Daughter of Eden

by Chris Beckett

  ‘Hello there!’ she said gently, speaking kindly and slowly slowly, like I was a child. She held out her hand to me, and I took it. I could feel her warm skin against mine. ‘You don’t know me of course,’ she said, ‘but I’m your cousin. One of my ancestors was a woman called Candice Young, and she was the twin sister of a woman called Angela who must be—’

  ‘You’re not Gela then?’

  She frowned as she looked down into my face. It was a kind, troubled frown, like she pitied me, like she thought I was sick and wished she could help.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t understand what you said?’

  ‘You’re not Gela?’

  ‘Yes, I’m Gaia,’ she said. ‘My name is Gaia.’

  ‘Gaia,’ I repeated. I looked at Trueheart. I was still confused. Was this a different name, or was it perhaps just a different way of saying Gela? All her other words sounded strange, after all.

  Still she frowned, gently and pityingly as she watched my face. ‘That’s right, Gaia. And you are . . . ?’

  ‘Angie.’

  ‘Angie. That was what people sometimes called . . .’

  She stopped, and instead asked me something that I couldn’t make out at first because she said it too quickly. The way she spoke was far more different to what I was used to than even the speech of people from across the Pool, and that could be hard enough to follow in itself. Every sound seemed to be in the wrong part of her mouth.

  She looked at Trueheart, and Trueheart told her her name.

  ‘I’m sorry. Did you say True Heart?’ The woman from Earth had that same pitying frown on her face as she looked into Trueheart’s eyes. It was like how a mother might look at a sick sick child, or a child who’d fallen and cut herself.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Do you know where I come from?’ she asked us both, speaking slowly slowly this time to make sure we understood.

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘You come from . . .’ It was weird, I was about to say the word when I realized I was going to cry, and had to stop.

  ‘You come from Earth,’ said Trueheart, and now my tears did come, and Trueheart’s too. ‘Are you here to take us home?’

  The woman frowned again, kind and concerned.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she began. ‘I didn’t quite get that. Did you ask if we—?’

  ‘My name is David Strongheart,’ said a voice beside me. The Head Guard of all the Davidfolk had hobbled right across the clearing to stand beside me and Trueheart. Now he was bowing deeply to the Earth woman like he was just a small person like us and she was high high. His head didn’t even come to her shoulder blade and his red wrap, which would have looked so fine and bright if I’d seen it in Davidstand, looked clumsy and brown and poorly made beside her metal-coloured one. (I couldn’t even see the stitches in hers. I couldn’t make out the threads in the weave. Perhaps it was the skin of some animal?)

  ‘You’re welcome welcome, Mother,’ he said. He was crying and stammering like a nervous kid. ‘I’m the Head Guard of the Davidfolk, and this is my son, Leader Harry. We Davidfolk have tried our best to keep all of your children together.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Gaia, shaking the old man’s hand with a puzzled look on her face.

  ‘I’m Headman Newjohn,’ said one of the other high men, also bowing. He had tight curly grey hair and a sharp pointy face, and he leaned on a stick. ‘I’m boss of the Johnfolk from the Brown River Ground, and we’re the people who followed John after you led him to your ring.’

  The Earth woman was carefully watching his face, frowning with concentration. She was obviously finding it hard hard to make out the words he was saying, let alone what they meant.

  Myself, I was finding it difficult to believe that I was there at all, standing right in front of a woman from Earth, and right next to the two highest and most powerful men in all of Mainground: the Head Guard of the Davidfolk and the Headman of Brown River. Yet that wasn’t the end of it. The other high people had come over with him, the guards quickly surrounding them and standing ready to hold back the folk all round us. There were screams and shouts of excitement going back and forth through forest round and across the clearing, someone had started banging on a drum, and several people were blowing away at hollowbranch horns: Paaaaaaaaaarp! Parp! Paaaaaaaaarp!

  And now, after Strongheart and Newjohn, a third high person spoke. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’m Starlight.’

  And here she was, my old friend, stepping forwards from the group of high people to come and stand beside me, reaching out to touch my hand. Ten years older suited her. She’d always been tough, always ready to fight for what she wanted, but now, standing there in her long blue wrap, with coloured stones dangling from her ears and from bracelets round her wrists, she looked like someone who could make things happen without even having to make a fight of it. She looked like someone who could persuade people to do things because they knew she’d know best. She looked gentler, in a way, kinder, and yet still as tough as ever.

  ‘I’m the Head Woman of the ground called Half Sky,’ she said, and she didn’t bow to the Earth people like the others. She just held out her hand. Gaia reached out and held it for a moment and, as she did so, Starlight put her other arm round my shoulders. ‘And this is my old friend Angie.’

  Head Woman? Starlight a Head Woman? Starlight a Head Woman of Half Sky ? It was true that last time I saw her, she’d been heading off far away with the Headman of another ground, but that was New Earth, far off peckway beyond Deep Darkness of Worldpool. And Half Sky was exactly in the opposite direction, blueway even of Circle Valley, across another whole part of Snowy Dark that was known in the Valley as the Blue Mountains.

  Twenty-seven

  Of course the Michael’s Place people weren’t the last to come over Snowy Dark to get away from the Johnfolk. All the time we were gathered round the veekle in Circle Clearing, new people who’d crossed the Dark were arriving at Old Family cluster. They were tired, scared and hungry, some of them were hurt, some had the black burn, many had lost people they loved over the other side, along poolside and in Wide Forest, where the New Earth Johnfolk were roaming freely, beating our guards easily pretty much every time they tried to fight back. As these new folk arrived, they wondered why the gates were open and no guards were standing there. Then they heard the shouting and whooping coming through the trees from Circle Clearing. They heard the drums thumping away, and the horns blowing, and voices singing: ‘Come Tree Road, take me home . . .’ Yet the shelters nearby were deserted, the fires untended, the trees pumping away on their own as if this was an empty part of forest, not the oldest cluster in whole of Eden. Had the Valley people gone crazy, they wondered? Didn’t they know that the Johnfolk were tearing the Davidfolk Ground apart?

  Wearily they trudged and limped through the trees towards the sound, past the empty shelters, past the meat that was beginning to burn because there was no one there to turn it, the cooking pots boiling dry, the bucks tied to trees with ropes, sniffling and snuffling because their routine had been broken. They crossed the bridge over the stream and found Circle Clearing packed with people singing and dancing round a veekle like the one in Veeklehouse, but whole and new and alive. The new people looked at each other. The folk who were already there laughed at their bewilderment.

  ‘Earth has come,’ someone told them. ‘Mother Gela herself has come. She’s tall tall, and beautiful beautiful, and her skin is all smooth and black, just like in the stories.’

  ‘And there are two beautiful men with her,’ said someone else, ‘taller and bigger than anyone you’ve ever—’

  ‘They’ve got no hair on their faces,’ yet another person shouted.

  ‘We think maybe they’re Tommy and one of the companions,’ the first one said, ‘come back to life like Gela.’

  The weary people looked at one another. Up on the Dark all they’d dared hope
for was to get across the snow and down where there was warmth again. Walking across the Valley, all they’d dared hope for was to reach the cluster and find something to eat. But now this! Not just those small hopes met, but the biggest hope of all! Our Mother back again to take us home to Earth!

  The new people began to laugh, and to hug and kiss each other, and to join in the singing and the dancing. And presently yet more people would come in behind them.

  ‘What?’ these even newer people would ask. ‘Is that a veekle? Is that really—?’

  ‘Yes!’ one of the people who’d arrived before would answer. ‘Yes, it’s Mother Gela! And she’s—’

  ‘Her skin is black black, just like the stories,’ one of the others would excitedly interrupt. ‘And there’s Tommy with her too, and another one they think is Mehmet.’

  ‘Not Wise Mehmet, mind you, but Beautiful Mehmet. You know, the one Gela loved best out of the—’

  ‘They’ve really come! Just like we’ve always been promised. All our troubles are over, my friends! They’ve come to take us home!’

  It’s hard hard to remember the order of things now. Trueheart ran back to fetch the other Michael’s Place people. I felt torn because I wanted to be with my kids at this big big moment. But I was scared of losing my special place close to Gaia and then not being able to get back to her, so I stayed where I was, knowing that Trueheart would bring my children sooner or later. Gaia seemed to like me beside her. I guess with all those hundreds of new people pressing towards her and the two men, it was good to have a familiar face.

  ‘Thankyou, Angie,’ she said once twice. ‘It’s nice of you to stay with me.’

  ‘Keep back! Keep back!’ called out the guards. ‘Let the Earth people breathe!’

  ‘Don’t make Angie move back,’ Gaia told them. ‘She and Trueheart were the first people we saw here in Eden.’

  Later there was a feast. I can’t remember exactly how this happened, but I know all three of my kids were with me by then, along with Trueheart, who I guess must have carried Metty, and I remember introducing my kids to Starlight who told me she’d got seven kids herself, and that my kids were lucky because hers were back in Half Sky, missing all of this. I know a big fire was lit over in Brooklyn, because I remember seeing the flames through the trees. And I seem to remember hearing that four big smoothbucks, or maybe it was even five, were done for right there and then and put over the flames to roast. I can certainly remember the smell of the meat, and Starlight laughing – ‘Poor Angie, you’re hungry hungry, aren’t you!’ – and Strongheart’s helpers carrying wooden plates piled with meat and flowercakes through to Circle Clearing. And I can remember how we all watched closely closely as the Earth people chewed on it, and sipped at the badjuice that was brought to them in mugs.

  ‘Delicious!’ they said and everyone cheered, but if you were near to them you could see they could hardly force the stuff down. Food was obviously different on Earth.

  The two men were called Marius and Deep. They were both tall tall, taller than any other man there, I reckon, and a whole head taller than most. Deep was the tallest of the two and he was smiley and friendly, reaching out all the time to shake people’s hands or pat them on the shoulder. He said hello to Fox and Candy and ruffled their hair. Fox just stood there, staring up at him, stuck to the spot, with the wind blowing in and out of his little nostrils, but Candy ran back to me and buried her face in my wrap. And when Deep tried to tickle Metty under his chin, Metty began to cry. I guess that tall Earth man must have looked pretty scary to my little boy. It wasn’t just that he was so big. His skin was pale pale too, like no one we’d ever seen. The story went round the clearing for a while that he was Tommy Schneider, our father, who the old stories tell us was white.

  Marius was shyer. He did his best to be friendly too, but he looked like he’d prefer to be alone, and he didn’t even try to talk to the kids. His face was less strange to look at than Deep’s, though, because it was yellowy-brown like ours. Everyone kept saying that Marius and Deep’s faces were as smooth as women’s, but they weren’t really, not when you saw them close. They did actually have beards, even in that first waking, but they were thin thin, with short short hairs that barely came above the skin. Like Gaia the two of them had white white teeth without a single gap. All three did their best to smile as the people round them cheered, and shouted, and sang ‘Come Tree Road’, and ‘Show Me the Way Home’, and ‘Swing Low Sweet Cheery Oh’. Gaia and Deep also tried to wave and show an interest when, from time to time, more new people arrived in the clearing, full of trouble and fear, only to find out what was happening and begin to shriek and sob. But all three of the Earth people, I could see, were tired tired tired. Sometimes Marius’s head would droop and his eyes would begin to close, and then he’d wake again with a jolt.

  Half a waking must have gone by like that at least. At some point, a kind of table was brought into the clearing, and David Strongheart was helped up onto it to welcome the people from Earth on behalf of all the Davidfolk. Then Headman Newjohn did the same for the Brown River Johnfolk. And then, when my friend Starlight had done it for the Tinafolk over in Half Sky, all three of them hugged and shook hands, up there on the table in front of all of us, I suppose so as to show that they were all friends now.

  I’m not sure if it was straight after that or later on, but I know Gaia climbed up onto the table too, along with the two Earth men. I remember how the shouting and screaming carried on for a long long time before they got a chance to speak, but eventually Gaia called out her name again and told us that her many-greats grandmother was Gela’s twin sister Candice, and the men said they were Deep and Marius, and Deep said his many-greats uncle was Dixon Thorleye. This news made people go suddenly rather quiet. ‘So this isn’t Gela herself, then?’ people were asking one another. ‘These weren’t Tommy or Mehmet?’ But later on, a story went round that the Earth people really were those three, but that they’d chosen not to tell their names, like in those old stories that are told about Great David’s son Harry Stonehand, and how, when he became Head Guard, he sometimes used to put on a skin waistwrap like a low person, so he could walk round among the low people and find out what they really thought. People were never quite sure who the two men were, but everyone went back to thinking that Gaia was really Gela.

  Gaia said some other things too, but she spoke so many words we didn’t know that no one understood much of what she was talking about. The starship Defiant had gone back to Earth all by itself, from what I gathered, not long after the Veekle crashed with the Three Companions in it. We’d always thought that it was still waiting up there somewhere in the sky! But apparently it could think for itself like a person – or that’s what I understood Gaia to say – and it managed to find its own way home. That was how Earth learned that Eden was here, and the way to reach it, though why this had all taken so long, I really couldn’t make out.

  I think it was some time after the Earth people and the high people had climbed down from the table again that folk started to go up close to the veekle, standing with their toes against the stones of the Circle, and peering up at its shiny metal skin. It was too high up to reach, but four five kids, on far side to where the Earth people were standing, ran right underneath it, even though that meant going inside the Circle, and one of them started to climb up the ladder. Guards shouted after them to come back, but didn’t dare follow after them.

  ‘Leave it, please!’ called Marius sharply, and as the kid on the ladder jumped down again, and all of them ran off squealing, he pointed at the veekle with a little black thing in his hand and the ladder pulled up inside by itself with a funny whirring sound, and the piece of metal closed up over it until you could hardly make out the place it had come from in that smooth metal skin.

  More people were still coming into the clearing. They were given meat and cakes by Strongheart’s helpers.

  Then Clare came to find me whe
re me and my kids were standing with the Earth people and the high people. With her were Tom and Flame and little Suzie. They were stopped by one guard after another, but they talked each guard round, and gradually made their way forwards. The poisonfever had taken the little girl so badly that she wasn’t even awake any more. She obviously didn’t have long to live, and the way she flopped in Flame’s arms you might have thought she was already dead if it wasn’t for the heat of her, which you could feel without even touching her, like the heat that comes off a spiketree.

  ‘Ask them, Angie,’ said Tom. ‘Ask them if they can help her.’

  ‘Gaia?’ I called out. ‘Marius? Deep?’

  The three Earth people were talking to the high people and they didn’t hear me, but Starlight did, and she drew their attention to us, and to the sick child in Flame’s arms.

  Straight away Gaia and Marius came over, along with Strongheart’s two young shelterwomen, Jane and Flowerlight. I can’t believe that those two tough young high women would normally have bothered about the baby of a low girl like Flame. It would be unusual for them ever to be this close to such a child, in any case, because all their helpers had to leave their babies behind when they came to work at the Great Shelter. But now, when they saw how seriously the Earth people were taking this, it was like the two of them were competing with each other to show how much they cared.

  ‘Oh the poor little darling!’ cried pregnant Jane, pushing back her hair that helpers had tied for her into hundreds of plaits, each one decorated with coloured stones.

  ‘She’s all burning up, the precious one!’ cried Flowerlight, reaching out to touch little Suzie with fingers heavy with rings.

  ‘May I have a look?’ Gaia asked Flame.

  As Flame looked up into the face of this strange tall woman with her black black skin and her pure white teeth, her mouth was hanging open with amazement. But she handed her Suzie meekly over, and Gaia laid the baby girl gently on the ground. All round us people were craning to see what she’d do, but the guards pushed them back, so that we stood in a small half-circle next to the veekle and the Circle of Stones: the Earth people, the high people, me and my kids, Clare, Tom, Flame and Suzie, and Starlight.