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THE THOUSAND STEPS
BOOK 1
HELEN BRAIN
Human & Rousseau
For Denise Ackermann,
who knows about the Goddess.
Someday I’ll see the sky.
I’ll climb the thousand steps.
The gates will open and my family will be waiting,
ready to take me home.
CHAPTER 1
Hey, Ebba,” my friend Jasmine whispers. “What do you think will happen tomorrow?”
I sigh, and bring my mind back to reality. Two hundred sixteen-year-olds packed into a single sleeping cell, in a bunker deep inside Table Mountain.
“Shh, Jasmine,” Letti hisses from the bunk below me. “Don’t think about it.”
Her twin, Fezile, coughs. “I wish I could have seen the outside world,” he says when he has his breath back. “Even if it was just for a few minutes. But now it’s too late.”
“You don’t know they’ll pick you, Fez,” I say firmly. “You’re being negative.”
But I don’t believe what I’m saying. And I’ve got a bad feeling.
“Let’s talk about something else. What do you think it was like in the old days?” Letti asks.
“It must have been like heaven,” I say. “Trees and flowers and clouds and rain …”
“And books and schools and universities,” Fez says dreamily. “I’d love to spend all day reading.” Another cough rattles his chest.
“People were free there,” Letti says. “You could go where you wanted, do what you felt like doing … Imagine that. No soldiers watching everything you do. And you could fall in love and marry anyone you liked.”
“You’re forgetting,” Jasmine says, turning over so the bed frame rattles, “the outside world was destroyed. It’s all ash and deadness and rock. And tomorrow …”
“Shh,” Letti says firmly. “We’re not talking about tomorrow.”
She’s right. Best not to think about it. Tomorrow is the day of the sacrifice.
I’VE STILL GOT that bad feeling when I wake up the next morning. It’s early, and everyone is asleep. I slip out of the bunk and walk across to my locker, feeling my way in the dark. Kneeling on the stone floor, I dig in the back of the bottom shelf for my memory box. I pull it out and open it. There they are. The only things I had when they found me – a newborn baby nobody knew anything about. Ma Goodson, my cell mother, gave me the box so I would be like everyone else.
She’s told me the story so many times. Sixteen years ago, weeks before the Great Purification when Prospiroh unleashed his wrath on the sinful world and destroyed everyone except the chosen people at the foot of Africa, the Shrine Council selected two thousand small children from the most gifted parents, to be kept safe in the bunker excavated inside Table Mountain. The two thousand were going to be the holy remnant that would one day repopulate the world.
And I wasn’t one of them.
But two days before the Great Purification, one of the soldiers found me in the bunker storage chamber, lying on a sack of protein pellets, wrapped in a pink blanket. There was nothing with me but an adult’s necklace, hung double around my tiny neck, and a note pinned to the blanket to say my name was Ebba. No one knew how I got there.
Everything was in lockdown already. The sea had risen so high there was no more Cape Peninsula – just an island separated from the mainland. And soon that island would be cut in three by the flood.
There was nowhere to take me. No one was going to open the bunker again, not when the superpowers were about to use their nuclear weapons on each other. So they put me in a sabenzi group with Jasmine, Letti and Fez and I became child number 2001 in the colony.
I pull out the blanket and feel for the charm that hangs on the necklace, running my fingers across its surface. I’ve wondered so often what it means – the silver circle with a polished brown stone balanced inside it. There are four clasps on the chain, but only one has a charm hanging from it. Where are the rest? Does my family have them?
Everyone else has letters from their families, and photographs and keepsakes. Ma Goodson reads the letters aloud on birthdays, but most people know theirs off by heart. Letti has her mom’s wedding ring, and Fez has a pocket watch that belonged to their great-great-grandfather. But who did my necklace belong to?
We’re not allowed to wear jewellery, so I fold it into the blanket and push it back into my locker.
The rising siren goes then, the lights come on and everyone is up, rushing to the bathroom before the water runs out.
We have to make sure we all survive the sacrifice. Jasmine is really anxious. In the worst scenario the High Priest could choose me, Letti and Fez, and then she’ll be alone with no sabenzis, no family.
But because she’s Jasmine, she’s being practical.
I’m brushing my hair when she comes over.
“Here,” she says, “let me help you.”
She pulls my hair back in a tight plait, spreading some oil on it to flatten my curls so that it sits sleekly against my head. Then she folds the plait into a bun, pins it securely, and puts on my cap, pulling it down to cover every bit of hair.
“I’m scared, Jas,” I whisper. “I’m scared for me, and for Letti and Fez too.”
“I know,” she says, standing on tiptoe to give me a hug. “Bend your knees so you look shorter, and keep your hand hidden, and they won’t notice you.”
Fez and Letti are just back from the bathroom.
“I’ve made this for you, Fez,” I say, taking a tiny bottle of green liquid out of my locker. “It’s peppermint infusion. I hope it will stop you coughing during the selection.”
Fez’s complexion is grey with fear. But he gives me a wry smile and slips it in his pocket.
“Drink it just as we go into the meeting hall,” I say.
Jasmine grabs him by the shoulders. “Sorry, Fez. This is going to hurt, but we’ve got to get some colour into your face.” She slaps him twice on each cheek.
He doesn’t say anything. His twin sister Letti peers at Jasmine, squeezing her eyes half shut as she tries to make out Jasmine’s expression.
“Letti,” Jasmine says, “don’t do that in front of the general or the High Priest. Don’t let them know you can’t see properly.”
Of all of us, Letti is the most at risk. I’m terrified that I’ll never see her again after this morning. But she’s being brave.
“I won’t, Jasmine,” she promises. I see her swallow nervously and give her a hug.
Then the siren goes again, and it’s time to go into the meeting hall. Time for the sacrifice to begin.
THE MOOD IN the hall is sombre. Nobody’s saying anything because the place is crawling with soldiers brought down from the barracks on level 2. I scan the hall, looking for the best place to be invisible. The meeting hall is round, with benches arranged in circles around the central altar. We need to find a place at the back, where the rows are longer, where we can hide in the crowd. But everyone’s had the same idea and we’re forced into a row about a third of the way down.
We push Fez right to the middle of the row. He’s short, so hopefully