two V-shapes of open beak exploding curses at them, the flailing wings threatening attack.
‘Quack, quack; quack, quack!’ Lisa parroted, bouncing Seb up and down but keeping well out of the bird’s way. Beady eyes gleamed as the duck ruffled her feathers towards them. Lisa retreated hastily behind their wrought-iron gate.
‘Not being very nice, is she?’ Lisa asked Seb. ‘I always thought ducks were supposed to be friendly.’
A squeal of brakes made Lisa wince. The passing motorist slowed down for just a moment, swerved a wide curve towards the gate and away again, then revved up and roared off. To Lisa’s astonishment there was no flurry of scattered feathers, no limp body to be seen. The large and angry bird had disappeared. In its place she saw two ordinary farm ducks waddling contentedly along the road.
All the same, Lisa thought heatedly, the locals drive too fast. Some of the feedstuff lorries clattered along these meandering lanes at outrageous speeds.
‘Best jump on they verges,’ Meg had suggested, right from the start, when they’d first met Meg and Frank Graftley, running the farm across the field from them. ‘They drivers don’t go too near them rhynes if them can help it.’
‘You mean they’re afraid of drowning in those ditches?’ Lisa had wanted to know. ‘I’ve never seen much water in them.’
‘Well,’ Meg had shifted her eyes away, ‘that do depend. We’ve had mostly fair weather since you be settled here. There can be some nasty mishaps at times.’ Her face had brightened slightly, though Lisa had noted the lines around her mouth were deep with tension. ‘That’s mostly if a driver’s had a jar too many,’ Meg went on, her shoulders more relaxed. ‘What really worries ’em is they banks giving way when wet; the milk tankers’ll slip right in. Devil of a job to get they out again.’
Today, Lisa told herself briskly, pushing unwelcome thoughts away, was a red-letter day. She wanted to savour it, to walk with her little boy who had just learned to do so. Seb was a toddler now. She was the mother of a child; she’d brought him safely through babyhood. That first year had been hard work, but the rewards were all she’d hoped for. She radiated happiness.
Scanning right, left, right Lisa shut their gate, darted across the road and stepped the few yards more towards the metal field gate. Splinters of cracking paint spiked her fingers as she undid the latch. She could already see the chimneys of Frank Graftley’s farm, embraced by willows sifting the wind, four hundred yards across the moor.
Lisa squeaked the old five-bar open and walked through. She turned to click the bolt and caught sight of her home. The large late Victorian house she and Alec had bought nearly two years ago perched serene and confident on its little knoll. Mellow red brick, a slate roof, tall chimney stacks; it was set high above the wetlands to avoid winter floods.
‘A square house,’ Rex Smollett, the local builder, had pronounced it approvingly. Somerset dialect for solid, she and Alec had gathered. ‘Plenty of space for a good-sized family,’ the builder had added, eyeing Lisa’s slim body.
Much later Lisa was to realise that it had all started then, almost from the moment when they first arrived. The omens were there, if she’d only known how to interpret them. A jungle of elders had overshadowed their long drive, twisting, menacing. Some said elder was the tree Judas hanged himself on. The juice of elderberries stripped by birds had