GALLEY BEGGAR PRESS SHORT STORY PRIZE 2025/26

LYNDA CLARK  

‘Head Babies’

MS O’SHEA SQUEEZED BETWEEN THE DESKS with the clear plastic bag of heads, all different hair and skin colours. Her swollen belly impeded her movement, but she nevertheless navigated the classroom, placing a head in front of each student and reminding everyone: ‘Anyone loses their head — automatic fail. Anyone customises, cuts, “redesigns” or otherwise disfigures their head — and I’ll know — automatic fail. Keep your head in line of sight at all times. You may, by agreement with me, arrange a sitter if circumstances dictate. Do not collude with one another to watch each other’s heads. I. Will. Know. Yes, Adrika?’

‘But wouldn’t we help each other? If this were real, I mean?’

‘It is real.’ Ms O’Shea placed a head on the edge of Cadi’s desk. ‘But it’s also an assignment. And as such, it’s about your individual ability to maintain a head.’

Cadi’s assigned head was white, and, she thought, male. He had longish brown curly hair, a broad nose, and a small, deep cleft in his chin. She longed to push her finger into it.

‘Don’t touch yet!’ This was directed at Jadon. He’d already picked up his head and was puppeteering its jaw with its beard to make Sarah scream. He juggled the head in a panic at Ms O’Shea’s barked instruction, narrowly avoiding dropping it. ‘Don’t forget your care kits. Obviously, your heads have already been sterilised and embalmed. However, you’ll find in your kit disposable gloves, saline, formalin, cotton and waxed paper. As you should know by now, these will help maintain your head and delay decomposition. If you run out of anything, you’re using too much.’

Cadi opened the cardboard box in front of her and idly checked the contents, ignoring the care leaflet. She’d spent the last few weeks watching instructional videos and asking her mam all kinds of questions. She raised her hand.

‘Yes, Cadi?’

‘Does the prize still stand?’

Ms O’Shea halted in her head distribution. Only a few were left, and the remaining students were whispering among themselves that they didn’t want the last one because it was bound to be the heaviest, and who wanted to lug that around all Summer? Ms O’Shea looked straight at Cadi and her fingers tightened around the bag’s rim but eventually she just said: ‘Yes,’ and moved on.

Cadi grinned. She wasn’t just going to ace the assignment, she was going to win cold hard cash and a scholarship to the best college in the country.

‘All right, that should be everyone. Does anyone not have a — Yes, Caelin?’

‘Can we put make-up on ‘em?’

Ms O’Shea tossed the empty bag onto her desk, pushed her hands into the small of her back and jutted her protruding stomach forward. ‘I just want to remind you all that these generous alumni donated their very selves so that you could learn this important and time-honoured lesson. They are not toys. They are not pets. They’re to be treated with the utmost care and respect for the duration of the assignment.’

‘I’m not going to make her look inappropriate,’ said Caelin, sounding put out. ‘I just wanna make her pretty.’

Ms O’Shea sighed deeply. ‘Sure, Caelin. Whatever. But if I find out it’s because your cat ate one of her eyebrows, I will fail you.’

‘Just because my sister’s an idiot don’t mean I am!’ Caelin folded her arms. ‘And anyway, the cat’s dead now.’

Ms O’Shea didn’t even pretend to care about Caelin’s dead cat. She caressed her bump through the stretched fabric of her dress. ‘Have a good summer everyone, see you in six weeks.’

Most people shoved their heads in their school bags, or the care kit boxes, and raced out the room. Caelin had her mam’s old leather head case. The case had a padded silicone interior with an impression in the centre about the right size for most neck stumps. Caelin’s head fitted perfectly. She carefully tucked his hair around him so it wouldn’t get caught in the zipper and closed the bag.

Adrika joined her. Adrika’s head was in a supermarket carrier bag, but it was at least a Bag for Life.

‘I’m glad you asked about the prize,’ she said. ‘I’ve been thinking about it too.’

They left the classroom with a wave to Ms O’Shea and headed down the corridor to freedom.

‘The only reason the prize still exists is because it’s impossible to win,’ said Caelin, who’d apparently been lurking by the lockers waiting for them. She’d double bagged her head, stuffing it first inside the care box and then inside her school bag. Cadi suspected the poor thing would already have pressure marks. Not that you could tell Caelin anything. ‘This whole thing is impossible,’ Caelin insisted.

‘Course it isn’t,’ said Cadi. ‘My mam got an A.’

Caelin scoffed. ‘She might’ve told you that. Barely anyone gets even a B because it’s not possible to keep a head from rotting for six weeks over summer. That’s the whole point of the assignment. It’s to encourage people to try in the face of adversity.’

‘I thought it was to teach us to care for our most vulnerable,’ said Adrika, pushing open the double doors to the outside world.

‘Sure,’ Caelin snorted, ‘that’s what they want you to think!’

*

‘Mam, did you really get an A in PA?’

‘Of course I did.’ Mam was washing her hands the surgical way at the kitchen sink, up to the elbows, never touching the taps. ‘Head away and lay the table.’

‘Is Granny coming?’

‘Not tonight, love, it’s too much of a palaver getting her up the stairs and work was a killer today. You can go and read to her later if you like. Now stop stalling.’

Reluctantly, Cadi closed Cael’s case and took him through to the utility room.

She hadn’t named him that because of Caelin. He just looked like a Cael.

She put the case in Mam’s specimen fridge and closed the door. She was lucky to have that, she knew. Adrika had already texted that her mam had freaked out about keeping the head in the kitchen fridge, and so she’d had to put it in a cooler bag in her bedroom. The weather hadn’t really warmed up yet, but when it did—

‘Cadi!’ Mum shouted through from the kitchen. ‘Ye’d better not be smooching that bloody head in there!’

‘Ewww, Mam, gross!’ Cadi giggled and hurried back to get the cutlery.

*

‘It must happen,’ said Adrika, sounding almost excited when Cadi told her the next day.

‘No way!’ said Cadi.

They were crossing the park to the old redwood. It was raining, so Cadi had put Cael in her brother’s old pushchair with a waterproof cover. Adrika just had her Bag for Life, but her head was wearing a polythene headscarf. The pushchair wheels squeaked on the wet grass.

When they reached the mostly-dry oasis beneath the tree’s branches, Adrika laid out a tarp and then the picnic blanket on top. Cadi took the hamper from under the pushchair and paper plates and plastic cups from the bag slung between the pushchair’s handles. Next, they arranged the heads. Adrika had sneaked her mam’s neck pillow to keep her head upright, and Cadi had a velvet cushion from the best room. Mam wouldn’t have minded if Cadi had said what it was for, but she felt weird about it, so claimed it was for her to sit on while they ate.

‘Bet Jadon’s kissing his,’ said Adrika, sitting cross-legged, facing her head.

‘No way.’ Cadi took out cheese and ham sandwiches for herself and cheese and pickle for Adrika. ‘Jadon’s head was a guy. Beard and everything.’

‘So?’ Adrika shot her a sidelong glance, eyes dancing.

‘What have you called yours?’

Adrika’s head looked kind of like Adrika herself. Long silky black hair and full lips. She even had a little beauty spot on her cheek too.

‘Saba,’ said Adrika, smiling. ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’

The head was already looking a little grey, cheeks and neck dulled.

‘Isn’t that Ms O’Shea’s name?’

‘Oh is it? Didn’t know.’ Adrika took a bite of her sandwich and chewed it quickly. ‘I’ll give you my Freddo if you kiss him.’

‘No way!’

‘They don’t have germs, or they wouldn’t be used in class.’

‘I know that. I’m more likely to give him bacteria. And if his lips rot off, there goes my A!’

Cadi shuffled back until the spongy bark was against her spine. Cael looked lovely in the dappled light. Like a sleeping angel. She’d only done one night soaking his neck stump in the solution, but she already felt like there was a bloom to his cheeks. They sat for a moment eating their sandwiches and listening to the rain patting against the canopy of the tree. You couldn’t hear the convoys out here, and the birds tended to stay away from anyone humanoid.

‘Anyway,’ Cadi continued, ‘I’ve already got my own Freddo.’

‘I know,’ said Adrika, adjusting the headscarf under Saba’s chin. ‘But if you kissed him, you’d have two.’

*

By the time Cadi got home it was late afternoon, and Mam still wasn’t back from the lab, so it was up to Cadi to take care of Granny. She put Cael away in the specimen fridge but left the pushchair out in the hall to dry. Mam wasn’t sentimental about things like that anyway.

Cadi ran her fingers through the ends of Cael’s hair to keep it from tangling, then took some of Granny’s meds from the bottom of the fridge. She’d added a bit of the concentrated blue mixture to water to make Cael’s night-time solution. They’d tried a few different kinds for Granny over the years, and a thick paste seemed the easiest, safest way to administer it. Granny seemed to enjoy it that way, too.

Cadi unlatched the cellar door and headed downstairs. They were lucky to be able to keep Granny at home. Adrika’s grandparents were all in a government facility. Mam had warned that if ever work got too crazy, Granny might have to go there too, so it couldn’t be so bad, but Cadi preferred having her at home. People said they took good care of people there, but they’d lost Adrika’s father’s father five months ago, so Cadi wasn’t convinced.

Granny heard the door open and started moaning.

‘It’s OK Gran,’ Cadi called down. ‘Only me. Down in a mo!’

She put Granny’s bowl on the landing while she took the gauntlets from their hook on the back of the door and pulled them on. Mam had ‘borrowed’ them from work. They were thicker than the ones you could get at the supermarket, and offered better dexterity. Cadi wiggled her fingers to make sure, then picked up the bowl. The spoon was also from Mam’s lab, a special polymer that wouldn’t break off or pierce Granny’s mouth even if she bit down hard. But Granny hadn’t had an episode in months. This iteration of the paste was the best yet.

There was an old quiz show on Granny’s TV. She couldn’t play along anymore, of course, but she seemed to like the bright colours and the noises and the endless parade of contestants hoping to win their way out. Cadi picked up the remote and lowered the volume. Granny shifted her rheumy eyes from the screen towards Cadi, trying to see her. The old woman twisted in her chair, tightening the restraints against her skinny wrists.

‘Hey, hey,’ said Cadi, approaching carefully from the front like the doctors had taught her when she was little. ‘No need for that. I brought your paste.’

She held the spoon aloft, and Granny leaned forward, mouth gaping obediently.  ‘There we go,’ said Cadi. ‘Yummy paste!’ 

*

Caring for Cael was easy by comparison. Each morning Cadi retrieved him from the fridge, detangled his hair with her fingers and gently brushed his teeth with a soft old toothbrush. Mam wouldn’t let her put him on the breakfast table, so he had to go back in the fridge for a while. Mam insisted Ms O’Shea wouldn’t know. As long as he showed up in the house while Cadi was in the house, that would be good enough. The implanted trackers were good, but not that good, Mam said. Cadi felt a bit like it was cheating, and she didn’t just want an A like Mam, she wanted the prize, but there was no point in arguing. Mam was as stubborn as Caelin sometimes.

After breakfast, Cadi would work on some of her other projects in her room with Cael on the edge of her desk and she’d talk to him and ask his advice. He didn’t respond, of course, but by the end of the week she was convinced his hair was glossier than when she first got him, if not longer and thicker.

Afterwards she’d make lunch for herself and Grandma and put him away in the specimen fridge again, because she worried that seeing him might upset Grandma. The doctors always said Grandma didn’t think that way anymore, but they also said she behaved better for Cadi than they’d ever seen anyone be for anyone and Cadi was certain that was because she made sure not to change Grandma’s environment too much, or do anything that might startle or scare her. Cadi had first been praised for her handling techniques aged six and she still nursed that compliment nearly six years later. It was why she was sure she’d succeed in the assignment where everyone else had failed.

In the afternoons, she’d take Cael out in the pushchair, although nowhere too public, because not everyone approved of the annual PA project. Some people thought children shouldn’t be taught PA at all, because, like Caelin, they thought it meant accepting the status quo rather than looking to improve things. But Cadi was sure if she won it’d prove what they were doing, what Mam was doing, was worthwhile.

When she got home, sometimes Mam would be back, and sometimes she wouldn’t and sometimes Granny would join them for dinner and sometimes she wouldn’t but the day always ended with Mam reminding Cadi to do all Cael’s final checks and procedures before bed. As if she’d forget.

She’d use the little counter in the utility room, putting on a pair of Mam’s latex gloves, because they were thinner than the school-issued ones. Cadi liked feeling Cael’s musculature and bone structure beneath her fingers, the gentle give of his skin as she held each eye open and droppered the saline inside. His eyes were pale milky blue, but if things went as planned, they’d regain their sharpness by the end of summer. She imagined staring into them as he blinked slowly, sapphire-bright.

Sometimes, if Mam was busy with Granny, Cadi imagined those piercing eyes locking onto hers and rubbed her hands over the mound at the front of her jeans until it throbbed and her knees felt weak. Then she’d lift him out of his case, put a tiny bit of Gran’s paste into the base of the head case with a drop or two of saline, and put him back on top. She’d already thought of the excuse she’d use if Mam noticed. That she’d dropped Gran’s spoon, and it had spattered a bit of paste in there. But Mam wasn’t interested in Cael, and by the time Cadi fetched him each morning to clean his teeth, all the solution had been absorbed, just as she’d hoped.

*

Halfway through the holidays, Cadi had a near miss. She was on her way to meet Caelin with Cael strapped into the pushchair. It was sunny, so she’d carefully applied a layer of suncream to his skin and found one of her brother’s old baseball caps that never got sent to the relief centre. There was no denying the rosiness of Cael’s cheeks now. He looked for all the world like he’d simply closed his eyes for a minute to enjoy the sunshine.

She was cutting across the park because Caelin wanted to meet at the ice cream parlour, even though Cadi said it wasn’t a good idea to take their heads there. Cadi was surprised to see a group of the boys playing football on the grass. One boy had his head strapped into a baby carrier on his chest, but the others had just discarded theirs along the touchline. They were even using a couple as goal posts. All the heads were in varying stages of decay, greys and yellows and greens, some with sunken eye sockets and thinning hair. The left goal post was the worst, cheeks blackened with bruises, the once-luxurious beard half ripped out, one ear hanging loose. She watched in horror as Jadon ran forward with the ball at his feet. He blasted it towards the goal and struck the head full in the face, breaking its nose and sending it bouncing across the goal line after the ball. The boys whooped and laughed, clapping Jadon’s shoulders, apparently oblivious to the horrific injury he’d just caused.

‘Hey!’ Cadi found herself shouting. ‘Hey, you shouldn’t do that!’

‘Says who?’ asked Jadon, mouth twisting into a sneer.

‘I… M-m-m-Ms O’Shea says—’

‘Ms O’Shea says a lot of things,’ said Jadon. ‘It’s my head now, I’ll do whatever the hell I want with it.’ And he turned and kicked the head hard, busting its cheek bone and sending it sailing away up the field. The other boys watched it go and fell silent. Playing around was one thing, but everyone in town had at least one family member— ‘Now clear off or yours is next.’

Blinking back tears, Cadi swerved the pushchair away and hurried on towards the ice cream parlour. Jadon raced to block her way.

‘She thinks it’s a baby!’ he laughed, pointing at Cael. ‘She thinks the head’s a baby!’ And he leaned forward and snatched Cadi’s head from the pushchair.

‘Jadon, c’mon…’ said the boy with the head in the baby carrier. ‘Leave her alone. You know where her Mam works.’

Jadon held Cael carelessly, one hand across the head’s mouth, the other twisted in its hair. A devilish gleam came into the boy’s eyes, and he lifted Cael a little and drew back his foot as if he planned to do a drop kick. Cadi couldn’t speak, her mouth as numb and dead as Cael’s. She closed her eyes, but opened them again when she heard Jadon cry out.

‘It bit me!’ he gasped, allowing Cael to fall from his fingertips and thud unharmed onto the soft grass without even losing his baseball cap. ‘The boggin’ roaster bit me!’ He pulled a tube of antiseptic gel out of his back pocket and massaged it into his fingers.

‘It didn’t bite ye,’ the baby-carrier lad protested. ‘You mashed yer sausage fingers into its mouth.’

As they argued over whether a long-dead, thoroughly sanitised head could have bitten, Cadi scooped Cael back into the pushchair and hurried to meet Caelin.  

*

‘What an absolute tube that Jadon Laird is,’ said Caelin as she perused the plastic menu.

Cadi already regretted coming. She would have rather met Adrika, but Adrika couldn’t afford the sundaes here, and had been making excuses not to meet, so Cadi presumed her head wasn’t doing well. Caelin’s wasn’t either, but she didn’t seem bothered by the sticky brown residue pooling at the corners of the head’s closed eyes. Cadi carefully blotted Cael’s cheeks and forehead with a cleansing wipe, just in case Jadon had dirty hands. She’d give his teeth an extra clean when she got home.

‘Can I take your order?’ asked the waitress, just as the owner shouted over: ‘You can’t bring those things in here! It’s unsanitary!’

The waitress remained at the table, stylus pressed to order pad, and rolled her eyes. ‘It’s for school, Lakely!’ she shouted without turning.

‘Don’t care what it’s for!’ The owner shouted back, emerging from behind his counter. ‘I don’t want those things in here!’

Cadi looked across at Caelin’s head, with its sallow skin and dull hair. Its cheekbones were prominent and there were early signs of rot in the nose cartilage, the nostrils black-rimmed and gaping. She could hardly blame him for not wanting it on his table.

‘Can I at least get them sundaes to go?’ The waitress asked.

‘What d’you care?’

‘The research their alumni do is important.’ The waitress turned to Cadi. ‘Kid, how long’ve you had that thing?’

Cadi glanced nervously at Cael. He was serene as usual, cheeks rosy, lips full, nose broad and fleshy as the day Ms O’Shea plucked him from the bag. ‘Five and a half weeks,’ Cadi said. Nearer to five, but who’d quibble over a few days? Not Caelin, it seemed. She hadn’t even looked away from the menu.

‘Five and a half weeks,’ the waitress repeated to the owner. ‘And look at it! Wouldn’t you rather Baani looked like that? Wouldn’t that be better for both of you?’

‘Lots of things would be better for both of us. Doesn’t mean I’m about to do them.’ The owner snatched the menu from Caelin’s hand and turned back to the waitress. ‘Give them their ice creams and get them out of here, I don’t want to look at them.’

‘I’ll have a triple stacked hot fudge-brownie-cookie monster!’ said Caelin, sticking her tongue out at the owner’s retreating back.

Everyone was staring. A woman in a floral dress was looking pointedly at Caelin’s head and holding her nose. Cadi wasn’t sure if that was a theatrical gesture, or if she’d just become immune to the smell herself because of Grandma.

‘Uh, just a strawberry shortcake waffle cone, please,’ said Cadi, although she didn’t really want anything anymore.

*

Caelin had left her bike outside. The basket was stained from her head’s neck stump. Not a good sign. It shouldn’t be seeping, not if she was following procedure. She tossed the head back in with one hand and it made a soft slopping sound as it hit the white plastic base. She apparently noticed Cadi’s concerned expression, because she paused licking her ice cream and said: ‘I told you, no-one wins the prize. So what’s the point?’

‘Don’t you want to pass PA?’

Caelin shrugged and swung one long, lean brown leg over the bike frame. ‘Don’t wanna be a Pathological Aesthetician anyway.’

Cadi stared. She’d never noticed before that Caelin’s teeth were crooked and her nose turned up at the end like a piglet. ‘Then why take the class?’

Caelin shrugged again, still licking away, getting ice cream on her piggy little nose. ‘I wanted a head. But they’re actually kind of boring.’

‘Well, anyway,’ Cadi took a huge bite of her cone, ignoring the brain freeze. ‘I should go.’

‘Oh,’ said Caelin, ‘I thought we were hanging out?’ She licked a drip of fudge off the cardboard tub housing her triple stack. Cadi tried to ignore the chocolate brownie dripping onto the head in the bike basket, leaving sticky globules in its thin hair.

‘Mam texted while you were paying,’ Cadi lied, gulping down the rest of her ice cream and dropping the end of the cone into a nearby bin. ‘She’s stuck at work so I need to get home for Gran.’

‘I see,’ Caelin narrowed her eyes like she knew it was a lie, but then she shrugged and stepped onto her pedal, wheeling away.

Cadi headed in the opposite direction, taking the shorter, sketchier route home through the underpass in case the boys were still at the park. She heard someone humming as she got closer and stopped with a screech of the pushchair’s wheels. The sound stopped too. She approached the mouth of the underpass, but could already see it was empty. No rubbish, no graffiti. Just shaded pavement and the glare of the sun on the other side. She shuddered in the sudden cold. Must’ve been one of those weird coincidences—a car passing on the road overhead with open windows and the driver humming just as she walked underneath. In the bright sunlight, it seemed a stupid thing to dwell on.

As she reached the corner of her street, Cadi spotted Adrika standing out on the communal grass, trying to look casual. She was wearing a light summer jacket and had her hands in her pockets, Bag for Life conspicuously absent.

‘Where’s Saba?’ Cadi called in lieu of greeting.

Adrika smiled as if she’d been waiting for precisely that question. Cadi slowed as she neared her friend, but didn’t stop altogether. She just wanted to get in and shower and clean Cael’s teeth.

‘Promise not to tell Ms O’Shea?’ Adrika said in a low tone when Cadi was in earshot.

It was Cadi’s turn to shrug.

‘She’s in the freezer!’ Adrika grinned like she’d done something smart.

‘What about cellular degradation when you defrost?’

‘Intravenous glucose! Had her on a drip before I froze her.’

‘Pretty sure that only works on living tissue,’ said Cadi, continuing her slow trundle homeward. Cael seemed heavy, like he’d grown arms and legs on the journey back. A quick glance down proved this wasn’t the case.

Adrika’s smile wavered, but then her eyes flicked to Cael and she recovered and said: ‘Well, we each have our experiments, then.’

‘They won’t let you win even if it works.’ Cadi said. She was past Adrika now, but only raised her voice slightly. ‘It’s cheating.’

‘And you think they’ll let you win?’ Adrika’s voice covered the growing distance between them. ‘You think what you’re doing isn’t cheating?’ Louder still: ‘You think I don’t know just by looking at him? It’s messed up Cadi!’

Cadi bumped Cael’s pushchair up the front step and into the house. She stopped in her tracks.

The cellar door was open.

The house was silent.

*

When Mam finally came home, it was without Granny. She’d messaged from the facility, of course, but Cadi had to wait at home eating cereal for dinner to get any details. Mam was cagey about why she’d called the doctors, or why they’d recommended keeping Granny for observation.

‘The medicine just wasn’t working anymore,’ Mam said, piercing the film of her microwave meal with a fork. ‘And she’s already at the maximum dosage. Perhaps the new stabilizers weren’t as effective as we thought after all.’

They are! Cadi wanted to scream, but of course she couldn’t. The frosted wheats rolled in her stomach. She swallowed hard and said: ‘Will she be okay?’

‘She’s not been okay for a long time, sweetheart.’ Mam slid the carton into the microwave and pressed the buttons.

‘You know what I mean.’

‘We’ll have to wait and see.’

Cadi nodded and hurried to the downstairs bathroom, trying to look natural. She closed the door and turned on the taps and retched into the toilet hoping the running water and the buzzing microwave would cover the sound. When she was done, she sat back and opened a new packet of wet wipes to clean her face and hands. She scrubbed at her lips, her eyes, her nose, trying to steady her breathing.

It’s all right Cadi. You did nothing wrong.

She rose abruptly, turned off the taps and listened hard. The bathroom backed on to the utility room and through the thin wall she could hear the washing machine slowly sluicing Mam’s scrubs. Fainter, the TV from the front room where Mam had obviously retreated.

‘But what if they’ve taken the meds away?’ she whispered to the bathroom mirror, where the back of the specimen fridge would be if there wasn’t a wall in the way. She didn’t get a reply, so she rushed to check.

There was still half a bowl of blue paste in the bottom of the fridge. Not much, but enough. She looked at Cael and sighed with relief. Even under the fridge’s weak bulb, he was radiant. His hair had taken on a new richness and depth of colour, russets and auburns coming through in the brown. His mouth now looked pert and inviting, the corners turned up as if moments away from laughter. The angry redness around his severed neck had receded into a healthy peach-coloured glow. As she stood and loved him, his eyes opened.

Her breath caught in her throat. The milkiness was gone. His eyes were clear and blue as the paste. He held her gaze until she worried her knees might buckle and then slowly closed his heavy lids as if closing blinds to hide secret activities.

*

That night, Cadi slept fitfully. Every time she drifted into unconsciousness, she was jerked awake by Cael’s voice whispering half-remembered somethings. She tossed and turned, tangling in her sheets, until eventually she threw them to the floor and crept downstairs.

Shivering in the light of the specimen fridge, she wasn’t sure whether that was the cold air or being in the presence of greatness. For the first time, she wondered who he was before donation. He looked like a poet, or a singer, but of course, he must’ve been a scientist. Caelin said only weaker minds donated, that the consultants and the group leaders didn’t, because they were too indispensable. When Cadi asked Mam, she just said no-one was indispensable.

Cadi sighed and dug her nails into her palms. Before the thought had fully formed, Cael’s lips parted slightly. She leaned forward, holding her breath, waiting for him to actually, really speak, to tell her what she should do. The tip of his tongue protruded from the corner of his mouth, ran across his lips and retreated back inside.

Cadi shuddered. Caelin and Adrika were right. They wouldn’t let her win, no matter what. They wouldn’t let her win and they’d take him like they took Granny and Xabier.

She grabbed him from the fridge shelf, gloveless, and held him to her chest. She stroked his hair, smushed his nose against her breasts. She felt the muscles in his cheek move under her hand and hurried to the back door, throwing it open with one hand, holding him tight with the other. She marched quickly to the laburnum tree where Xabier was buried. She knelt, and the grass prickled her bare knees. The soil at the foot of the tree was soft and black and she knew her brother was deep, deep, because men had come with a JCB to put him in the ground. She knew she could dig safely and not uncover him. She laid Cael on the lawn beside her, looking up at the stars, then clawed her hands and threw up clods of earth like a cat in a litter box. When the hole was deep enough, she laid Cael in there. He was gorgeous in the moonlight and she thought about kissing him, but she didn’t want his lips to rot off, even now. His eyes were large and pleading like a toddler’s as she threw the loose earth back over him. His lips parted and she dared him to say something, willed it, prayed for him to beg her to stop. But he didn’t, and so handful after handful rained down on him like ashes, until he was nothing more than a mound in the soil.