March 13th, 2011
Maisie hated it when she had to go to the doctors downstairs. They always poked at her and pinched her. Their needles always hurt and one of them didn't even care that it scared her. She hated it when that doctor was there. Most times she was too busy, doing something boring Maisie bet. But it kept her away from the girl, it was always when she thought to come look at Maisie herself that things never ended nice. Maisie liked it when the other doctor, Mr nice-smile (that wasn't his name, but she liked his smile), came to give her the medicine she needed. It still hurt, the needles always hurt. But he knew it scared her, how even looking at the needle made her feel sick and start to panic. So he was kind, and he made her look away as he told her stories while giving her the medicine. Sometimes she could even get through it without crying. But Dr Moroe (Maisie always remembered her name with the same petrified fear she held for the boogie man in her closet) was never nice, she wasn't gentle, and she didn't tell her stories. Maisie once asked her to be nice, that she didn't like it, but Moroe only told her to stop being 'fussy' and drove the needle in harder. Maisie had almost fainted twice when in Moroe's hands.
She'd tried to tell her Grandpa, for he would set Moroe straight, she knew it. Grandpa was always soft in his touches and his voice, and Maisie always felt safe and loved in his arms. But she'd seen when he'd get angry with some of the people that worked in the house. When someone broke something, or one person who'd tried to steal a watch! His voice had always been quiet, Grandpa never shouted, but the cold anger was scary enough – in a cool kind of way. So Maisie had wanted him to use that voice, the voice that had made people shrivel up in their shoes, on Dr Moroe. But when she told him, all he said was: "You need the medicine, Maisie. You just need to ignore it and then it will all be fine."
But it didn't get fine. So Maisie tried to not go down to the doctors as much as she could. She tried to keep it secret when the aches in her bones started, she would try to act all energetic when all she wanted to do was curl up and sleep, she would even block her nose up with tissues when the nosebleeds started. All that only ended her up in more trouble. Uncle Mills found her out once. Usually it was Iris, her annoying nanny, that followed her round everywhere – and she always told Grandpa the moment she discovered it, after marching Maisie downstairs to the basement first. But when Uncle Mills saw her trying to hide it, he just gave her a look, and Maisie thought he'd tell Grandpa. But instead, he took her downstairs and told her he wouldn't tell Grandpa about this so long as she promised to no longer hide it. Maisie had promised – but it was a promise she struggled to keep sometimes.
Soon she'd be three – she'd be a big girl, she didn't see why she should have to go to the doctors. But Grandpa always said she needed to, to stay healthy. It was usually just a check up and an injection, and Maisie was left feeling alright in an hour. Sometimes she wondered if it was all fake, like when she found out the toothfairy wasn't real last week!
The table was really cold on her bum, even through her jeans as she sat on it. It wasn't very comfortable, the edge of it dug into the back of her knees. Thankfully, it was Mr nice-smile seeing her today. Maisie felt wobbly and held onto the IV pole next to her. She looked away as Mr nice-smile put the needle in her other arm, telling her a story about his dog. Maisie found those stories boring. She'd never seen a dog – Iris wouldn't let her have one because it would need too much attention. She liked it when Mr nice-smiles would tell her stories about dragons and adventures. She was smart enough to know he was telling her about movies, but she liked it. Once he was done, he told her to sit still and wait until the medicine was settled, then she'd be allowed to go back up.
Mr nice-smile took out the IV and left her alone in the room whilst he took her blood sample away to another room – probably to Dr Moroe. Maisie sat, tapping her heels together where they hung over the side of the table. Her stomach was starting to feel better, but she was bored.
A noise, a crash and a loud swear word. Iris would definitely not like those words, she'd threaten to wash that man's mouth out with soap if she heard it. Maisie strained to see through the windows leading out into the hallway, curious to see what all the fuss was about. But she couldn't see anything. Glancing at the other door, she wondered if Mr nice-smiles would come back… all she wanted was a little look.
Drawn by the noises, Maisie hopped down off the table, wobbling slightly on impact. Grandpa said she learned a lot of things late as a baby. Crawling, walking, talking, but she'd made up for it with how much she learned so quickly. He didn't say why she was late, exactly, all he said was that she 'liked to take her time'. Maisie didn't feel that way, she always wanted everything to happen now. So it was hard to balance sometimes, but she recovered quickly. As quietly as she could, she pushed open the door and stepped into the hallway. More voices sounded from around the corner. Tiptoeing, she scooted close to the wall, noticing another large window that she might be able to peek inside. Hooking her fingertips on the edge, she carefully poked her eyes over the lip to see inside the room.
It was a metal room not unlike the Doctors' room. There was a metal table in the middle, just like in the Doctors, and on the wall were hung an assortment of strange things. A metal cage was on the far wall, like from a dog-pound on the TV. Two men were stood in front of the cage, one shaking his hand and hissing.
"Damned thing almost took my hand off!" one snarled. "It's bloody Jack the Ripper!"
"That scratch barely grazed you," grumbled the other. "Let's get the tranq darts. We need to clean out that cage."
The two men began to head towards the door. The first one grumbling under his breath. "Little monster deserves to rot in his own filth."
They burst out of the door and Maisie pressed herself against the wall. She didn't move. They didn't see her. They walked away down the hall. Maisie made sure to check they were gone, biting her lip with excitement. Was Grandpa keeping a pet here? Was it a present? A surprise? She couldn't resist and slipped inside.
Scratching and scuffling noises could be heard from inside the long dark cage. She recognised one noise: hay scraping against a surface. They had a henhouse outside with twelve chickens, so Maisie was used to their sounds. But she didn't recognise the shivering hiccup noises. It sounded bird-like… maybe? Maisie crept closer, trying to see into the shadows at the back of the cage. She didn't know why, but something told her to be careful, to go slowly, her heartbeat started to go faster… She came right up to the bars, squinting to try and see. The strong horrible smell of animal waste stung her nose. There was a movement, a shift in the shadows. Something scuttled forward, a scrap of something sharp against the metal floor.
A head moved into the light. Maisie couldn't hold back her gasp.
It was a dinosaur. But not like any she'd ever seen. It crawled on all fours, but its back legs were so long that it's hips stuck up in the air. It had sickle claws on each back foot, and its front feet looked like hands – it even had thumbs. Its head was long and slightly rounded on the snout, with lots of pointy teeth ticking out of its lipless mouth. Its scales were as black as night, except for a stripe of warm gold that ran from the corners of its mouth all the way along its body to its tail. It stared at her through the bars of the cage with gold eyes that seemed to glow up at her, studying her face.
Iris had always tried to get Maisie into princesses and fairies. She said that's what a girl her age should love. And Maisie did like those things, yes, but of all of things, she loved most dinosaurs. Dinosaurs and monsters and dragons. She had a whole set of dinosaur toys she liked to play with, and she even had a tattered old book that she loved to look through just because of the pictures. Her Grandpa had smiled kindly, as if he knew she would love them, and begun to tell her stories of dinosaurs when he tucked her into bed at night. So, when she was faced with the creature in the cage, she was under no delusions as to what it might be. There was only one explanation. Grandpa had finally answered her wish! She had her very own dinosaur!
"Hello," she said quietly, trying to be stealthy in case the men came back, but unable to contain her beaming smile. "What are you? My name is Maisie – I does live here. Now you do too! What's your name?"
Obviously, the creature in the cage said nothing. It tilted its head at her as she talked. Did it like her voice? Maisie hoped so! She had no one to talk to, and all the adults were so boring – except for Grandpa. She wanted so badly to reach in and pet the dinosaur (a real-life dinosaur in her house!), but Iris had warned her about sticking her fingers in cages. She'd done that once with the chicken-coop, and one of them had given her a nasty peck. Yet as if sensing her thoughts, the dinosaur shifted his body so that he could grip the bars of the cage and poked his other arm through them. He reached out towards her, huge hand with long sickle claws stretching towards Maisie but coming just short of touching the strands of her hair that had fallen over her shoulder.
"Does you want a cuddle?" Maisie asked. She hesitantly reached out and touched his scales. He was surprisingly warm. Not cold or slimy like Iris told her dinosaurs were like. She patted the back of his hand, and the creature inside the cage cooed. It flexed its fingers as if it wanted to touch her back. "What's your name?" Maisie asked. She tried to remember what the men had said before they left. "Is your name Jack? I would call you Blackiesaurus, but if your name's Jack then that's fine too."
Jack (or Blackiesaurus) tilted his head in an odd way that Maisie found to be a little funny. She would have giggled, but then Jack's head snapped towards the door and he hissed. Maisie turned, fearing someone was behind her, but there wasn't. And then she heard the voices of the two men coming down the hall! She gasped. No, no, no! She was in so much trouble if she got caught! She tried to stand up, to run back to Mr nice-smile's office. But suddenly her jumper snagged on something and yanked her back. Maisie yelped, and looked down to find Jack's claws tugging on her clothes in a firm grip. She pulled back, trying to get free – those men would be here any minute!
"Let go!" she hissed and pulled again. "I have to get out before they come back!"
Jack suddenly released her, and Maisie fell to the floor with a shriek. She didn't cry or say something angry like she wanted to. The men would be here any second! She picked herself up and ran for the door. Jack gave out a long shriek after her, like he was calling for her to come back. Maisie felt a little guilt, but instantly forgot about it in the excitement of a secret promise her heart made – she'd come back! Later, when no one was watching! The thought kept her smiling as she slid back into Mr nice-smile's office. The Dr wasn't even here, she hadn't been spotted!
"Mills!"
Eli looked up from his desk at the foreign doctor. Moroe stood poised, as if ready to spring, and Eli could already feel a headache coming on. "What is it now, Moroe? I'm a little busy."
"It's the asset–"
"The Indoraptor?" Eli frowned.
They'd only had the thing a year and it was already causing problems. He had constant complaints from the staff he assigned to look after it. Nobody wanted anything to do with it. Feeders and cleaners told tales of their arms almost being sliced to ribbons, and even the scientists meant to look after and study it spoke about the monster's temper tantrums that usually left someone with a nasty bite. Thankfully, the creature was still small enough that those bites or slashes weren't serious injuries – yet. As it was, Eli was struggling to come up with a more permanent solution the problem, because it wouldn't be long before the staff would want guarantees for their safety. The only up-side the Indoraptor had brought with its existence so far, was that treatments created through its blood were not only keeping Maisie alive, but also keeping her in excellent health. A cure had still not been figured out for the inherent disease in the Lockwood family, but Moroe kept saying she was 'close'.
"Tell your minions they should be able to handle their own Frankenstein whilst I arrange something a little more long-lasting." He said. "I'll admit, Dr Moroe, this asset isn't quite what I was promised."
The woman looked down her nose at him. "You asked for a solution to–"
"Yes, but a creature that was as expensive to make as this one should be able to give me a return investment!" he snapped and fixed the geneticist with a scalding look. "Even if you'd been bothered to make the cure, I can't sell it – it's too small!"
"That is because it is still an infant," Moroe shot back.
"Well, Henry Wu's creations never take this long to mature. Is this the reason you've always been second best to him?"
Moroe bristled with such volcanic fury, Eli thought her head would burst. He could see it took all her self-control for her words to be calm in the face of his words that had struck too close to home. "It's the human DNA. It may have mucked up the coding to grow slower. It may take a few more years, but it will get to the size you were originally hoping for."
Eli shivered. It had been his idea, him and Moroe conspiring in the dark, but still the implications of what they'd done… it gave him the creeps. "Then I suggest you use that time to do your research thoroughly. Mr Lockwood wants a cure, but I would like something a little more profitable at the end of this." He went back to his paperwork, content to ignore the Dr until she went away. But she didn't. She planted her hands on his desk so that he couldn't ignore her. "You're still here?"
"I didn't come here to argue. I came to show you something."
Before he could reply that he wasn't in the mood for her unusual brand of flirting, she was already pushing him out the way as she came up beside him and began to type into his computer commands. She brought up the security feeds, and Eli's frown grew deeper as she brought up something very specific.
"I was looking through lab results when I spotted this," and she hit play.
The video was of the room containing Indoraptor's cage. He saw the two men on duty to clean out its muck leave the room with the door opened. Eli thought to himself crankily that he'd have to seriously reprimand the men for slacking off. But in the next moment, his heart dropped into his stomach as he saw a familiar little figure wander into the room.
"Maisie?!" he startled, jaw dropping open with mounting horror as he watched her inch closer to the cage. He whirled on Moroe. "You let her get near that thing and–"
"It happened half an hour ago. The girl's fine. Now watch."
Mills looked back to the screen, biting his cheek as he watched Maisie get closer and closer to the bars of the cage. Sweat was building at the back of his neck. If anything happened to her, he knew old Lockwood would have his head. Eli couldn't afford any mistakes, he couldn't afford to lose his place as Lockwood's heir. Not when his plans were starting to take shape. His eyes grew huge as he saw the Indoraptor reach its arm through the bars to reach for the little girl – surely to tear her to pieces. And then… Maisie just patted it? She pet it like a dog, a smile on her face. The moment was interrupted by something outside the room that the camera didn't pick up. Maisie tried to leave but the Indoraptor snagged its claws on her clothes and tried to keep her there. Eli knew it had the strength – even at such a young age – to hold Maisie if it really wanted, but instead it released her. Maisie sprinted out of the room, not a moment before the two keepers came back in, with the Indoraptor snarling at them menacingly from its cage.
"It's demeanour completely changed," Moroe said, a hint of excitement in her voice. The kind of excitement that only occurred in her when she was on the brink of some new crazy idea for an experiment. "In the whole year, it has not once responded to our keepers. We've tried imprinting and all other types of empathy-inducing responses as Mr Grady's research indicates. Nothing. This thing is not interested. But for her?"
"What are you getting at?" Eli asked testily, trying to calm his heart from the shock of what he just saw.
"Let me see how far this goes. The opportunity to study how the brain works when–"
"Absolutely not." Eli said and stood up fast so as to cut off any further argument. "Maisie is not just our employer's granddaughter, she is a commodity that we cannot afford to jeopardise. Do I make myself clear?"
Before Moroe could argue, he swept out of the room and slammed the door behind him.
Maisie crept down the stairs, her dressing-gown tied tight around her. She knew she wasn't supposed to be up, Grandpa and Iris would be very angry with her if they found out. But she'd been bursting with excitement all evening! On the main floor of the house, towards the back behind the main staircase, she found the door that would lead down into the basement levels. She tried the handle but it wouldn't budge. Shifting from foot to foot, she tried to think – if it was locked, how would she get to Jack?
She wondered around, trying to find another door down. But there were none. The dark was beginning to frighten her. The moonlight was very bright outside, but the entire forest-full of trees that surrounded the house made creepy shadows to appear in the windows and every time they moved it made her want to run back to bed.
A little door in the wall of the kitchen caught her attention. Pulling up a chair so she could stand on it, Maisie slid the door up to open it. Inside she found a little box room with a rope in the middle. Iris said what this was once. She'd been trying to tell Maisie about how the Manor used to be run years ago in the old-days, and it had been so boring. This was what people used to use to put laundry and other things in to carry them to different levels of the house – like a mini elevator. Maisie wondered if it would go all the way down to the bottom of the house? She clambered in, and held onto the rope. She tugged it, and the mini-elevator jerked upwards a little. Oops, wrong direction. She pulled on the other one, and it helpfully moved downwards. Maisie pulled on the rope, one hand after the other, and slowly the mini-elevator went down and down.
The further down she went, Maisie noticed the sliding doors on every level. When she finally found a level that she recognised, she slid the door all the way open and slipped out. The floor down here was super-cold on her feet, her toes were beginning to ache. She hopped along, hoping if she moved fast enough then they'd get warm again. Burying herself further in her fluffy dressing-gown, she drew on it for warmth.
She found the room again. The door wasn't locked – none of the doors were, probably because they didn't think anyone would be down here. When she stepped in, the movement-activated lights flickered on, allowing her enough light to see by. The room was still a little creepy, though. Cold clung to every surface, and there was nothing warm or nice about the room at all. Did Jack like it in here? Or was her Blackiesaurus shivering in the night? Maybe she should bring him a blanket tomorrow…
A chittering-hiccup noise came from the cage, and Jack pressed his face close to the bars. He peered at her with his big golden eyes, as if he was surprised to see her here. Maisie grinned at him, holding up a finger to her lips and whispered loudly "Shhhhh!" She knelt in front of the cage, grinning at him. "I thought you was lonely. And I couldn't sleep – I'm a big girl, Iris shouldn't tell me when to go to bed."
Jack shivered his jaws, making garbling noises back at her in response to her voice. Maisie dug her hand inside the pocket of her dressing-gown and pulled out a bundle of napkins. She unwrapped it and proudly display her prize: a bit of roast beef and a cupcake!
"I did save you some from dinner," she told him, smiling. "You'll like it! Chocolate's my favourite!"
She pushed the offerings through the bars of the cage. Jack made a loud shrill noise that hurt Maisie's ears. And then he was snatching at the food. The beef he shook and tore into before gulping it down. The cupcake he initially went to swallow whole, but paused… and then proceeded to cough and heave, until he spat a mushy crumbly pile onto the floor.
"Gross!" Maisie squealed. Jack seemed to have the same idea, shoving away the disgusting pile of cake with his foot. He shoved his snout against the bars, looking for more to eat. Maisie held up her hands to show she had nothing left to give. Jack rumbled like a baby grumpy to not have another treat and pulled back.
He stepped into the corner of the cage, deep in the shadows. Maisie watched him as he turned, rather awkwardly considering the cramped space of his home, and then he laid down. His tail was curled over his hands, and he rested his chin on top. His golden eyes drooped.
"You tired?" Maisie asked, and fought back a yawn of her own. "Me too. I come back tomorrow, okay?"
Jack did nothing but give a small whispering noise, like a quiet goodbye. Maisie gave him one last look, before she turned and retraced her steps back towards the mini-elevator.
The Indoraptor watched her leave from underneath his eyelids. His mind ticked over the developments of the day.
He'd found her. She was here. After he'd spent a year alone in this place, where he was in the cold and the others came by often to prod him and poke him with their sharp needles. He hated them all. He wanted to tear them apart with his claws and gnaw on their bones. They were cruel creatures: he dreamed of a ball of light in the sky that offered warmth and brightness to his scales. But he'd never seen it. His legs were always tense, his muscles were cramped and hard. He wanted to run, to stretch. But he wasn't allowed. All thanks to them. And he was insufferably bored.
But now she was here.
He was beginning to think that the stress of hatching had addled his mind, that he'd made it up. But no. He knew he'd been right. He'd smelled her down here from time to time. Just a whiff, not strong enough to memorise, but enough to know she was close. But she'd never come to him until now. Now she was here, she'd found him, and instantly he felt the boredom lift. In her he recognised the scent and mapped it to his brain so that he would know her anywhere. Her scent was so strange, yet there was something so uniquely similar to his own. He could sense sickness in her, but it wasn't too strong, not yet. On occasion he smelt the sickness in himself, but his body naturally overcame it. Was hers not? Such weakness would need to be watched closely in the future.
Yet there was no mistaking the element in her unique smell, the one that was reflected in his own, the one that connected them together. He'd known it in his mind the instant he'd smelled her, the piece fixing into place automatically.
Sister…
His sister. His. She'd found him and had come to liberate him from boredom. In the darkness of the cage, he swore that he wouldn't let her leave him again. They'd spent a year apart and that was unfair. It wouldn't happen again. He'd kill anyone who dared to try separating them a second time.
