Elevation 1: The Thousand Steps. Helen Brain
den Eeden is waiting.”
Leonid jumps. Hal gives a little snort of amusement.
I lean forward to put my cup on his tray. My hand knocks the milk jug and it tips over. I try to pick it up, but I bump the tray with my elbow. Leonid tries to save it, and next thing the tray is upside down on the table and there is tea everywhere.
“You idiot!” Mr Frye yells, grabbing his documents and shaking them. “Do you know how long it took for my scribe to write these out? They’re soaked.”
Leonid is glowering at me. “Sorry, Mr Frye, sir. It was an accident.”
“Get out of my sight,” he shouts. “I swear to Prospiroh, Leonid, now the old girl’s gone, there’s no reason to keep you on here.”
Leonid glares at me, piles the crockery on the tray and leaves.
Mr Frye shakes the liquid off his papers and then shoves them into his bag. “I’ll have to come back. Idiot,” he mutters, getting up. “You need better staff. I’ll look for someone else. My butler will know someone, don’t worry. I’ll come back tomorrow and tell them both to be out by the end of the day. Let’s make a fresh start with new staff.” He pats my shoulder. “But now I have to run.”
Hal pauses as Mr Frye scuttles across the driveway to the horses. “Shall I come and visit again?” he asks, giving me a hug. “You must be missing your old friends.”
I’m not used to being hugged. Physical contact was discouraged in the colony. But I love hugging him. He feels so strong and his kindness brings a lump to my throat. My eyes fill with tears but I force them back. I can’t cry in front of him. He’ll think I’m pathetic.
“I’d like that,” I say. I wish he could stay now. I don’t want to be alone in the house with Leonid. It was my fault the milk jug tipped over and I should have said something.
Mr Frye is still in a temper. He swings his leg over the horse and settles in the saddle. “Goodbye, 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