The Bone Clocks

“Easier’n you’d think, old lady,” says the bearded giant, holding the ladder steady. “One pair o’ bolt cutters, lower her down gently, job’s done. We’ve done it a hundred times, like.”

“I need my panels for light,” protests Mo, “and for my tab!”

“Seven days from now,” Hood predicts, “you’ll be praying for darkness. It’ll be your only protection ’gainst the Jackdaws. Look on it as a favor we’re doing you. And you won’t be needing your tabs anymore, neither. No more Net for the Lease Lands. The good old days are good and gone, old lady. Winter’s coming.”

“You call yourself ‘Hood,’ ” Mo tells him, “but it’s ‘Robbing Hood,’ not Robin Hood, from where I’m standing. Would you treat yourelderly relatives like this?”

“Number one is to survive,” answers Hood, watching the men on the roof. “They’re all dead, like my parents. They had a better life than I did, mind. So did you. Your power stations, your cars, your creature comforts. Well, you lived too long. The bill’s due. Today,” up on the roof the bolt is cut on the first panel, “you start to pay. Think of us as the bailiffs.”

“But it wasn’t us, personally, who trashed the world,” says Mo. “It was the system. We couldn’t change it.”

“Then it’s not us, personally, taking your panels,” says Hood. “It’s the system. We can’t change it.”

I hear the O’Dalys’ dog barking, three fields away. I pray Izzy’s okay, and that these men with guns don’t molest the girls. “What’ll you do with the panels?” I ask.

“The mayor of Kenmare,” says Hood, as a couple of his men carry the first of Mo’s panels over to the jeep, “he’s building himself quite a fastness. Big walls. A little Cordon of his own, with surveillance cameras, lights. Pays food and diesel for solar panels.” A bolt affixing Mo’s second solar panel is cut. “These and the ones from the house below”—he nods at my cottage—“are going to him.”

Mo’s quicker than me: “My neighbor has no solar panels.”

“Someone’s telling porkies,” singsongs the bearded giant. “Mr. Drone says they do, and Mr. Drone never lies.”

“That drone yesterday was yours?” I ask, as if it’ll help.

“Stability finds the booty,” says the giant, “we go ’n’ get it. Don’t look so gobboed, old lady. Stability’s just another clan o’ militia, nowadays. Specially now the Chinks’ve gone.”

I imagine my mother saying, It’s “Chinese,” not “Chinks.”

Mo asks, “What gives you the right to take our property?”

“Guns gives us the right,” says Hood. “Plain ’n’ simple.”

“So you’re reinstating the law of the jungle?” asks Mo.

“You were bringing it back, every time you filled your tank.”

Mo stabs the ground with her stick. “A thief, a thug, and a killer!”

He considers this, stroking his eyebrow ring. “Killer: When it’s kill or be killed, yeah, I am. Thug: We all have our moments, old lady. Thief: Actually, I’m a trader, too, like. You give me your solar panels—I’ll give you glad tidings.” He reaches into his pocket and brings out two short white tubes. I’m so relieved it’s not a gun I extend my hand when he holds them out. I stare at the pill canisters, at their skull and crossbones, their Russian writing. Hood’s voice is less mocking now. “They’re a way out. If the Jackdaws come, or Ratflu breaks out, or whatever, and there’s no doctor. Instant antiemetic,” he says, “and enough pentobarbital for a dignified ending in thirty minutes. We call ’em huckleberries. You drift away painless, like. Childproof container, too.”

“Mine’s going into the cesshole,” says Mo.

“Give it back, then,” Hood says. “There’s plenty who’ll want one.” Mo’s second solar panel’s off the roof and is being carried past us to the jeep. I slip both canisters into my pocket: Hood notices and gives me a conspiratorial look I ignore. “Anyone in the house down below,” he nods at the cottage, “the lads need to know about?”

With acute retrospective envy, I remember how Marinus could “suasion” people into doing his bidding. All I have is language. “Mr. Hood. My grandson’s got diabetes. He controls it with an insulin pump that needs recharging every few days. If you take the solar panels, you’ll be killing him. Please.”

Up the hill, sheep bleat, oblivious to human empires rising and falling. “That’s bad luck, old lady, but your grandson’s born into the Age of Bad Luck. He was killed by a bossman in Shanghai who figured, ‘The West Cork Lease Lands ain’t paying their way.’ Even if we left your panels on your roof, they’d be Jackdawed off in seven days.”

Civilization’s like the economy, or Tinkerbell: If people stop believing it’s real, it dies. Mo asks, “How do you sleep at night?”

“Number one is to survive,” Hood repeats.

“That’s no answer,” snorts my neighbor. “That’s a huckleberry you force-feed to what’s left of your conscience.”

Hood ignores Mo and, with a gentleness I’d not have guessed at, he cups my hand under his larger one and presses a third canister into the hollow of my palm. Hope seeps through holes in the soles of my feet. “There’s no one in the house below. Don’t hurt my hens. Please.”