The Foretelling of Georgie Spider

by Ambelin Kwaymullina

  We probably wouldn’t make it to the end.

  But there was no point in thinking about that. We knew it, we’d known it for a while, and we couldn’t change it. Instead I reached out to clasp his hands in mine, and said, “Feel what I feel.”

  Connor and I had been practising sharing emotions for weeks, in case it was ever useful in a fight, and found it had an unexpected result. We could make everything else recede, creating a space that consisted only of each other. I sent everything I was feeling radiating out to him – the sunshine on my skin. The scent of the wildflowers in the air. And that I loved him and always would.

  My feelings mingled with his and were returned to me magnified. The world and our worries loosed their hold until all that contained us was each other. I’d flown with Connor a hundred times. I felt like I was flying now.

  I pressed my lips to his, and soared.

  THE CHOICES

  GEORGIE

  The wind was howling, and everything had turned to white. I was drowning, but not in water. Emptiness was stealing my breath.

  Someone grabbed hold of my shoulders. “Georgie! Georgie!”

  The world came into focus, and so did the person standing in front of me. A person with brown skin, green eyes, and sun-streaked dark hair that fell over his face. I reached up to brush it back.

  “Your hands are like ice!” Daniel exclaimed. He stripped off his jacket, draping it over my shoulders. “Why are you so cold?”

  “Everything went away. It was cold.”

  From my map, Helper chittered crossly at me. He wasn’t happy about me being lost twice in one day. If it had been one day. Had it been one day?

  Daniel took hold of my arm, steering me over to the opening in the cave wall, and letting me go once I was standing in the sunlight.

  “Look at me, Georgie!”

  I gazed doubtfully up at him. He seemed real. But everything always did. “Aren’t you and Ember in Gull City?”

  “I got home just now. Ember too.”

  I glanced around the cave, looking for Em, and Daniel added, “She went to find Connor and Jules and Ash. This is real, I promise.”

  Yes, it was, because it wasn’t cold here. We weren’t in the world where Ash was dead. Not yet.

  My name is Georgie Spider. This is the real world. Daniel is worried about me. I didn’t want him to be worried. “We should go help Em find the others. They might still be on the grasslands.” That was where they’d been this morning.

  But Daniel shook his head. “She can find them on her own. I want you to talk to me about that map. And don’t try telling me again that it’s just an ordinary map, except bigger. I know that isn’t true.”

  “How do you know?”

  He smiled at me. “Because I know you, Georgie.” Then his smile went away. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

  I wasn’t sure if I could. I hadn’t seen a future where I did, so I didn’t know what happened if I told. I liked to know before I spoke. But I had to tell someone. This was too scary a thing to know all by myself.

  “Ash is going to die.”

  He went still. Then he said, “When?”

  “All the whens. Every future I can See, and that’s not even the worse thing.”

  “What could be worse than Ash dying?”

  “Everybody dying.” But that wasn’t right. “Or maybe they don’t die, not on the outside. Something happens to them on the inside, though. If Ash dies, there’s this storm, and it’s going to cut people off from everything and everyone. That will make them cold, and they’ll get colder and colder until they can’t feel anything at all.”

  “That’s why you were cold? You were looking at the storm?”

  I nodded, and Daniel’s gaze drifted over to the map. “Every future …” He frowned. “You’ve been following multiple futures at once. Georgie, that’s dangerous for you!”

  “I had to See.”

  “You have to stop.”

  I shook my head.

  Daniel sighed. “Then don’t work on the map alone.”

  “I have to do it alone. I’m the only Foreteller.”

  “I mean, I’ll stay with you. Make sure you don’t get lost. Let me help, Georgie.”

  There was an excited chirping from the map and from the ceiling above me. The spiders thought two helpers were better than one, and they liked Daniel. I liked Daniel. He was the only person in the Tribe who always looked at me as if I made sense. But I didn’t know if there was anything he could do now, because I didn’t know if there was anything I could do. “I can’t find a way to save her. I can’t find a future where she lives.”

  “Then we’ll have to make one.”

  He didn’t understand. I couldn’t do that. Sometimes I could do something or say something that pushed things in the direction of one future or another, but that was if the future was already there. It wasn’t the same if the futures didn’t exist to begin with. “We can’t. I can’t.”

  “I think you can.” He sounded very sure of that, and Daniel was usually right. Maybe I could make a future? I wandered back to the map, but it looked the same as before. Ash ended and then everything else did.

  “We could warn Ash,” Daniel suggested. “Tell her to be more careful.”

  “No! We can’t tell her anything about this.”

  “Why not?”

  My gaze roamed over the vines strung across the wall, reading the connections. “Ash doesn’t run from danger. She wouldn’t behave any different if she knew.”

  “Not even when the world depends on her being alive?”

  “I could tell her that but she wouldn’t really believe it, because she wouldn’t believe she’s that important. Besides, keeping her safe means other people being in danger. Ash wouldn’t be able to stop herself trying to protect the people who were trying to protect her.”

  Daniel nodded. “Okay. Well, what about if we keep her away from any danger without her knowing? Georgie, her death – is it something to do with Gull City? Because big things are happening there. I promised Em I’d let her tell you about it, but if it would help you to know now …”

  “It doesn’t matter. I mean, it does matter, but it’s just another future. The danger is everywhere. It’s impossible to keep Ash away from it!”

  Helper suddenly chittered and leaped across the map, scuttling into one of the gaps. He chittered again but I didn’t understand what he was trying to tell me.

  “You’re off the map!” I said. “There aren’t any futures where you are.”

  “Maybe that’s it,” Daniel said. “If you can’t find a future where she lives, maybe you need to look where the futures aren’t.”

  Look at where the futures weren’t? I’d never done that before. I moved closer to the cave wall, gazing into the spaces between the connections. I still couldn’t See anything. But that wasn’t the only way to know what was ahead. When Ash and I had first come to the forest, we’d been able to smell eucalyptus long before we’d been near enough to see the trees. I leaned into a gap in the map and closed my eyes, breathing in the space that was filled with what I couldn’t See.

  My eyes flew open. “Choices!” I spun around. “It’s choices, Daniel! That’s what changes things.”

  He was smiling at me again. “Whose choices?”

  That was a good question. It deserved a good answer. I turned back to my futures to find one.

  There were no gaps in the map any more. New possibilities were glimmering everywhere now that I understood how what-was-to-be could be changed. “I don’t know yet. More than one person. More than two, even.” I was going to need more vine. I opened my mouth to ask Daniel to get some. But I didn’t say the words. The possibilities were telling me something else. “The others are having a meeting. In the Overhang.”

  “I know,” Daniel replied. “It’s about what’s happening the city. But we don’t have to go if you need to be here.”

  I did need to be here. Only I needed to be there as well, and I could b
e here later, but I had to be there now. “I think we have to go.”

  Daniel held out his arm to me, and I clasped hold of it, and we walked out of the cave together. Helper chirped a happy goodbye at me as I left, and I chirped back at him, because I was happy too. I was happy even though the new possibilities in my map were shining less brightly than any futures I’d ever Seen. It meant they weren’t very likely to happen. It meant Ash was still probably going to die. But before I hadn’t seen a way and now I did.

  My name is Georgie Spider and I am going to save Ashala Wolf.

  THE NEWS

  ASHALA

  I leaned back, resting my weight on my palms and stretching out my legs. I was sitting atop a flat orangey-coloured boulder, staring up at the underside of yet another boulder that arched overhead. Connor was lounging at my side, and I reached out to twine my fingers in his hair. He looked across and smiled the smile that made me forget to breathe.

  Ember said, “Georgie’s always late!”

  I sucked in oxygen, letting my hand fall away from Connor and looking over to where Jules and Em were sitting on the other side of the rock. Em was drumming her fingers against the granite – whatever her news was must be something big, because she was bursting to tell it. But there was no point in getting impatient; Georgie and Daniel would get here when they got here. Georgie had told me once that she didn’t know why people always worried about being places “on time” when time itself was always moving. “I’m sure they’ll be here soon.”

  Em scowled in the direction of the caves, as if Georgie and Daniel were going to sense they were being glared at and come running. Then Jules leaned over to murmur something in her ear, and she tossed back her red curls and laughed. Jules could always make her laugh, and he was obviously in a much better mood now she was home. He didn’t even seem to be mad at me any more, although I knew that didn’t mean he wasn’t. He’d just set it aside for the moment. Jules was good at that. He didn’t really hold on to anything. Except for Em.

  There was a stirring in the trees, and I pointed. “Here they are now.”

  I gave Daniel a little wave, pleased to see him back in the Firstwood. Georgie was pleased too; she was hanging on to his arm, chattering away and apparently totally present in the here and now. Maybe she’d finally given up on that enormous web I’d been trying to pry her away from. Or maybe it’s just Daniel. There was a deep calm to Daniel that was endlessly reassuring; even in the worst of moments, nothing ever seemed quite so difficult or so desperate when he was around.

  They settled onto the rock with the rest of us, and Ember said, “What I’ve got to tell everyone? It’s about the Council of Primes meeting.”

  “Have they cancelled it?” I asked hopefully. None of us were happy about the Primes of the seven cities gathering together in Gull City for their Council meeting. It was an obvious target for Terence, who’d attacked Prime Willis with minions once before in an effort to convince the world Illegals were violent criminals.

  Em shook her head. “It hasn’t been cancelled and we don’t want it to be, because Belle Willis has got the other Primes to agree to vote on something significant at the Council. It’s a bit complicated, but if they vote yes …” She looked around at everyone, focusing her mismatched eyes – one brown and one blue – on each of our faces. “They’re going to start letting people out of detention.”

  Connor drew in a sharp breath. I sat up, not sure I’d heard Em right. “Out of detention? You mean, end the Citizenship Accords?”

  She laughed. “I’m afraid the news isn’t quite that good, Ash! They’re voting on whether they should Reassess people already in detention, to see if any of them should get an Exemption.”

  I must be missing something, because I didn’t see why that was such a big deal. “But everyone who’s in detention has the kind of ability that could be used to hurt someone. They’re not eligible for an Exemption! How is Reassessing them going to change that?”

  “They’re going to be Assessed under different criteria. The government will take into account the way people have behaved while they’ve been detained.”

  I had no idea what that meant. But Connor did. “You mean whether the detainees have followed the rules?” he asked dryly. “Did exactly what they were told, didn’t talk back to the guards, that sort of thing?”

  Ember nodded, and Jules let out a cynical bark of laughter. “That sounds about right. Citizens walk around free unless they do something bad. But Illegals? We get locked up until we prove we’re good.”

  “That’s terrible!” I spluttered. “They’re treating Illegals like … like …”

  Ember finished the sentence for me. “Like we’re tiny children who have to show we’ve done our chores before we get a treat. I know. But this was the only way Willis could get the Primes to vote on change. And she’s going to use it to do something for us.” She beamed at me, her round face glowing in anticipation, and I realised what she’d said so far wasn’t the news she’d been waiting to share, or at least, not all of it. “She’s going to give the entire Tribe Exemptions.”

  I gaped at her. Exemptions. Not an end to the Citizenship Accords, but an end to them applying to us. It wasn’t the same as Citizenship because an Exemption could always be revoked. But it was more than I’d ever thought we’d have. A smile spread over my face, so big it hurt my cheeks to smile it. “That means … we could go into the towns and the City, and ride the Rail, and no one could arrest us!”

  “And,” Georgie said excitedly, “the best part is, Daniel could visit his grandma. And Keiko could visit her mum, and Micah his mum and dad, and Anika her uncle, and Lia her sister!”

  She’d listed every Tribe member with a relative who’d helped them escape, and she was absolutely right. What was most important was that anyone with a family who cared about them would be able to visit without worrying about either getting detained themselves or having their family arrested for harbouring an Illegal. “That is the best part, Georgie!”

  “I wouldn’t start celebrating yet,” Jules said. “’Cause I can’t see the other Primes voting ‘yes’ to any of this.”

  Georgie’s face fell. Daniel cast an annoyed glance at Jules, and said, “Willis isn’t going to tell them about giving Exemptions to the Tribe. She’s just going to apply the new Exemption criteria to runaways as well as detainees. And as for the rest – Willis thinks there’s a chance.” Georgie brightened, and Daniel’s attention shifted to me. “But, Ash, she wants you to come to the City. To meet with some of the Primes. Talk to them about abilities.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “Because,” Ember said, “you are a symbol. Of Illegals everywhere.”

  “But there’re heaps of other runaways besides me! Not to mention everyone in detention.”

  “Perhaps, but yours is the name everyone knows. Ashala Wolf. Leader of the Tribe.”

  I shifted uncomfortably. I didn’t like people knowing my name. It made me and the Tribe a target. “Of course I’ll go if it’ll help, but – we don’t have those Exemptions yet, you know. No one had better try arresting us!”

  “Willis said she’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  Jules rolled his eyes. “Willis might not even be able to take care of herself. Terence isn’t gonna like the Primes voting on letting people out of detention. If he wasn’t planning something before, he’ll be thinking about it now.”

  “It’s just possible,” Ember said thoughtfully, “that he might not try something. Terence has got to be responsible for the rumours that Prime Talbot will return to Gull City. If he’s really planning a comeback, he won’t want to risk getting caught targeting the other Primes. He’ll need their support.”

  Terence had been the Prime of Gull City for years before he faked his own death, and the stories that he’d return to save the city from some kind of Illegal threat just wouldn’t go away. “Yeah, but Em – Terence isn’t exactly rational. He might not do the logical thing.”

  “There’s a
lso Neville Rose,” Daniel said quietly. “We don’t know what he’s advising Terence to do.”

  “Something bad,” I said. It would always be something bad. “But clever.” Neville Rose was an evil man, but not a stupid or reckless one. On the contrary, there was something chillingly thoughtful about the way he inflicted pain. And the last time I’d seen him, he’d made a promise. I’ll be seeing you, Ashala Wolf … I shuddered, and turned my thoughts away from him.

  “The two of them might not even be working together any more,” Jules pointed out. “Terence never did get on with anyone who wasn’t under his total control, and from what you’ve all said about Rose, he isn’t a shut-up-and-take-orders kind of guy.”

  “He’s not,” Connor agreed. “But Terence must want – or need – Neville for something. He went to a great deal of trouble to rescue him.”

  No one said anything to that, but everyone looked grim. Neville had been rescued before he could be punished for crimes that included experimenting on detainees. I’d been his victim too, although I’d put myself in Detention Centre 3 on purpose to save the detainees there. That didn’t mean being Neville’s prisoner had been an easy thing to live through. The experience had cost me, and Neville’s escape had almost cost us a lot more.

  Georgie reached across to put her hand on Daniel’s. She hadn’t forgotten he’d almost died after Neville had stabbed him. None of us had. I lifted my chin. “You know what? It doesn’t matter what Terence has planned, or Neville. The Tribe is never going to be safe as long as there’re people out there who hate abilities, and laws that make it okay to hate. And this vote is bigger than the one change.” I looked at Em. “Isn’t it?”

  “It has larger implications,” she agreed. “As change gathers momentum, people will stop arguing over whether there should be alterations to the Accords and start arguing about what exactly the changes should be or how fast they should happen. If we can get to that point, the end of the Citizenship Accords becomes … inevitable.”