Chris Beckett - Dark Eden

‘ To Angela ,’ it said, ‘ with love from Mum and Dad .’

Well, there have been lots of Angelas — or Gelas or Angies as they usually get called — but this could only be the Angela that came here at the beginning. This was her ring. It really was the same one they told the story about, the ring her mother and father gave her back on Earth, the one she lost in forest when she was looking for stumpcandy and could never find again.

Another shiver went through me, right through my body and my mind, almost like when you’re having a slip and you come. It was one of those moments when you wonder whether there is some kind of big misunderstanding and really this is all just a dream or a made-up story, and not the real world like you thought it was. It was strange strange to hold that same ring in my hand, and to know for certain that one part of the True Story really really was true. It was weird weird to be connected to that story myself, to be the ending of it in a way, to be the one in Family who finally found Angela’s ring for her. It was even stranger that it happened so soon after that weird feeling I’d had when I was by myself up by Deep Pool, and I’d felt that our mother Angela had been there too.

Michael’s names! Lucy Lu would have loved this if it had happened to her. We’d never have heard the last of it! It was like Angela’s shadow really was here somehow, following me around. It was like she wouldn’t let me go.

Squatting down there among the starflowers, pretending to be taking a crap, I went through the story in my head. How Gela lost the ring. How she screamed out to Tommy and the kids for help. There were no other people in the world then but Tommy and Gela and their kids. She screamed at them to come and help her, she screamed and screamed like she hated them all, demanding that they crawl round on forest floor for hours and hours, waking after waking, looking for the missing ring that her mum and her dad had given her.

‘It’s only a ring,’ Tommy says to her. ‘It’s just a thing , really, isn’t it? Like a stone or a bit of wood. You’ve still got us, honey. You’ve still got me and the kids.’

‘I don’t want your bloody kids,’ she says, ‘and I certainly don’t want you, you selfish shallow worthless man. I want my mum. I want my dad. I want my home that you stole from me.’

And then she cried and cried and cried, it’s said for nine whole sleeps and nine whole wakings, while the kids blocked their ears and made silly noises with their mouths to shut out the cruel things she said, and the sad sad thoughts in their heads. Until that waking, the story says, the mother of us all had been warm and kind and a source of strength. But after it, she didn’t smile for a whole womb and she never again spoke to Tommy with any love in her voice: never ever again.

I heard someone coming over to use the latrine. It was Old Roger — he’d be grunting and spluttering and stinking there for half an hour — so I slipped the ring back in its pocket and moved away.

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.