Watcher's Web
Authors: Patty Jansen
Tags: #romance, #fantasy, #science fiction, #aliens, #planetary romance, #social sf, #female characters
WATCHER’S WEB
PATTY JANSEN
CAPRICORNICA PUBLICATIONS
WATCHER’S WEB
A Capricornica
Publication / 2013
ISBN
978-0-9872009-0-7
UUID CE7BB760-5ABD-11E3-949A-0800200C9A66
(Smashwords Edition)
ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED
Copyright ©2011 by Patty Jansen
Cover design copyright ©2012 by Patty Jansen
Formatting by:
E-QUALITY PRESS
No part of this book
may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by
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writing from the author.
The name
E-QUALITY PRESS and the logo consisting of the letters “EQP” over
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PRESS.
www.e-qualitypress.com
PUBLISHED IN
AUSTRALIA
CONTENTS
W
HEREVER
J
ESSICA went, people watched
her. Like those two teenage boys leaning on the fence, Akubra hats
pulled down to shade their eyes. One of them dangled a cigarette in
careless fingers; the other swigged beer from a stubby. Neither was
watching her now, but she hadn’t missed their gawking, nor their
voices barely elevated over the noise of bellowing cattle, shouts
and truck engines.
Wow! See
that really tall one?
Bloody
hell, yeah.
How’d
you reckon she kisses a guy? On her knees?
They laughed
and, when she came closer, faced the yard to watch the cattle as if
they had said nothing.
Jessica
walked past them to the gate, glaring at their straw-covered
backs.
Well, I bloody
heard you.
She was
used to it, anyway.
It
hadn’t been the worst thing people said about her. They hadn’t said
the words ugly, or creepy, or
freak,
but she was used to hearing those words, too.
They went into
a little hard spot inside her where she scrunched up the hurt and
forgot it. She might look like a freak, but when she helped John
Braithwaite and his mates from the Rivervale Stud Farm at a cattle
show and Angus went into one of his fits, they still needed her to
get him into the truck without spooking him. No one else could do
that. No one knew how she did it, and no one should ever know.
Because no one was crazy enough to get into a pen with a stroppy
bull, right?
Well,
we’ll see about that.
She grasped
the top of the gate with both hands, stepped onto the middle bar
and swung her foot over. Jumped. Landed in sun-baked mud churned
with cloven hoof prints and cow pats.
At least when
Angus looked at her he didn’t hide his dislike. He rolled a beady
eye and blew a gust of hay-scented air from his nostrils. He
stiffened, all fifteen-hundred-odd kilograms of Brahman bull-flesh
of him. Then lowered his head, horns poised.
Someone
yelled, “Watch it!”
No, he wasn’t
going to charge. He’d charge at the boys, he’d even charge at his
well-heeled owner, but never at her. Call her arrogant, but she
knew that; and how she knew it would remain a secret, too, thank
you very much.
She stopped a
few paces inside the pen and crossed her arms over her chest. Well,
bugger that. She had a bloody audience. About twenty people, mostly
men, sitting on the fence, with cynical hey-look-at-this-mate
expressions plastered on their faces.
Beef cattle
farmers, their lackeys and other hangers-on, those clowns who had
partied in the pavilion last night, those who owned the bulls that
had occupied the pens next to Angus’. All their animals were
already in the trucks, ready to be taken home from the Pymberton
show. None of them with a “best of show” ribbon, like Angus, and
none with a diva mentality.
It
looked like the boys had been trying to get Angus to move for a
while. The gate on the opposite side of the pen was open, the ramp
in place. Brendan held the door to the truck, ready to slam it.
Everything about his expression said,
rather you than me.
The coward.
“Come on,
Angus, in you go.”
Men sniggered,
including the two teenage boys. The one with the cigarette flicked
ash into the pen and said something about a whip.
Now who
was more stupid? Them or the bull? You did
not
frighten such a prize animal if you could help it.
He might bolt and injure himself. An unsightly gash would take him
off the show circuit for months. Sheesh!
Jessica
reached through the fence into the bucket she had dumped there. Her
hand came away black and sticky with molasses. Angus loved it.
She
inched closer, holding out her hand
Come on, look me in the eye, if you
dare.
Angus blew out
another snort, as if he knew what was coming. Backed into the
fence. Met her eyes.
Jessica
exhaled. Her breath seeped from her in tendrils of sparkle-filled
mist, which sought out Angus’ fur and crept over his grey-mottled
back, a bit like glitter-glue, but
alive.
Jessica lunged
for the rope that dangled from Angus’ collar. She couldn’t quite
reach it, and while Angus backed further away from her, scraping
along the fence, he planted his hoof on the end of the rope,
squashing it neatly in a fresh pile of dung. Just her luck.
A bit
closer.
She pulled the
mist tighter around him, so his coat sparkled and glittered with
lights. His outline became fuzzy. She didn’t know what to call it,
and had learned not to talk about it to anyone. It wasn’t that she
could communicate with him, but she could tell him what to do. Sort
of. In a weird way she couldn’t explain in words. The mist soaked
up emotions, as far as bulls have emotions, and dampened them, and
she could override them with her own. If it worked.
Her audience
had stopped talking. Anyone who watched always did that, even
though they couldn’t see the mist and didn’t realise it influenced
them, although not as much as it affected the animal. That was just
as well, because she was making an idiot of herself. Angus was
being bloody stubborn, his head still lowered, trampling the rope
further into the shit. Something must have spooked him badly. Maybe
it was the yapping from the dog pavilion. Well, she and Angus
seemed to have something in common—she didn’t like lap dogs
either.
But he was
going to get into that bloody truck, preferably before she missed
her flight back to Sydney. All kinds of hell would break loose if
she wasn’t at the school basketball team meeting that night.
Jessica
focused on Angus’ beady eye and let out another deep breath. More
sparkling vapour flowed. Pinpricks of light soaked into Angus’
mottled fur. Angus relaxed, stuck out his head to nuzzle her
molasses-covered hand.
But
then . . .
The threads
solidified and the mist spun into tightly-coiled cords, which wove
into a formation like a spider’s web.
What the
hell. . . ?
She froze,
staring at the writhing construction. It looked like someone had
cast a living net over the bull, one made of sparkling mist that
yanked and stretched of its own volition, or . . . as if
something pulled at the other end. There were shadows in a nebulous
space over Angus’ back, and a male voice, just outside the edge of
hearing, calling out to someone. The web vibrated and strained.
A tug of war
between herself and . . . Who was pulling the
other end?
In her panic,
she broke loose from the construction. The shadows at the other end
of the web faded. The strands dissolved into mist once more.
A wet nose
touched her palm and Angus’ rasping tongue curled around her wrist.
The molasses was clean licked-off, but he probably liked the salt
of her sweat, because her arms glistened with it. She hoped no one
noticed.
Her legs still
trembling, Jessica pulled the rope and inched towards the gate.
Angus followed her meekly, up the ramp, into the truck, where one
of the boys was ready to tie him up.
The onlookers
applauded.
Jessica leaned
against the truck, forcing herself to grin at her audience.
“Can anyone
give me a lift to the airport?”
T
HE UTE CAME to
a screeching halt, scattering gravel and dust in a cloud that
wafted past the open windows.
Brendan
grinned. “There you are, Jess.”
Across the
fence, beyond a section of desiccated grass, the tarmac spread out;
a grey expanse of asphalt with white painted lines. On it waited a
single-engine plane. A man in blue uniform sat on the folded-out
stairs.
“Is that it?”
asked Brendan.
Jessica
glanced at the dashboard clock. Ten minutes late, if the thing
could be trusted. “Bloody hell, I hope so.”
She grabbed
her bag and opened the car door, stepping into the dust and late
afternoon heat. “Thanks for the lift.”
“No worries.”
He tipped his hand to the rim of his hat. A broad grin split his
face, and his eyes betrayed that he still held hope for the date
he’d asked her on a few weeks back. As far as John Braithwaite’s
farm hands went, Brendan wasn’t that bad, but after that business
with Luke, she wasn’t getting involved with any of them again.
She slammed
the door and ran. The man in the blue uniform—the pilot, she now
realised—pushed himself off the steps.
She called
out, still running, “Is this Westways flight 265 for Sydney?”
“Sure. You’re
Jessica Moore?”
“Yes.” She
stopped, panting. They’d waited for her. How . . . good
of them; how . . . totally embarrassing. Stupid bloody
bull.