Mother of Eden

by Chris Beckett

  “No, you’re right. We guard David Strongheart over at Davidstand, and up in Circle Valley. My name is Snowleopard. This one-eyed beauty here is Blink, and the fellow next to him is called Spear.”

  “I was only playing with the girl. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “Well, Spear here will take you to your guard leader,” Snowleopard told him, staring straight into his face with those blue blue eyes, “and let’s see if he reckons you were only playing.”

  “That’s right, mate,” said Spear, “we’ll have a little chat with your boss.”

  On the left side of his face, the tip of his tongue came out and felt along his upper lip, as if he needed to remind himself that the numb flesh was really there.

  Snowleopard turned toward me. His blue eyes were wonderfully open. It was like he’d removed all the fences inside himself so that everyone could look as deep inside him as they wanted.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yeah, thanks. I’m okay.” I rubbed my wrist. “I’d better go and find my people, though.”

  “That guy won’t be a guard much longer,” Snowleopard said.

  Blink laughed loudly, planting the end of his spear on the ground and leaning forward to peer into my face.

  “Give yourself a moment, eh?” Snowleopard told me. “Sit down and catch your breath.”

  There was a log there—I think the trader had put it there for people to use while they had their drinks—and I sat down on it. I was shaking all over.

  “Maybe she’d like a drop of badjuice,” suggested Blink, still peering into my face with his one eye. There was only a dark hole where the other one should have been.

  Snowleopard nodded. “I don’t know if you’ve ever tried this new badjuice stuff,” he said to me, “but a bit might settle your nerves. Bring a mugful here, trader, and let’s see if it helps.”

  He straddled the log I was sitting on in a single graceful movement. He was a real fighter, like my dad must have been, a man who’d practiced and practiced the art of moving quickly, just as my uncle had practiced and practiced the art of making a boat. The little trader hurried across with a clay mug. I looked down at the murky stuff inside and recognized the rotten smell that had been on Mike’s breath.

  “I gather you’re pretty friendly with this Greenstone bloke,” Snowleopard said, leaning forward and talking softly so the drinks guy wouldn’t be able to hear.

  “Well . . . I . . . How do you know that? We’ve not even been here a waking!”

  Snowleopard laughed. “Well, I wouldn’t say this to most people, but I know that Jeff of yours was on John’s side.” He leaned even closer. “I’d be grateful if you’d tell that Greenstone Johnson we helped you. We’ve heard he’s short by a bloke or two, and we’d like to join him and help him paddle back across the Pool. One more adventure, eh? One more adventure before we get too old for it.”

  “My dad was a guard, like you,” I told him. “He was called Blackglass. Blackglass Lunnon.”

  Snowleopard gave a shout of laughter. “Blackglass Lunnon! That old slinker! I knew him well. He was a proper guard.” He turned to his friend. “You remember Blackglass, don’t you, mate?”

  “I never met him myself,” I told them. “I only heard about him from my mum.”

  Blink chuckled. “We remember her, too, don’t we, Snow? That pretty girl Blackglass used to go round with? She said she came from somewhere out in the Pool. Looked a lot like this girl here.”

  “Of course!” said Snowleopard. “What was her name? Vision? Story?”

  “Dream,” I told him.

  “Dream! Of course! Of course! A beautiful woman. We all envied your dad, I must say. But never mind that now, eh? We need to get you back to your folks.”

  And once again, he glanced quickly around.

  Your father’s eyes were always moving, I remembered my mother telling me. Never, never at rest.

  Julie Deepwater

  Angie and Johnny came back with a woollybuck leg for us to eat, and a big bundle of firewood. They’d been with Dixon, Lucky, and Delight, but when they’d seen from the clifftop that Starlight wasn’t with me, Dixon and the other two men had headed back into Veeklehouse to look for her.

  Johnny and Angie got a fire going, using the embers we’d brought from Grounds in our little clay firepot, and presently Starlight herself came down the cliff. She was a bit giggly, like an overexcited child, with a funny smell on her breath.

  “Remember that bloke Mike, Angie? The guard at the Veekle? He tried to force me to slip with him.”

  “He did what?”

  Starlight laughed.

  “It’s all right. It’s all right. Don’t look so worried. Three other guards came and helped me. There’s two of them up there—look!”

  There were two shadowy shapes squatting at the top of the cliff, against the orange glow of Veeklehouse. Starlight waved to them, and they waved lazily back.

  “They want to go with Greenstone,” Starlight told us all, her eyes shining. “He’s short a couple of men to paddle back across the Pool, and I promised to ask him to take them. Do any of you know where he is?”

  “He was by his boats along the ledge not so long ago. But wait for Dixon and the others to come back first, eh? They must be worried about you.”

  Starlight shrugged. She could have argued, but she didn’t, and I felt she was a bit relieved to be able to put off the moment when she’d have to see that Greenstone again.

  “Maybe I’ll take a bit of a rest,” she said.

  Behind her, over by the water’s edge, a little jewel-bat was standing. It turned a fishtail in its hands as it munched off the pale green flesh, watching us all the time.

  Starlight Brooking

  I went to lie down on the skins we’d stretched out to sleep on, turned my face away from the others, and looked out over the bright water, with no one to see my face but a single jewel-bat that stood there licking its hands and looking straight at me with its blank, flat eyes.

  I remembered something my mum had told me. She was a funny woman, one minute warm, the next full of bitterness and spite, and the stories she told were sometimes true, sometimes made up, and often a mixture of the two. But there was one particular thing she kept on at me to remember, over and over again. It was a secret thing she said had been passed down, mother to daughter, all the way from Mother Gela herself, and she called it the Secret Story, though it wasn’t really a story at all, more like a list of rules.

  “You’re to tell no one this,” she told me the first time she spoke about it. “Do you understand? No one at all. Not even your sister.”

  We’d been on the beach that surrounded the Sand, eating waternuts. I was only a little girl.

  “Not even Glitterfish,” Mum repeated. “You’re the one I trust. Wait until you’ve got daughters of your own, then choose one who you know will keep the secret, and tell her like I’m telling you now.”

  Half of me was pleased to be chosen over my big sister; the other half wished it had been her that had been asked to carry this burden. But Mum had made up her mind, and I had no choice about listening to her going through a long list of things that, so she said, Mother Gela herself wanted to be passed on forever through the women of Eden.

  “Always remember that women are just as good as men. . . . Don’t ever treat someone differently because of the color of their skin. . . .” (That was an odd one, when everyone’s skin was the same pale brown, but they do say Angela’s skin was dark and Tommy’s skin was light.) “Just because someone thinks they’re important doesn’t mean they’re better than anyone else, and nor does having lots of stuff. . . . There’s no need to hit children to teach them to behave. . . . Don’t treat people like they’re just things. . . .”

  There was loads more of it, but it was one bit in particular that came into my mind as I lay there on the rocks at Veeklehouse, while the bats dived for fish in the shining water. It was the bit Mum used to emphasize more than any other. />
  “Always look out for men who like the story to be all about them,” she told me in the name of the Mother of Eden. “They’re the ones you should try to be with.”

  I could still remember how she looked at me when she told me that. She had a strange gleam in her eyes that I’d never seen before.

  “That’s why I chose your dad,” she said. “And if I hadn’t done that, well, where would you be?”

  Suddenly Angie and Johnny began to cheer and shout.

  “Tom’s dick and Harry’s!” Johnny shouted. “Look at you guys!”

  “Gela’s tits,” Angie said, laughing, “you should really see yourselves!”

  It was Dixon, Lucky, and Delight. They’d come back wearing who’d been my best friend since way before I could even walk. I saw their dismay, and I felt it myself as well. But I pushed my doubts down inside myself.

  “I want to go with him,” I repeated.

  “Doesn’t it bother you,” Julie asked, “that he thinks he can trade you for metal?”

  “You slip with women, Julie,” I told her. “How would you know what goes on between men and women?”

  I eyed her guiltily for a moment—she’d really done nothing to deserve that—then turned to Uncle Dixon.

  “And how do you know, Uncle, what Greenstone was trying to do when he gave you that metal and these wraps? How do you know he wasn’t just being friendly? It’s not his fault he’s got a lot of things to give.”

  “No,” said Dixon. “It’s true. He didn’t say it was a trade.”

  “He said it was a way of showing friendship,” Lucky said. “Friendship between Knee Tree Grounds, and . . . er . . .”

  “It’s called New Earth. It’s fifteen sixteen wakings’ paddling across Worldpool. It’s as big as Mainground.”

  “Our boats couldn’t take us that far, Starlight,” Johnny said. “We’d never see you again.”

  When my brother said that, I felt scared scared inside, like I’d never quite got hold until then of just how far away it was. I did my best not to show it, though, making my voice louder and harder to hide my fear.

  “Well, I’ll come back and see you, then,” I said. “Greenstone has big big boats, and lots of men to paddle them. I’m sure that—”

  “Lots of men, but no women at all,” Julie said. “No women, and no batfaces, either. What kind of place do you think it is over there?”

  “Those men are like guards,” I told her. “They’re not guards, of course; they’re ringmen. But it’s a job, like being a guard, that men are better at because they’re stronger.”

  “We’ve never needed any guards on Grounds,” Dixon said. “Seems to me you only need guards in places where people have to be made to do things they don’t want to do.”

  I turned on him.

  “Listen to me, Uncle! They’re not guards. They’re against guards. David Redlantern started guards because he wanted to catch John and Jeff and Tina and do for them. Why would the Johnfolk have anything to do with guards?”

  “Okay, but just answer me this,” Julie persisted. “What exactly is he offering you? What does he want from you? What kind of life would you have if you went with him?”

  I wasn’t fooling Julie one bit. She knew I was desperate. She knew I was close to tears. She knew I had no idea what I was letting myself in for.

  “And there’s something else, too, Starlight,” she said, taking my hand and refusing to let me shake her off. “Even some of the New Earth people don’t want you to go. I overheard something earlier. There was this tall man in blue. He was talking to Greenstone about you, and he was threatening him, Starlight. He was threatening him with fire.”

  “Fire?” I snorted. “What are you talking about, Julie?”

  “Don’t be angry with me, Starlight. I don’t know what he meant any better than you do. I’m just telling you what I heard. All I know for certain is that he was making a threat, a real, angry threat. I wondered if maybe they use fire there for punishments, like the Davidfolk use scalding trees.”

  I shrugged. “I’d better go and talk to Greenstone.”

  “I’ll come, too, then,” Dixon said at once, standing there in that ridiculous colored wrap.

  “Thank you, Uncle, but I’d rather you didn’t come. I want him to know it’s up to me.”

  “Well, why not take me, then?” Angie said. “He won’t think it’s up to me. He’s hardly noticed my existence.”

  I hesitated for a moment. Whatever I pretended, I was scared scared. “Yes, thanks, Angie. That’s a good idea.”

  “I reckon we should put on these wraps they gave us,” she said.

  There was a weird little time, then, while Angie and me got silly and excited about putting on our new wraps, like we were just kids and would be together forever and ever. And then, just as quickly as it started, that little game was over, and the two of us were walking along the ledge to where Greenstone kept his boats, with nothing to say to each other at all.

  “What does Julie know about except paddling boats and cutting bark from trees?” I whispered to myself. “It was Gela herself who said a woman should choose a man like Greenstone, and where she came from, they know so much about everything that they can fly between the stars.”

  I had sometimes wondered, since Mum told me the Secret Story, how anyone could be sure it really came from Gela and why, even if it did, that should necessarily make it true. I’d sometimes wondered, too, about that strange expression on Mum’s face each time she repeated those words. But who cared about all that now, when the Secret Story was telling me what I wanted to hear?

  Greenstone Johnson

  There she was! She’d come! There was Starlight, the shining water on one side of her and the flamelight of Veeklehouse on the other, and no one with her except her holeface friend. She was beautiful beautiful in the blue wrap I’d sent for her, truly more beautiful than any woman I’d ever seen.

  I was so relieved. I’d been so afraid she’d turn away from me. And now I couldn’t help myself. Ignoring Chief Dixon calling out to me to behave like a Headmanson, I ran toward her like an excited kid.

  “Starlight! You came! I’m so glad! I’m so so glad! And, Gela’s heart, you look lovely in that wrap!”

  “You said . . .” Starlight began.

  I could see she was just as scared as I was.

  “You said you wanted to take me across the Pool,” she said. “And I’ve come to ask you what you meant.”

  “What I meant was—”

  “Headmanson!” Dixon interrupted, striding up behind me. “There are things we need to talk about before you can answer that question. Your dad wouldn’t—”

  I turned round to face him. “Chief Dixon, I’m the Headmanson, and you’re just a chief.”

  “But this concerns all of us, Headmanson. It concerns whole of New Earth, and all the chiefs and teachers.”

  “I’ve made up my mind.”

  “Your dad won’t be happy, Headmanson, and nor will the men you’ll have to work with when he’s gone.”

  “If John Redlantern could take Brightflame with him, then why shouldn’t I—”

  “That was completely different.”

  Starlight looked at her friend with a puzzled frown. They obviously had no idea who Brightflame was. Then the holeface girl turned to me.

  “Where we live . . .” she began.

  Behind me, Chief Dixon gave a snort of contemptuous laughter. Whoever heard of a holeface talking to a Headmanson? The girl looked at him, and her eyes looked hurt and scared. She could see his contempt and she could see his power, but she pressed on all the same.

  “Where we live, we’re all together in one place. If a man and woman want to spend time together, or slip together, or have babies, well, they just do.”

  I nodded, making myself look straight at her. After all, she was Starlight’s friend, and things were different here on Old Ground.

  “That sounds a straightforward way of doing things,” I told her. “In New Earth
we have more rules about how these things are done.”

  “What rules?” asked Starlight.

  I looked back at her, turning away from her friend, away from Dixon, away from everyone, and it was like the two of us disappeared into some completely different place where there was no one there but us. She was so lovely, with those sharp sharp eyes, and that proud way she stood. Proud, yet not proud like a chief’s daughter, not proud because of her father’s metal or her father’s ground, but proud in a way I’d never seen before. I wished I could be proud like that.

  “In the old times, in Old Family,” I told her, “when everyone still lived up in Circle Valley, people could slip with whoever they wanted, and lots of folk didn’t even know who their dads were. John didn’t like that, so he made it a rule in New Earth that a woman should be with just one man, so that all her children would be his children, too. It’s the same here in Veeklehouse, I’ve noticed. Pretty much the same. These Davidfolk are always—”

  “Tom’s dick,” interrupted Starlight. “Please, please just tell me what you’re asking me!”

  “Headmanson,” Chief Dixon growled behind me, “there are other rules to think about.”

  “Not rules from John. Otherwise, why did he go with Brightflame?”

  Starlight pressed her hands to her head as if it was going to burst. “Please just tell me, Greenstone!”

  I glared at Chief Dixon to warn him to keep silent. “I’m asking you to be my housewoman, Starlight!”

  “Headmanson!” Dixon shouted.

  “What?” said Starlight. “Housewoman? David’s shriveled heart, what does that mean?”

  “You probably shouldn’t speak of David like that here in Veeklehouse,” I said. I was trying to lighten things and make her smile. But it was no time for jokes. “I’m sorry if I haven’t explained it to you properly. Over on our Grounds, a man’s housewoman is the woman who lives with him, and is the mother to his kids and no one else’s. I want that to be how it is with you and me.”