leans over and pulls a fern from the clumps growing around the well. He dips it in the water and lays it next to me.
“What do you see?”
“It’s a fern.”
“What more do you see?”
“Um, a fern that hasn’t fully opened yet. With drops of water on it.”
He picks it up and runs his finger up the stem. “Can you see that it forms a spiral? It is straight at the bottom, but near the top it coils in on itself in ever-diminishing circles.”
Isi has followed us out, and now she rests her white head on my knee and gives a sigh.
“This is the form of the Fiery Spiral, the source of all that is,” he says. “It flows at the centre of everything, a river of light, of growth and wholeness. And our worlds are like the droplets on the stem.” He points to the glistening orbs of water one by one as he names them, “Celestia, Zulwini, Earth, Proskubia, which is the world where Prospiroh is holding Theia captive, Azuria, and so many more. The task of all living creatures, human, animal, god, no matter which world they inhabit, is to grow, to blossom, to bear fruit and to move on to the next world. And each world brings us closer to the centre of the Spiral.”
“The gods must move onward too? Surely they own Celestia and Earth and … wherever they live? Aren’t they perfect?”
“All beings must travel onward, perpetually onward until they reach the One.” He taps the head of the fern again, and his fingernails are waxy against the soft, green leaves.
“And then what happens?”
“We don’t know until we get there.”
I shake my head, trying to let the words filter through my brain.
“That is why your Earth is in trouble. The gods of Celestia are at war. They have stopped looking ahead to the Spiral. Instead they have turned inward, creating new worlds to focus on so they don’t have to see what keeps them trapped. Their bickering has become more important than the journey to the Spiral.”
Please hurry up, I think. I haven’t got time for a whole history lesson. “You have found yourself in a new world before you have blossomed. You were not ready to leave Earth, and so you cannot enter Celestia. Yet you must traverse it if you are to find your way back home.”
“Is that why Lucas can see things I can’t? Is that why he’s here?”
“Ah, Lucas.” His pale face softens into a smile. “Because he gave up his life to save you, and because he has the blood of the gods in his veins, he was able to move straight to Celestia.”
“So … I’m here in Celestia too soon, before I have finished my journey through Earth, and that’s why everything is bare and ugly. Why there are no animals or birds singing or insects. It’s because I’m not actually dead yet, like Lucas. Like Isi.”
“Isi is Theia’s dog, immortal, and able to transcend time and move between worlds, because her heart is pure. She lived on Earth with each of your ancestors, she lived with you at Greenhaven, and she is here now to help you make your journey. You used a portal to travel from one world to the next, but that portal is closed, so you must travel across this world, to the top of the mountains you see on the horizon. Another portal lies there.”
But my father is outside, ready to take me back to Greenhaven. Surely that’s easier. I can just go home, complete my life there as I normally would, until I die of old age, and then come back here to Celestia and see it as Lucas clearly does, as a beautiful place.
“There is only one way. Other ways may seem easier, quicker and far more pleasant, but be careful of tricksters, trying to get the necklace from you.” He reaches over and touches the amulets one by one. “Each world is like an amulet on a necklace and we must all pass through them one by one until we reach the end. We are all journeying, even the gods. When the time comes to hand it over, you will know it.” He leans down into a shelf carved into the rock wall, and brings out a small flask made of thickened glass. It swells out at the bottom like a bulb, and has a long, thin neck. He fills the bulb with water from the bucket and replaces the stopper.
“If you look into the water,” he says, holding it to the light before he hands it to me, “it will show you the way forward.” I close my fingers around it, feeling how neatly it fits into my palm.
“Go now,” he says, levering himself up with his sticks. “The journey is long and taxing, but you have everything you need to complete it. Don’t try and take the easy path. There is only one that will take you to the portal.”
He opens a door half hidden behind the honeysuckle. “Sit still, quieten your heart and mind, and the flask will show you the way to the portal.”
I wave him goodbye and hurry off. Am I too late?
CHAPTER 4
EBBA
He’s gone. My father is gone.
I should have told the old man I couldn’t stay. I should have grabbed Isi and run. My father was going to take me home. I had him for just a few minutes and then I messed it up.
I want to lie down and give up. I can hear Ma Goodson telling me to stop feeling sorry for myself because there are plenty of people worse off than me, but they’re not up here, right now. I wish they were.
Isi licks my hand, gazing at me with her soft amber eyes. She wants me to go on. She keeps turning towards the mountains and then looking back at me, but it’s so far. Maybe I can find my father’s portal. If I run, it might still be open.
But where is it? There are no paths, just sandy dunes and rocks, every way I look.
He told me it lay in the direction he came from. But which way was that? I can’t even see the old man’s white rocks. They’ve disappeared among the high dunes. I bite the inside of my cheek, my insides twirling with growing panic. I keep walking, but it feels like I’m moving in circles. I’m sure I’ve passed this jagged boulder before … Yes, there are my footprints in the sand. I’m going round and round. Whichever way I walk I come back to the same spot. What am I doing wrong? Or is it some kind of trick?
There’s a small outcrop of rocks nearby, so I climb it and peer out over the landscape, looking for any sign of my dad, anything that might show the way to his portal. There is … there is something, so far away that I have to squint to see it.
It’s a tree. A flat-crowned tree as tiny as my finger, but now I see it, I can’t stop staring at it. It’s the same shape as the birthmark on my hand.
It must be a sign. It’s the way home.
I set off at a run. But it’s no good. I can’t get past my own footprints. Whichever way I go, no matter how straight I try and go, I find myself back where I’ve been before.
Isi bounds up to me and stops dead, right in my path.
“What is it, girl?”
She’s
