you have hatched...
Phelim, who is fourteen, and Alexia (she's the same age) are walking beside a railway line towards the station. In the trees that line the tracks, a young man leaps from branch to branch, following the two who are walking.
Alexia tells Phelim to try it one more time. It won't work, he says, but he bends down anyway and plucks a long blade of grass. Pressing it between his thumbs, he blows through it until it makes a high piercing whistle. Sweeney claps his hands over his ears. Alexia looks around. They wait.
A big old-fashioned steam train chugs around the bend, and they have to jump back a bit as it passes. Phelim makes a 'told-you-so' face at Alexia, throws the grass away and trudges on. Alexia and Sweeney follow, in silence.
They come across tree fellers, which makes Sweeney (the tree leaper) have to leap faster to get past the trees they're felling.
Alexia runs up to the workers and starts shouting at them: have they made an offering, in return for the trees? They look at her like she's mad, but she's insistent: don't they know the Old Ways? Don't they know that blood must be spilt or the land will take it anyway?
As they're arguing back and forth, and Phelim is trying to pull her away from the men, and Sweeney is perched up high, there's a shout from a little way into the trees. A cry of pain. It interrupts the conversation, and one of the men goes to find out what happened to the person who was working over there.
Another shout of pain, a yell of fear, then silence. Alexia shakes her head slowly and starts backing off. Phelim tries to see what's going on through the branches. Sweeney shouts out, "Corn wives! Corn wives!" and Alexia grabs Phelim to pull him back.
He's confused, and doesn't want to be dragged away. They argue, the men argue, everyone is frightened. Someone else goes down.
Alexia and Phelim start to run down the tracks, with Sweeney following overhead. Something is chasing after them through the trees.
Phelim is closest to the treeline, and he feels something whizz past him with a loud whooshing sound. Then again, and again. This time, he sees the glint of sun on metal, and catches sight of a metal cage encasing a woman's body. An iron corset.
And the blade of a sickle, slicing at his head again, in the hands of an amazon.
Alexia screams. Phelim is frozen. The blade lifts up for one last swing to cut the crop...
Sweeney swings low on a branch like a gymnast on the parallel bars, and kicks the Corn Wife in the back of the head. She goes down. Alexia grabs Phelim, and they run.
'What the hell...?' - the boy shouts as they head for the train station.
'Corn Wives... more Hatchlings... they reap the reapers, take blood in exchange for the crop' - Alexia's reply comes over her shoulder. It annoys Phelim a little that she's faster than him, so he pushes to catch up.
Phelim looks up at the weirdo who leaps through the trees, and calls out, 'Thanks, Sweeney'. Sweeney doesn't reply. Too busy leaping.
