Dark Eden

that other people apart from him had their own thoughts and their own plans and their own things in their heads.
    I was
so
angry with him about that. I mean, Michael’s names, I hated Any Virsries like he did. I hated Oldest and their remembering. I wouldn’t have cared if I never heard them go on about Angela and Tommy and lecky-trickity and that bloody Big Sky-Boat
Defiant
ever again, and I agreed with John that there was no point in going on and on about Earth all the time. So, if he’d discussed his idea with me, maybe I’d even have come round to it. But, Gela’s heart, just to decide on his own to bust Family apart, and then to come to me and expect me just to accept it and carry on with him and be beside him when Family found out? To expect me to share the shame and blame for something that I’d never even been told about? I don’t bloody think so.
    I went back to Spiketree, trying not to catch the eye of the lookout for that sleeping, who was a bloke called Rog that was always trying to get me to slip with him, and I crawled into my shelter.
    My sister Jane said, ‘Everyone’s been talking about you, Tina. They’ve been saying that . . .’
    ‘Just shut up, Jane, alright?’
    Pretty soon after that, the horn started.
Parp! Parp! Parp!

    A woman in Blueside had had a heart attack and she and her daughters didn’t come to Strornry. A couple of blokes in Brooklyn couldn’t sleep. They’d set off hunting and didn’t get back until most of it was over. A few newhairs had gone out for a little bit of slip, like I thought was the plan for me and John when I went up to Deep Pool. But everyone else in the world was there, back in Circle Clearing, like Any Virsry all over again.
    But the thing was that it wasn’t Circle Clearing any more, because there was no Circle. And that was really horrible. It was like you saw someone you knew in forest and you called out to them, but when they turned round towards you, you found out that their teeth and their tongue had fallen out, and their face had a big empty hole in middle of it. And the weird thing was that nobody wanted to go near that gap where Circle had been. People had always stayed round the edge of the clearing in any meeting, whether Any Virsry or Strornry, and always kept well back from the stones, but now they squeezed even
further
back, pressing up tight together right under the lantern trees to be as far as possible from where the stones had been. And that made the hole in middle look even bigger and emptier and more horrible.
    Yes, and it was what we called a
fug
that waking. The cloud had come down low in the last few hours, right down into the treetops, making the highest lanterns into fuzzy blobs of light. And a fine rain was falling, not like the soaking rain you get in the hills round valley’s edge, but fine valley rain, like wet mist. And it was hot and stuffy. Everyone’s skin was shiny with rain and with sweat. It was like there was no sky, no forest even, and this sad lonely little scene, this clearing with a hole in middle, was all on its own in the world, a stuffy little cave with no air in it, surrounded by nothingness. There weren’t even any flutterbyes or bats coming in and out of the clearing, because they don’t fly when there’s a fug, they hide up and keep their wings dry, and wait for the cloud to lift.
    People’s faces were grey and exhausted. They hadn’t left Any Virsry feeling happy, but they’d thought that at least they could get some sleep. And now this! Lots of women were crying, some men as well. Little kids and babies saw their mums crying and they cried too. Other grownups, instead of crying, had stone-hard faces. They were waiting for someone to shout at, someone to blame.
    Oldest weren’t out in middle like they had been in Any Virsry. They couldn’t hack it. Their helpers had sorted out a little space for them on one side of the clearing, with their padded logs to rest their backs against. Old Stoop looked like he was about to die any minute.
    But Caroline and Council were out there, far away from us all in middle of that empty space. And Caroline, that cold grey woman, was full full of rage. Her rage was like boiling sap inside a tree that’s about to fall, just waiting for someone to give it that last push when the sap would come spraying out to scald and maim anyone standing near. Jane the creepy little Secret Ree and Council were all around her and they all looked pretty much as angry as she was,