As I locked the front door behind me, the strange orb still a fading after-image behind my eyes, I noticed something sticking out of the letterbox. It was a white card, like a postcard, but instead of an image it contained just my name, written in script: Miss Gabrielle Whitehall. I frowned. Dad’s address wasn’t public information. Only Alex, Cecelia and Zenna knew I lived here, and they were all well aware that I hated “Gabrielle”. I turned it over.


Don’t let them take you.

Look for May.


The buzz from finding the orb evaporated, and a chill settled in its place. Had the postcard come from the woman who’d stopped by? Some part of me didn’t think so. I tucked the card into my jeans pocket and set off down the street with something else to ponder. Dad had always been concerned that I might get caught up in his work. He’d never said how or what might happen, but it was a large part of the reason I went and stayed with Alex when Dad was away. I supposed the card might be a threat, but I had a sense that whoever had sent the note – left it, actually, as there was no address or postmark – was trying to warn me, not threaten me. But of what? And “look for May”? Like, May the month? My brain had no other ideas. May was a long way off; TISC applications were due in September. Maybe the universities had their own police who came and interrogated students who were thinking of skipping out on the system.


A cat crossed the road in front of me, thick, steel-grey coat matching the colour of the sky. It sat with its tail tucked around its paws as I walked by, staring at me with wide amber eyes. I scowled. What was it with cats today? My skin prickled as I thought of the one I’d tried to draw. In my mind’s eye it had been a grey cat.

I looked back, but it was gone.


At the top of a hill, I stopped at the entrance to a park. It was a large, open space that extended down the other side of the hill, mainly for dogs, and at the bottom was a fancy new kids’ playground. It was always busy down there, but up here was an old swing set and a metal jungle gym that I often sat on to think or read. I climbed to the top of the jungle gym and watched the clouds rolling across the sky, forming towering shapes. Thunder rumbled like falling stones in the distance.

Despite the electric air, I struggled to lift my mind out of the fog I’d been swimming in for the past two years. I’d done, so far, what was necessary to pass, and sometimes I’d lucked out and achieved more – to the frustration of my teachers, who were torn between marking me down anyway because they knew I hadn’t tried or berating me for letting my academic ability go to waste. Australia needs biologists like you, Flamebeard had said. And female media producers. And people with an instinct for communications. All my teachers had an opinion. Yet, I couldn’t bring myself to apply for further study in any of those things. Perhaps there was something fundamentally wrong with me, some intrinsic thing I couldn’t find. Or maybe it wasn’t me. Maybe there was something missing from the world. The strange orb glimmered in my mind, but now the shock had worn off, I figured it had to have been a trick. A flashy effect to disguise a confidential message. More pressing was the postcard in my pocket.


Wind whipped my hair across my face and rushed through my ears, so I nearly missed the sound. The cat prowled around the bottom of the jungle gym, meowing and looking up at me. I had no idea what normal cat behaviour was, but this seemed odd. I gave it a withering look. The hairs rose on my arms, rubbing the wrong way against the fleece of my hoodie.


Closer to my ears than the distant thunder rumbling around or the weird cat racket, my phone beeped. Zenna.


Facetime in 30? Be good to go through portfolios.


I didn’t care about my portfolio, and it finally clicked. I was bored. I had been bored for at least two years.


Soz Zenna, am out for a walk.


In this weather? Are you mad?


The wind intensified, tossing the treetops lining the park and buffeting me on my perch. It was getting a bit intense. I climbed down and almost stepped on the damn cat. Thinking it might be lost, I knelt and held out a hand to see if it had a name tag, but it turned and trotted away, still meowing. Whatever, cat.


The darkened sky lit up with a blaze of forked lightning. Seconds later, the air rumbled like a bass drum. A thrill shot through my body. The cat stopped on the footpath, amber eyes wide, staring at me.


Lightning flashed again, followed immediately by thunder. I hadn’t realised the storm was so close. A loud buzzing emanated from the jungle gym, pushing into my head, and my thrill shifted to fear as Flamebeard’s lesson on lightning strikes jumped to mind. I hurried down the path, off the top of the hill.


A prickling sensation spread over my scalp. I reached up to find my hair standing on end. Hair that normally fell past my shoulders, sticking straight up, a foot above my head. Thunder snapped across the sky. I started running. I knew it was too late. My phone slipped from my hand as I sprinted.


The air around me erupted in a white-hot blaze. I wasn’t sure if I was seeing anything, or hearing anything. It might have been white fire or black flames, it might have been a stupendous roar or deafening silence, it might have seared across my skin and burned through my shoes and dropped me to the ground where my knees grazed the concrete path, but I don’t know for sure that I was aware of anything. Perhaps my mind just filled in the impossible blanks.


I fell into nothingness.