Free The Disappearance of Ember Crow by Ambelin Kwaymullina Page B

afraid
of
you,” I explained hastily. “I figured he meant I should be afraid
for
you, in case I hurt you again …”
    “I don’t need you to protect me, Ashala!”
    “I know. I’ve been an idiot, I told you that before. I’m sorry.” And I was. But I could still feel, deep inside, that overwhelming, irrational urge to protect him from all harm. I wasn’t over that yet. I wasn’t sure how to get over it.
    He stared at me a moment longer. Then he nodded, accepting the apology, and handed me the paper. “Read that.”
    I scanned the page. Nine lines, in Ember’s handwriting.
The angel rhyme
. Except … “It’s out of order.” Every schoolkid knew that poem, and it was supposed to run from one to eight:
    Count the angels one by one
    We’ll get to eight before we’re done
    One to lead
    Two to fight
    Three to make all great wrongs right
    Four for music, dance and art
    Five to nourish land and heart
    Six to invent
    Seven to remember
    Eight to bring the rest together
.
    This version of the poem, though, had the numbers out of order.
    Eight to bring the rest together
    Seven to remember
    Five to nourish land and heart
    Four for music, dance and art
    Three to make all great wrongs right
    Six to invent
    Two to fight
    One to lead
.
    I caught my breath. “It’s the same as Georgie’s numbers! Eight, seven, five, four, three, six, two, one. But what does it mean? That Ember’s somewhere with angels?”
    “Or that she’ll return here,” Connor said. “This is where the poem is.” I brightened, and he added gently, “Or perhaps not. Georgie’s futures are always difficult to interpret, and I couldn’t work out what those equations she wrote down were about. None of this really makes sense yet.”
    That was true enough. Still, the poem was a clue, even if we didn’t know what it meant. I glanced around the lab, which now seemed to be bursting with possibilities. “Let’s see if we can find something else.”
    We went on searching. After half an hour, I hadn’t found anything else useful. Plus, Nicky was driving me crazy. He couldn’t leave that cupboard alone. He tried to push me towards it, and when that didn’t work, he sat in front of the thing and barked.
    I told him to stop, and he did. But I could feel his big, dark eyes watching me mournfully. “It’s only herbs, Nicky,” I said, as I sorted through yet another pile of papers. “There’s nothing there.”
    There was a banging sound. I spun around to find Nicky throwing himself against the cupboard.
    It began to topple.
    “Nicky!” I dived for him as Connor captured the cupboard in air, stopping it halfway to falling. Grabbing hold of Nicky’s collar, I dragged him out from underneath, pulling him across the room. “Are you hurt?” I knelt down at his side, checking him over. To my relief, he seemed to be okay. “That was a really stupid thing to do!”
    “Actually,” Connor breathed, “I don’t think it was stupid at all.”
    I glanced up. He was staring at the half-fallen cupboard, looking a little stunned. “Ashala, I think … I think there’s something behind it.”
    The cupboard floated sideways, righted itself, and settled on the ground. I gaped at what it had concealed.
    A door. A heavy, dull,
impossible
door, set into the cave wall.
    Nicky barked, as if to say,
I told you!
    I scrambled to my feet. Connor got to the door first and tried the handle. It didn’t open. I arrived right behind him, and ran my fingers over the cold, pitted surface. It felt a bit like metallite, one of the building materials churned out by the recyclers. But metallite was black. Smooth. This was … something else.
    “I think this could be the entrance to a bunker,” Connor said.
    I struggled to string thoughts together. “You mean, like where people hid out? To survive the Reckoning?”
    “This door is old. Whatever it’s made of didn’t come out of a recycler.”
    “Yeah, I can see that! But there’s never been any sign of anyone living in