Daughter of Eden

by Chris Beckett

  Behind him, Luke’s own ringmen were silent.

  Fifty-four

  It was different this time when we walked back to the Earth people’s shelter with them. People crowded round them, and, while there were still some who just wanted to stare at them or hear them speak, there were many who yelled at them that they should go.

  ‘Why bother to come here at all,’ a woman called out, ‘if you’ve got nothing to bring us, and you can’t take us back? Why come here and upset us for no reason? It’s just cruel, that’s what it is, it’s just bloody cruel!’

  Other people shouted angrily in agreement.

  ‘We didn’t mean to upset anybody,’ Gaia said, when she could make herself heard. ‘We didn’t even think there was anyone here.’

  ‘In other words,’ another woman shouted, ‘you waited to come here till you thought we’d all have died!’

  ‘We should take that red box off them,’ a man called out. ‘It’s the only thing they’ve got that’s any use.’

  Even when we were back inside our fence it didn’t finish, though we had guards with spears round us to keep people from coming near. Someone hurled something heavy that landed beside us with a soft thud. It was a big stinking turd. ‘Thanks for nothing, Earth people,’ shouted the young guy who’d thrown it, before the guards chased him away. ‘I’m going to find that shadowspeaker,’ he called out as he ran off. ‘At least she talks some sense.’

  ‘We need to go,’ Deep said. ‘This is dangerous.’

  Gaia nodded. ‘Yes. We need to go now. We’re already causing a food problem, and if we stay any longer one of us or one of them is going to get killed.’

  ‘Now?’ I said. ‘Really now, you mean?’ It was one thing to know that they had to go soon and we’d have to go back to our old life, without screens and metal needles and bikes and the beautiful tall Earth people, but it was another to think it was going to happen this same waking. And nothing had been settled, of course. Everything had been turned upside down, but nothing had been sorted out. ‘But what about that message you sent across the Dark? Aren’t you going to wait for the Johnfolk to come?’

  The Earth people looked at each other. We all watched them anxiously. Clare had tears running down her face. So did Kate. Tom and Dave were frowning. The Earth people troubled them, and Dave didn’t like the way they took my attention away from him and from the kids, but all the same, I guess they still felt the same sense of loss. Trueheart, as she often did, sat a little way back, not exactly a grownup, but not a kid either. She was trying hard not to show her feelings but her eyes too had filled with tears.

  ‘We can’t wait for the Johnfolk,’ Marius said. ‘We don’t even know if they’re coming, or how long they’ll be. We can’t take the risk of any more trouble.’

  Gaia nodded and stood up. There were tears in her eyes too. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Let’s start loading up the veekle now.’

  I stood up myself. It was awful to think that this strange and wonderful time was almost over. ‘At least you’ll have memories,’ people say when things come to an end, but I’d already learned what thin and empty things memories are, and how little comfort they give. Memories of people and happy times don’t fill up your heart, I don’t think, any more than memories of food can fill up your belly. They’re just empty holes that happen to be the same shape as the real things that are lost and gone. ‘Well, you’ll want to say goodbye to Strongheart and the other big people, won’t you?’ I asked. ‘Strongheart and Starlight and Headman Newjohn?’

  ‘We’ll see them after we’ve loaded up,’ Gaia decided. ‘Can you guys help us carry our things back to the veekle?’

  They had boxes of tools, and screens, and guns, and other things whose names I’d not yet learned, and it took five six of us to carry everything. Even Candy was given one little tool to carry. Fox carried his brother Metty, Dave hobbling painfully beside them, along with a couple of guards. As we walked back to Circle Clearing, people followed us, quite quietly this time, sensing that something new was about to happen.

  In front of the veekle, Gaia lifted one of those little black squares, the things that the Earth people called linkups, and straight away the veekle came to life, like some huge animal waking from a sleep. It moved slightly on its legs and little lights flickered as it made that soft beeping sound.

  ‘Lower the steps,’ Gaia told it.

  At once, with a soft whirring sound, the metal square folded down from underneath it so the veekle could put down the ladder. More light poured down from that mysterious inner cave where none of us had been. We all stared up longingly, and Deep laughed. ‘Come and have a look inside if you like.’

  ‘It’s a bit small for all of you at once,’ said Gaia. ‘You’d better take turns. Angie and Trueheart first, I reckon, seeing as you were the first people we saw in Eden.’

  Trueheart nodded and headed straight up the steps. I hesitated. I don’t know why. ‘Come on, Angie dear,’ Gaia said. ‘It won’t hurt you.’ So I followed Trueheart. Of course I half-knew what to expect from the other veekle by the Pool, but that was an old dead thing, a rotted corpse, while every part of this veekle was alive. Little lights shone and flickered. Pictures and writing moved across screens. It was like a kind of tiny forest in there, with its own shining lanterns and bright pools and animals darting about, but this was a forest that people had made.

  Gaia pointed things out to us. ‘This tells us how high up we are . . . That shows us which way we’re facing . . . When we’re flying, those lights there help us to see whether we’re tipping forwards or back . . .’

  The lanterns in this forest didn’t feed flutterbyes, or grow into fruit. They were only there to tell people things, to help them understand the world, to help them see and hear and touch things beyond the reach of their own eyes and ears and fingers. So, although it was like a forest, it was also like being inside a person’s mind. It was a forest of meaning. I saw Trueheart looking at it in delight and wonder, trying to take it all in and store it in her head, so she’d have something to feed herself with for the rest of her life.

  ‘You people understand so so much,’ I said to Gaia, ‘and we understand so so little.’

  Gaia came to stand between me and Trueheart, taking each of us by the arm.

  ‘We know a lot, but maybe not as much as you think. People on Earth have dug down deeper and deeper into smaller and smaller parts of things than you’ve been able to do here, and further out into time and space. Or some Earth people have, anyway. A few. Most of us can’t follow them even half the way. I’ve no idea how this veekle works, for instance, and nor does Deep. But the thing you should remember, Angie, is that even for the smartest people, however far they get, the mystery’s still always there, beyond their reach, just as it is for you. And it’s not because they’re not smart enough, it’s because it goes on forever. Isn’t that so, Marius? There’s no bottom, no end. However many questions we answer, there are always new questions beyond.’

  Marius looked up. He was putting a box of tools away somewhere, through a kind of small metal door.

  ‘Well, I guess, although—’

  But Gaia didn’t let him finish. ‘And you know there are lots of questions you can’t answer in that kind of way at all. Like . . . like what it’s like to be inside the mind of another person, or how we should live our lives. In the end, all there is in the world is . . . well . . . this.’

  She gestured with her hand through that bowl of clear glass that sat on top of the veekle, and out into forest. There was a bunch of whitelantern trees out there, with a couple of redlanterns among them, steam rising here and there from their airholes. The trees round the Circle were pruned to make the lanternflowers grow thickly and flutterbyes were dancing in all that white and pink treelight, while a single jewel bat was swerving and looping through them, grabbing out at them with its little hands as they darted out of its way.

&
nbsp; I couldn’t really see what Gaia meant, so I turned back to admire the shining screens.

  We came out again, and Gaia invited the other Michael’s Place people to come inside two at a time. Flame was squeaking like a little kid, just like my Fox and Candy. Tom and Dave and Davidson were tense and stiff, but you could see that even they couldn’t wait to get inside. No one seemed to notice or mind that they were stepping inside the Circle of Stones.

  Meanwhile, more people were gathering in the clearing.

  ‘Yeah, go on. Run off back to Earth, why don’t you?’ someone shouted. A stone came flying and hit Deep on the head. ‘You’re no use to us here.’

  With a kind of hurt smile, Deep felt where he’d been hit and looked at the red blood on his hand. Guards shook their spears and shouted out to leave the Earth people alone.

  Just as Gaia came outside again with the last of the Michael’s Place folk, Strongheart hobbled into the clearing, supported by his shelterwomen Jane and Flowerlight, and followed by Starlight and Newjohn, and four five other high people.

  ‘You’re leaving us so soon?’ the old man quavered. ‘But you’ve only just come!’

  ‘People are unhappy with us because we haven’t brought anything for them,’ Gaia told him. ‘The longer we stay, the unhappier they’ll be. And of course, all the time we’re here, more people will keep coming to see us, eating up all your stores of food, until there’s none left.’

  ‘People will come here anyway to get away from the New Earthers in Wide Forest,’ Strongheart said, his whole face all creased up with worry. ‘I thought you were going to stay and help us stop the fight with the Johnfolk.’

  ‘We can’t wait that long,’ Deep told him, dabbing at the cut on his head with a kind of fakeskin he carried with him. ‘But you can tell them from us that their story isn’t any truer than yours.’

  ‘I’ll put some more words in a linkup for you,’ Gaia said. ‘And I’ll give you this as well.’ She took the ring from her finger and handed it to the old man. ‘If the fight really has been over a ring like this, you can have this one, and let the Johnfolk keep theirs. I promise you, they’re both exactly the same, except only for the name inside. The other one was Gela’s ring, and this one belonged to her sister. They’re both just as good.’

  ‘Go on, you useless lot, just go !’ screamed a young woman, and another stone was thrown, bouncing off the veekle with a strange hollow sound.

  ‘I want to go with you,’ said Trueheart suddenly. You could see she herself was shocked by what she’d said, terrified by her own choice. Her face was pale and she was trembling all over. ‘You said I could be as smart as anyone on Earth, Marius. I want to come with you and learn the things you know.’

  Clare stared at her in horror. ‘What?’ she whispered. ‘What?’ And then she began to shout. ‘You can’t, you silly girl! You can’t ! They might not come back again for fifty years! We’d never see you again!’

  Trueheart was shaking so violently she could hardly speak, and her little sisters began to scream. ‘I love you all,’ Trueheart said. ‘Mum, Dad, all of you. I don’t want to say goodbye to you, but if I stay what can Eden offer me? Dad would find me some guy in a year or two, I guess, some other batface, perhaps. Or maybe one of his old guard mates will have some slowhead son who needs taking off his hands, and Dad will give me to him as a favour. Whoever it is, I’ll be his shelterwoman and have his kids and spend the rest of my wakings putting food in their mouths and washing their bums, even though no one really wants a batface, and—’

  ‘How can you say that!’ roared Clare, running forwards and grabbing her by the shoulders. ‘How dare you say that, Trueheart!’ She shook her daughter violently as she spoke. ‘How dare you say that, when you know we’ve loved and cared for you just as much as all the others.’ She looked round for Tom. ‘Go on, Tom! Gela’s tits, man! You’re her dad. You tell her!’

  Tom didn’t know what to say. ‘I . . .’ he began, ‘we—’

  ‘No man or woman chooses a batface to be with if they could have someone else,’ persisted Trueheart, enduring her mother’s leopard grip on her shoulders. She looked at me. ‘I’m sorry, Angie, but it’s true, isn’t it?’

  I was about to answer, but she carried on. ‘It’s not fair, but it’s true. A low person, a batface, a woman. If I stay on Eden there’s no way I’m going to be anything other than low low low.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with being a low person,’ her dad said. ‘There’d be no high people without the—’

  But Trueheart cut right across him. ‘I’m smart. You all know I am, but what use is being smart if all you’re going to do all your life is look after babies and grind up starflower seeds?’

  ‘It should be a high person that goes,’ said Strongheart suddenly.

  It was weird, we Michael’s Place people had quite forgotten that the Head Guard of all the Davidfolk was right behind us. And of course it wasn’t only him that was there. The Heads of the two other parts of Mainground were there too: Newjohn and Starlight. We were among the highest people in all of Eden. Only Headman Dixon was missing.

  Headman Newjohn laughed. ‘I don’t think what we call high and low means much to people from Earth,’ he said. ‘I reckon to them, we must all of us seem pretty much like kids playing a game among the trees.’

  ‘It’s up to her of course,’ Marius said. ‘But I can’t think of anyone more suited to come with us than Trueheart. She really is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.’

  ‘Yes, and you Eden folk could do with having one of your people on Earth, Head Guard,’ Deep pointed out to Strongheart, as he dabbed at his still bleeding head. ‘You need someone there who can help us figure out how best to help you when we visit again.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Gaia. ‘But what Clare says is true. Whoever comes, it’ll most likely mean saying goodbye forever. Or for thirty forty years at least.’

  ‘I’m going,’ said Trueheart simply. There were red marks on her shoulders from her mother’s grip, and in two three places Clare’s nails had broken her skin.

  The Earth people looked at one another. Clare wept. Trueheart’s younger sisters, Sue and Starflower, clung tightly to Trueheart’s arms, like they simply wouldn’t let her go. Trueheart endured this too. Tom stood there trembling, his face half-angry and half just bewildered and scared.

  ‘Well, if that’s agreed,’ Gaia said, ‘we’d better get your things.’

  Things? None of us knew what she meant. Did Gaia think Trueheart had boxes full of tools as she did? Trueheart had nothing, of course, none of us had anything more than a few skin wraps, and maybe the odd bone tool, or ring made of wood or stone. What good would such things be on Earth?

  ‘I’ve . . . I’ve got a little doll in our shelter,’ Trueheart started to say, and then she began to cry. ‘Dad made it for me out of wood and bone, and Mum made a tiny wrap for it out of fakeskin. It will help me to remember you all, when I’m . . .’

  She couldn’t bring herself to finish what she was going to say. But her sister Starflower glanced across at her dad and, when he nodded, released Trueheart’s arm and ran to fetch the doll.

  ‘Why are you crying, Mum?’ Candy asked me.

  ‘Trueheart’s going to Earth, dear, and we’re going to have to say goodbye.’

  Candy laughed. ‘That’s silly, Mum. Of course she can’t go there. That’s only a place in a story.’

  We were nearly at the end of it. Trueheart took her doll and climbed inside the veekle with the three Earth people. The metal door shut, the lights shone out, and that whining sound started up somewhere deep inside the veekle’s body that Trueheart and I had once heard and not been able to figure out what it was. It was quiet at first but quickly grew louder.

  We saw four faces looking out at us from that glass bowl on the top of it. A few people threw stones and shouted: ‘Go home!’, ‘We don’t want you!’, ‘
What use are you to us?’, but there was grief in every single face all the same. I’m sure that everyone there who was old enough to understand, even the ones who were shouting, felt pretty much as I did when they saw the veekle lifting up from the ground and rising up into the black black sky. It was like the insides had been scooped out of me, and someone had put in their place a bit of that cold emptiness that lies between the stars. It didn’t matter whether the Earth people had brought anything for us or not. They’d still come from Earth.

  And now all that was left was the Eden we’d known since we were born, the Eden where we had to work so hard, the Eden where our worries were, and our deadly enemies, the Eden that was the home of all the problems and threats that faced us every single waking. The Earth people had shown us light, but we were still where we’d always been, in dark dark Eden.

  Part III

  Fifty-five

  Starlight wanted me to go back with her to Half Sky, but Dave flatly refused to go to the Women’s Ground, or to let me take our kids there, and all the Michael’s Place people backed him up. I’ll go there one waking. I’d like to see my family again, and all the people from Knee Tree Grounds. It’s a long way off, though, and to be honest I’m a bit scared. Not of the travelling or of crossing the Dark – I’m used to that – but of what I’ll find there and how I’ll feel. Because one thing the visit from Earth has shown me is that when you long and long for a thing, and then it finally happens, it’s going to be different from what you expect.

  The Earth people coming wasn’t what we expected because it wasn’t the end of the story. Our old story just stopped working. But straight away a whole lot of new stories started up and spread out across Mainground. You can meet people these wakings who believe Mother Gela came and was driven away. You can meet others who say that bad people came from Earth and tried to trick us by pretending to be Mother Gela. There are even some who say that Gaia and Deep and Marius didn’t come from Earth at all, but from some other place, and that the real Earth will still come one waking if we’re good. After all, if Earth could find our dark Eden among all the stars of the glacksy, why shouldn’t they have found another world as well, somewhere else in the sky, like the Johnfolk found their New Earth across the water?