Part 16 (1/2)

*Sit in a circle,' she says. *Everyone take a pen and paper.'

*Paper?' snorts Lida. *I haven't written on paper since I was at pre-school!'

*Me neither,' says Ang. *I bet you lot don't even know how to hold a pen.'

Barely.

*We used to write on connecting boards before Aura started streaming through the keypads,' says Zoya. *We can manage.'

*I learned to read and write by myself,' Haze boasts. *I only had books I hid from the Old Mother. You went to school, didn't you Rain?'

Dee is so fascinated by the pens it saves me answering Haze. *Where are these from?'

*Fenlon ordered some from a museum in case connecting doesn't work one day. Do your best with them,' Haze replies, like some kind of teacher. *Write a fortune on the paper. Put it in this pillowcase. Next, one by one, put a hand inside. Pull a fortune out.'

*See,' Mossie whispers to me. *It's harmless, don't worry.'

We suck pen ends and slowly form letters on the paper. We pa.s.s the folded notes to Haze.

Lida goes first. She sticks her long arm into the pillowcase, picks a paper and reads, *You will be the best aviator on the squadron.'

Dee complains, *That was my fortune!'

Lida laughs. *You're not supposed to write them for yourself, Dee.'

Zoya says. *My turn. Huh, this is stupid, listen a” You will marry a foodlander and have fifteen babies. Oh, come on! Mossie, why are you sn.i.g.g.e.ring? Was that the fortune you wrote?'

*How many of the babies will look like Yeldon?' Mossie teases.

*Do you think they'll come out with ready-made muscles like their papi?' wonders Petra.

Zoya glares. *You try your fortune then!'

According to the pillowcase predictions, Petra's going to inherit a fortune, Mossie is going to kiss Marton Fenlon a” *You can't make me!' she shouts a” Haze is going to open a fas.h.i.+on boutique in Corona, Dee is going to run away with a tractor driver and I'm going to devote my life to knitting socks for soldiers.

At what point do things start getting serious?

Probably about the time Haze says to put the lights out.

*All of them. Right out. Firelight only. Think what you want to know about your future. The basin of water will show the answer.'

*It doesn't really work,' I point out, and Dee looks at me gratefully.

The others don't care. They're caught up in it all. Haze pulls the basin of water closer. She stirs it with a black feather and stuns us with a chant that conjures up every forbidden thrill of Old Nation superst.i.tion.

*Black Night's daughter Bright White's kin Let the lights go out Let the Witch come in!'

*What can you see reflected in the water?' whispers Haze.

*I see the bath-house ceiling,' Dee whispers back.

*Whoever's jiggling the bowl, stop it,' says Lida. *You're making ripples.'

Haze raises her hands. She's not touching the bowl. No one is. Little snakes of steam twist up from the water. Haze blows them away.

*Look . . .' she invites us.

Don't look! shouts my common sense.

Look . . . calls the water.

In my pocket the bird Eye Bright is stirring. It pecks and peeps but no one else seems to hear. Each of us moves closer to the basin till we're a ring of firelit faces with cold shadows leaning over our shoulders.

There are things I want to know, of course there are. Will Mama and Papi be safe in the war? Will I be safe? Will Cousin Zoya? My friends? When will we win the war a” will we win? And Reef . . . what about Reef, my beautiful, impossible, not-happening-not-going-to-happen romance? Does he really like me? My nails press so hard in my palms they must be breaking skin. Does he love me?

Don't look . . .

I look.

First I see my friends, not as they are now in the bath-house, but lined up on a windswept airfield, with a cloud-blown sky behind. One by one they turn from me, as Umbra swallows them all into darkness. All light disappears. I stumble around, blind. Whatever I touch burns. The skin on my arms blisters and peels away. My hair becomes a fiery halo. I fall . . . and the forest catches me. Ferns uncurl around my face. Spores burst from tree bark and drift across a stretch of silver water. I see birds a” no, bird skulls a” bobbing on the lake with flames for eyes. Not flames, bright-orange thorn-vine flowers, nestling in a dead woman's face. I reach down and lift the blossoms. The woman's eyes open.

Welcome, Rain, she says.

Flowers pour out of every corner of this vision, covering the ground with perfume and petals. Stone walls rise up and light s.h.i.+nes through coloured gla.s.s. Now, spread face down at my feet, is a bare-backed boy. I crouch and stroke his hair. He lifts his face and kisses me but I can't see who he is because of a mazy white mist spiralling around us.

Enough! I want to get away! I turn. And turn. And turn again. My way is blocked by bane-metal bushes. As I yank them out of the ground my skin is torn to ribbons. I try to hold myself together with my hands, but they seem to become wings or wide rays of black light. Ground-eating trees soar up, winking their mirror leaves. A hundred thousand birds whirl round, beaks as sharp as cut diamonds.

Help me!

I shout but my voice is a trickle of pebbles on a waterless riverbed. The mist thickens. I flounder on. My skin is almost all gone. There's nothing but darkness inside and out, and the pain of something peck, peck, pecking me.

My corvil breaks the trance by stabbing at my leg. Startled, I lash out. My hand smashes the basin of water. The visions disappear and countless droplets of darkness spill out of the basin in slow motion. I watch them fly into the air. Each drop has an eye. Each eye has more darkness inside. There, in the bath-house, while the other girls are frozen, I curve and turn in a mad dance to catch every drop before it lands, pouring them into the bowl.

Then I stumble back into the circle.

And breathe.

And breathe.

And flinch as time speeds up to normal.

Sound slams into my ears.

The girls all move and speak at once. When will it start? When will we see something? Has it happened yet? Only Haze is silent. There's a wet spot on her tunic, right over her heart a” the one drop I missed. When she eventually speaks, it's to me.

*You saw something.'

*Me? No . . . oh, you mean, just pretending? OK, yeah, actually I saw lots of visions, one for each of you. There was Zoya to start with . . .'

*Make it good,' says Zoya, hugging her knees.