The Foretelling of Georgie Spider Read online

  Before I could move there was a beating of wings from above and birds came swooping down. Someone yelled, and a second later I saw a girl tearing away across the grasslands, being pursued by a bunch of determined magpies.

  I started to scramble up, only to find that Pen was scrambling down. “How’d you get free?”

  “Some crows pecked off the ropes.”

  Well done, Coral. “Come on! We’re not safe yet.”

  The two of us hurried down the hill together, slipping on loose rocks to descend ungracefully to the ground. The moment our feet hit the grasslands a voice called out, “Ashala!”

  I looked up to find a familiar black-haired, blue-eyed figure striding towards us. Connor. I ran over to him, stopping when we were about a pace apart, and smiled up into the sculpted features that I could gaze at forever.

  Then I drew back my fist and punched him in the gut.

  He gasped and doubled over. I spun to make my escape, but he recovered fast. I’d barely taken a step when a muscular arm wrapped around my neck and another around my waist.

  “Now!” he shouted.

  A fireball blazed towards my chest. Pen ran up, shouting and beating her small fists against my captor as I struggled to get free. The arm around my neck tightened, and blind panic set in. I couldn’t breathe … I couldn’t breathe … and I could feel the heat of those hungry flames. I was going to burn.

  Somewhere on the grasslands, three short, sharp blasts rang out. The fireball winked out of existence.

  The game was over.

  THE TREES

  ASHALA

  I shrugged off my captor and walked away, trying to pace out my reaction. I was breathing too fast, and my arm was prickly and hot. I rubbed at it, running my hand over the faint ridges of the burn scars that covered all of my right arm and part of my shoulder. Four months ago, I’d had a fireball thrown at me by a Firestarter working for Ember’s brother Terence. Not long before that, Terence himself had nearly strangled me to death. Now I was having difficulty convincing myself that I hadn’t almost been hurt in the same ways again. I could just about feel his long fingers squeezing my throat and smell my own flesh burning. It was unnerving how vividly the body could remember pain.

  “Are you okay, Ash? I can Mend you if you’re hurt!”

  “I’m fine, Pen,” I replied. And I was. My bruises would heal on their own, and the fear would pass. I turned towards her with what I hoped was a reassuring smile. It felt wavery around the edges, but Pen beamed at me, so it must have been good enough. My gaze fell upon Connor, and I scowled. “Will you put your own face back on, please?”

  His entire body rippled, transforming into someone else – broad-shouldered, brown-haired, and with the shadow of a beard on his face. Wearing a jacket that hadn’t been there before, too. When Jules Impersonated somebody, he mirrored them right down to their clothes.

  “How’d you know I wasn’t him?” Jules demanded.

  “I always know. I’ve told you a thousand times before, Connor and I are linked.” There’d been a bond between Connor and me ever since Ember had helped us share each other’s memories, and apparently it was enough that Jules could never trick either one of us by pretending to be the other. That didn’t stop Jules from trying. He seemed to take it as some kind of personal slight on his ability that he couldn’t fool us.

  Pen looked up at him. “Jules? Do you want me to Mend you?”

  “You’re hurt?” I took an anxious step towards him. “I didn’t hit you too hard, did I?”

  Jules let out a shout of laughter. “No offence to your fists of steel there, darling, but I’ve been beaten up by people who really meant it. No, you didn’t hit me too hard.” He gazed down at his leg. “But I think that furry slug drew blood.”

  “Furry slug?” I cast a suspicious glance around. “Pen? Is Mr Snuffles here?”

  Penelope put her nose in the air and reached over to clasp hold of Jules so she could Mend him. I spotted movement in the grass, and went over to find a pug. Mr Snuffles looked up at me and sat, wagging his curly tail and puffing out his chest. He seemed very proud of himself. Biting Jules had obviously been the highlight of his day.

  “Pen, I thought we agreed battle games were too dangerous for pugs.”

  “He wanted to help.”

  Yeah, that’s what she’d said the last time. I shaded my eyes with my hand to survey the grasslands, checking on the rest of the participants in the game. Micah, Coral and Rosa were approaching us, together with Nicky who was bounding along in front. I couldn’t spot Connor, who’d been overseeing the whole thing, ready to use his air-controlling ability to intervene if the “battle” went too far. I couldn’t find any of our opponents either – we’d been fighting members of the Saur Tribe, the children who’d been adopted by the huge lizards that lived on the grasslands. Something had to be holding them up. Eggs? New baby saurs were coming into the world and the Saur Tribe was obsessed with being present at every hatching – it was possible Connor was flying them to where the eggs were.

  Pen finished her Mending. She released Jules and came over to pick up Mr Snuffles, hugging him against her so his fat paws hung over her arms. “He was so brave, Ash. Aren’t you going to thank him for defending you?”

  Mender and dog stared at me with identical expectant expressions. I sighed and patted Mr Snuffles’s head.

  “Oh, sure,” Jules said. “Give the little chomper positive reinforcement for trying to chew my foot off.” Then he nodded at something behind me, and drawled, “You lost.”

  Three indignant voices spoke as one, “You cheated!”

  I swung around to find Micah, Rosa and Coral were there. And Nicky, who ran over to lick my hand before tearing off after a flock of butterflies.

  Coral glared at Jules. “The game was supposed to be over when Pen was off the hill!”

  Jules shrugged. “There’re no rules in a proper fight, Feathers. No one else is gonna fight fair, and if any of you expect them to you’re all going to d–”

  “You can’t predict what’s going to happen in a real fight,” I interrupted hastily. “I didn’t think Jules would be here either, but that doesn’t mean he was cheating. He was trying to teach you something.” We’re all trying to teach you something. It was time for the part that I hated, the part where I had to make them see this wasn’t a game at all.

  “Micah? If this had been a real fight, what would you have done differently?”

  He frowned, considering the question seriously, which was how Micah considered every question. “I wasn’t even watching when Jules grabbed you, because I thought the game was over. But I shouldn’t have stopped paying attention, should I?”

  “You got it, kid,” Jules said. “You’re always in a fight until you’re sure there’s no one left to fight. Better to be paranoid and safe than careless and … ah, not safe.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t have done anything differently,” Coral announced. “Me and my birds did great!”

  That was the answer I’d expected from her. Coral was one of the Tribe members who was having trouble grasping exactly what it was we were facing.

  “Coral, we could be fighting Illegals like us–” I stopped. Because the Illegals who worked for Terence, the ones Jules had named “minions”, weren’t like us. They had abilities and they were teenagers, but that was where the similarities ended. Terence had his minions so twisted up that they believed the only way for them to become part of the Balance – the inherent harmony between all life – was to do what Terence asked of them. It was all so pointless because it wasn’t even true that having an ability made people unnatural. That was just something that some Citizens said.

  I bent down so my face was on the same level as Coral’s. “If it had been a bad Firestarter out there today, they wouldn’t have just made fire float in the air. They would have burned the birds to get to me.”

  Her skin went white beneath her freckles. “They wouldn’t. Not birds.”

  “Yes, birds,” Jul
es said impatiently. “Minions don’t care about birds.”

  Coral looked like she might throw up. “Then … then … if minions come here, I’m going to tell the birds to fly away really fast and really far, so no one will ever catch them!”

  That was a familiar reaction. Every animal-speaker said pretty much the same thing. Every Tribe member, if it came to that. We couldn’t all speak the language of another species, but part of our connection with the forest was having a bond with the animals, and none of us could bear to think of them being hurt.

  “Ash?” Rosa’s face was creased with worry. “What should I have done differently?”

  I straightened. “You did good to stop the fire. That’s a huge danger for us, because everything around here would burn easily.”

  Jules shifted. He was bursting to speak and I knew what he wanted to say. He would have had the same idea that occurred to me when I’d seen how good Rosa was at controlling water. It wasn’t a nice idea, but I said it anyway. “You know the way you held the water around the fire? You could also hold it around someone’s head.”

  Pen let out an outraged gasp. “Rosa could drown someone if she kept the water there for long enough. Killing is wrong!”

  I sighed. “Yes. Killing is wrong. Except – um, I mean, that is–”

  “Except,” Jules interrupted, “if it’s a choice between you dying and the person attacking you dying? You want it to be the other guy.”

  I nodded. Because that was what it came down to, in the end. And the Tribe had to know it.

  “The minions won’t hesitate to kill us,” I told them. “So if you’re fighting for your life, or someone else’s life, then you do whatever you have to. Doesn’t mean you have to like it. Doesn’t mean you won’t feel bad about it afterwards. But we fight back. We defend ourselves and each other and the Firstwood however we can and with whatever we’ve got. And if that means killing …” I took a breath, forcing out the words. “Then that means killing.”

  None of them spoke. I scanned their faces. They’d understood, and they’d had enough. The four of them were tired out from the fight and from this conversation. “Okay. Well done, all of you. Now get back to the Firstwood, and remember you’re excused from your usual duties for today and tomorrow.”

  They turned towards the forest, walking with weary footsteps in the direction of the trees. I watched as they disappeared into the distance, growing smaller as they got further away. Small enough to fit in my hand. For a second I had an insane desire to reach out, as if I could nestle them in my palm and protect them from every bad thing in the world.

  From beside me, Jules spoke, “That dog’s still not helping you, huh?”

  He meant Nicky and I shook my head. I’d been trying for months to get Nicky to switch on my ability, just like he’d done once before when I’d been in terrible danger, but so far I’d had no success. “Either he doesn’t understand what he’s supposed to do, or he understands too much. I think he knows I’m not actually in any danger in these games and I don’t need to Sleepwalk.”

  “But you can’t be sure what he knows. Which means chances are you won’t be swooping in with your all-powerful ability to save us.”

  “It’s not quite all-powerful.” Although it was powerful enough. When I Sleepwalked I saw the world as a vivid dream that I could control, and whatever impossible thing I did in my dream happened in the world. Problem was, I generally had to be asleep to do it. “But no, I’m not sure what Nicky will do in a real fight.”

  Jules swivelled to face me, and I realised with a shock that he was angry. I hadn’t heard it in his voice, but I could see it in his face now as he said, “Then you’ve got to stop telling those kids it’s wrong to kill.”

  “I also tell them to kill if they have to, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  “It’s not enough! You know what you should be saying? That the only right thing is to live, and whatever they have to do to make that happen is right as well.” His gaze turned inwards, and he suddenly looked older, in a grim, worn-down kind of way. “Survival isn’t about rules, wolfgirl. It’s vicious and it’s ugly, and if the Tribe can’t learn to be like that the minions are going to beat us.”

  I sighed. “No, Jules. Us becoming vicious and ugly is how the minions beat us.”

  “What?”

  “The minions would throw animals into danger, and kill little kids, and use their abilities to torture people – nothing’s off limits! And, yeah, if we were prepared to do those things, maybe we’d beat them. Although I doubt it, because they’ll always be better at it than us. But,” I concluded, “even if we did win, it wouldn’t matter. Because we wouldn’t be Tribe any more.”

  “You can’t care about that!” he spluttered.

  “I have to care about that.”

  “No, you really don’t. And you know when we won’t be Tribe any more? When we’re all dead. So if you want to survive this – if you want the Tribe to survive this …” His mouth twisted into a hard, bitter curve. “Everyone had better be prepared to do whatever it takes, and become whoever they have to be.”

  He stalked away, leaving me staring glumly after him. Should I follow? But he was the one who’d walked off, and it didn’t seem like he wanted to talk – or fight – any more. I wished Em were here because she’d know the right words to say to him. Although probably any words would be right, so long as they came from her.

  There was a flash of movement in the distance. I shifted to see Connor emerging from around the side of one of the hills, along with a spiky-haired boy dressed in a yellowy colour that blended in with the grass. It could be hard to tell one member of the Saur Tribe from another from far away, since they all wore yellow clothes and had hair as black as saur scales. But there was no mistaking the distinctive sense of barely contained energy this boy was radiating. Jaz.

  I hurried to meet them.

  “What kept you two?” I asked as I drew near.

  “Coral’s magpies got a little over-enthusiastic,” Connor answered. “Jasmine had some injuries – only minor, though. She’s fine. The others took her back to the saurs.”

  “Why didn’t you bring her to Pen?”

  Jaz sniffed. “We’re saur, Ash.”

  Which was his way of saying his Tribe were tougher than magpies, and injuries, and my Tribe, and pretty much everything else on the face of the earth. Jaz nodded after Jules’s retreating figure. “You two have a fight?”

  “No – well, yes – how’d you know that, anyway?”

  He folded his arms, studying me out of tawny eyes that I still hadn’t got used to. Four months ago, Jaz had absorbed the death inferno of another Firestarter, and while it didn’t seem to have hurt him, his eyes had gone from black to a startling shade of gold. “Jules told you to stop saying killing is wrong, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah. Have you two been talking?”

  “Sometimes. He belongs here, you know.”

  “Of course he belongs–”

  “No,” Jaz interrupted. “I mean he belongs here. On the grasslands.”

  Connor shook his head. “He’s part of our Tribe, Jaz, not yours.”

  Jaz sniffed. “That’s only ’cause he’s with Ember. Jules is saur.”

  I didn’t know what he meant and it must have showed on my face, because Jaz added, “It’s like this, Ash. You killed someone once, and you had to do it, else that guard would have killed you instead. But it still bothered you.”

  That was putting it mildly. It had taken me a long time to come to terms with what I’d had to do to save myself. “Of course it bothered me. You can’t take a life without …” My voice trailed off. Jaz was giving me a look that indicated I was missing something obvious.

  “I killed that minion Firestarter before he could set fire to the grasslands,” he said. “You know how many times I’ve thought about him since?” His gaze sharpened, becoming very saur. “Not once.”

  Oh. And I understood, or at least, I did if I looked at it in the way a wolf
would. My wolves were predators, just like the lizards, and that didn’t mean they held life lightly. But they didn’t regret the life that ended so that they might live. “I get it, Jaz. And I can see why you’d believe Jules was saur. But I don’t think he is. Not in his heart.”

  Jaz opened his mouth to say something else, but no words came out. Instead his eyes went unfocused in a way that was immediately recognisable. Like all saurs, Jaz could talk with his mind. After a second, he said, “I’ve got to go, Ash. Eggs, you know.”

  “I know!” I darted forwards to hug him, just as there was a trilling sound in the distance and a saur came skittering in our direction. Hatches-with-Stars. The smallest and fastest of the saurs, and the only one with blue scales instead of black. Jaz broke free of me and sprinted across to her, swinging onto her back, and the two of them raced away.

  I let out a sigh as I watched him disappear into the grasses and the hills. “Do you think we’re getting this right? What we’re doing with the Tribe, I mean?”

  “Yes,” Connor answered. “Don’t you?”

  “Yes – no – I hope so! Jules certainly doesn’t think so.” And Jules knew the minions best, because he’d been Terence’s unwilling spy for years before Ember had freed him from dependency on the toxin Terence used to control him. I stared after Jaz. “Maybe we should be more saur? Just a little bit?”

  “We are not saur. We are trees.”

  That last word seemed to rustle like the wind through leaves, and I spun to look at Connor. He was staring at the Firstwood and his eyes had gone very dark, the purple-blue of a forest lake. There was something between Connor and the forest that even I didn’t understand. He was the only one in the Tribe who didn’t have an animal, and it seemed to be because his bond was with the Firstwood itself. “We hold onto the earth,” he said softly. “We reach to the sky. And we are … shelter.”

  Yes. That was right. We were right. I knew it, because I felt it. “Then we just have to make sure the Tribe understands.”

  Connor’s gaze flicked back to me. He knew what I wasn’t saying and he didn’t say it either. The reason it was so important that the Tribe understood who they were was because they’d have to know it without us. Bad things were coming our way, and Connor and I would always be where the fighting was fiercest. We stood between the trees, and the Tribe, and danger.