Dark Eden

12 Tina Spiketree

So third waking of Any Virsry came, and we were all back together in Circle Clearing. Everyone in the world was squeezed into the space between Circle and trees (really everyone this time because all the hunters had returned by now), with jewel bats diving back and forth above us and forest humming all around. I stood with my sister Jane — bloody group leader Liz had made me stay with Spiketrees this time — and John stayed over with the Redlanterns, so I could only wave to him. He looked tired tired. I guess we all did, but he did more than most.

Council got ready out there in middle of Circle and Oldest were propped up there on their padded logs by six seven of their helpers, and then Any Virsry started off again with the Mementoes being brought out to remind us yet again that we were all one Family and that we came here from Earth. Out came the Boots, the Belt, the Backpack, the Kee Board, and the helpers took them round all the groups so people could reach out and touch them and feel the weird stuff they’re made of that no one knows where to find or how to make (except maybe Boots, which seem to be made of some kind of skin). Kids were excited excited. All the littles wanted to touch Kee Board, and push down those little squares with letters on them. Oldest were allowed to take these things out of their hollow log whenever they wanted, but they were only shown to whole Family once every year at Any Virsries, and for little kids, seeing something from that long ago was like seeing something from a dream. They couldn’t quite believe that it was all really there again.

And it wasn’t just kids that got excited either. Some grownups cried when they saw the Mementoes, and when they reached out to touch them, some had trembling hands, full of hope and longing, for many people thought that when you touched the things from Earth it made aches and pains go away, or brought dreams into your head of that bright bright world, bright as the inside of a lanternflower. And as for that horrible Redlantern woman, Lucy Lu, she went into a bloody trance.

‘I feel them!’ she cried out, the lying slinker. ‘I feel their presence all around us!’

But pretty soon helpers gathered the Mementoes all together again, shoved them back into the log and closed them inside with a greased lid, and then Family Head Caroline went pacing round in front of Council and Oldest, going through the Genda and telling us what Council had agreed, with little Jane London, the Secret Ree, hurrying behind her with the notes she’d scratched at the meeting on pieces of bark.

Behind the two of them were lined up all the group leaders: our Liz (that fat, ugly, bossy old thing), and old blind Tom Brooklyn, and silly gushing Flower Batwing, who thinks she is young and pretty when she’s really old and wrinkled and dried up, and Mary Starflower, who likes to draw in breath when someone else speaks, like they’ve said such a terrible, stupid thoughtless thing that she wonders whether it can ever ever be undone, and Julie London with her hard, sharp, pushy face, and Candy Fishcreek, who always whispers so that everyone has to be quiet quiet to hear her, and Susan Blueside, who doesn’t seem smart enough to be a group leader but is stubborn like a lump of rock. Susan Blueside didn’t look too happy, so I guessed she’d lost the battle over London group’s move. But the one that stood out from the rest was Bella Redlantern. She was right at the end of the line, next to Liz, but the space between her and Liz was fully twice the space that was left between any other two of them.

‘London is to be allowed to move ten yards Blueway,’ Caroline announced, ‘as long as they rebuild Blueside fence ten yards further out and help Blueside build new shelters.’

Secret Ree winced and pointed at the writing on one of her pieces of bark. Caroline frowned for a moment, but then corrected herself.

‘London is to be allowed to move twelve yards, as long as they rebuild Blueside fence twelve yards further out,’ she said.

She studied the bark writing for a moment to remind herself what was next.

‘Each group,’ she went on, ‘is only going to be allowed to fish on Greatpool during their normal group waking, and each group is only allowed one boat and one net out there at at a time. And no net used on Greatpool can be more than four yards long. This is to stop taking too many fish.’

There were some grumbling sounds from people in Family who liked to think of themselves as fishers. (Silly buggers. Would they rather catch all the fish and then have no fishing to do at all?) Caroline glanced across at the notes again.

‘Youngmums,’ she said, ‘will have to scavenge and hunt like everyone else when their babies are three periods old. Clawfeet and oldies can look after the littles.’

There were grumbles from youngmums and clawfeet, but on Caroline went.

I waited. I didn’t really expect anything but I wondered if there’d be anything to suggest that they’d even considered John’s idea about Family moving out wider and not going on forever huddling round the old Circle of Stones. But no, nothing. And when they’d been through all the stuff that had been decided, Caroline said this:

‘We have only discussed the properly agreed Genda. We have not discussed things that were not properly raised. And we’ve all agreed that Family must stay together, here, side by side, around these stones that mark the spot where Tommy and Angela and the Three Companions came down from Starry Swirl, and from where the Companions set off on their way back to Earth. Family must not be broken. We must remain one, and we must remain in the place where our sisters and brothers from Earth will come to find us, as we all know one waking they will. And we must work together and live peacefully so as to try and be worthy to be taken back to our true home, even though we’ve forgotten so much, and fallen so far from what we once were.’

She looked out towards where Redlanterns were standing. She searched the faces until she found John’s. She looked straight at him.

‘I hope that’s understood,’ she said. ‘It’s Council’s decision and it’s mine, and it must be accepted by whole Family. And that means everyone here.’

I saw John look across at Bella Redlantern, but she was staring straight down at the ground, like there was something really interesting going on down there.

I could see John was angry angry. I could see him struggling inside himself.

Caroline looked round at us all, letting her words sink in.

‘And that’s the end of the . . .’ she began.

But then John broke in. It was like sap bursting from a cut tree.

‘Think about it, Caroline,’ he called out. ‘Work it out. It doesn’t take an Einstein.’

All round Clearing, people groaned. Not this again. Not this rude little newhair once more. Ugly David Redlantern was pushing towards John through Redlantern group.

‘If we were two once and now we’re five hundred and thirty-two,’ John went on, ‘how big will Family be in another . . .?’

Whack! David slapped him hard across the back of his head with his big hard hand.

‘Leave him be!’ I yelled out.

‘Get off him, David!’ I heard John’s faithful Gerry shouting, and I saw him pushing and shoving at David. But David swatted Gerry away like he was an ant, grabbed John by the hair and stood there solid as a tree.

Meanwhile, all round Circle people reacted, each one in their own way. Some laughed, some gasped, a few cheered, and many many called out in angry disapproval, not at what David had done, but at John for causing trouble.

I could see David lean forward and hiss out a warning, and then he gripped John’s hair more tightly, lifting him up a little so he was hanging by his own hair roots.

‘And that’s the end of the Genda,’ Caroline went on, with that particular rock-like stubbornness that she did so well, as if nothing had happened at all and she was just carrying on with what she had to say, ‘and now it’s time for me to go through the Laws that Harry, our second father, and his three sisters, carved on these Circle Clearing trees.’

Secret Ree passed her some pieces of bark with the Laws copied onto them, and then walked to the edge of the clearing through London group, so that while Caroline walked round inside Circle, she could walk round the trees and point to each carving, as Caroline read out from the bark what it said.

‘You mustn’t kill anything except animals to eat and animals that are dangerous,’ read Caroline. ‘You mustn’t do anything to harm the family.’

She paused and looked round at us all.

‘That means you must not do anything to break Family up,’ she said.

‘You mustn’t slip with a child or with anyone that doesn’t want to do it,’ she went on, ‘and grown men mustn’t slip with young girls.

‘You mustn’t steal things.

‘You must come to Any Virsries and to Strornry Meetings.

‘You must respect the Old.

‘And that,’ said Caroline, frowning round at us, ‘means not just Oldest, but group leaders, and Family Head, and all grownups.’

She glanced in John’s direction for a moment, and then went on reading.

‘You must look after clawfeet.

‘You mustn’t foul streams or pools.

‘You must wait for Earth to come, and keep the customs of Earth, so Earth will take you home.’

John had a point, I thought, he really did. Of course we wanted to go back to Earth, but could we really wait in this one place forever, just in case they came?

And was that really the custom of Earth, anyway, to wait in one place? They were the ones who built a boat that could travel through the stars.