Elevation 2: The Rising Tide. Helen Brain

      CHAPTER 1

      When I was in the colony, I dreamed of seeing the sky. I pictured it endless and serene, a great blue nothing stretching forever. I never imagined it could be grey as granite. But today it hangs as heavy as my heart.

      I’m waiting for the guards to arrest me for killing the High Priest. Waiting for Micah to come home. It’s been two weeks and one day since that morning in the cave when we watched the sun rise over the mountains.

      “Whatever happens,” he’d said, “remember I’ll always love you.” Then he risked his life to distract the guards so we could escape. I haven’t heard from him since.

      I keep imagining him lying on the rocks with a bullet in his head. I try and push away the image but it creeps back, getting into all the nooks and crannies of my mind like the cold wind blowing off the mountain.

      My dog, Isi, sighs and rests her head on my foot. I fondle her ears, watching the leaves swirl across the driveway. Why hasn’t he come home?

      I take a stick and dig it into the new crack in the stoep floor. The earthquake knocked down the gable over the front door too, and the holy well has broken open.

      Aunty Figgy keeps tutting over it. “The Book of the Goddess foresaw that dark forces would be released,” she keeps saying. “The moment they shed your blood, I knew we were in for trouble. And this isn’t the end of it. Believe me, this isn’t the end.”

      Are the dark forces keeping Micah away?

      Sitting next to me on the stoep, Fez turns a page of his book. I thought it would be perfect when our sabenzi group was safely out of the colony, but everything has changed. Fez never stops reading. Shorty and Letti have eyes only for each other – right now they’re at the end of the meadow, knee-deep in leaves, searching for chestnuts. Jasmine and Leonid are trampling a pile of cob so they can mend the gable, laughing and throwing mud at each other, and I jab the stick into the crack remembering a time when Jasmine would have picked me first before anyone.

      Even Clementine, my ancestor who guided me through so much when I came to Greenhaven, has disappeared.

      She’s gone, along with the amulet. The High Priest had it, but he dropped it in the holy well. Before I could grab it, the bees swarmed onto his head, the Milkwood fell and I was knocked out cold. When I regained consciousness the earthquake was over, he was dead, and Major Zungu had taken his body away.

      There’s no sign of my amulet. We’ve searched and searched around the holy well, but it’s gone. I’ve lost the most important thing I’ve ever owned. Now all four are missing.

      Aunty Figgy bustles out of the house with her broom and dustpan. “No good sitting here feeling sorry for yourself, Ebba,” she says firmly. “You’ve got work to do.”

      I ignore her. I’m watching an ant crawling down the crack. I wish I could also find somewhere dark to hide.

      “You need to get up and start looking for those amulets.”

      Aunty Figgy leans over and adjusts the sling around my injured shoulder. “Ebba, don’t give up hope. The boy will come back … although I think you’re better off without him.” She points to the storm clouds building up in the north. “Look, the rains are coming. It’s less than two months until the winter solstice. Remember the prophecy? You have to find all four amulets before the solstice so that the portal to Celestia can be opened. We’re all depending on you, Ebba.”

      Back in the colony, Ma Goodson used to read us a fairy tale about a miller’s daughter. Her father owed the king a lot of money, so he told the king, “My daughter can spin straw into gold.” The king took the girl into the palace, shut her up in a room filled with straw, gave her a spinning wheel and said he’d be back in the morning. If there wasn’t any gold, she would die.

      That’s how I feel, except if I don’t spin the straw into gold, the whole planet will die. I’ve got two months to find the amulets or a second Calamity will wipe out Earth, and we’ll all disintegrate into dust.

      It’s not the worst option, in my opinion. Especially if Micah doesn’t come home.

      Leonid is up the ladder with a bucket, slathering cob onto the wall, when he suddenly shouts, “Someone’s coming. It’s an army carriage.”

      “Quick, Letti,” Shorty yells. “This way! Fez, come.” He has set up a hiding place in the forest, deep in a thicket, where the soldiers will never find them.

      Aunty Figgy picks up Fez’s book and gives it to me. “Pretend to be reading,” she says. “Stay calm.”

      I clench the empty chain in my fist. I need Clementine. I need Micah. But I will have to face the authorities on my own.