Dark Eden

26 John Redlantern

I was torn torn all the time. We weren’t going to be safe where we were forever. We had to move as soon as we could, and that meant finding a way over Dark. So I was desperate desperate all the time to get up there, and I was working working all the time on how to do it, how to make better wraps, how to light our way. But at the same time, and for the same reason, we had to watch out for attack from Family. We had to make sure that all of us were protected, and none of us were left alone. So I needed to be up on Dark as much as I could, and yet I also needed to be keeping an eye as much as I could on our little group at Valley Neck.

So of course as soon as I knew it would be three wakings at least before anyone came over from Family again, I went straight off to Snowy Dark. I didn’t have time to talk to Tina about it. As soon as I knew, I was hurrying hurrying up to the ice. And then I put on new footwraps stuck together with a new mixture of glue, and I lit up the new light I’d made, with a wet hollow branch packed with buckgrease — my idea was that the grease would burn but the branch would stay in one piece — and I walked up into Dark, until all I could see was the orange circle of snow around my light, and the steam from my breath, and all I could hear were the sounds I made myself echoing from walls of rock that I couldn’t see but only hear.

But then the flame began to sputter, and I had to turn round. By the time I’d got back off the ice my footwraps were getting wet again, and the wood of the hollow branch had dried out and was starting to burn. And what I wanted to do was put another set of footwraps on that I’d made with a different glue mixture, and light up another torch, this time lined with wet clay, and try again. We had so little time to get this sorted.

But I knew I needed to get back to Neck to be ready for whatever it was that Family had decided to do.

As it turned out, I didn’t need to hurry back so fast. I’d been back at the caves for a whole waking and a sleep after that and then half a waking again, before we heard a thing from Family.

Most of our lot were out hunting, and I was with Tina, Jeff, Gela and Clare in front of our caves, grinding seeds and sewing up buckskin wraps, when Mike called down from top lookout that six seven people were coming. He’d glimpsed them out there crossing a gap in the trees. Pretty soon, Dix called up from lower lookout that he’d just seen them too.

Well, it could have been kids coming over to us like before, but we’d never had that many come all in one go, so it sounded more like David and his lot were coming back with their clubs and spears. We hid our buckskins and all our other things in our various hiding places, then me, Tina and Gela grabbed our own spears and clubs and went down the path, leaving Mike, Dix and Jeff by the caves, while Clare went after the others to let them know what was happening.

The visitors from Family had heard us calling out to each other and had stopped and waited at the opening in the trees just past Neck where Cold Path Stream leaves Cold Path Valley and flows out into Circle Valley forest. It wasn’t David’s lot, though. Caroline herself, the Family Head, was sitting on a rock, with blind Tom Brooklyn and Candy Fishcreek on each side of her. Jane London, the Secret Ree, was squatting at her feet, and three young London guys with glass-tipped spears were standing around them. Hmmmmmm, went forest. The stream splished and splashed over the stones. Above them, a little hazy but still quite bright, Starry Swirl shone down.

We knew our part of forest much better than they did. We lay low in a starflower patch under the trees to watch them, just like we did when we were hunting buck. They couldn’t see us but they knew we were watching them and we could see they were playing up to that. Caroline and the two group leaders were chatting away like they were just having a little rest on a gentle walk through forest. Secret Ree was chipping in from time to time in her little fluty voice. The three young blokes looked bored and fiddled with their spears.

‘Clever,’ whispered Tina, ‘making us come to them.’

‘No way will we go to them, Tina.’

‘No. You’re right. But how about we just walk out like we happened to be out here hunting in forest?’

That seemed a good plan to me, so that’s what we did. We came strolling out from the trees, and we acted, not surprised (because that would be like admitting we didn’t have a proper lookout system), but like it didn’t matter much to us whether they were there or not.

‘Hi there, Caroline,’ I called out.

And then we sat down by the stream, some way short of where they were sitting, and put our feet in the water, like hunters after a long waking.

Of course they knew we were playacting, just like we knew they were. And we knew they knew, and they knew we knew. Really and truly this was a big big thing for them that was happening, just as much as it was a big big thing for us. Us and Family were big problems for one another and both sides badly needed to talk. But the pretending, the pretending on both sides that this wasn’t a big thing at all: that was part of that talk. It was an important part of it. It was a way of feeling our way forward.

But that didn’t change the fact that this really was a big thing, this was one of those moments that people would remember and act out far off in the future, like Angela’s Ring and Death of Tommy, and the departure of the Three Companions and me destroying Circle. It was one of those big big moments, and all of us — me, Tina, Caroline, Secret Ree — we were all in it together, we all had a responsibility together to try to make the story as good as it could be.

‘We’ve one or two things we wouldn’t mind talking to you about,’ Caroline called out.

‘Sure,’ Tina called back. ‘Just need to cool our feet a bit, though. Why don’t you come over?’

She looked sideways at me, and gave me a secret slippy smile, like she might have given back there in Family, the first time we met up over by Deep Pool. And that made me sad sad for a moment because I could see how much all this other stuff — Circle, Bella, all of it — had put distance between how things were then and how they were now. It was as if when I destroyed Circle, I’d stopped just being John Redlantern and put on a kind of mask. Like I said, in the future people would tell stories about this time. Some woman would pretend to be Caroline, some girl would pretend to be Tina, some young guy would act me, just like John Brooklyn had acted Tommy Schneider at Any Virsry back when Circle still lay in place. But what I saw now was that it wasn’t just in the future that this meeting would become a story to be acted out. Even now, even when it was happening for the first time round, it had already become a story in a way, with me as an actor in it, playing a part, and not just being myself. I was acting me.

Still, there was no time to think about that now.

‘No improvement in your manners then, newhairs,’ called out Caroline, glancing at the others with her with a tired look on her face. ‘No sign of you growing up yet.’

They got up and came over to us in a weary, grownup way, like we were naughty littles refusing to settle down to sleep. And the three young men with their glass spears followed behind them. I knew them all: Harry, Ned, Ricky.

‘Nice move there, Caroline,’ muttered Tina, like we were watching a game of chess, ‘nice move: making us look like kids.’

We pulled our feet out of the stream, shook the water off them and stood up.

‘We’ve decided to make an offer to you,’ Caroline said. ‘We’ve decided you can be a group on your own — Cold Path group — with your own group leader, and you can have your group over here apart from the rest of Family. But you will still be part of Family. You must still come to Any Virsries and Strornries, and you must still abide by Family decisions, and Family laws.’

‘How about David Redlantern and his friends,’ I said, ‘were they happy with that?’

Caroline didn’t let any expression appear on her face.

‘They’re part of Family and they’ll abide by it,’ she said.

‘We’ll make sure of it,’ added blind old Tom Brooklyn with his eyes rolling about in no particular direction.

‘Good for you, mate,’ I said. ‘But we’re not a group. We’re another family. A separate family on our own.’

Caroline snorted.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, John, you can’t be another family! There is only one. We all come from the same mother and the same father. That’s just a fact.’

‘Tom’s dick and Harry’s, Caroline!’ Tina burst in. ‘That’s a bit much coming from you! You told John yourself he wasn’t part of Family any more. The Laws wouldn’t apply to him, you said. He could be treated like an animal. Like a tree fox or a slinker, you said.’

I put my hand on Tina’s to stop her. I appreciated her standing up for me but I needed her to be quiet because she was missing the point. This meeting wasn’t really about the rights and wrongs of things. I mean, I didn’t like Caroline and she didn’t like me, but this wasn’t about our personal feelings. Funnily enough, me and Caroline both understood that, and we were the only ones there that really did. We both knew we were there to try and build a shape out of words that her lot and my lot could both live with. It wasn’t personal. It wasn’t even a fight between us really, more like a job we were working on together, not so different from Old Roger sitting down with a bit of blackglass to make a spearhead, or one-legged Jeffo London starting to cut open a log to make it into a new boat.

‘We’ll follow the Laws,’ I said, ‘because we need laws the same as you do. But we won’t come to your meetings and we won’t do what you tell us.’

‘We can’t have you newhairs doing as you like,’ murmured Candy Fishcreek in her soft voice. ‘Otherwise any time anyone is told off back in Family, they’ll just run over here to you, or run off somewhere else and set up another family on their own.’

‘Well, who cares . . .?’ Clare started to say, but I interrupted her.

‘No, Caroline,’ I said. ‘We’re with you on that. We don’t want things breaking up either.’

Caroline snorted.

‘Well, for goodness’ sake . . .’

‘So let’s make an agreement,’ I said, ‘an agreement between two families, just like we’d sometimes make an agreement between two groups back in Family, when there was a problem between them.’

Caroline glanced at her two group leaders, checking that she had their support.

‘An agreement, yes,’ she said, ‘but an agreement between rest of Family and Cold Path group.’

‘Harry’s dick!’ our Gela broke in. ‘You can’t expect to come to an agreement if . . .’

But again I interrupted.

‘You can call us what you like, Caroline,’ I said. ‘But it’s got to be in our agreement that we don’t come to Any Virsries or Strornries.’

Caroline looked at the others again. Candy Fishcreek shrugged. Tom nodded.

‘Okay,’ Caroline said, ‘but you mustn’t come near us then. Not past Lava Blob.’

‘That’s not . . .’ Tina began, but again I put my hand on hers to tell her to be quiet. I knew we needed to have some separation from Family, and them from us, if things were going to work out, so I agreed straight away.

‘Alright. We won’t come past Lava Blob, as long as your lot don’t come past it either from your side.’

Caroline glanced at the others. There was no disagreement. She nodded.

‘And you must stop taking our newhairs,’ Caroline said. ‘Stop asking them to come over to you, and send them back if . . .’

Eeeeeeek! Eeeeeek! Eeeeeek!

They all jumped. Caroline and Tom and Candy and Secret Ree and the three young London blokes, they all jumped together. It was the little buckling starting off on one again, behind us up on the hill. They were all fascinated, we could see, but they didn’t want to show it. The four of us couldn’t help smiling at each other.

‘This is that baby buck we’ve heard about, is it?’ Caroline asked stiffly.

One of our lot must have met someone from Family out in forest and told them about it.

‘You caught it alive, apparently. You’re keeping it in a cave behind a fence,’ Caroline said.

She wanted to look like she didn’t care but she couldn’t completely contain her curiosity.

‘Why?’ she asked, with a cold puzzled smile.

Well, she’d let her mask slip a little here, and I let mine slip too, because I felt angry angry with her for even having to ask the question.

‘Gela’s heart, Caroline! What’s the point of going on and on every Any Virsry about remembering the Earth Things if we don’t try and learn anything from them? We’re making a horse, like they did back on Earth. I should have thought that would be obvious obvious.’

She gave a contemptuous snort.

‘A horse! Gela’s sake, John, the animals on Earth weren’t like ours! Everyone knows that. They were more like people. Their eyes were . . .’

‘Well, we’ll see, won’t we? We thought it was worth a try. But anyway, you were saying you wanted us not to take any more newhairs?’

‘John, we can’t agree to that!’ Tina broke in.

I touched her again to show I knew what I was doing.

‘I’ll tell you what, Caroline,’ I said, ‘let’s say that for next five wakings, just five wakings, any newhairs that want to come over to us can come. That way you’ll get rid of the ones that will just make trouble for you if they stay. After that, okay, no more. We’ll send them back.’

I purposely didn’t look at Tina.

Caroline nodded.

‘Another thing,’ she said. ‘If you’re going to be doing all the hunting this side of Lava Blob, then we’ll miss out on bucks. You’ll have to give us some.’

‘You’ve got whole of the rest of forest!’ Gela objected. ‘We’ll miss out on bucks there.’

But I had my own idea.

‘Okay, Caroline, but there are things we need too. Let’s say we give you one skinned buck every period — we do have to keep the skins for ourselves — and you’ll have to give us something in exchange. Two fists of blackglass, or two buckskins.’

‘Oh that’s far too much!’ Caroline said.

But it was the deal we got in the end. One skinned buck to be handed over at Lava Blob each period, and skins or glass in exchange.

‘That’s until we leave you,’ I told her, ‘until we go over Snowy Dark and find our own forest.’

‘Go over Snowy Dark and freeze to death, you mean,’ Caroline said, with a grim chuckle.

Then she looked sharply at Gela, who was after all her own Brooklyn groupmate.

‘I’m surprised at you, though, Gela. I always thought you were a sensible girl. In fact, I had you down for Brooklyn group leader in twenty thirty wombs’ time. Are you and your sister and your brother really going to waste your lives up on Dark?’

Gela had always seemed like a grownup, even when she was little, but now she hung her head like a little kid.

‘I think John is right about needing to find more space,’ she mumbled quietly quietly, so we could barely hear what she said.

Caroline shrugged.

‘Well, suit yourself, but I’m disappointed in you, and your mum will never get over it.’

All this while Secret Ree had been writing down everything we agreed, scratching it on a piece of bark with a leopard’s tooth, her tongue sticking out with concentration.

THEY STICK TO LAWS

THEY NO A.V. OR STRORN

NOT PAST BLOB

5 WAKES THEN NO MORE JOIN

1 SKND BUCK EACH PRD

WE 2 GLSS OR 2 SKNS

‘You scratch your name on that, John,’ Caroline said, ‘to show you agree.’

I didn’t look at Tina. I knew she wasn’t going to like me agreeing to things like this without talking to her and to everyone else first, and I didn’t want to give her a chance to make little angry signs at me that Caroline’s lot would be bound to notice. She might not like me taking charge but this was just how it was going to have to be. And that was why I didn’t go down to meet her and Jeff and Gerry when they first came over. I wanted to be quite clear that they were joining me. And it was the same for all the rest over here at Neck. None of the others would be here if it wasn’t for me.

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘but Secret Ree’ll have to write another bark out for us with your name on it.’

‘Oh honestly, John!’ Caroline said.

But all the same she didn’t refuse. I’d won that one easily and I thought to myself, now was the moment to act like we were the big ones.

‘Why don’t you come up and see our buckling?’ I said. ‘We can give you some meat and fruit to eat before you walk back. You’d be welcome. Gela, could you run up and get the fire going?’

And that was the agreement made between us and Family. I could imagine the story already: John and Caroline Agree.