The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure - By Storm Constantine Page 0,80

seen one. But where did he progress from here? He did not expect the girl to take to him, it would be unrealistic to imagine so. But she held the answers. She had the history in her.

Ulaume narrowed his eyes and scanned the night. He sensed a dark cloud hanging over the hill, although the night was clear.

‘Her name,’ Lileem said, ‘is Mima.’

Ulaume and Lileem were sitting in the garden. The girl would not move from her place by the stove, other than to visit the small bathroom off the kitchen. She had lived there, a silent, brooding presence, for another three days. She would not acknowledge Ulaume existed, and he pretended she wasn’t there.

‘You must ask her something,’ Ulaume said. ‘I want you to ask her to examine her own body. Ask her if there are any changes.’

‘Why?’

‘I think you incepted her accidentally.’

Lileem grinned. ‘Made her like me? Is that possible?’

‘How should I know? It’s as much of a mystery to me as to you. But perhaps, if we find out, we’ll learn a little about how you might be one day.’

Ulaume’s heart clenched at the sudden flowering of delight and hope in Lileem’s face. ‘You can also ask her how she feels, if she’s noted any differences about her perceptions, that is, how she sees the world and hears it, and what she does not hear or see but somehow knows.’

Lileem nodded vigorously. ‘I will! I will!’ He hugged Ulaume fiercely. ‘Thank you, Lormy. Thank you for giving this to me.’

Ulaume laughed uncomfortably, remembering his own bitter thoughts at the poolside before Lileem’s accident. ‘I did nothing: you did.’

‘You could have left her to die. You helped her live.’

‘That is true. Perhaps I am a nicer har than I think I am.’

Ulaume waited for Lileem to come back to him with answers, and was therefore surprised when Mima herself addressed him in the kitchen the following morning. It was preceded by a punch in the face, which took him even more by surprise. As he was picking himself up from the floor, fully prepared to defend himself in the most vigorous manner, Mima pushed back her hair and said, ‘The child says something has been done to me, the same thing you do to boys. Is that true?’

Ulaume merely flared his nostrils. ‘When you can behave with dignity and courtesy I may be moved to answer your queries.’ He stalked out into the garden and began picking berries from a rather straggling bush.

Mima followed him and hovered behind him. Ulaume hid a smile. He could sense Pellaz strongly. After a while, Mima said, ‘There are changes. I am different.’

Ulaume waited a moment, then glanced round at her. ‘That is perhaps unfortunate. I can do nothing to help you now and Lileem is only a child.’

‘What do you mean?’

He shrugged carelessly. ‘Well, in Wraeththu, you have to take aruna after inception. But no females become Wraeththu, so you’re probably not har. I don’t know what you are.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Explain.’

‘Aruna is sex. You need it to finish the inception. But there’s no one for you to do it with. You are not har. I can sense it. Maybe you don’t even need it. Who knows?’ He turned back to the berry-picking.

‘I am not the same as I was. Is this what you are, what Lileem is?’

Ulaume shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’m not even sure what Lileem is. He was exposed by his parents in the desert to die, so you can be sure he’s not normal.’

Mima screwed up her eyes, rubbed her face in confusion. ‘The child is a girl, anyone can see that.’

‘Well, perhaps that is the reason then. But if so, he – or she – is not a human girl. He’s a freak, and so are you.’

‘I do not feel like a freak,’ Mima said and her tone caused Ulaume to stop what he was doing and pay her more attention.

She squatted down in front of him. ‘May we talk?’

‘If you can keep your hands to yourself, yes.’

‘I have lived a nightmare, can you understand that?’

He nodded.

‘I have lived in a dark world, watching myself. Whatever has just happened to me brought me back. I awoke a few days ago and I was back in the real world, no longer just a spectral observer. It has taken me some days to accept this, for it had been my decision to leave my own mind.’

‘What happened?’ Ulaume asked.

Mima stood up, and gazed down