“Pa, people have been complainin’ about the meat,”

“People have been complainin’ about the meat,” Mallory thought, “They’ve been sayin’ that it’s rotten; all rotten and wrong.”

It was true. The meat was rotten. She glanced at the animals in their paddocks, and watched as the hogs trotted by, their bodies a searing map of illness and malnutrition. Worms wriggled all over their bags, and maggots climbed in and out of their flesh. Their eyes had been reduced to deep, festering holes, and their feet green with disease and dirt.

It was not just the hogs; the chickens had been plagued by it too. They walked around lacking their feathers; some of them fat, some of them gangly, horrid pink creatures, the loose ends of down sticking out of their pimpled bodies, itching them so that they had to peck themselves continuously with twisted beaks, opening up sores that would never recover. The thin cockerel had stopped crowing long ago. He was little more than a pile of feather and bone in the corner of the henhouse, having been picked and stripped of his meat by the farm cat, which, incidentally, was perfectly unharmed by the mystery infection.

The next day, Mallory awoke to the sound of the sirens, and shouting voices. She peered out of her window and gasped. The barn was full of fire, being blasted with water.

“Mallory!” her father was shouting for her, desperately. She joined him in the yard, but before she could speak, he slapped her square across the face.

“Pa!” She protested.

“Don’t ‘Pa’ me,” he warned, clearing his throat and spitting on the ground, “You did this. Everything is destroyed – the animals are all dead! We’re finished, and it’s because of you!”

Mallory stared at him, then at the barn. The fire had died down considerably, and she winced, watching some firemen pulling mangled fat carcasses out of the wreckage as the cat nearby the fire truck, casually licking its paw.

“I didn’t do anything,” whispered Mallory, “I locked up last night, made sure the hens were all back indoors, and went straight to bed.” Her father glared at her, his arms folded.

“I had a strange dream…” Mallory kept her eyes on the ground, “All our animals were ill. The people were complainin’ about the meat being funny. The bacon was full of holes, and when Mrs McKinley prepared her Sunday chicken, flies came out of the back of it when she tried to stuff it! We didn’t know the cause; all we knew was that the animals were sick, really sick – like they shoulda been dead. The cock was dead. The cat ate him. The cat was fine.”

Mallory’s father cut her tale short, grabbing her by the arm and flinging her down. She hit the ground with a thud, and the pebbles on the uneven floor stuck into her cheeks like stubby fingernails.

“You were always chock-full of stories!” He hollered, “When you were little, you used to say that the fairies spoke to you in the backyard. You climbed the tree. You fell off it and cut your knee open. The next day; what did you do?”

“I-I…” Mallory stammered. Her father’s boot slammed into her stomach.

“You ended up on the roof, that’s what you did!” He continued, “On the roof, ‘cause the little folk wanted you to be up there. Ha! I said to the doctor, I said, ‘My girl’s not suicidal; can’t be. She’s grieving her Mommy still, sure, but she’s cleverer than that. She knows better,” he kicked her again, “than that!”

“Daddy,” croaked Mallory, “I didn’t do it. I didn’t.”

Her father’s face unravelled again, and he reached out to her, a work-worn hand offering the means to get back up again.

“I’ll deal with these men,” he said, motioning to the fire-brigade, “Go to your room.”

“But I…”

“Go to your room!” Her father ordered, shoving her a little, “Daddy’s got to sort this. Lucky the fire didn’t spread to the cows, sugar plum.”

Mallory watched him for a few minutes, biting her bottom lip to ignore the pain in her belly, before wandering back up to her room. In the distance, beyond the fences where the cows were lazily chewing cud, Mallory was sure she could see somebody; a man, very tall and slim, his hair worn long like Jesus, tawny red, like the inside of the barn was once.