Elevation 1: The Thousand Steps. Helen Brain

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 you 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.”