"Through here, Doctor Gillespie."

        Through the close confines of the cowshed and into a straw-strewn annex behind vacant stalls Staunton leads Donovan Gillespie to see something curled upon damp straw.

        Crouching closer, Gillespie finds the stench assailing. A moment's reel and then: composure and assessment.

        At first glance- a calf... But then... the wrongness... The face- too flat. The nose- too discreet. Ears small, tail nonexistent. The hind legs long, but the forelegs oddly stunted. The rounded head awkwardly jointed to the curving neck. And its breath... tortured, uneven...

        And the hooves... surely hooves should not be flanked by thumbs?

        Knees creaking, gravel crunching, Fr. Keogh crouches. Squinting, he peers at the nearest grave (Anthony Hollis, aged 3 months).

        The marble headstone is slumping into a wide and ragged crack in the cement base; he can see where pale blue chippings trickle down into darkness.

        And Fr. Keogh strains to hear... there's a sound welling up from the punctured grave.

        That can't be right... Fast water, flowing.

        Keogh turns and asks "How many are like this?"

        "At last count?"

        

        Keogh is losing his patience. Boyce is enjoying this- the glutton for misery.

        "How many?" Keogh repeats, sharply.

        Boyce grins. "Sixteen."

        Gillespie, eyes upon the elderly farmer, softly rebukes, "Should have contacted me the moment it was born."

        "We did, Doctor," mumbles Staunton.

        Vet-eyes narrow. "No...," he breathes, "the size of it...  must be four months old. At least."

        

        "Born late last night; God's truth."

        Gillespie straightens, hands on his thighs. "But birthing something this big...  would've destroyed... utterly destroyed..."

        "You'd best come with," the farmer mutters.

        Outside, under plastic sheeting, the vet is shown the mangled remains of the calf's dam. Hindquarters burst open, peeled like a fruit, red pulp exposed beneath.

        "That's our third, Doctor Gillespie. Third this week."

.        .        .

Softly nodding, humouring the senility. But your mind is set.

.        .        .

        The rent in Gregory Cunningham's grave yawns deepest. Gingerly, Keogh steps upon white chippings. The cement cracks; pieces just fall away, down into the darkness beneath the graveyard.

        The scarecrow Boyce grins. "Didn't I tell you, Father?"

        On firm ground kneeling, Keogh examines the void. Not a trace of the coffin, in the earth just three months. Only the lapping of water, the sharp glimmer when liquid catches light.

        Bracing himself, Keogh reaches in... and down... can just reach- the stream-

        Yelping, Keogh pulls his hand back.

        The tip of his index finger is gone; simply melted away.

.        .        .

She will be buried beside your father.

.        .        .

        Staunton drags knuckles through sparse hair.

        "Shouldn't've been ready to birth for weeks," he mumbles, uncomprehending. "And t'others-all before their time- one month, two months early..."

        Grim-faced Gillespie is silent, adrift in thought.

        The voice of the farmer cracks: "Was it something in the feed? Didn't we shelter them right?"

        But the vet shakes his head. "No... Need to think... bigger."

        They stand, staring at the burst cow, struck unmoving by the weight of wrong flesh lying.

        Return, then, to the newborn thing.

        And the rock of Gillespie is shaken asunder.

        The calf has woken. The calf has spoken.

.        .        .

That night, the funeral over, you lie unsleeping...

.        .        .

        Recumbent on the gravel, Fr. Keogh dumbly stares at the red stump held before his face. Pain is fading from the bloodless finger.

        He stares. Melted... off...

        Stares... Melted...

        Long moments pass.

        And then the priest looks out beyond the lopped digit.

        

        Sitting here, the node, the omphalos, the point of perspective. He is the first to see it...

        Follow the path of the melting stream, dissolving the bed of the graves, out towards the fields and the raw crow-haunted butchery beneath the hawthorn bush.

        

        "The grass," whispers Keogh, "It's a different colour."

        A trail of brittle grey staining green.

.        .        .

You recall- her eyes wide, and her pleading voice: I know what happens...

.        .        .

        In the candle-warmth of the cowshed the calf is softly speaking.

        The pale eyes of the calf-thing are rolling madness.

        They let the thing live for a week.

        Just to see.