Chapter 22
“Okay,” said Rowan, eyeing me in confusion. “What was that about?”
I shook my head.
“I don’t know.”
The alert on Rowan’s phone went off again. He checked the screen then looked at me.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’ve got… stuff.”
Rowan watched me carefully.
“Sure. Good to see you.” He got down onto the floor into his plank position, then looked up at me through the hair that fell over his eyes. “I’ll keep a look out for your neighbour!”
I flinched at the mention of her, guilt crawling over me like ants, then marched out of Rowan’s store and ran after the old man.
Looking up and down the back road, I heard the squeak of the old woman’s wheelchair. My head jerked in the direction of the sound and I caught sight of the sheepdog just as it turned the corner.
I chased after it.
I thought again about what Fergus had said last night.
The old man was weird, probably mad. But he was also smart.
Biggest-biological-breakthrough-in-the-last-hundred-years smart.
Sweat slicked the palms of my hands. And he clearly knew something about my house, so he probably knew my neighbour. If only I could—
I turned the corner and ran straight into him. The old man looked up at me expectantly. Behind him, the sheepdog stood guard by the old woman. All three of them looked posed, like they’d been waiting for me.
“Can I help you, young lady?” He stared at me through those thick glasses, his eyes large and insect-like, all-seeing. He waved a hand toward the flower display at the end of the road. “Silly question, I suppose. This is going to be a bugger to clean up, let me tell you!”
I regained my composure and tried to think of how to start the conversation.
“Sorry, I just heard a rumour that… ah… you worked on Dolly the Sheep.”
It sounded idiotic the moment it came out of my mouth. It was like asking the delivery driver if they were Doctor Who.
But he looked at me over his glasses and sighed.
“I guess we’re talking about that,” he muttered. Then, “What do you want to know? Hmm?” He glared at me with gleeful accusation. “Were they trying to clone humans? Make armies of obedient slaves? Hmm? Is that it?”
“No, actually I—”
“Well, they weren’t!” He huffed. “They were only trying to increase the amount of milk a ewe could produce. The cloning was just a side product of that. They didn’t realise what they were doing until they were right at the point of doing it.”
He suddenly took the handles of the old woman’s wheelchair and started walking again toward the main street. The old woman snorted as he jolted her back into momentum. I quickly followed after them.
“They found a way to create new, healthy tissue from just a few cells. Imagine the things they could have done with that. Spinal cord repair, liver transplants, Parkinson’s treatments.
They only cloned the whole sheep to see the limit of what could be done.
To show it could be done.” He pointed a finger.
“But there was the problem: Clone a bit of tissue and no one bats an eyelid. Clone a sheep—well, now you’re Victor Frankenstein.
Ended up spending most of their publicity fund fighting questions about clone armies. ”
He shook his head. We walked alongside the river past the memorial.
“All that potential, all those people they could have helped, lost in a matryoshka doll of whataboutisms and straw men.” He tutted.
His sheepdog whined at his feet. He reached down and scratched the spot between the dog’s eyebrows.
“There was nothing to be frightened of. Dolly was her own sheep. She just happened to share the DNA of another. That was all. What those scientists did was no different to the creation of the first vaccine, antibiotics, surgery, and no one pitches a fit about those. Well, they do at vaccines these days, sadly…”
I nodded like I was listening, while I thought about how to direct the conversation back towards my neighbour, who she was, what she did, and whether she had a habit of sneaking into other people’s homes in the middle of the night.
“That’s fascinating. So, are you some kind of scientist or something?”
“Oh, I’m something, alright.” The old man’s eyes twinkled at me.
I forced a smile.
“How long have you lived in Carlinsrest?” I asked.
“I’ve just moved in, and I don’t know many of the locals yet.
You must know everyone—and all their business—by now.
Speaking of, do you happen to know the lady who lives next door to me?
I’ve been trying to hunt her down”—ooft, wording Tamsin! —“and I’m not having much luck.”
He sighed.
“I’m not telling you this for my health, m’dear.”
The breeze dropped and the flowers around town stood still.
“I’m telling you this because of your…” his eyes quickly skirted around the street as if wary of eavesdroppers, “issue.”
I shook my head, but I was a terrible liar.
“I don’t know what this has to do with my—”
He gave me a pointed look and continued.
“What was it about Dolly that made all those people so afraid?”
He stared at me silently.
He can smell it on you.
“Um, cloning?” I offered.
“Doubling.” He put up two fingers, side by side, then spread them apart. “Copycats taking up your space in a group. Reflections that don’t do as they should. Shadows that start moving on their own. Meeting your doppelganger on a misty day. Humans don’t like it. Why?”
I shifted on my feet. It felt like he was playing with me.
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do,” he insisted.
I shrugged. “How do you tell who is who?”
He clapped his hands. The sheepdog barked at the sound.
“People are more than their DNA, how they look, what biological build they’ve been dealt. It’s your experiences, your decisions, your actions that make you who you are.” He leant forward, dropping his voice conspiratorially. “And you know who you are, don’t you?”
A yellow kite. Neon pink fingernails.
Do you think you’re a—
The old man straightened up and looked out over the river.
“And that’s your lot for now.”
The old man wheeled his wife toward the bridge, closely followed by his spritely trotting sheepdog.
I chased after him.
“Wait. What do you mean?”
“When you’re ready, she’ll be the one to help you.” He gently patted the shoulder of the woman snoring in the wheelchair. “I hope I see you again. I really do.” Then after a pause, he added not unkindly, “If you are who you say you are. Good luck.”
And he disappeared out over Bodach’s Brig, pushing his still snoring wife over the bridge, ploughing on steadily and unhindered by the cobbles.
I watched on as they left, the old man’s words repeating in my mind.
If you are who you say you are.