Oisín McGann - Ancient Appetites

But then Gerald had never been interested in money. He had simple needs: a minimum amount of food, some smart clothes, a steady supply of his favourite French cigarettes and, most of all, the means to indulge in whatever studies or experiments that took his fancy. And, like Nathaniel, he did feel the urge for an occasional bit of debauchery.

Gerald's rooms reflected his personality. His bedroom and living room were strewn with notes, books and unwashed clothes. His laboratory, which would have comfortably housed a university science class, was kept in a state of obsessive tidiness. Nate walked down past benches covered in tools and racks of test tubes, idly trying to guess the purpose of each arcane piece of experimental apparatus as he passed it.

Tatiana was at the far end of the room with their cousin. She was perched on a stool, peering intently at a rounded metal box that Gerald was probing with the tip of a scalpel. As he came closer, Nathaniel could see that the box had a stubby little leg at each corner and they were waving lazily, twitching every now and then as Gerald touched certain points with his blade. Nate put down his packages and leaned in.

'What have you got there then?' he asked.

They both looked up, Tatty with an air of expectation on her face as she saw the presents, Gerald looking slightly distracted.

'I'll show you,' he replied. 'I think you'll like this.'

He turned the box over so that Nate could get a better look at the little engimal. Right side up, he could see it was about the size of a shoebox, with two slots on its back and a face that was little more than an eye and a vent at one end. Nate pointed to the shackle around one of its ankles and the chain that led to a ring in the wall.

'Why the chain?' he enquired.

'It's not house-trained yet,' Gerald told him. 'Keeps running off the table. Stupid thing just falls over the edge and smacks against the floor. Every time. More guts than sense.' He glanced up at Nate. 'A bit like you, really'

'Ha ha.'

Gerald held up his finger and Tatiana clutched his sleeve.

'Oh! Can I do it? Please?' she begged, bouncing up and down on her stool.

'Of course you can, Princess. But don't tease it.'

There was a loaf of bread on a breadboard behind Gerald, and Tatty reached over and cut a slice. She dangled the slice over one of the slots in the little engimal's back. The creature jiggled excitedly, trying to jump up and get the bread. Its chain clinked with each hop.

'It eats bread?' Nate grew more curious. He had never seen this before.

'No.' Tatty shook her head. 'Watch!'

She dropped the slice of bread into one of the slots. The engimal gave a sensual shudder and went still for moment. An orange glow emitted from the slot, along with a wisp of steam. Then the slice of bread popped back up and Tatiana snatched at it. She gasped, quickly passing it from one hand to the other, and then tossed it to Nate. He caught it, held it and yelped as heat burned his fingertips.

'It's toasted it!' he exclaimed, delighted.

'Instantly' Gerald smiled. 'And it can heat muffins too. I haven't figured out if it has other talents, but we'll see soon enough. It'll all form part of my thesis: "A Demonstration of the Correlation Between Engimal Form, Nature and Function in Relation to The Origin of Species". It's going to make me famous, don't you know.'

'Not unless you shorten the title,' Tatty sniffed.

Nate examined the toast, turning it over. 'It's done both sides,' he said in a disappointed voice.

'Barbaric, I know' Gerald shrugged, fondly petting the toast-maker. 'But I'm sure it can be trained.'

Nathaniel's stomach rumbled to remind him that he hadn't eaten since the previous afternoon. Tatiana's face reminded him that he other duties to perform first.

'I suppose you'll want your presents then?' he sighed. 'Gerald first, I think.'

'You're so mean!' Tatty snapped, scowling and folding her arms.

Nathaniel handed his cousin the larger of the two packages, an oval shape wrapped in brown paper and twine. Gerald smiled and cut the string with his scalpel, carefully pulling off the brown paper.

'A shield,' he murmured softly.

It was a piece of tanned skin stretched over a leaf-shaped wooden frame. There were two columns of symbols on its outer face.

'Bit flimsy for fighting,' Gerald mused.

'It's a medicine shield,' Nate informed him. 'I got it from a witch-doctor. Thought you might find the story interesting. The skin is supposed to be that of an ancient medicine man who was flayed alive for offending the gods-'

'That's disgusting,' Tatty burst out.

'The symbols were a decoration on his back. They are said to hold the secret key to a language only he understood,' Nate continued. 'Take a closer look.'

'These look like mathaumaturgical symbols,' Gerald muttered, running his fingertip down the column on the right.

Mathaumaturgy was a relatively new science that was attempting to explain magic and the supernatural – or even to determine whether they existed at all – through the use of mathematics.

'They're different, but close… But what are these?' Gerald went on, pointing at the column of over a hundred markings on the left. 'They look like "I"s and "O"s.'

'Or ones and noughts,' Nate agreed. 'I don't know. Thought you might be able to tell me.'

'Could be nothing.' Gerald held it up to the light from the tall windows. 'Or it could be the key to the whole mathaumaturgical mystery. What did you trade for it?'

'A shaving mirror.'

'A hard bargain.' Gerald looked sideways at him.

'He wouldn't take "no" for an answer.'

Tatiana looked fit to explode with impatience while Nate pretended to look at Gerald's shield for a while longer. Her eyes bulged at the other package.

'And I have something really special for you!' Nate smiled, finally handing it to her.

Tatty breathed again and then put on her best attempt at a reserved smile, clasping her hands together. The package was tall and round and wrapped in a more delicate, Oriental paper. Tatiana put it on the table and began to tentatively pull at the string that bound it. But her excitement got the better of her and she ended up tearing the paper to shreds to expose a large birdcage.

Sitting on the perch was the oddest bird she had ever seen. Like the toast-maker, it was an engimal but, unlike other engimals, it was actually shaped like a creature of flesh and blood. It was blue and silver, with a white breast, a copper-coloured beak and bright orange eyes. It appeared to be made of a mixture of metal and some other, softer material.

'It's beautiful,' Tatiana whispered. 'Oh, thank you, Nate. It's so beautiful. Can it fly?'

'Absolutely,' he replied. 'But don't let it out just yet. It has to bond with you first.'

'Mm hmm.' His sister's attention was firmly fixed on the creature, which was little bigger than her fist.

'Did you catch it?' she asked.

'No, I had to buy this one.'

'Must've cost a bloody fortune,' Gerald muttered under his breath.

Nate nodded grimly.

'Can it sing?' Tatiana turned to look up at him.

'Yes, it's trained to obey some key words,' Nate said. He leaned and whispered something in her ear. 'But before you use it, I should warn you-'

'Songbird, sing!' Tatty cried, clapping her hands.

The petite little bird opened its beak, but instead of a melodic birdsong, a noise erupted from its tiny frame that had Tatty and Gerald recoiling in shock. A yowling cacophony like a quartet of hoarse violins trapped in the depths of hell carried across the room on a rolling, gyrating drumbeat. The bird flapped its wings happily as the deafening clamour bellowed from its beak.

Nate darted forward, cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted something to it. The bird fell silent again, looking slightly disappointed.