Night Witches

by L J Adlington

  I run. I’m there. I don’t think about it, I just fling myself in front of the plane. They can’t die!

  Who knows what happens next. Some twist of the controls? Some flip of the wings? Some miracle, perhaps, that grinds the Storm into a mound of weeds so it slows and only grazes the building before crumpling up?

  As soon as I can see or hear again I fight my way up through a rain of black feathers – feathers? – to where blood runs down from the cockpit.

  Lida’s dragging off her flying helmet and waving her arms.

  ‘I’m fine, I’m fine,’ she cries, eyes wide in shock.

  She’ll have to wait. I’m scrambling up to the navigator’s seat to get at Petra, who’s bent all wrong, with her safety strap straining across her neck.

  ‘Na-a-a-a!’ A scream rips through the crowd. It’s Mossie – lovely, gentle Mossie – pushing people aside as if they’re flower-dollies. ‘Where’s Petra?’ she howls in a voice that’s barely human. ‘Where’s my girl?’ She flings herself on to the Storm to find me wedged into the well of the navigator’s seat, cradling our friend.

  ‘Pip, oh, Pip, is she . . . ?’

  I shake my head. ‘Alive.’

  Petra’s unconscious. She’s no way of knowing that the minute I touched her face I was flung decades into her future, to a death by far softer and kinder means. That’s why I cry. Whatever she’s torn or broken today, she’s going to be fine for years and years and years to come, oh thank you god-who-doesn’t-exist!

  Mossie slumps over the edge of the cockpit until we’re all three wet with tears and blood. Medics and fire-crews jump down from a swarm of trucks closing in on the wreck. We’re drenched in dousing foam. I hear shreds of words.

  Did you see that?

  Impossible!

  What happened?

  They were going to get pulped for sure . . .

  I’m not letting go of Petra yet. She’s so cold she needs me to warm her. I blow a black feather from her hair, the only one left to be seen.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I whisper. ‘I won’t ever let anything hurt my friends.’

  Maybe it’s the heat, maybe it’s the shock of Petra and Lida’s lucky escape, or the strain of so many missions back-to-back, or maybe it’s just some perverse mood that comes over the crew-room. I don’t know how we ever dare get on to the subject of seeing the future, I just know I hate the whole idea right from the start.

  It’s when Petra and Lida have been released from the medics’ care and I’ve finally been freed from yet another Scrutiny session with Reef. I love seeing him, but not when I have to sit there being questioned. Reef keeps breaking out of his Scrutiner role to ask, ‘What were you thinking? Why did you run to the plane? You could’ve been killed!’ Then he remembers he’s doing a job and clamps down on his emotions. I sit there, twisting my hands and saying, ‘I didn’t think, I just ran. I don’t know what happened, everything was just all right.’

  As if the crash wasn’t enough to deal with, there’s an upcoming inspection from the man who runs all the armaments industries for Aura, including the gun factory in Sea-Ways where Mama still works – none other than Glissom himself. In honour of the celebrity occasion the crews are all given a rare night off from missions.

  ‘Enjoy the novelty of relaxation,’ orders Furey, who hasn’t had a day or night off since the war started. ‘Fenlon needs to keep the Storms nice and shiny, which in some disconnected way is supposed to be more important than actually going out to pound the enemy. If we really impress the inspector we might, just might, get the sort of credit and resources we deserve for our work.’

  So we’re stuck, sweating away the hot dusk hours in the crew-room, mending uniforms, messaging family or slumped dumb with exhaustion, hoping night will bring a breeze. I try not to notice the tiny white flowers budding in dusty corners of the room.

  Ang opens a cupboard door and squawks. ‘Get it out! Get it out! There’s a rachnid in there eating cookies!’

  That has Zoya on full alert. ‘There are cookies left?’

  Dee trots over to the cupboard and looks inside. ‘There’s no rachnid here. Did you imagine it?’

  Ang growls, ‘If I was going to imagine anything it would be me winning a ton of medals, or the war ending, or you getting a sense of humour . . . not an hairy-legged insect.’

  Dee pouts. ‘I do have a sense of humour. I just don’t laugh at your jokes.’

  ‘If I ever wasted my valuable time telling jokes, they’d be so funny you’d have to laugh.’ Ang slumps back into her chair. ‘This inspection idea is all very well, especially since people need to know how good we are, but I want to be up where the action is tonight.’

  Lida’s bruised face shows she’s seen rather too much action recently.

  ‘Maybe we’re all grounded because I crashed,’ she grouches.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ says Petra, as best she can with new skin sprayed tight over the multitude of grazes on her face. ‘Besides, you saved us at the last moment, else we’d’ve been jam on the factory wall now.’

  ‘People are protein-based, so they can’t be jam,’ corrects Dee.

  Lida won’t be consoled. ‘Yeah, but forewarned is forearmed and all that. I mean, wouldn’t it have been better if Henke and Rill had known that searchlight would blind them? What about those kids who got killed in the mid-air collision – you think they wouldn’t’ve kept a better lookout if they’d seen in advance what was going to happen?’

  ‘You can’t see the future,’ says Dee emphatically. ‘You can only work on probabilities.’

  Lida scowls at her. ‘You’ve heard Fenlon’s predictions. They sound pretty accurate. He says we’re all going to die young.’

  ‘But you both survived the crash,’ says Mossie quickly.

  ‘Yeah, but I wish I’d known we were going to survive back when the engine failed, right, Petra?’

  ‘Oh come on,’ says Zoya loudly. ‘Predicting the future’s not normal. What if you really did know when you were going to die – how would that be a good thing?’

  ‘I’m not going to die,’ announces Ang. ‘Well, I know I will eventually – thank you, Dee, for being about to point that out – I’m just saying I feel really alive right now, so why should that change?’

  ‘You don’t know what’s going to happen to you,’ repeats Dee. ‘You might get shot, or crash, or just skid on some Slick, or get run over by—’

  ‘Whoa, steady!’ says Mossie, ever the peacemaker. ‘Can we all stop thinking about death? What about happier futures? It’d be nice to know how the good things in life work out. Romance, and things . . .’

  I shiver at the thought of Reef, romance and things. Maybe it would be pretty good to know if we’ll ever . . . whatever . . . something . . .

  Zoya picks up a chair pad to throw at her. ‘Everybody knows how things are working out for you and Petra,’ she teases. ‘Especially after Fenlon caught you both smooching behind the hangar.’

  I wish she wouldn’t talk about smooching. It just makes me think of Reef and how badly I want to kiss him.

  Mossie throws the sofa pad back. It’s pretty battered, with fluff spilling out of rips in the biofabric. We all stare at it, wondering if that’s just how cushions go or if this is the first sign that the Morass effect is spreading to objects around us? It’s a badly kept secret that conventional military machines are getting increasingly high fault rates.

  ‘What about the war?’ asks Lida after a pause. ‘I’d like to know when that ends. Aura says it’ll be over by Long Night, but the Eclipse will soon be on us and we’ve still not run out of targets to bomb, have we?’

  That’s where the whole topic might have ended if it hadn’t been for Haze sticking her nose in.

  ‘You want to know the future?’ she asks, as she barges in with a tray of hot drinks. ‘Why not ask a witch? They can tell fortunes, didn’t you know that? It’s a Lim tradition from Old Nation days. After sunset, girls and women go to the bath-house. They cover the windows a
nd lock all the doors. No knitted or knotted belts allowed, or any kind of bells.’

  ‘What if their trousers fall down because they haven’t got belts on?’ asks Dee.

  Haze stares at her. ‘That’s not important. If you want a witch to come and do the fortune-telling you can’t have them trapped by knots or scared away by bells. Not a real witch of course,’ she adds quickly. She’s been around Scrutiners long enough now to know how to watch what she’s saying. ‘It’s just pretend, isn’t it, Rain?’

  ‘It’s stupid, Old Nation and superstitious,’ I reply.

  ‘Totally,’ says Lida. ‘Who’s got a better idea for how to spend the evening?’

  ‘What if Aura knew?’ objects Zoya. ‘We’d get arrested instantly. Didn’t you see those mugshots of criminals on the news-stream, who’ve been caught praying to god?’

  ‘So don’t connect.’ Lida leaps up from her sofa. ‘I’m sick of doing nothing, or just doing as I’m told. ‘Nobody needs to know . . . unless you’re going to report us . . . ?’

  ‘Of course not! As long as you don’t believe any of it.’

  ‘It’s just for fun, I promise. Who’s in? Pipsqueak?’

  ‘Not me. Zoya, you’re not doing it, are you?’

  ‘No-o . . . Unless you are?’

  Zoya watches the others to see who else is keen. Ang won’t admit Lida’s got the guts to do something she daren’t, so she says she’s up for it. Dee is confused, so she’s sticking with Ang. Mossie and Petra look curious.

  ‘Just don’t let Eyes in the Dark find out,’ Petra warns.

  Mossie grins. ‘We’ll tell Reef we’re having a girls-only orgy.’

  ‘That’s rude,’ says Dee. ‘Do you think he’d want to join in?’

  ‘It’s a joke, Dee,’ laughs Mossie.

  ‘It won’t be a joke if we get caught,’ I insist.

  Zoya gives me a look I can’t quite read. ‘Oh come on, Pip, it’s only for fun and everyone else is game.’

  Haze stares right at me. ‘What are you scared of, Rain Aranoza?’ She says my name like it’s a taunt.

  ‘I’m not scared. I’ll come if everyone else is.’

  Lida says, ‘OK, Lim girl, this is your show. What do we have to do?’

  Haze looks triumphant. ‘If one of you plays witch, I’ll bring everything we need.’

  The airfield is horribly quiet without the rumble of Storm engines readying for action. I feel my heart hammering as if we’re on a bomb run, not just sneaking round the bio-towers to the bath-house. Once there Haze spreads a blanket on the changing-room floor. In the middle she sets a metal bowl stacked with burning fuel blocks from the canteen. Next to it is another bowl filled with water and a pillowcase. At this stage the lights are still on.

  ‘Sit in a circle,’ she says. ‘Everyone take a pen and paper.’

  ‘Paper?’ snorts Lida. ‘I haven’t written on paper since I was at pre-school!’

  ‘Me neither,’ says Ang. ‘I bet you lot don’t even know how to hold a pen.’

  Barely.

  ‘We used to write on connecting boards before Aura started streaming through the keypads,’ says Zoya. ‘We can manage.’

  ‘I learned to read and write by myself,’ Haze boasts. ‘I only had books I hid from the Old Mother. You went to school, didn’t you Rain?’

  Dee is so fascinated by the pens it saves me answering Haze. ‘Where are these from?’

  ‘Fenlon ordered some from a museum in case connecting doesn’t work one day. Do your best with them,’ Haze replies, like some kind of teacher. ‘Write a fortune on the paper. Put it in this pillowcase. Next, one by one, put a hand inside. Pull a fortune out.’

  ‘See,’ Mossie whispers to me. ‘It’s harmless, don’t worry.’

  We suck pen ends and slowly form letters on the paper. We pass the folded notes to Haze.

  Lida goes first. She sticks her long arm into the pillowcase, picks a paper and reads, ‘You will be the best aviator on the squadron.’

  Dee complains, ‘That was my fortune!’

  Lida laughs. ‘You’re not supposed to write them for yourself, Dee.’

  Zoya says. ‘My turn. Huh, this is stupid, listen – You will marry a foodlander and have fifteen babies. Oh, come on! Mossie, why are you sniggering? Was that the fortune you wrote?’

  ‘How many of the babies will look like Yeldon?’ Mossie teases.

  ‘Do you think they’ll come out with ready-made muscles like their papi?’ wonders Petra.

  Zoya glares. ‘You try your fortune then!’

  According to the pillowcase predictions, Petra’s going to inherit a fortune, Mossie is going to kiss Marton Fenlon – ‘You can’t make me!’ she shouts – Haze is going to open a fashion boutique in Corona, Dee is going to run away with a tractor driver and I’m going to devote my life to knitting socks for soldiers.

  At what point do things start getting serious?

  Probably about the time Haze says to put the lights out.

  ‘All of them. Right out. Firelight only. Think what you want to know about your future. The basin of water will show the answer.’

  ‘It doesn’t really work,’ I point out, and Dee looks at me gratefully.

  The others don’t care. They’re caught up in it all. Haze pulls the basin of water closer. She stirs it with a black feather and stuns us with a chant that conjures up every forbidden thrill of Old Nation superstition.

  ‘Black Night’s daughter

  Bright White’s kin

  Let the lights go out

  Let the Witch come in!’

  ‘What can you see reflected in the water?’ whispers Haze.

  ‘I see the bath-house ceiling,’ Dee whispers back.

  ‘Whoever’s jiggling the bowl, stop it,’ says Lida. ‘You’re making ripples.’

  Haze raises her hands. She’s not touching the bowl. No one is. Little snakes of steam twist up from the water. Haze blows them away.

  ‘Look . . .’ she invites us.

  Don’t look! shouts my common sense.

  Look . . . calls the water.

  In my pocket the bird Eye Bright is stirring. It pecks and peeps but no one else seems to hear. Each of us moves closer to the basin till we’re a ring of firelit faces with cold shadows leaning over our shoulders.

  There are things I want to know, of course there are. Will Mama and Papi be safe in the war? Will I be safe? Will Cousin Zoya? My friends? When will we win the war – will we win? And Reef . . . what about Reef, my beautiful, impossible, not-happening-not-going-to-happen romance? Does he really like me? My nails press so hard in my palms they must be breaking skin. Does he love me?

  Don’t look . . .

  I look.

  First I see my friends, not as they are now in the bath-house, but lined up on a windswept airfield, with a cloud-blown sky behind. One by one they turn from me, as Umbra swallows them all into darkness. All light disappears. I stumble around, blind. Whatever I touch burns. The skin on my arms blisters and peels away. My hair becomes a fiery halo. I fall . . . and the forest catches me. Ferns uncurl around my face. Spores burst from tree bark and drift across a stretch of silver water. I see birds – no, bird skulls – bobbing on the lake with flames for eyes. Not flames, bright-orange thorn-vine flowers, nestling in a dead woman’s face. I reach down and lift the blossoms. The woman’s eyes open.

  Welcome, Rain, she says.

  Flowers pour out of every corner of this vision, covering the ground with perfume and petals. Stone walls rise up and light shines through coloured glass. Now, spread face down at my feet, is a bare-backed boy. I crouch and stroke his hair. He lifts his face and kisses me but I can’t see who he is because of a mazy white mist spiralling around us.

  Enough! I want to get away! I turn. And turn. And turn again. My way is blocked by bane-metal bushes. As I yank them out of the ground my skin is torn to ribbons. I try to hold myself together with my hands, but they seem to become wings or wide rays of black light. Ground-eating trees soar up, winki
ng their mirror leaves. A hundred thousand birds whirl round, beaks as sharp as cut diamonds.

  Help me!

  I shout but my voice is a trickle of pebbles on a waterless riverbed. The mist thickens. I flounder on. My skin is almost all gone. There’s nothing but darkness inside and out, and the pain of something peck, peck, pecking me.

  My corvil breaks the trance by stabbing at my leg. Startled, I lash out. My hand smashes the basin of water. The visions disappear and countless droplets of darkness spill out of the basin in slow motion. I watch them fly into the air. Each drop has an eye. Each eye has more darkness inside. There, in the bath-house, while the other girls are frozen, I curve and turn in a mad dance to catch every drop before it lands, pouring them into the bowl.

  Then I stumble back into the circle.

  And breathe.

  And breathe.

  And flinch as time speeds up to normal.

  Sound slams into my ears.

  The girls all move and speak at once. When will it start? When will we see something? Has it happened yet? Only Haze is silent. There’s a wet spot on her tunic, right over her heart – the one drop I missed. When she eventually speaks, it’s to me.

  ‘You saw something.’

  ‘Me? No . . . oh, you mean, just pretending? OK, yeah, actually I saw lots of visions, one for each of you. There was Zoya to start with . . .’

  ‘Make it good,’ says Zoya, hugging her knees.

  ‘Why wouldn’t I? Er, you get free run of a luxury banquet in Corona.’

  ‘Wait till I tell Yeldon! He’ll be mad it’s not him!’

  ‘Petra and Mossie are going to stay lovey-dovey together.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound very probable to me,’ says Petra, with her arm around Mossie.

  ‘Sounds horrific,’ Mossie complains, nuzzling Petra’s neck.

  ‘Who else?’ asks Haze.

  I could kill her for forcing me on. ‘Let me see . . . Lida gets command of her own squadron, and Ang gets awarded the Hero of Rodina Nation medal – twice.’

  Ang likes that idea. ‘What about Dee? What’s her future?’

  How should I know? I scrape my brain for ideas and get an odd one. ‘Dee will be very happy with a new hat.’