The Disappearance of Ember Crow

by Ambelin Kwaymullina

  “No, but I think you were about to smash through a wall. You could have brought the entire cave down.”

  Oh. I’d been in danger of destroying something that was part of the forest I’d sworn to protect. Not to mention probably killing Connor and Nicky, if they couldn’t get out in time. And they hadn’t been the only ones in the cave. “Where’s Georgie? And Daniel? I didn’t do anything to them, did I?”

  He shook his head. “They went to breakfast before you started Sleepwalking. You’ve been asleep all night, Ashala.”

  That was morning light coming in from outside. I’d slept for hours. Anything could have happened, and almost had. Pictures of rocks tumbling on top of my beloved tuarts, and of Connor and Nicky crushed, spun through my head. Guilt rose up to overwhelm me.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered to the caves, to the trees, to Nicky, to Connor. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry …”

  Connor swept me into his arms, and I clung to him and sobbed. Eventually, my tears ran out, but I didn’t let go. I couldn’t. Whatever had remained of my determination to keep him at a distance had been smashed by that awful nightmare, by the memory of being in pain and utterly alone. He stroked my hair, and I pressed closer to him.

  Then he ruined it all by saying, “Ashala. You have to deal with why your ability isn’t working.”

  I staggered back. I couldn’t face this now, surely he knew that! “I don’t know why–”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “No,” I snapped, glaring at him. “I really don’t.”

  He sighed. “Let’s try it this way. Why didn’t you have any bad dreams when you were with the wolves?”

  “Who says I didn’t?”

  He raised an eyebrow, looking sceptical.

  “Okay,” I admitted. “I didn’t. But I didn’t Sleepwalk either. So it doesn’t mean anything.”

  “You Sleepwalked. The third night you were with them.”

  “I did not!”

  “You came out of the den,” he said patiently, “and ran into the sky. You kept getting higher and higher – I was about to pull you to the ground when Pack Leader came out after you. He barked, and you went back to him.”

  That was impossible. Except … I did have a vague memory of a dream when I’d been chasing after a glowing ball hanging high above me. The moon? I’d really wanted that ball, only before I could reach it, my big brother had called me inside to bed. Pack Leader. It hadn’t registered before that I’d been Sleepwalking; the whole experience had merged into my time as a wolf. But Connor had known.

  “What were you doing there?” I asked.

  He looked exasperated. “What do you think I was doing there?”

  I stared down at my feet, and mumbled, “Making sure I was all right.”

  “Yes. But I realised the wolves understood how to take care of you. And you returned to Pack Leader when he called – you could tell a friend from an enemy, so you weren’t having a nightmare.” He drew in a breath, and said, “Ashala. Why no bad dreams when you were with the pack?”

  “I don’t know!”

  But the knowledge was there. I could feel it, lurking beneath the surface of my consciousness. A truth that I didn’t want to face. Nicky came over to sit beside me, leaning against my leg, and I reached down to pat him. It dawned on me that I’d seen him as himself, in the nightmare, which was weird, because normally everything changed into something else when I Sleepwalked. I had no idea why he’d remained the same but I was glad he had. Otherwise I wouldn’t have known he was a friend, not in a nightmare where everything became twisted and askew. And Nicky had helped me. Like Pack Leader had helped me. Like Connor was trying to help me.

  It really was about time I started helping myself.

  “I guess I didn’t have bad dreams because I wasn’t responsible for anything, when I was with the wolves. I wasn’t in charge.”

  “And that made you feel better. Because you don’t want to be the leader any more?”

  “No. Because … because I’m not fit to be the leader.”

  Connor nodded, as if that wasn’t a surprise. “You can’t let go of it. Evan’s death.”

  “I killed him. I was Sleepwalking and I killed him and – no, I can’t let go of it.”

  “He would have killed you. He did kill me.” His lips twitched. “For a while.”

  I eyed him sourly. I didn’t find anything remotely amusing about him dying. If I closed my eyes, I could still see the shot from the streaker blazing up into the night sky. Connor had died, and I’d been left alone with Evan. He’d had the streaker pointed right at my head. I’d been at his mercy.

  Except then I’d Sleepwalked, which should have been impossible, since I wasn’t sleeping. But when I got very upset I could go into what Ember called a “dissociative state”, which was enough like being asleep while awake for my ability to activate. It had only ever happened twice – after I’d lost Connor, and before that, when my little sister had died – and both times I’d been half crazy with grief and rage. “It’s not so much that I killed him,” I said softly. “It’s that I could probably have found another way to stop him, if I’d tried. I never tried. It didn’t even occur to me to try. Because I hated him, and I wanted him to suffer, for what he’d done to you.”

  “And your ability has been malfunctioning ever since. You were angry and you struck out in anger, and I don’t think you were wrong, by the way. Now you’re so scared of doing it again that your ability’s going haywire.”

  I worked my way through that. “Are you saying that I’m losing control, because I’m afraid of losing control?”

  “That’s the way fear works, Ashala. The more you try to run away from it, the more you create what you’re afraid of. You need to learn to trust yourself with what you can do.”

  Trust myself. As if it was that easy after Evan. The nightmare came back to me, the sound of voices screeching “monster”. I had something monstrous in me. The people I loved inexplicably didn’t see it. I did.

  “How can I trust myself when I’m a killer?” I whispered.

  He threw back his head and laughed.

  “This isn’t funny, Connor!”

  “I’m sorry,” he replied, sounding completely unapologetic. “But you’re not a killer, Ashala. And if anyone should know that, it’s me. I was raised to be one.”

  I frowned, troubled that he’d still think of himself that way. Connor’s dad had tried to shape his son into a weapon aimed at the man responsible for Connor’s mother’s death – Terence Talbot, then the Prime of Gull City. Talbot had been an Assessor before he was Prime, and he’d botched an Assessment, scaring a Rumbler into starting a quake that had destroyed a large part of Connor’s home town. I knew that Connor probably would have killed Talbot if he hadn’t died of a stroke; he’d wanted revenge for this mother, and I understood that, all too well. But I also knew that Connor had never truly been a killer, in his heart. And he was nothing like his cruel, violent father.

  “You’re not what your dad tried to make you.”

  “I know.” He gave me his dazzling smile. “You showed me that, when we met and shared memories. I think you’re the only person in the world who could have seen my past and still looked at me as if I was …” He stopped, shrugged. “Someone you wanted in your Tribe. Someone you could love.”

  “Of course I–”

  “Ember didn’t agree with you. She thought I was dangerous.”

  “She changed her mind about that.” Sort of.

  “She was right, Ashala. Except all Illegals are dangerous. Not only because we have abilities but because we live in a world where to have an ability is to be feared.”

  “So what?”

  “So hurt people don’t always make the best decisions. But you’re the one who sees that we are each more than our pain.” He reached out to link his hands in mine. “You’re just not very good at doing it for yourself.”

  Ember had said, on more than one occasion, that I changed people, simply by seeing the
best of what they could be. But I wasn’t even sure I knew the best of what I could be. Whatever it was, I felt a long way away from it right now. “Connor, I don’t know … I can’t …”

  “It’s all right.” He leaned in to press a kiss to my forehead, and stepped away. “Come on. You need to see the Tribe.”

  The two of us made our way, hand in hand, through the cave system, with Nicky running alongside. We emerged into the cool morning air and made our way through the trees, angling up to the area everyone called the Overhang. It was a big flat area of granite, with another rock projecting over the top. The Tribe used it as a place to eat in autumn and spring when it was too wet to sit among the trees, but the weather wasn’t bad enough to keep us in the caves.

  Everyone was there, gathered around a fire with steaming mugs of tea in their hands. Nicky bounded in and was greeted with hugs from the children. He settled with the other Tribe dogs, while I hung back a little. I was suddenly nervous at seeing everyone after I’d run away.

  I needn’t have worried. They acted as if I’d never been gone. Georgie and Daniel made space for Connor and me to sit beside them, while Keiko poured tea from the pot bubbling on the fire and handed me a cup. Micah gave me a piece of bread he’d toasted on a stick over the flames, and Penelope passed me the pot of honey and a knife. I slapped honey on the toast, and into the tea to sweeten it, and began to eat.

  Conversations rose and fell in a soothing, familiar rhythm. No one appeared to be paying any special attention to me. But my cup of tea was continually refilled, and I’d barely finished one piece of toast when another arrived. And they all found the time to tell me something, filling me in on a thousand small moments that I’d missed. Micah had finished building a fence to enclose our newly expanded food garden. Benny had come up with a new bread recipe, and Jin had succeeded in growing a bumper crop of potatoes. Penelope was excited about a new variety of aloe. She was our only Mender and she tried to use forest plants for treatments as much as she could, to avoid exhausting her ability on minor hurts. Andreas and Jo had finished making clothes for the youngsters who had outgrown theirs. And everyone had been practising their abilities as I’d told them to – Mai had got faster, Stefan could now lift boulders half his size, and Rosa could summon more water than she’d ever been able to before.

  They needed me, I realised, in the same way that I’d needed Pack Leader. And I needed them. I’d been going crazy trying to protect everyone, to keep them all in the nest, just as Jaz had said. But that wasn’t how a wolf acted. There was always danger in the world, and wolves knew it. The promise of the Pack was simply to always be there, to defend the Pack or die trying. I called out to them all in my head. I am your Pack Leader, and I am here. I could almost hear the echo of it, flowing back to me from them. We are your Tribe, and we are here.

  Connor was watching me intently. “Do you see?” he whispered.

  I nodded, blinking back tears. Love is the only thing more powerful than hate. Georgie had told me that once. And she’d been right, it was. It was even more powerful than the monstrous, angry part of me. Because I felt so much bigger than that, here. So much more. How could I have failed to understand that it was through their eyes that I saw the best of what I could be?

  I’d been running away from the very thing that would stop me becoming what I feared.

  I whispered back, “I’ve been an idiot.”

  “Yes. I know.”

  I laughed and leaned against him, munching on toast and enjoying being with the Tribe. Eventually breakfast was done and they all began to disperse, drifting off to their various tasks. Georgie and Daniel were the last to go. He was taking her to see the autumn lilies blooming. I didn’t care where they went, as long as Georgie was kept away from her futures for a while. And I knew I could trust Daniel to make sure she was occupied with earthly, everyday, here-and-now things.

  As the two of them disappeared into the trees I jumped up, and reached out to pull Connor to his feet. Then I threw myself at him. He laughed, staggering back a step before he steadied himself, and kissed me. Sensation and emotion looped back and forth between us until I wasn’t certain where he ended, and I began.

  The kiss left me breathless and wanting more. But I couldn’t lose myself in him for long, not when we were no closer to finding Ember. And I didn’t need to tell him what I was thinking. Sometimes he knew me better than I knew myself. He bent to kiss me again, a lingering promise of more. Later.

  And he said, “Let’s go search Ember’s laboratory.”

  THE LABORATORY

  I stood in the entrance to Ember’s laboratory with Nicky at my side, watching as Connor switched on the solar lamps positioned around the cavern. The three of us were deep in the cave system, enclosed by warm air and musty darkness and layers of rock. Connor finished with the lights and I examined the room, trying to figure out if anything had changed. It took a while, because Ember’s lab was big and cluttered. There were long benches, scattered with papers. Shelves, holding bits of machinery and books. And cupboards, that I knew were packed with yet more of her things. Micah had crafted the furniture from bits of fallen wood, and each piece was carved with intricate designs of trees and birds and animals. Ember loved those carvings, just as she loved working down here, in the quiet embrace of the earth. Only she wasn’t here any more. And so far as I could tell, there was nothing to indicate where she’d gone.

  “Everything looks the same.” I felt a bit crushed. I didn’t know what I’d expected to find – no, I did. A note. A clue. Anything that would help me find her.

  Nicky ran over to one of the cupboards. He turned in a circle and sat, wagging his tail. Is he trying to tell me something? Hurrying over, I yanked open the doors.

  The only thing inside was herbs.

  I looked at Nicky. He had his head held up and his chest puffed out, like he’d done something incredibly clever.

  “You know,” Connor said, “it’s possible that’s not the smartest dog in the world.”

  “He is smart!” I protested. “Maybe he got the wrong cupboard.”

  I went to the other one. More herbs. Plus a pile of rhondarite collars that we’d taken off the detainees rescued from the centre. Rhondarite blocked an ability for as long as it touched someone’s skin, and I hated the stuff. I’d wanted to destroy those collars, but Em had thought they might come in useful one day.

  With a sigh, I closed the cupboard doors. “If there’s some clue, it must be buried among all her stuff.”

  Connor cast an appraising glance at our crowded surroundings. “We’d better start searching.”

  He strode over to a set of shelves, and began to sort through the contents. I glanced about helplessly, unsure of where to start. Then my gaze fell on the bench where Ember had been sitting the last time I’d seen her here. I wandered across to it, trying to imagine what she’d been thinking and feeling as she worked on her projects. There were two things on the bench – a black box, and a streaker. I’d brought both back from Detention Centre 3. I picked up the streaker, holding the cold, smooth weight of it my hand. No, not a streaker, anymore. A stunner. Ember had altered the weapon so that it would knock someone out without permanently harming them. She’d wanted me to be able to defend myself, and she’d known how I felt about killing. She’d finished the stunner two months ago now. Not that long before she left. I wondered if she’d known then that she was going. Had the weapon been her idea of a parting gift?

  It was a horrible present, and no substitute for her being here. I tossed it back onto the bench, turning my attention to the box instead. This was the machine that Miriam Grey had used to pull memories from my mind when I was trapped in Detention Centre 3. Except it wasn’t only a machine. When it had been inside my head, I’d seen it as a dog, a huge, half-metallic hound that was as much a prisoner as I was. I’d brought the box with me when I fled the centre, and asked Ember to build it a mechanical dog body. She hadn’t been able to do it yet.

  Nicky padded over, a
nd pushed his head against my leg. Maybe he and the box-dog could play together, once I get Ember back … I patted the top of the box, and whispered, “I won’t leave you like this, boy. I’ll find her. Promise.”

  From across the room, Connor spoke. “Ashala. What exactly did Ember say, about angels?”

  “What?” I turned to face him, bewildered by the unexpected question.

  He was standing by the shelves, holding a piece of paper in his hand. “You were asking me about angels before, remember? Because Ember told you something. What was it?”

  “Nothing important.” I walked over, eyeing the paper hopefully. “Is that a note? From Em?”

  “No.” He pressed it flat against his chest. “What did she say, Ashala?”

  Whatever was on that paper, he obviously wasn’t going to show it to me until I answered. Time to confess. “It wasn’t Em. It was grandfather, and he said, ‘beware the angels’.”

  “Why didn’t you tell–” He stopped, and shook his head. “Because Georgie says I look like an angel. You thought he was talking about me.”

  “I didn’t think he meant I should be afraid of you,” I explained hastily. “I figured he meant I should be afraid for you, in case I hurt you again …”

  “I don’t need you to protect me, Ashala!”

  “I know. I’ve been an idiot, I told you that before. I’m sorry.” And I was. But I could still feel, deep inside, that overwhelming, irrational urge to protect him from all harm. I wasn’t over that yet. I wasn’t sure how to get over it.

  He stared at me a moment longer. Then he nodded, accepting the apology, and handed me the paper. “Read that.”

  I scanned the page. Nine lines, in Ember’s handwriting. The angel rhyme. Except … “It’s out of order.” Every schoolkid knew that poem, and it was supposed to run from one to eight:

  Count the angels one by one

  We’ll get to eight before we’re done

  One to lead

  Two to fight