Dark Eden

had dried out and was starting to burn. And what I wanted to do was put another set of footwraps on that I’d made with a different glue mixture, and light up another torch, this time lined with wet clay, and try again. We had so little time to get this sorted.
    But I knew I needed to get back to Neck to be ready for whatever it was that Family had decided to do.

    As it turned out, I didn’t need to hurry back so fast. I’d been back at the caves for a whole waking and a sleep after that and then half a waking again, before we heard a thing from Family.
    Most of our lot were out hunting, and I was with Tina, Jeff, Gela and Clare in front of our caves, grinding seeds and sewing up buckskin wraps, when Mike called down from top lookout that six seven people were coming. He’d glimpsed them out there crossing a gap in the trees. Pretty soon, Dix called up from lower lookout that he’d just seen them too.
    Well, it could have been kids coming over to us like before, but we’d never had that many come all in one go, so it sounded more like David and his lot were coming back with their clubs and spears. We hid our buckskins and all our other things in our various hiding places, then me, Tina and Gela grabbed our own spears and clubs and went down the path, leaving Mike, Dix and Jeff by the caves, while Clare went after the others to let them know what was happening.
    The visitors from Family had heard us calling out to each other and had stopped and waited at the opening in the trees just past Neck where Cold Path Stream leaves Cold Path Valley and flows out into Circle Valley forest. It wasn’t David’s lot, though. Caroline herself, the Family Head, was sitting on a rock, with blind Tom Brooklyn and Candy Fishcreek on each side of her. Jane London, the Secret Ree, was squatting at her feet, and three young London guys with glass-tipped spears were standing around them.
Hmmmmmm
, went forest. The stream splished and splashed over the stones. Above them, a little hazy but still quite bright, Starry Swirl shone down.
    We knew our part of forest much better than they did. We lay low in a starflower patch under the trees to watch them, just like we did when we were hunting buck. They couldn’t see us but they knew we were watching them and we could see they were playing up to that. Caroline and the two group leaders were chatting away like they were just having a little rest on a gentle walk through forest. Secret Ree was chipping in from time to time in her little fluty voice. The three young blokes looked bored and fiddled with their spears.
    ‘Clever,’ whispered Tina, ‘making us come to them.’
    ‘No way will we go to them, Tina.’
    ‘No. You’re right. But how about we just walk out like we happened to be out here hunting in forest?’
    That seemed a good plan to me, so that’s what we did. We came strolling out from the trees, and we acted, not surprised (because that would be like admitting we didn’t have a proper lookout system), but like it didn’t matter much to us whether they were there or not.
    ‘Hi there, Caroline,’ I called out.
    And then we sat down by the stream, some way short of where they were sitting, and put our feet in the water, like hunters after a long waking.
    Of course they knew we were playacting, just like we knew they were. And we knew they knew, and they knew we knew. Really and truly this was a
big
big thing for them that was happening, just as much as it was a big big thing for us. Us and Family were big problems for one another and both sides badly needed to talk. But the pretending, the pretending on both sides that this
wasn’t
a big thing at all: that was
part
of that talk. It was an important part of it. It was a way of feeling our way forward.
    But that didn’t change the fact that this really
was
a big thing, this was one of those moments that people would remember and act out far off in the future, like
Angela’s Ring
and
Death of Tommy
, and the departure of the Three Companions and me destroying Circle. It was one of those
big
big moments, and all of us – me, Tina, Caroline, Secret Ree – we were all in it together, we all had a responsibility together to try to make the story as good as it could be.
    ‘We’ve one or two things we wouldn’t mind talking to you about,’ Caroline called out.
    ‘Sure,’ Tina called back. ‘Just need to cool our feet a bit, though. Why don’t you come over?’
    She looked sideways at me, and gave me a secret