Wyld Dreamers

parcel when Stella’s arm snakes from behind to snatch it from the postman’s hands.
It contains pills that a friend of hers, a biochemist, created in a laboratory. Just a gentle hallucinogen, Stella says, holding out a pill to Amy. ‘He wants them tested. You do take drugs, don’t you?’ she says, fixing her with a stone-hard stare.
Amy swallows the tiny pill quickly; there’s hardly any taste. It can’t have much effect, she hopes.
Julian announces he will take everyone on an adventure. They start in a wood that runs beyond the house. The canopy of trees is dense. Mosses and ivy curl form leafy jackets on the trees. Fluffy curls of grey-white plants dangle from branches like the beards of ancient men. It’s as spooky as a fairy tale.
‘Fancy yourself woodsmen? Seymour wants to open up this wood, fell a tree of two,’ says Julian to David and Simon. ‘He says it need more space. Who doesn’t need more space, man?’
‘Far out man,’ someone giggles.
‘Ever used a chainsaw? Throbs like a wild lover, makes a fantastic racket! I’ll show you how it works, no hassle. We’ll need the wood for the fire this winter.’
‘Cool,’ they chorus.
Amy nudges a fallen log with her boot. As it splits apart, woodlice swarm from the orange-cream splinters. Making her finger into a barrier, the hefty bodies clamber over it in synchronised waves. She cannot think about the winter when it will be cold, when they will sit together around the fire but she will not be with them. A horrible feeling of dejection overwhelms her. She’ll be studying at secretarial college so she can get a job. A girl like her does not have choices.
David touches her head. ‘Alright?’ he says.
She looks up. He towers over her; his face is fuzzy. She sees he is blowing her a kiss. It lands on her face as soft as butter. Her jaw trembles uncontrollably so that her teeth clatter against each other. David reaches for her hand and they follow Julian from the wood and into the light.
The six of them fan out across the field. Something catches her eye. As Amy turns to look, her brain knocks against her skull. Stella has draped a scarf over her head. It streams behind her like a glistening haze.
‘You haven’t met them yet, have you?’ Julian says. ‘In the field over there. Our sheep – Lunch, Dinner and Freezer.’
Her legs won’t move any faster. Maggie pulls her by the hand. ‘Come on!’
Julian says: ‘I’m meant to come each day to check on them. But you know, I forget. It’s a hassle and anyway, there are hedges. Where are they going to go? ’
‘Aren’t they beautiful,’ Maggie croons. ‘Why do you call them that?’
‘Their name gives it away, sister!’ David teases. ‘It’s all in the name. Lunch, Dinner…’
Maggie flicks out her hands as though to hit him but he dodges out of the way, laughing wildly.
‘We eat them, of course!’ Julian says dramatically. ‘A man comes in with a gun and he kills them. Bang, bang – and they’re dead. Bang!’
‘Bang!’
‘Bang!’ Simon and David mimic, then run about pretending to shoot guns.
‘Oh god, no, that’s awful!’ Maggie drops to the ground, clamping her hands to her ears.
‘It’s the cycle of life, Maggie,’ Stella murmurs sagely as she rustles past.
Amy hears a roaring sound and looks up expecting to see a plane flying low overhead. But the sky is empty. It’s only the buzz of insects hovering over a patch of yellow-headed flowers.
The ground rises to a grand plateau. She marvels at the fields, a montage of red and ochre, saffron and aubergine surrounded by hedges that resemble fat green serpents. A giantess might have dribbled nail varnish, for here and there iridescent swathes of magenta sing from the landscape. Amy is about to tell David it’s the flower Rosebay Willowherb but stops just in time as Stella rustles past. On the horizon is a lazy line of blue, the Bristol Channel.
‘It’s peaceful here, man,’ says David. ‘Let’s chill out.’
The turf is sponge-soft. Julian and Stella lie down to wrap themselves in the scarf like a caterpillar in a cocoon. David and Simon, feet and arms in the air, pretend to be upturned beetles. A patch of daisies seems to beckon to Amy and she sinks to her knees as Maggie whispers: ‘I can’t bear to think the sheep are for the chop. I’m liberating them…’ and disappears.
Every cell of Amy’s body begins to stretch. Involuntarily she rolls on to her side and her mouth opens as wide as a cave. Gossamer strings of bile spew out to loop and hang from flower and leaf. The air crackles but she is not sure if it is with sound or light. Her ear presses too hard on the ground but she lacks the strength to lift it up. She drifts into a half-sleep.
Sometime later she is aware that Maggie is stretched out beside her. ‘I have given them freedom,’ she purrs.
Amy rolls on to her back. The sky is like a childish painting with puffy clouds of champagne and gold.
‘Wouldn’t you like to live here forever, Maggie,’ she whispers. ‘It’s so peaceful, so far away from everything. Like a brand new world. What a dream, to escape…to share everything… we could grow our own food, have hens…’
‘As long as we don’t have to eat them,’ Maggie interjects and the thought strikes them as hilarious and they howl with laughter.
‘What’s the joke?’ says someone from far away. A shadow blocks the sun. It’s Stella.
‘I’m getting bored,’ she says. ‘We’re going back.’
‘Julian’s having an asthma attack!’ Amy and David are woken only hours after a long night partying. Stella is in their bedroom doorway, screaming, distraught. ‘David, drive him to hospital – now!’
Amy is on her feet before she’s fully awake. ‘Where’s his inhaler?’
‘I don’t know,’ Stella wails. ‘Can’t David take him?’
Sounds of wheezing from Julian’s room. Stella, in a brocade dressing gown and embroidered slippers vanishes inside. Amy hurtles down the