Once Upon Tomorrow

by Karen Comer

Genres: Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology; Coming of Age; Nature & the Environment; Science Fiction; Dystopian

Synopsis

Three girls. Three fates. Three interwoven stories. Spanning a hundred years from the present to the future, three girls on the cusp of life search for truth and connection amid family dysfunction, climate change and the march of new technology in this exquisite verse novel from the award-winning author of Grace Notes.

Miri, an eighteen-year-old hopeful Jungian student, discovers she's pregnant in 2025.
Aleita, sixteen, shelters in the library, the one place free of jolts to her digital implant in 2125.
Interwoven between them stands Sylvie, spinning tapestries to save her life and the kingdom. Sylvie exists in the pages of a mysterious fairytale titled The Girl at the Threshold.

Miri, Aleita and Sylvie each need to make a choice in their search for the truth. All three are connected through time by heartbreak, a desperate need to save the environment and a search for family and community.
An expansive verse novel about the parallel journeys of three extraordinary girls carving out their own histories - and each other's.

Praise for Karen Comer's award-winning debut, Grace Notes:

'Perfect for any young reader who's ever felt left on the outside.' Books and Publishing

'A masterful debut!' Lorraine Marwood

'This beautiful story strikes the perfect tone.' Nicole Hayes

'A classic in the making.' Danielle Binks

Release date: April 28, 2026

Publisher: Hachette Australia

Print pages: 368

Sample

Once the door to The Three Fates opens,

I’m at the threshold.

Not my mother’s tiny daughter anymore,

playing with peg dolls in a corner of her shop.

Not yet an independent woman –

eighteen but still at school.

Even the customers,

mainly women of different ages,

pause before entering.

The Three Fates is a space

b / e / t / w / e / e / n

their work, their home, their fears

– and their creativity.

This space is liminal –

well, that’s how I think Jung would describe it.

Even though Jung’s my celebrity crush,

I can’t really be sure how a Swiss psychoanalyst

born in 1875

would categorise my mother’s shop.

Sometimes, this sense of the between

only lasts as long as the jingle

of the bells above the door.

Heralding your transition into another realm, Pat says,

when customers remark on the bell’s cheerful tone.

Even Pat uses Jungian language,

although he doesn’t know it.

Pat’s behind the counter, serving an indecisive woman.

Customers here are either totally confident

in their wool choices

or spend days deliberating

between moss or sage green.

I’d choose sage green any day of the week.

Mum did. It reminded her

of eucalyptus leaves.

It’s her chair I head towards now,

in the middle of the shop.

Sage-green quilted velvet,

a swivel armchair.

Today it has a knitted lavender blanket with pompoms

thrown over the back.

The softness of the velvet is nothing like

the brittleness of a eucalyptus leaf,

but the grey-green colour is the same.

I plonk my schoolbag next to it,

sit down to do a slow 360-degree turn.

Face the street first,

not that I can see much of it

as the shop window display

has a double-sided wooden cabinet of wool,

this week in shades of warm autumn tones.

Autumn always attracts new knitters and weavers.

Pat has hung an ochre-yellow jumper in cable knit

next to a crocheted granny-square blanket

in creams, pinks and greys.

The spinning wheel is in its usual position;

Australian alpaca wool wound around its bobbin.

This is not just artful –

Pat probably sat there for twenty minutes today,

spinning that wheel.

He says it’s more effective at bringing in customers

than my social media posts.

I say his thinking is as outdated as that wheel.

I continue to swivel slowly,

turning my gaze away from the window display,

past the jingly door

to the wall on my right:

white, open shelving holding the wools

– colour-coded, then in type –

mohair, alpaca, linen, silk, cashmere, merino.

Even seasoned knitters, creative weavers

and crochet fans sigh when they see it.

This wall elicits so much emotion, so many possibilities –

how could you not believe in the capacity of humans

for warmth, kindness and connection

when this wall of wool beckons to you,

whispers to you,

that you are capable of creating art and beauty?

I turn sharply to the left side wall –

racks of patterns,

shelves of looms,

rectangular and circular weaving frames,

skein winders, bobbins of all different sizes,

baskets of knitting needles, crochet hooks,

a rectangle rainbow of felt,

fibres for dry needling,

craft books

and dyes to colour your world any hue you like.

Then around to the front counter:

Pat still serving Ms Indecisive,

the black and white mural

of the Three Fates behind the counter:

Clotho, the spinner,

who weaves together the thread of life;

Lachesis, the allotter,

who decides how long the thread will be;

and Atropos, the cutter,

who snips it.

My favourite has always been Clotho.

The other sisters have too much power –

their faces scared me as a small person

and, to be honest, they still do.

Apparently, I was a busy bee as a kid,

always into some project or passion. And even now,

there are so many things I want to do –

I’ll need a few of Lachesis’s threads to get them done.

Please, Lachesis, I want to beg her,

give me as long as you can. I have BIG plans.

But Clotho is the one who determines a person’s fate

when they’re still forming in the womb –

she spins the thread of their life.

Did she do it for me? I asked Mum, watching

the artist paint the mural of the Three Fates,

my 5-year-old self fascinated

with both the artistic process and the story behind it.

Did she decide my fate? Do you know what it is?

You have to live it to discover it, Miranda Rose Fitzpatrick,

Mum said, no doubt unpacking a box of worsted yarn

or showing a customer how to weave a soumak stitch.

The artist had tried to convince Mum

to portray the Fates as young women

– she had found a few sources of three beautiful girls.

But Mum was adamant – the Fates were spinsters.

Show them as wise, mature, experienced.

They’re the ones who determine our fate –

would you put your fate in the hands of a young person?

The artist obviously trusted Mum’s judgement –

the Three Fates have all the attributes of the old.

Bent and wrinkled bodies,

thinning hair, protruding moles –

crones indeed.

If only the Fates had returned the favour to Mum.

Atropos

cut

her

off

when she was only thirty-eight, eleven years ago.



Ms Indecisive finally chooses moss green for her scarf.

Pat sits down on the matching ottoman in front of me,

rolls up the sleeves of his pink argyle jumper.

Handknitted, of course.

So many of our customers check out Pat’s clothes

– he makes traditional knitting patterns look hot –

then buy up the same pattern and colours

to knit for their husbands, sons, grandsons.

Doubt they could all pull it off the way Pat does.

You look tired, Miri – too much study?

Bit hard to avoid. I nod at my book-laden schoolbag.

How’s your installation going?

Pat’s face lights up. Coming along.

Almost ready for the exhibition.

When Pat’s not managing The Three Fates,

he creates textile art

– fractal nature patterns –

commissions for private clients,

installations for museums and galleries.

Ms Indecisive thinks she’s merely received assistance

about knit one, purl one from a retail shop assistant,

but she’s actually been advised

by renowned textile artist Patrick Laundern.

How’s the great plan of 2025 going?

I side-eye him. I do not

appreciate your mocking tone.

I asked with all the sincerity I could muster.

You know I’m not a plan person, but I so

appreciate that you are.

He grins. So, tell me, are you on track?

Yeah,

getting good enough grades so far

to hopefully get into Psych,

earning enough money here for schoolies,

almost enough time with Jonah and my friends.

Not much time to knit or crochet

but, you know, Year 12.

Pat rises from his low seat in one fluid movement.

Good to know the great plan is on track.

Want to serve customers or sort stock?

Stock, please.

There are so many boxes of wool to unpack

that I take the excess colours upstairs.

It’s supposed to be the staff break room

but often it’s full of extra looms, frames, wool in boxes.

Must have been used as a home

for the previous owner before Mum bought it –

there’s a small kitchen, living area, bathroom

and two bedrooms.

The afternoon light eddies into the living space,

a soft, mellow tide,

and I’m tempted to have a nap on the worn couch.

I push on, though, running down the stairs

to ferry the extra boxes up to the bedrooms.

Then downstairs, I arrange the latest offerings

in enticing rows on the wall of wool.

Everything feels possible here –

I can knit a few rows of my scarf for Ava,

banter back and forth with Pat,

help a customer choose between cashmere and merino,

and plan out my future career as a Jungian analyst

while living with Jonah in a tiny house near a forest.

So many Year 12 students don’t know what they want –

that’s not my problem.

My problem is I want it all.

Serving customers at The Three Fates,

hanging out at home with Dad, Hannah and my brothers,

kissing Jonah,

studying Jung,

reading fairytales,

trying new make-up styles with Ava and Shalia.

I want to help everyone.

And help myself, too.

That’s why I’m such a planner –

my plan for Year 12 was three pages long

with seven different colours for emphasis.

So, Lachesis, take note –

my plans are for a very long and fulfilled life.

A long, long time ago, but not so long ago, as time meanders in ways that sway the mind, betray the heart and deceive the senses, there lived a miller’s daughter.

Her name – who knew it? Her father did not think it important to distinguish her from any other maiden or to offer her an identity other than his own. Her mother, dead many a year now, did name her – beautifully. But a dead mother, no matter how skilled in nomenclature, cannot speak her name.

It was the weaver, Wyn, a woman with a forehead woven with lines of age and experience, who saw the gold in the motherless girl. She placed the girl in front of a loom, a basket of fibres at her feet.

The girl needed no instruction. She smiled at Wyn through the loom, selected a thick, white wool, listened to its story with her hands and floated that cloud of thread through her loom.

She told the story of the weaver, the truth of her family – how her craft had been passed down from generation to generation; how they tended the benevolent sheep who blessed them with wool; how they gathered the herbs, flowers and leaves to create the coloured dyes that softly bled into the purity of the white fleece; how they wove baskets of texture, rugs of colour, scarves of warmth, tapestries of stories.

The weaver, awed and humbled by this elevation of her family’s craft, wept.

Oh, these fated stars,

even my mirror is against me now!

I stare, grim, at my reflection.

My bedroom mirror – well, she’s done her best

to present me with options from my wardrobe,

but none of them appeal.

And none of the potential options from shops

are within my budget,

even if a drone could deliver them within minutes.

Elianne flicks through my clothes,

covering the chair by the window.

Here, this’ll do. It’s not too hot, surprisingly.

She throws me a light, short-sleeved woollie.

I knew you were my friend for a reason.

I smile thanks at Elianne – she smiles back.

A much better friend than my mirror.

I glare at my mirror – she glares back.

You should see the jolts my mirror sends me, Elianne says.

She reordered my shampoo

(I’m using too much),

told me I’m spending too much time on make-up

(my new look is not working for her)

and suggested I shouldn’t wear orange

(my dopamine hits are low on those days).

Those orange-hued days, oh, I know

those days.

I straighten my necklace,

turn away from my all-seeing, all-judging mirror.

There was a time when mirrors were more sinister,

but not anymore,

thanks to Gran’s advocacy for beauty jolt legislation.

Ready. Hug for luck?

Elianne throws her arms around me.

You’ll get your place, I just know it.

You, too.

Empty words, full of hope, not certainty.

We both know CC

– Consciousness Cluster –

has already determined our placements.

Fated by algorithms.

We walk the short path from my family’s home

to the Library of Leaves,

always vibrant with

conversation after conversation after conversation.

Connections. Human connections.

Libraries are safe havens –

legislated to protect humans

from neural implant jolting

and personal data harvesting.

Libraries are one of the last places

you can talk freely.

You can be yourself in a library.

In the garden outside the main doors,

the pracbots check the bonfire structure –

a loosely built hut ten-feet tall

made of fallen branches.

Gifts from the forest.

The pracbots clear the surrounding ground of leaves,

their recycled plastic parts expand and contract

with every movement.

They’re dual-sense bots – touch and sight.

One of them tucks a stray branch in

as if they’re tucking a girl’s hair behind her ears.

Only a few people can fit inside,

under the bonfire’s arched roof –

so loosely woven with strawper ropes

I can see more stars in the night sky than branches.

A tapestry of stars, sticks and straw.

A space of possibility –

to send wishes, prayers and hopes

that your fate spins to your liking.

My older brother, CJ, sticks his head in,

followed by one of his mates, Tav.

Made a wish?

CJ nods

at the pens and slips of strawper,

rough off cuts from the local mill.

I thought you didn’t believe in wishes, I tease.

Oh, it’s a whole different story for Equinox, CJ says.

Lots of weighty wishes.

He peers at Tav’s strawper.

Mate! Tav says. Bit of space. Bit of respect

for this weighty wish of mine.

I kneel down next to the others,

smooth the strawper scrap;

there’s just enough light to write by.

I wish … I could get into EveNet.

I wish … I could stop neural jolts and thought harvesting.

The ones urging women

to do less, be less, feel less.

The ones selling women’s private thoughts

on work, politics, health, love.

I wish.

I scrunch up the strawper,

tuck it into a branch,

follow the others outside

into the most balanced day

of the year.

A crowd has gathered around the empty twiggy hut,

expectant.

A pracbot slowly touches its centre

with a flaming torch.

The hut bursts into flames;

the fire blooms over the branches.

Mum stands next to us.

I almost don’t want to watch, I say to her.

It gets me every year – it’s beautiful but it’s destructive.

I know, she says, stretching her arm around me.

That’s the point – the world is beautiful,

but we continue to destroy it.

The equinox reminds us we need balance.

Balance. My wish was to balance out

the patriarchal inequality.

The fire begins to devour the branches.

Maybe it will turn our wishes to ashy fragments.

Maybe it will transform them into reality.



A passing pracbot offers us a tray of snaxels,

but I’m too nervous, I can’t eat.

CJ has no such problem – he grabs a handful.

Everything crossed for all of us

for our Service Term placements.

I reckon there’ll be a few wanting mycology, says Tav,

coughing as the flames send ashes into the air.

None as fungi-geeky as you, though, says CJ.

Tav elbows him in the ribs, Elianne laughs.

We move inside the library,

through the crowds of students, parents, locals –

their huddles opening, making way

every time Mum walks by.

They say her name almost reverentially

– Tess, Tess, Tess –

it reverberates through the library,

through the books and datapoint stories,

couches and window pods,

chairs and desks,

plants, music-hubs and shimmer exhibitions,

like an incantation.

Mum is the librarian custodian –

she collaborates with the community

to make the library a refuge, a safe space,

a place of education and possibilities and beauty

for everyone.

And Gran is even more respected –

for her ability to get to the truth of the matter

in court.

Aptly named, my gran – Verity.

She’s ready to start proceedings now.

She throws a wink to me –

even she doesn’t know where I’ll end up.

All these choices made by Consciousness Cluster

rather than humans.

Fairer. No clouded judgement from CC –

it supposedly doesn’t discriminate.

Gran speaks, the room quietens.

Autumn equinox, we are celebrating balance,

that elusive sense of feeling in sync,

when the northern and southern hemispheres

have the same amount of daylight,

when the world balances on an upright pole

before circling around the sun again.

We begin the Service Term announcements on this day

to offer our young people,

these 16 and 17-year-olds,

both balance and equality – service

to vulnerable communities, scientific and neural research,

advances in health, environment, energy and education.

The world needs you more than ever –

we learn from the lessons of the past decades,

the wars, viruses, climate crises, poison issues, tech crashes –

and with you, we look to the future.

And we offer you possibilities –

possibilities of who you can be, what you can offer.

She smiles. I have never believed in the word ‘impossible’.

The holographic presenters

call out the names of their chosen.

Childcare, and CJ’s name is called.

Mycology, and Tav’s name is called.

Aged care, and Elianne’s name is called.

EveNet – and my name is called.

She calls my name –

even though it’s her holographic image and not her,

she has still named me.

Told you! says Elianne.

She twirls me around until I’m dizzy

and the library’s scattered halo-lights blur together

in a bright ring around us.

CJ, we need to celebrate, she whispers to him.

Sneak us a ber-gin.

As if. I laugh. You want your parents

to be alerted through your Neural?

Damn the implants, Elianne says.

They have too much knowledge.

Tav rolls his eyes.

We’re in the library, remember?

No jolts or hacking here.

CJ sneaks us ber-gins,

the four of us are full of elation.

We are in sync

with our own infinite possibilities,

our own fated stars.

Not really, Jess.

Ms Castagna’s voice is kind but dismissive.

Jess hasn’t quite nailed it.

She ruffles through the notes on her desk,

trying to find the correct answer.

I’m pretty sure I’d nail the answer

to Ms C. . .