by Naomi Foyle
Lil was gone. She wasn’t at Wise House when Hokma had returned. She had obviously decided to leave, because she had taken her hydropac and her knife and Hokma’s tinderbox, a small pan and a bag of vegetables from the garden. She had left behind her Gaia hymnbook with a handwritten poem for Astra. Hokma handed it to her.
‘She took a tinderbox?’ Nimma gasped.
Hokma nodded.
‘Hokma,’ Klor sounded shocked, ‘do you think she could have—?’
‘I don’t know.’ The vertical furrow between Hokma’s eyebrows looked for a moment as black as a burn mark. ‘I ran back here last night and asked if people had seen her. No one remembers her. The fire team didn’t find the frying pan, or’ – she paused – ‘any other bones.’
Everyone was silent. Astra looked down at the hymnbook. A piece of folded handmade paper was tucked inside the front cover. She pulled it out and opened it. In blocky red ink, surrounded by a border of stars and flowers, the poem read:
Astra
Like a hymn
yore in my heart
even when we are apart.
yore the star-girl
yore my fire
when I’m roaming
in my bones
I’ll follow you
to my onely home.
Lil xx
Yore my fire. What did that mean? Was the dining-hall fire a message for her?
‘Can we see, darling?’ Nimma asked, holding out her hand.
‘No.’ Astra refolded the poem and clapped it back inside the book. ‘It’s mine!’
‘Did you read it, Hokma?’ Nimma asked sharply.
Hokma paused. ‘It’s a friendship poem. There’s a reference to fire, but it’s emotional. I don’t think we can infer—’
Astra was outraged. ‘You read my poem?’
‘I had to, Astra. Lil might have set the fire. I had to see what she was thinking.’
Astra gripped the hymnbook. ‘Why did she go?’ she demanded. ‘Why did she set the fire? She said she wanted to stay with me.’
‘We don’t know that she did set the fire, Astra,’ Klor said. ‘It could just be a coincidence.’
‘A highly unlikely coincidence,’ Nimma scoffed. ‘Especially after—’ She stopped and looked at Hokma.
‘After what?’ Astra insisted.
Now Hokma glanced at Klor. It was as if none of them could talk without asking each other’s permission. Klor sighed heavily, as if giving assent only because of exceptional circumstances.
‘Astra,’ Hokma said, ‘do you remember during our picnic, Helium had an urgent message for me? The message was from IMBOD. It was about Lil’s family.’
‘You didn’t tell—’
‘Shhh.’ Nimma cut her off. ‘We weren’t allowed to tell you. We probably shouldn’t be telling you now. So be quiet and listen, my Gaia Girl, or you’ll have to wait for the official announcement like everyone else.’
Hokma was rubbing her face, exposing the scar tissue beneath her eyepatch.
Klor took over. ‘IMBOD has found Lil’s family,’ he said. ‘They live in a community on the steppes, at the foot of the dry forest.’
‘So maybe she went to find them. We can look there.’
For the first time, Hokma looked at her straight. ‘She doesn’t know they’ve been found, Astra. At least, I didn’t tell her. I wanted to come to your ceremony and I didn’t want to leave her feeling upset or confused. I shouldn’t have left her by herself. I should have asked an adult to stay with her. I’m sorry.’ She addressed Nimma and Klor. ‘I’ll never forgive myself – she must have sensed I was anxious after I got the message.’
‘Oh, Hokma, no.’ Nimma reached for her hand. ‘You couldn’t have missed Astra’s Blood & Seed.’
Astra looked suspiciously at the three adults. ‘Why were you anxious?’ she demanded. ‘Why would Lil be upset that they found her family?’
Hokma shook herself back into the room. ‘It’s very complicated, Astra. Lil’s mother died when she was little, like she said – but Lil’s grandmother told IMBOD that—’
She stopped and looked at Klor for support again. He looked at Nimma, then said gently, ‘Lil’s Code-Shelter father wasn’t an Is-Lander, Astra. He was a Non-Lander – an aglab. He bonded with Lil’s mother, and when the Southern Boundary closed, her community protected him. He lived in a cave in the forest – that’s why there was no record of him.’
Astra clutched the hymnbook to her chest. ‘Lil’s not a Non-Lander,’ she hissed. ‘She knows all her Gaia hymns! We—’ She halted. A cold, clanging feeling was running through her, a paralysing mix of guilt, shame and fear. However strenuously she denied it, part of her knew it was true. Lil’s dad had told her bad stuff about Is-Land, stuff only a Non-Lander would think. Astra had tried to pretend Lil had a mental illness, that she was uneducated, but she should have known. She should have reported Lil. How could she have been so stupid? She sat quaking, her breath shallow, scared to look up.
‘I know it’s difficult, darling.’ Nimma stroked Astra’s hand. ‘She was a good friend to you, wasn’t she? You did all that foraging, and you Gaia-played with her – Hokma told us. She can’t help who her father was. But still, she’s not one of us, is she?’
Astra wrested her hand away. ‘You said Elpis sent her,’ she accused.
‘I know I did.’ Nimma’s voice was strained. ‘And maybe Elpis did. But perhaps we misinterpreted her intention. Maybe we were supposed to give Lil to IMBOD, to keep Or safe.’ Now her voice broke entirely. ‘Oh, Klor, it’s true: I wanted her here. And now she’s set this terrible fire.’
Then Klor and Hokma were comforting Nimma, saying, no, no, it had been a collective decision; how could anyone have known what the girl was thinking? Astra let the adults dither on because it wasn’t true. Lil couldn’t have set the fire. Lil couldn’t have killed Torrent and Stream. Even if Lil’s dad was a Non-Lander, Lil was a Gaian, and she wanted to stay in Or and go to school.
But if Lil hadn’t known about her family, she must have left for another reason. Lil had wanted to go to high school, but what had Astra said? Not ‘Great’, but ‘What if we don’t get on?’ That’s when Lil had got upset. That’s when she’d felt unwanted, scared, belittled. If she’d set the fire, she’d done it because she was angry with Astra. Because she thought IMBOD was going to take her away.
‘It’s my fault,’ she moaned. ‘I was mean to her at the compost. I should have invited her to the Blood & Seed ceremony. Then she wouldn’t have burned down the dining hall.’
‘It’s not your fault.’ Now Hokma leaned over and took Astra’s hand. ‘Lil could be very difficult sometimes, couldn’t she? You couldn’t always be nice to her.’
‘It is my fault,’ Astra screamed, pushing Hokma away.
Beside her, Nimma was getting agitated. ‘This is what she’s like, Hokma. This is what I mean.’
‘Maybe it’s her Gaia-blood,’ Klor offered.
‘Oh, Klor—’ Nimma turned on him in exasperation. ‘Her hormones are supposed to be balanced.’
Hokma reached for her shoulder. Dimly, Astra recognised that she should make an effort to calm down, but it was easier to descend into a state of dry, shuddering sobbing, dragging one long harsh breath after another into her lungs. She had driven Lil away. She had made Lil feel so bad she’d set fire to Core House.
‘I k-k-killed her,’ she howled. ‘I killed T-t-torrent and S-s-s-stream.’
‘No, you didn’t,’ Hokma urged, shaking her shoulder. ‘We don’t know that Lil set the fire. Maybe Torrent and Stream were smoking a cigarette and fell asleep before they put it out.’
‘Astra, darling,’ Klor said loudly, crouching before her and placing his hands on her knees, ‘we know it’s a shock. But Lil has a frying pan and a knife. She won’t be hungry. There’s nothing to worry about, is there?’
‘She’s hyperventilating, Klor.’ Nimma sounded angry now, as though Astra were a malfunctioning Craft machine. ‘Why is she like this? None of
the others ever behave like this.’
‘She’s in shock, darling,’ Klor said. ‘Give her a minute. Astra, calm down.’
Hokma was gripping her shoulder, her fingers fierce as Helium’s claws. You’re nearly thirteen, they said. You can’t keep having tantrums any more. Not in front of Nimma. Astra forced her breathing back under control. Between her legs the Shield was beginning to burn again. She was Sec Gen now – branded. She had to be rational. She had to find out exactly what was going on. ‘Why is it c-c-complicated?’ she stammered, drying her eyes. ‘Why couldn’t you tell her? Why can’t she go and live with her f-f-family?’
Hokma patted her on the back and stood up. There was another silent team-talk pause as with tiny flicks of their eyes and imperceptible nods of their heads, her Shelter parents co-decided to release another piece of classified information. ‘She’s not allowed to live with her family, Astra,’ Hokma said at last. ‘Her family is going to be punished for hiding her father, so she can’t go back to them. IMBOD wanted her to go to a special school in Cedaria where she could be properly re-educated. I had requested a Steering Committee meeting for today so that Or could vote on making a counter-offer, to keep her here.’
Astra couldn’t speak. She stared at Lil’s hymnbook and tried to take it all in. IMBOD had wanted to put Lil in the special school. Ahn, and probably most other Or-adults, would have voted against Hokma. It didn’t matter what Astra had said at the compost heap; somehow, Lil had known that she had to escape. Her dad had shown her a tunnel out of Is-Land. But Astra would never tell anyone about that – that, or about the ancestors and the arrowpain.
Lil was gone. The tears brimmed again in her eyes.
Klor stood up. ‘Come, come, Gaia Girl. There’s nothing we can do for Lil right now. We have to be strong and help Russett and Stream’s family and show the world our resilience. A journalist is coming today from Sippur to write a story about the fire and take pictures of you. We want to be ready for her, don’t we?’
‘Astra.’ Hokma leaned close to her again. ‘Klor’s right: Lil can look after herself. And you’re growing up now. Last night you let go of childish attachments, didn’t you?’
Astra was exhausted. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. It was true: last night she had become not only Sec Gen but the Gaia Girl. No one could take that away from her – not Ahn, not Lil, not Nimma, not anyone. Reluctantly, she nodded.
‘Gaia Chose you,’ Hokma continued softly. ‘You have responsibilities now.’
Klor was at the front door. ‘Oh my dewy meadow!’ he called back into the Earthship. ‘What do I see? Everyone’s waiting down at East Gate. They want to see Astra wearing her blood panties!’
‘Klor!’ Nimma stood up, shaking out her faux-grass skirt. ‘Weren’t you there last night, my man? She’s not seven any more.’
‘She’ll always be my little angel,’ Klor beamed. ‘Won’t you, Astra?’
Astra dried her hands on her legs. ‘I’m coming in a minute. I’m just going to put Lil’s book in my room.’
* * *
And that was what she did: she put the poem in the secret prayer pocket in the hymnbook and the hymnbook away in her Belonging Box with Eya’s bracelet; she put the box back high on the shelf above her bed and she went down to have breakfast in the marquee the adults had erected on the lawn in front of the remains of Core House. Russett wasn’t there, or Stream’s family, or Congruence, and everyone else was either quietly sobbing, or tired and silent and red-eyed. But one by one they hugged her, and then Mr Ripenson stood up and said that Astra had been Gaia-Chosen to help them cope with this terrible tragedy.
At noon, the journalist came and took pictures of her in her hipbeads and blood panties, with Silver on her wrist and Klor and Nimma and Hokma standing close around her. Astra answered questions about Torrent and Stream and repeated the story that the adults were starting to tell: that while no one in Or had understood why the two teenagers had bonded so early, now it was clear that as Gaia was going to take them back to Her so soon, She had wanted them to experience that closeness before they returned to Her. She also talked about growing up in Or, and said she wanted to be a Code worker when she grew up, but in the meantime she was looking forward to going to high school and starting Woodland Siesta. She said that of course she was deeply honoured to be the Gaia Girl and would do her best to represent her community in her appearances at bioregional festivals and ceremonies this year.
The story appeared on everyone’s Tablettes that evening, along with photos of Torrent and Stream. After she read it, Stream’s Shelter mother asked Nimma if Astra would recite a Gaia hymn at the Birth House ceremony for the two teens, and Nimma said of course she would. Conguence spoke too, briefly but very touchingly, saying how she would never forget the pure love she had felt for Torrent, and Russett sat crying like a baby with Flint, Tulsi and Thor at his side.
The following week, the IMBOD officer came to interview her about Lil. She did a calming meditation beforehand and even though Ahn was sitting across the table, filming the interview, she held her nerve and acted like a perfect Sec Gen. She said she missed Lil and she hoped Lil hadn’t set the fire, but if she did, then she should be punished. When the officer asked her if Lil ever talked about Non-Landers, she said no. She said that Lil was a good forager and could sing the Gaia hymnbook from start to finish, but she wasn’t Sec Gen and didn’t know any other kids, and probably she was scared of starting high school so she’d gone to try to find her family, because everyone needed their family. Hokma sat beside her, and when she’d finished, Hokma said, ‘Very good, Astra. Can she go now, officer?’ The officer said, ‘Thank you, and enjoy your year, Gaia Girl.’ Ahn didn’t say anything, but as she stood to leave the room his steady, colourless gaze swept up and down her body, then dropped back to his Tablette screen as she passed.
Part Three
Autumn 86 RE-Spring 87 RE
3.1
It didn’t come when she expected it. Not during Year Eight, her year as the Gaia Girl, when she appeared at all the bioregional seasonal celebrations and was interviewed for the national news on Founding Day; when she buried her memories of Lil, Torrent and Stream in the drifts of leaves that rustled beneath her and Tedis, or Sultana, or Forager, or Leaf, entangled for hours in Woodland Siesta; the year Hokma and Ahn dissolved their Gaia bond and – though Hokma said the break up had nothing to do with her or the shot, and that she was still very good friends with Ahn – she would sometimes turn at dinner to find him scrutinising her with those pale grey eyes, and the danger of exposure felt like a cold wind stealing up her spine. It didn’t come in Year Nine either, when the thin cloak of protection her fame had provided began to fray and she became just Astra again, a student of slightly less than average height and weight, not-quite-significantly higher than average language skills and a perfectly average number of Gaia play pals – six. Year Nine was the year her long-simmering battles with Nimma erupted into all-out war, provoked by her decision that after a year of Nimma insisting she stick to just one loc, pinned back for Gaia Girl photos, she was going to dread the rest of her head. The war raged for a week until the evening Hokma got angrier than Astra had ever seen her and shouted, ‘What’s wrong with you, Astra? You must be more careful! She’s working with Ahn now – do you want them to talk about you?’
Which was how Astra learned that Ahn had sub-contracted Nimma to design the curtains and upholstery for the Arts and Crafts Gallery in Sippur, and though she screamed at Hokma in return – ‘You try living with the frigging bitch!’ – in the end her fury was swamped by her fear and she returned to the Earthship to say sorry, promising to be content with one dread until she had finished her IMBOD Service, inwardly resolving to trudge on through Nimma’s petty restrictions and blatant favouritisms until that magic time Hokma had promised her: when she’d be at college in Atourne and could make new non-Sec Gen friends, people with questioning minds and independent spirits, just like her.
It helped that
Nimma was busy, commandeering the kitchen table to cover with swatches of fabric and blueprints of Ahn’s temple she would pore over until late into the night. The threat of Ahn receded too, as he spent more and more time in Sippur at the gallery building site, until, when Astra started Year Ten, he moved there entirely, visiting Or only on occasional weekends. In Year Ten Wise House, while comfortingly familiar, began to feel boring in comparison with the challenges of school, the pleasure-pull of Woodland Siesta, the engrossing discovery of penetrative Gaia play and the urgent necessity of Tablette talk with her school friends late into the night. In Year Ten she began to feel safe again, and in Year Eleven she forgot to worry entirely. Year Eleven started with the spectacular opening of the Arts and Crafts Gallery, with Nimma pink-cheeked with pride at the national reviews of her curtains and upholstery. Ahn came striding triumphantly back into Or, but Astra barely saw him. He re-established his long working hours at Code House, and otherwise he and Nimma were often in Sippur now, giving talks at the Gallery, while as Year Eleven rolled on Astra herself learned what it meant to have a full schedule. She had to study and fitness-train round the clock now; she couldn’t visit Wise House every evening – or even every weekend – but had to leave the Owleons to Hokma. And when she did visit, Hokma spoke less and less often about anything interesting, and Silver was like a toy she’d outgrown.
It came when she had stopped expecting it. It came in Year Twelve: the year that began with the crushing introduction of a nearly doubled school workload, a roster of deadlines the Sec Gens managed like clockwork but she struggled to cope with, harnessed like a mule to a chafing routine of studying for college aptitude tests and training for IMBOD Service fitness exams, the joys of eating, sleeping and Gaia play just briefly scheduled feedbags in the whole draining ordeal. It came when she was ground down, short-fused, her entire life stifling, her dreams insignificant; when Nimma had started to turn her critical attention back to Astra’s study habits, the state of her room, what she ate for frigging breakfast. It didn’t come as she had always imagined it would, in one fell swoop, with a thunder of horse hooves and boot steps and a circle of IMBOD officers blocking out the light. It came, not like a hawk seizing a chick, but incrementally, like a crow trapping a wounded rabbit and then, with beak and claws, tearing its guts out in a slow, inexorable flaying of hope. It started with a meeting.
