Ebba,” he says. “I’m sorry you had to be inconvenienced by that idiot boy. Your great-aunt had a soft spot for him. Prospiroh alone knows why. We’ll find you someone better. It’ll be a temporary solution. We need to get you a home in Table Island as soon as possible.”
“See you soon,” Hal calls as they ride off. His red robe and trousers shine against the glossy black coat of his horse. He’s the best-looking boy I have ever seen. And the kindest.
AT LUNCHTIME I’M back on my own. Leonid has left a sandwich on the table and disappeared. I eat it hurriedly, trying not to listen to the sound of myself chewing. I hate being alone.
After lunch I decide to explore the forest. Isi comes running after me as I follow the fence that rims the meadow. Four massive horses come sauntering over and peer over the fence as I pass. They could crush me with one kick of those hooves.
“Shoo,” I say, but they follow me all along the fence. Isi seems to know where I’m going. She turns off along a path into the trees, and I follow her.
I’m a few metres in and I realise that this is the forest I have dreamed about for so many years.
The forest in my great-aunt’s painting.
The big rock that looks like an old man lying down, the grove of milkwood trees, twining together over the path – they’re all familiar.
It’s impossible.
I’m hallucinating, I decide. It’s the heat, and too much fresh air, maybe something in the pollen that’s drifting down in the sunbeams.
I follow the path, and come into a small clearing. A round pond stands in the middle, surrounded by ferns. Deep orange clivias nestle in the shade of the milkwood trees. Frogs croak between the water lilies, and dragonflies flit over the water. I know all these plants from the gardening books we had in the growing nursery. Mrs Pascoe, who mentored the gardeners, taught us all their names, but to see them here for real is overwhelming. Each is so perfect, so different.
The shadows of the trees have formed a pattern like an old map across the bottom of the pond. It seems the whole world is nestled inside the cobalt-blue depths.
It feels holy – like something gentle and nurturing lives here. Like I imagine my mother would have been, if only I remembered her.
I sit on the edge of the wall. Did she like to sit here? I wish she’d left a sign for me. I lean over to splash water on my hot face and my charm dangles in the water. A shaft of sunlight hits it, and refracts a thousand colours across the pond. It’s so beautiful – the shining colours, flickering against the honey-coloured stone.
There’s silence – no wind, no frogs or birds, no rustling in the grass. The world has stopped.
I wait, holding my breath. Something is happening.
The bees come. They swarm out of the milkwood and form a spiral over my head. I’m not afraid. They swirl around me, until their buzzing sounds like a thousand people humming a welcome song. Then they break out of the spiral, circle the pond, dipping across the centre, and they’re gone, back to the hives in the milkwood.
The wind picks up again, and a frog swims across the pond. A dove begins to coo. I take the charm to tuck it back beneath my robe and it’s warm. Warm, and shining.
THERE’S A LITTLE boy playing on the swing outside the back door when I get back up to the house. He’s wearing long trousers and a white shirt, and he ignores me when I say hello.
A woman is busy in the kitchen, patting bread dough into pans. Her auburn hair is pulled back into a bun and she’s wearing a long russet dress that’s fitted in the bodice. She has a birthmark like mine on her left hand.
“Aunty Figgy?” I say tentatively, pausing in the doorway. She looks up and smiles, but she doesn’t say anything.
An older woman comes out of the pantry. She’s short and strong, and her dark face is wrinkled. She’s dressed like Leonid, in a coarse grey tunic and pants. She stops when she sees me and her face lights up.
“Ebba! My Ebba.”
I turn to the other woman, but she’s gone. The bread is still in the pans, but she’s vanished.
Before I can ask any more the older woman has gathered me into her arms. “Ebba,” she says. She’s almost crying. “We thought you were gone forever.” She looks up into my face and strokes my hair. “We thought you were lost. But you’ve come back to us, Theia be praised. Come, sit, sit,” she says, pulling out a chair. “I want to look at you. You’re so like your mother.”
“You knew her?”
“Of course. She was tall like you, and you have her green eyes, but her hair was chestnut.”
I peer through the back door. The swing is empty, the child gone too. “Where’s Aunty Figgy?” I ask.
“I’m Aunty Figgy.”
“But the woman in the long dress, and the little boy – they were here a moment ago. She was making bread.”
Aunty Figgy stares. Her eyes go to the charm, and then down to the birthmark on my hand. “That mark,” she says. “How long have you had it?”
I pull my hand away and hide it under my leg. “Since I was thirteen. The woman – she also had it.”
She’s staring like I’m a ghost, her black eyes wide.
Maybe she’s a bit crazy. I change the subject. “Is it true that there’s no one left of my family, not anywhere in the whole federation?”
She takes a deep breath and nods. “It’s true. I’m so sorry. There are no Den Eedens left. Your great-aunt was your last relative. When your mother died …”
“How did she die?”
She rubs her grey hair back from her forehead. Her eyes glisten. “Ali – your mother – was a member of the resistance. She was helping refugees to hide here on Greenhaven Farm. When you were two weeks old, just days before the Calamity, there was a disturbance outside the gates of the farm. She insisted on going to see if she could help, and she was shot. By the time we got to her, she was dead, and you had disappeared. We searched everywhere, but then the lockdown was imposed, and we had to just pray to the Goddess that someone somewhere was keeping you safe. And she protected you and brought you back to us. Praise be.”
What is she talking about? The Calamity? Does she mean the Purification? And I thought there was only one God: Prospiroh. “What Goddess?”
“The Goddess who made the world, who kept everything in perfect balance until Prospiroh invaded.” She spits out the name Prospiroh.
She grips my hand, looking at me, her face earnest. “Ebba, I don’t know if I’ll see you again. If Mr Frye fires us this afternoon, I’ll have to leave the settlement, and I won’t be allowed back in. But there’s something you need to know – something about your heritage.”
“My heritage? You mean my family?”
“Yes. The Den Eeden family, and your task.”
