Dark Eden

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?’

43

John Redlantern

    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.