Dark Eden

rock that went down and down, and over shining water lanterns and wavyweed, with green and red tiger fish and tiny bluefish swimming through it in shoals. Down and down, shoals below shoals: Deep Pool wasn’t like Greatpool or Longpool where you could dive and touch the bottom. In Deep Pool you couldn’t make out where it ended.
    ‘So have you thought of some more things for us to talk about?’ she asked me, after we’d climbed out again.
    She threw me half a bunch of water lantern nuts.
    ‘We’re
here
,’ I said, after munching for a bit. ‘Have you ever heard our Jeff say that? We’re here. We’re really here.’
    Tina didn’t laugh at this like Met did. She narrowed her eyes. She thought carefully about what I might mean. Then she nodded.
    ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I’ve heard him. We’re here.
And
. . .?’
    ‘Most people in Family never think about it. You do your chores, you have something to eat, you have a bit of a gossip and a moan, you have something else to eat, you have a slip, you go to sleep . . . and they never think once about where they are, or where they might be.’
    ‘I’d say they dream a lot about where they
might
be.’
    ‘They wish they were back on Earth, you mean? They wish they were with the Shadow People. They wish a boat would come down from sky and take them away from all their sorrows. Is that what you mean?’
    ‘Yes. All that.’
    ‘That’s the same thing as
not
thinking about where they are or where they might be,’ I said. ‘That way they don’t even have to try.’
    Tina frowned.
    ‘But wouldn’t
you
like to be on Earth? With the light in sky and everything?’
    How we all longed for that bright light. How we’d always longed for it.
    ‘Yeah, of course,’ I said. ‘But there’s no point in going on about it, is there? I’m not
on
Earth, am I? I might never get there in my lifetime. I’m in Eden. We’re in Eden. This is what we’ve got.’
    I waved my hand at the scene in front of us: that little jewel bat leaving a sparkly trail as it skimmed the surface of the water with the tips of its fingers; that whitelantern branch hanging down over its own reflection; those tiny shimmery little fish nipping in and out of the tangle of roots round the pool’s edge.
    Hoom! Hoom!
went the starbird off in forest.
    Aaaah! Aaaah!
came back the reply.
    ‘Yeah,’ said Tina, ‘this is what we’ve got.’
    She moved over near me, and looked right up close into my face.
    It was different now to last time. Sometimes boys and girls did a slide together just to stop themselves having to talk, and stop themselves having to notice what was happening. Sometimes it was like going to sleep, or stuffing your face with food. Sometimes it was like hiding from the leopard up the bloody tree. That was why I hadn’t wanted to do it before. But right now, if we did it, it would be different. It wouldn’t be like hiding away from the leopard. It would be like facing it. I leaned forward to kiss her sweet cruel funny mouth. I leaned forward. She moved towards me. I . . .
    Paaaaarp! Paaaarp! Paaaarp!
    The sound came from Family and echoed round the rocks.
Paaaaarp! Paaaarp! Paaaarp!
An ugly sound on many different notes that didn’t fit together.
Paaaaarp! Paaaarp! Paaaarp!
Up from Circle Clearing.
Paaaaarp! Paaaarp! Paaaarp!
    ‘Gela’s tits!’ hissed Tina, sitting back up.
    We’d heard it many times before. It was the signal for whole Family to come together. It was Any Virsry. Oldest must have finally agreed on their days and their years. They must have decided that this was the moment – this was three hundred and sixty-five days after the last Any Virsry – and called for Caroline and the rest of Council to get out the hollowbranch horns and get hold of all the newhairs and young men they could find to blow them.
    Paaaaarp! Paaaarp! Paaaarp!
    It was an ugly noise but it carried well. It carried all over the valley, querulous like Oldest themselves. If there were woollybuck hunters up by the snows at Cold Path they’d hear it. If there were people digging out blackglass out by Exit Falls they’d hear it. If there were people up by Dixon Snowslug looking for stumpcandy, they’d hear it and know what it meant.
    Paaaaarp! Paaaarp! Paaaarp!
    ‘We don’t have to go straight away,’ Tina said.
    ‘We don’t have to go at all,’ I said.
    She looked at me.
    ‘That’s true. What could they do to us?’
    ‘Nothing really. Nothing much.’
    Tina smiled ruefully.
    ‘No.