“Interesting. Explain!”
“Neville enjoys hurting people. But most of the time, he doesn’t look like someone who enjoys hurting people – he comes across like a friendly grandfather. And when he talks about abilities being unnatural, he sounds sorry about it. Regretful, you know?” I remembered what Willis had said about him, and added, “He’s done the most terrible things and there’re still people who think he did it for the right reasons. Neville … makes it seem reasonable to hate. Reasonable to do anything to anyone, in the name of preserving the Balance. When the whole time all he’s really interested in is getting his hands on more victims.”
“Ah.” Hoffman nodded in satisfaction. “Psychopaths always do tend to flourish in oppressive regimes – yes, I believe I understand him.” He beamed at me. “An insightful analysis, Ashala. Thank you. Now we must leave.”
He turned and went striding out the door. Jules took a quick step after him then glanced back at me, obviously torn.
“Go,” I told him. “I’m fine, I promise.”
Jules sprinted after Hoffman, and I climbed off the table, leaning on the edge of it until I was sure my legs would support my weight. Then I went out into the tunnels where Jules and Hoffman were arguing.
“Fine then,” Jules was saying. “Go off on your own. You’ll get lost in the cave system and someone’ll probably find you wandering around in, oh, a year or so.”
“I need to think,” Hoffman snapped. “I require pacing space. That room is much too confined. These tunnels are much too confined!”
I could sympathise with that. I didn’t like being underground either, not with the memory of the bunker still lingering.
“We can go into the forest,” I said. “There’s heaps of, um, pacing space there.”
“An excellent notion,” Hoffman exclaimed. “Let us depart.”
The three of us starting walking, winding our way down the passages and then through the caves and finally out into the Firstwood. Hoffman took an instant interest in the plants, which apparently included some species he didn’t recognise, and went hurrying off into the trees, running from one leaf or stalk or flower to the next. Jules rolled his eyes and followed him.
I stayed where I was just outside the cave entrance. My legs were still weak; I was in no condition to go chasing after Hoffman, and I could trust Jules to make sure Ember’s dad didn’t get into any trouble. I tipped back my head, inhaling the eucalyptus in the air and enjoying the feel of the sun on my face. I’m going to sleep outside tonight. I was going to sleep outside for a while, with nothing around me but the trees and nothing above but the moon and the stars.
“Ashala Wolf!”
I jumped, twisting to see Leo careening through the forest on some kind of – flying machine? His feet were resting on a small white platform out of which came a T-shaped pole that rose up to chest height, and his hands were clasped around either end of the “T”. The entire device zoomed through the air, zigzagging back and forth between the trees and sending Leo’s Spinifex-City-yellow robe flapping around him. Connor and Em were flying above Leo, higher in the canopy, and they came drifting down to land at my side.
Leo stopped his vehicle and jumped off, leaving it hovering as he hurried over. Something’s wrong. Leo looked bad. His skin was sallow, his cheeks were sunken and there were dark shadows under his eyes. If he weren’t an aingl, I would have thought he was sick.
“Have you dreamed, Ashala?” he demanded.
“Um. Dreamed what?”
“You would know if you had dreamed!”
I cast a puzzled glance at Ember, who shook her head. “He’s been like this the whole way here. I haven’t been able to get any sense out of him at all.” Then, “Ash? You’re staring at me.”
I was drinking in the sight of her alive and here and not dead in some cold underground room. But I wasn’t going to tell her that. Now wasn’t the time and anyway I didn’t know if I was ever going to be able to talk to Em about what I’d seen in her father’s mind. “Sorry, Em, just … lost in thought, I guess.” I felt a steady sense of reassurance emanating from Connor; he knew I was upset about something. I used the comfort of his presence to banish the memory of the bunker and returned my attention to Leo, who was turning in a slow circle and surveying the forest as if he was expecting to find something.
“In my dream,” he said, “I came here. I came here, and you were here, and I found the dreams. It’s been the only dream anyone has dreamed for weeks, it must be right!”
I sighed. “Leo, I don’t understand.”
“The taffa dreams are gone!”
Everything suddenly became clear. Leo was obsessed with taffa dreams. He believed they gave glimpses into worlds beyond this one and would eventually show him Peter, the long-dead love of his life. If the dreams were gone that possibility had been taken away, which was why Leo looked so ill. Not sick. Heartsick. The reason there’d been problems with the dreams was obvious, only I wasn’t sure Leo knew it. The last time I’d seen him he’d thought Starbeauty was an ordinary desert cat who he called “Misty”.
I opened my mouth to speak with no real idea of what I was going to say – and closed it again when Starbeauty herself emerged from the trees. She stalked up to Leo and sat at his feet. Hello, my pet.
His mouth fell open. “I … you … Misty?”
No. I am Starbeauty.
And a deep voice exclaimed, “Extraordinary!”
Hoffman had returned, and Jules with him. Jules sauntered over to perch on a nearby rock, and Hoffman strode across to Starbeauty, staring down at her with a fascinated expression.
“Hello there, father,” Leo said.
Hoffman waved an impatient hand. “Yes, yes, Leo, I noticed you there. Now, this feline … telepathy? Some kind of advanced intelligence, perhaps?”
I didn’t usually talk about spirits to people who didn’t already know about them. But Starbeauty seemed to have decided to reveal herself, so I said, “She’s an ancient spirit.”
“Ancient spirit?” Hoffman frowned. “You surely don’t believe in gods, Ashala! There are no gods.”
They believe in me.
He scowled down at her. “And you think yourself to be a god?”
I think myself to be an earth spirit.
“But … you expect people to worship you? Obey your commands?”
People do worship me and obey my commands.
“Because you tell them you are a god?”
Because I tell them I am a cat.
This conversation had the potential to go on for a really long time.
“Ancient earth spirits aren’t like the gods you wrote about,” I told Hoffman. “It’s more like … well, there’s the Balance, and it’s in everything and it is everything. And the Balance shows itself in lots of ways, and some of those ways have names and personalities. They’re ancient spirits.” Then to Leo, I said, “It isn’t taffa that causes the dreams. It’s Starbeauty.”
His face lit up with hope, and he dropped to the ground beside her in a single, graceful motion. “Why did you take the dreams away? Did I do something wrong? How do I get them back? I’ll do anything!”
I took the dreams so that you would follow a dream here to find them again. But that is not what you are truly here to find. She looked over her shoulder into the trees. You may come out now.
Nicky came bounding out of the undergrowth and pelted over to Leo. I cast a panicked glance at Em, who gave me a helpless shrug back. She didn’t know how Hoffman or Leo were going to react either, but it was too late to do anything about it now.
Nicky stopped in front of Leo, his head almost level with Leo’s own since Leo was still sitting, and grinned a doggy grin. Leo gazed at Nicky in bemusement. “I’m not sure I–” Then he gasped. “Dominic?”
“Woof!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Hoffman said sharply. “It cannot possibly …” His voice trailed off as he stared at Nicky. “It can’t be.” Hoffman sank to the ground, reaching ou
t to rest a shaking hand on Nicky’s head. “My son? Is it you?”
“Woof!”
“He’s not the same,” Em said. “He’s Nicky now, not Dominic, and this is his second life. Neither of you can take him apart to turn him back into what he was, because that’s not what he is.”
Leo looked up at her and said in a raw, stunned voice, “Little sister, how could you think I would ever hurt him?”
Her gaze fell before his. “I’m sorry, Leo. I wasn’t sure. We both know the others–”
“I am not the others!”
Ember flinched, and Hoffman said, “I think we can all agree Dominic appears to be perfectly content in this form. Let us focus on the more important issue – how is this possible?”
“It’s possible because of Ash,” Ember replied. She walked over to sit beside her father and brother. Then she drew in a breath and told them about how Dominic had become an interrogation machine before becoming Nicky.
When she’d finished, Leo stared down at Nicky and whispered, “I thought when we died we just ended, and wherever Peter had gone it was a path I could never follow. The taffa seemed to be the only way I’d ever see him. I thought there was never any possibility of a second life for an aingl, because we don’t have …”
He didn’t finish the sentence but he didn’t need to. Ember had once thought the same thing, that being synthetic instead of organic somehow made her less human, with no spirit to go to the Balance.
Starbeauty directed a stern green gaze at Leo. You are a foolish pet. Your end is not your end.
Tears began to leak out of Leo’s eyes. Em put one arm around him and the other around Hoffman and drew them in close. Starbeauty watched them for a moment, then padded back into the forest with the satisfied air of a cat whose work was done.
This wasn’t a moment for us. It wasn’t a moment for anyone but Ember’s family. And after everything I had seen in the bunker and all I knew about the aingls, it seemed so right that these four – Ember, Nicky, Hoffman and Leo – should be together, in this moment, in this life. So I took Connor’s hand, and motioned to Jules to follow us.
The three of us walked away, leaving the aingls to their grief and their joy and each other.
THE FUTURE
GEORGIE
Two days from now was the Conclave and tonight was dinner. Everyone was gathered around the cooking fire in the Overhang, and the air was filled with the smell of vegetable soup and eucalyptus and smoke. All the Tribe was here, along with Starbeauty, and Ember’s dad, and Ember’s brother Leo who was sitting very still so as not to wake Rosa who’d fallen asleep in his lap.
Everyone who was going to the Conclave would be leaving early tomorrow morning. They wouldn’t reach the meeting place in time otherwise, not when they had to cross the grasslands and then travel into the Steeps. Em and Jules and Starbeauty were going, along with Ash and Connor and Ember’s dad. That meant tonight was our last chance to bring together all the people whose choices mattered before the Conclave happened. So that was what we were doing. Em and Jules and Nicky were already waiting in the caves, but Starbeauty was still here and so were Daniel and I. Starbeauty was going to leave when we did but Daniel and I couldn’t go yet, not until we’d talked to Ash and Connor. They were speaking to everyone and if they missed out on speaking to us they might come looking. We didn’t want them to find our meeting.
Daniel leaned in closer to me and said, “You go talk to them now, and while you’re doing that I’ll go get Starbeauty. Then I’ll talk to them, and I can leave.” He nodded at Ash and Connor, and added, “Quick, before they get into a conversation with somebody else.”
I stood up and hurried over to where Ash and Connor were standing at the edge of the rock. As soon as she saw me coming Ash opened her mouth to talk, but before she could say any words I said some instead.
“It’s all right. You don’t have to ask me what I did today or how I’m feeling, the way you’ve been doing with everybody else. I know.”
“Know what?” Ash asked.
“That you’re not asking about people’s days or feelings at all. You’re saying goodbye. So that if you don’t come back from the Conclave everyone will remember that you asked something about them the last time that they saw you, and know that you love us.”
Ash and Connor looked at each other and then at me. Ash came closer and whispered, “Do you think anyone else knows that?”
“Yes. Everyone.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Ash’s face fell but Connor smiled. “I guess we’re not as clever as we think we are,” he said. “And I definitely won’t ask you about your day, Georgie. But I will tell you that I am glad to have been your friend, and I do love you.”
He leaned in to kiss my cheek, and moved away. Ash took hold of my arm. “Walk with me for a while.”
We climbed down off the rock and into the trees, and as we went I said, “You don’t need to say goodbye. You’re going to be okay, and so is Connor.”
“Oh yeah? You See that?”
No. Maybe. “Yes.”
She laughed. “Liar! Thanks for trying to make me feel better, though.” Then she stopped and turned to face me, letting go of my arm.
“Georgie, if something does happen to me, Ember’s going to take it hard. I’m not saying you won’t be sad too, but …”
“I won’t be sad like Ember is. Because I don’t get sad the way she does. Nobody does.”
“Yeah. So you might need to run things without her for a while. Until she feels better. I want – I need to know that you’ll all go on without me.”
We won’t. Nothing goes on without you. Except it was no good telling her that. I thought she might even believe it now if Starbeauty told her too, but no one could stop Ash from being Ash or Connor from being Connor. They thought they were the people who saved and not the ones who were saved, and they both looked into the now. They wouldn’t let anyone die for them today even if it stopped a blizzard from coming tomorrow.
“I made you a party once,” I said. “Do you remember? I brought all the Tribe together and we had a party.”
“I remember. It was right after the fight at the centre. When we saved Belle Willis from Terence.”
“That wasn’t why I made the party. I made it because of what happened before that. Terence almost killed you. You shouldn’t have gone after him alone, Ash. Do you remember what I told you at the party?”
“I …” She frowned. “I said I needed the Tribe. And you said the Tribe needed me more.”
“I wanted you to see how much you mattered to us. Because sometimes you’re not good at mattering to yourself.”
She breathed in deeply, and then out again. “I know. But I’m better at it than I used to be.”
I nodded because that was true. “You’re not the same as after Cassie died. For a while after that if you’d lost someone else, it could have made you … not-you. Now if you lose people, it hurts you but it doesn’t …”
“Break me,” Ash said. She didn’t sound happy. She looked down at the ground and added in a low voice, “It just – doesn’t seem right that it doesn’t break me. That I should able to go on when they don’t. When Pen didn’t.”
“You’re not good at being the person who lives.” I reached out to hold her head so she had to look at me. “But the Tribe needs you to be that person. So you have to fight for yourself the way you’d fight for any of us. You have to fight hard. Promise me!”
Ash was quiet, staring at me. Then she said, “I don’t know what’s going to happen at the Conclave. And I don’t know what’s going to happen after, with the Accords and – everything!” She reached up, and clasped my wrists. “But I promise you if there’s ever a time when I don’t come back, it won’t be because I haven’t tried as hard as I possibly could to come home.”
I took my hands away and she hugged me. “I love you, Georgie.”
“Love you too, Ash.”
She let me go, and th
e two of us walked back together to the Overhang. Daniel was still there, only now he had Starbeauty with him and he was talking to Connor. He’d have to talk to Ash as well before he could leave, and that would take a while, because she’d started speaking to Micah. He gave me a look across the campfire and I knew the look meant go, I’ll catch up. So I climbed down from the rocks and went to the caves, wandering through the passages to the cavern where I’d told everyone to meet me. It wasn’t the same place where we’d been meeting before. It was a bigger cave, with no opening onto the forest, and it was where I’d built my new map. When I got there, everyone was looking at it.
The map was on the ceiling and it was made of webbing instead of vines. My spiders had bound lots of thin strands of webbing together to make bigger strands that were the thickness of my little finger, and all of the strands had tiny pieces of quartz stuck to them that Daniel had collected from the forest. I’d told the spiders where the strands needed to go and they’d made a map that covered the entire ceiling, hanging down above everyone’s heads. Then I’d put solar lamps across the floor and pointed them up, so they shone across the strands and made the quartz glitter.
As I came into the cave Em said, “Georgie, this is beautiful!”
From inside the map, Helper chirped proudly. Jules backed away from the sound, and Helper let out a gleeful chitter.
“This isn’t like your other maps,” Ember said. “What does it mean?”
“We have to wait for Daniel,” I said. “When he comes here, is when I tell you.”
Ember and Jules wandered around the cave, and Nicky flopped in a corner, licking at his paws. Then there were footsteps outside, and Daniel came, and so did Starbeauty. But behind them was somebody else.
“Dad!” Em gasped. “What are you doing here? Did you want me for something?’
Em’s dad ignored her, walking into the middle of the cave and staring at my map. “What an extraordinary creation! How was such a thing achieved?”
The Foretelling of Georgie Spider Page 20