Dark Eden

was nothing more than a weird dream of mine. Some of them had never even given it any thought.
    ‘How do we know there even
is
another side?’ said Lucy Batwing. ‘Dark might go on and on. And then we’d die, wouldn’t we? We’d die of cold.’
    ‘We know it doesn’t go on forever,’ I told her. ‘When Tommy and Gela and the Companions first saw Eden from their sky-boat, the thing they noticed was that it was all covered in light. Remember that? All covered in light, not just one patch of light and the rest dark. That was weird to them because Earth got its light from a star, and didn’t have lights of its own. So they noticed it, and it stuck in their minds. That’s why they talked about it to their kids, and why we still remember the story.’
    ‘Okay, so there’s more forest beyond Dark,’ said Clare Brooklyn, who was nursing her baby boy, ‘but we still might not reach it. Even with your wraps and woolly horses and all, we’re not going to be able to keep going more than a few wakings, are we? Not in freezing cold and pitch darkness. Not even us newhairs, let alone my little Fox and Janny’s Flower.’
    The twenty of them were ranged around in a circle, most sitting, some standing. I was pacing around in middle. I couldn’t keep still, that was too much to ask of myself, only one two hours after I’d done for Dixon Blueside with my spear.
    ‘It’s dangerous but we’ve got to try it,’ I said. ‘In a couple of wakings they’ll come after us. David Redlantern and all his friends in Family. Caroline and Council won’t be able to control them any more. They’ll be over here with clubs and spears. Look what they did to Jeff, look what they tried to do to Tina. And that was
before
we did for David and the others.’
    ‘Well,
we
didn’t do it actually, John,’ said Mehmet Batwing with an angry laugh. ‘That was you.
You
did it. You and Harry and Gerry. The first killings in Eden. Smart move, John. Smart smart move.’
    His thin little face was hard and cold and there was suddenly a dark ugly feeling out in whole group that each person had been keeping hidden inside until then. Two or three people muttered in agreement with what Mehmet had said, including Angie Blueside, a cousin of John Blueside who was lying dead in forest right at that moment, with Gerry’s spearhole in his belly and starbirds and tree foxes feeding on his flesh. Why should we all freeze on Snowy Dark, was what a lot of them were thinking, just because John and Harry and Gerry lost their heads and did for three people who were already running away?
    ‘I think you’re forgetting, Mehmet,’ said Tina in her iciest voice. She was
angry
angry. ‘I think you’re forgetting what Dixon Blueside and his mates did to Jeff and what they tried to do to me. Do you think they’d have left us all in peace if we’d just . . .?’
    I put my hand on her arm to tell her to leave it; I didn’t need her to defend me.
    ‘No, you’re quite right, Mehmet,’ I said, as calmly as I could with my tight tight throat. ‘And you’re welcome to stay here or to go back to Family, Mehmet.
All
of you are welcome to stay or go back. Take what’s yours, if you like, and walk back to Family. Tell them it was John and Harry and Gerry who did for Dixon and his mates, and that it was nothing at all to do with you. Which is true. It’s perfectly true. So go on if you want to. Go on. No one’s stopping any of you. You all came to me, remember, all of you, every single one, out of your own choice. I didn’t force you to come and I certainly won’t force you to stay.’
    I folded my arms and stood and waited. Mehmet looked around awkwardly, but all his support seemed to have disappeared.
    ‘No,’ he said, ‘I just meant . . .’
    ‘You just meant what?’
    ‘Oh nothing. It doesn’t matter.’
    He was sort of smiling but under the smile he was ashamed, and under the shame he was angry angry. He was going to be trouble, I could see, and it would actually be better if he left. But if I tried to
make
him go, that would have been trouble too. That would have been even
more
trouble. It might have made whole plan fall apart.
    ‘I’m not making anyone do anything,’ I repeated. ‘Do you all understand?’
    There was silence for a bit.
    Then Lucy London spoke. She was a short plump girl with bulgy anxious eyes.
    ‘But if we go over Dark we won’t ever see our mums again, or our sisters and brothers. I mean, it’s okay not seeing them every