The Thousand Steps

by Helen Brain

  “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 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 yo
u 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.”

  “I have a task?” At last someone’s going to tell me what my job is.

  She gets up. “Wait here.”

  She comes back a moment later with a very old book. It’s bound in leather, and the pages are thick and coming loose from the binding. She opens the heavy cover and begins to turn the pages, looking for something. The writing is broken up with drawings of plants and diagrams.

  “Here,” she says finally, pushing the book towards me. “See this section?”

  She points to a paragraph of writing. Below it is the outline of a familiar-looking tree. I can’t make out the words, so I scrutinise the picture.

  Where do I know that shape from?

  “Read it aloud,” she says, tapping the page.

  “I … I can’t read.”

  “Can’t read?” she exclaims.

  “Only some of us were taught to read in the colony. I was a gardener, so I didn’t need it.”

  “Hmmmmph.” She pulls the book back in front of her and finds the place with her stubby finger. “I’ll read it to you.”

  She begins to read. “In the sixteenth year after the first Calamity, a young woman will arise from the earth. She will bear the mark of the Goddess upon her left hand. To her will fall the task of reuniting the sacred amulets before the year is out. She must open the Gateway to Celestia so the Goddess can return to heal the earth.”

  The mark of the Goddess? The Gateway to Celestia? Bring the Goddess back?

  Aunty Figgy closes the book and leans back in her chair. Her eyes shut and for a moment she sits entirely still. She takes my left hand, running her thumb over the birthmark.

  “Do you see this, Ebba? It is the mark of the Goddess.”

  “That’s just a bit of pigmentation. That’s what Ma Goodson told me.”

  “It is a holy mark. It is in the Book.”

  She turns the book towards me, and with a shock I realise that my birthmark isn’t some random shape. It’s a tree with a trunk and crown, and it’s identical to the one drawn in the pages of this book. I compare them carefully. They’re exactly the same.

  “Only four other women have had this mark on their hand,” she says. “One of them was Clementine, the woman you saw in the kitchen just now.”

  “Was?”

  She nods, and her black eyes twinkle. “She’s your ancestor. She’s manifesting now to help you achieve the sacred task.”

  This is ridiculous. “You mean a ghost?” I ask.

  “Your Den Eeden ancestor. You are both descendants of the Goddess.” She gestures towards the statue on the window sill. It’s a tall woman dressed in green, with ivy leaves in her long auburn hair and curling around her feet. “That’s the Goddess there – Theia. She made the world.”

  I wonder if she’s playing a trick on me, like Micah used to do when we were small. But Aunty Figgy seems desperately serious. She grips my hand tighter. “Ebba, you have a sacred task. You are the young woman written about in the Holy Book. You are the only person who can save the earth from the second Calamity.”

  I stare, wondering if she’s mad. Me? A descendant of a goddess? And I have to save the planet? “How am I supposed to do that?”

  “You need to find the three missing amulets,” she says, running her ridged nail along the page. “When you have them all, you must join them on the chain so the necklace is restored. The Gateway to Celestia will open, and you will fetch her, bringing her back to the Earth to heal it.”

  I see for the first time that the statue is wearing a necklace with four silver discs. I crouch down and examine it. One of the discs looks like my necklace’s charm. That’s weird.

  “And if I don’t find them all? If I don’t reunite them and get the gateway to open, what will happen?”

  “If you don’t find the three lost amulets, the earth will be destroyed. You, me, Greenhaven, all that remains of the planet will return to dust.”

  And I’m expected to do all of this alone? “Um,” I say, standing up, “where do I find these amulets exactly?”

  She shrugs. “They’ve gone missing over the past four hundred years. When your ancestors came to Greenhaven, the necklace was whole.”

  “So how am I supposed to find them?”

  “Your ancestors will help you.”

  Back to the mark of the Goddess story. And to the weird dead people who want to help me. I still don’t really believe that the lady in the russet dress was a ghost. “Okay,” I say, getting up. “I’ll think about it.”

  She sighs as she closes the book. “Don’t think too long. By midwinter the sixteenth year will be over.”

  CHAPTER 4

  When I think about Mr Frye coming over to fire Aunty Figgy and Leonid, I feel sick. Where will they go? They won’t be allowed to stay in Table Island. They’ll lose their home as well as their jobs.

  Aunty Figgy is very strange, but she’s the only person I know who can tell me about my family, so I don’t want her to go. And Leonid doesn’t deserve to be fired. It was my fault he dropped the tray.

  I’m scared to tell Mr Frye, though. I haven’t learnt what the rules are in this new life. And I don’t know the consequences of breaking them. I’m in a cold sweat, pacing the hallway, by the time he arrives.

  He comes sweeping in the front door, and greets me with a hug and a kiss on each cheek. “Right,” he says. “Let’s get this unpleasant business over with. Can you tell Aunty Figgy and Leonid to come into the sitting room please, Ebba?”

  I follow him into the room. I have to speak up for them, but I’m scared. What if he’s really angry? I take a deep breath. “Mr Frye …”

  He looks at me with one groomed eyebrow raised. “What is it, Ebba? Have you called them yet? I’ve got to get back to the office.”

  My confidence dissolves. “Noth– nothing.”

  “So run and fetch that pair of reprobates.”

  Aunty Figgy and Leonid are waiting in the kitchen. Leonid gives me a filthy look.

  “Mr Frye, er, Mr Frye needs to see you.”

  Leonid looks like he wants to spit on me. Aunty Figgy is twisting her apron around and around her fingers.

  I catch her arm. “I’m sorry,” I mutter. “I don’t know how to stop him.”

  They go and I slump down at the kitchen table and bury my head in my arms.

  The kettle starts whistling on the hob and I go to take it off the heat. But someone has got there first. It’s the red-haired woman in the russet dress, the one Aunty Figgy said was my ancestor, Clementine. She’s not acting like a dead person. She pours water into the teapot and pulls a knitted cosy over it.

  “Who are you?” I ask. “What’s your name?”

  She says nothing. But as she leans forward to open the oven door, a chain falls out of her bodice, and I see she has an amulet. The same amulet as mine. The same amulet the Goddess is wearing in the statue. A brown stone in a silver circle.

  She takes the bread out of the oven. It is the best thing I have ever smelt in my life. She takes a knife and cuts thick slices. She spreads them with butter and honey, puts them on a plate on the tray and gestures to me.

  “Me?” I say. “You want me to take the tray? To Mr Frye?”

  She nods. So I get up, pick up the tray and head for the sitting room.

  I can hear Mr Frye’s reedy voice ranting from behind the closed door. Clementine has followed me. She reaches over, knocks, then opens the door. Mr Frye is scowling, pacing up and down the sitting room, while Aunty Figgy and Leonid stand there looking at the floor like naughty children being scolded. I feel terrible. If it weren’t for me, their jobs would be safe.

  “What is it, Ebba?” he begins, but then he lifts his chin slightly and sniffs the air. Aunty Figgy fl
ickers a look at me. She gives me a tiny nod.

  The woman gestures to the coffee table, right under his nose. I go in and put the tray down.

  “Sorry to interrupt, Mr Frye, but I thought you might like some of Aunty Figgy’s bread. It’s just out of the oven.”

  He’s already taken a seat on the sofa and is helping himself to a slice. The butter has melted and mixed with the honey and is dripping onto his fingers. He licks them clean and smiles at me.

  “Marvellous,” he says, as I leave the room.

  Five minutes later I peep through the door. The plate is empty and he has gone all nostalgic.

  “How many years have I been coming here and eating your bread, Aunty Figgy?” he asks with a little burp. “No one in the settlement, no one in the whole federation can bake like you.”

  “It’s a lost art,” Aunty Figgy says.

  “That it is. A lost art indeed.”

  “I’m hoping to teach Ebba,” Aunty Figgy says. “But it takes time. It’s not something you can pick up from a book. You have to learn from a master.”

  “Indeed,” Mr Frye says. “Indeed you do.” His voice is dreamy.

  “Leonid’s an expert beekeeper,” Aunty Figgy continues. “Nobody can control the hives like he does. You know how fussy they are. If Leonid goes, you’ll have to shut down the hives. It would be sad – no more honey.”

  “That won’t do,” he mutters. “You’ll have to stay. I’ll give you …” He seems to be getting sleepy, as there’s a long pause. “I’ll give you six months. That’s right. Six months. If you’re still being, er, disrespectful, then it’s back to the boats for you.”

  AUNTY FIGGY IS humming as she dishes up our plates at suppertime. There’s a fresh bunch of lavender in the vase in front of the statue. Poor old lady, I think. She’s a wonderful cook, but mentally she’s not all there. She’s living in a fantasy world. That’s what Jasmine would say.

  But as I help myself to a slice of her bread I ponder over the fact that I’d never have thought of feeding it to Mr Frye. Maybe Aunty Figgy’s lunacy is contagious, because I swear my long-dead ancestor orchestrated his change of heart. I’m so confused. I wish Jasmine was here – she’s got a clear head. She’d tell me if I was going crazy too.