Chris Beckett - Dark Eden

‘I think they’d be glad to hear from us up there,’ Clare said, ‘I reckon they’d be glad to see anyone after all this time. I mean there’s not so many of us here, but there were only six of them up there, remember. They must be going completely nuts if they haven’t already done for each other.’

‘That’s true,’ Gela admitted, ‘and they’ll have had kids too. It’d be nice to see their kids.’

‘It would be nice to see anyone at all that wasn’t us,’ Janny said.

‘It could be they’ve all gone back to Family,’ said Jeff.

Jeff had grown his new hairs now and he had changed. He was beautiful beautiful, with fine features and a strong slim body to go with his big deep eyes. All the other seven girls wanted to slip with him and he obliged them just as much as they wanted, like he was making up for all the time when no one would accept him as a proper boy, only as a clawfoot who was outside all of that. For myself, though, somehow I couldn’t quite forget Jeff the funny little kid whose sore feet I’d washed back at Cold Path Neck.

‘They’d never do that,’ John said with a snort. ‘Go crawling back to Family after what happened to Dixon and Met and John Blueside? They wouldn’t dare.’

‘They might, though,’ Jeff said. ‘It wasn’t any of them that did for those three. Remember how Mehmet liked to remind you about that?’

John shrugged.

‘Only one way to find out.’

He stood up, looking back towards Snowy Dark.

‘Eventually we’ll need to get back in contact with Family itself anyway. Not now, obviously, but when we’re strong enough.’

We all looked at each other. Gela’s tits, was this man never going to leave anything alone? Must he constantly be poking and meddling around with the lives of everyone on Eden? ‘You’ll get us all done for, one waking,’ said Lucy Batwing. ‘The way you keep putting us in danger again and again.’

‘Well, I’m not suggesting we get in touch with Family now , am I?’ John said, laughing. ‘I’m just suggesting going up as far as Tall Tree Valley, to see Mehmet and the others. Surely there’s no harm in that?’

Me and Gerry and Jeff went back to Tall Tree Valley. It meant going up over Dark again, but crossing Dark wasn’t the same as it had been before. It didn’t seem so far when you knew for certain there was something there to get to and you knew how to find it. (And that made me realize that it wasn’t really so far back to Circle Valley either. This journey that everyone had said was impossible for five six generations: you could walk whole of it easily in six seven wakings.) We each had a fullgrown woollybuck of our own to ride on now, and we each pulled a big snow-boat behind us. Mine was loaded with food and spare wraps for us. Theirs were piled with things to trade with the Tall Tree people: smooth widebuck skins that they’d never have seen before, and fruits you couldn’t find up there.

It was weird weird when we’d got over the high Dark and dropped down into Tall Tree Valley to find Mehmet and Johnny and Julie still up there near the place where we’d all once lived together after Jeff saved us from Dark. And they were men and women now, young men and women, not newhairs any more, and they had five six little kids running round, and strong strong shelters they’d made with stones. They’d covered them over with branches and sealed up the roofs and walls with mud and buckskins so they’d keep out the cold, even in the snow.

Tom’s dick, they were surprised surprised to see us, surprised and scared, like we were Shadow People or something, come back to life again from death.

‘We thought it might be time to make friends again,’ I told them.

Mehmet stared at me for a moment, and then suddenly he smiled.

‘Friends! Yes, friends!’ He rushed forward to shake my hand. ‘That’s right, John, we should be friends. We’re grownups now, after all, not newhair kids. We should put our little arguments behind us, like kids’ quarrels.’

And he hugged me and gestured to the other Tall Tree people to come and do the same.

‘Let’s get a buck roasting,’ he called out to them. ‘Let’s get the fire built up, get a good blaze going for a big roast.’

Julie kissed me and Gerry and Jeff.

‘Wow, look at you , Jeff!’ said Julie. ‘Wow! You look fine fine. I can’t believe how you’ve changed.’

Who would have thought weird little Jeff would turn out to be the one that girls wanted to slip with as soon as they saw him, clawfeet and all?

‘The others still around, are they?’ I asked. ‘Dave Fishcreek? Angie? Candy?’

‘Candy died having her baby,’ Julie said shortly. ‘The others are out hunting with . . .’

Mehmet hastily interrupted.

‘Yes, I should explain, John. We’ve got a couple of visitors up here from Family. Don’t worry,’ he gave an awkward laugh, ‘it’s not David Redlantern or anyone like that. Just a couple of Fishcreek people, come up to trade a few bucks for some blackglass. I don’t know how you’re fixed where you are, but we haven’t got any blackglass up here and we kind of need it.’

And then he sort of peeked at us, like he was in a hiding place and peering out, and not really standing right there in front of us at all.

‘You got blackglass at all where you are?’ he asked.

‘Come to think of it,’ he said, without even waiting for us to answer that first question, ‘where is it exactly that you’re staying now? Is it far from here?’

‘Not really,’ began Gerry, ‘just over the ridge there and then . . .’

Mehmet was leaning forward, listening intently.

‘Oh, it’s a fair distance,’ I said, to cut Gerry off, ‘quite a few wakings’ journey. That’s why we’ve never been up before.’

Mehmet looked between Gerry and me and smiled his complicated smile. And presently Angie and Dave Fishcreek came back with a couple of young Fishcreek men called Paul and Gerald. Harry’s dick, those two’s faces looked even more like they thought we were Shadow People come back from the dead than the faces of the Tall Tree people had done. As soon as they saw us, they stopped dead where they were, their muscles tensed up, ready to fight or run, and their fingers tightened around their spears. But Mehmet ran over to them, gabbling excitedly.

‘Who’d have thought it, eh? We thought maybe the rest of them hadn’t made it through Dark, after they left us here. But it’s John, look. Old John Redlantern himself, and Gerry and Jeff with him. Nice to see them, eh? Nice to have a chance to put old troubles behind us.’

‘Er . . . yeah . . .’ said Paul Fishcreek and Gerald Fishcreek, uncertainly, still fingering their spears.

‘So how is Family these wakings?’ I asked them. ‘Caroline still Head, is she?’

‘Caroline? Um. Yes,’ said Gerald, looking at Paul.

‘How about our mum?’ Gerry asked. ‘Sue Redlantern. She okay, do you know?’

‘Yeah. She’s good,’ said Paul.

‘You guys still hate us down there, then?’ I asked.

Gerald and Paul Fishcreek looked at each other like they were in agony.

‘Oh no, no . . .’ they both began.

Tom’s dick and Harry’s, there was weird stuff going on, weird weird, but I couldn’t tell exactly what it was. When we’d eaten Tall Tree’s buckmeat and the Tall Tree people had got to their usual sleeping time, I refused Mehmet’s offer of a space in one of their shelters and found somewhere else a little way from them, where me and Jeff and Gerry and our bucks could get some rest with solid rocks against our backs, and could get a good view of anyone that came near.