Dark Eden

15 John Redlantern

I kept thinking about Michael naming everything, and the children shouting back to him what to say. I’d seen that same story acted out so many times, but now I couldn’t stop it going round and round inside my head. Whole Family was busting to leave the clearing, but I just stood there and stood there, trying to take it in, and trying to decide on what I’d do next.

First Oldest were led away to sleep in their shelters on the edge of London, all grey and wobbly and worn out. Then everyone else started to go, each group gathering together its littles and clawfeet and oldies and heading off back to their own fires and shelters. And, while the clearing was emptying, Council left, one by one, all except Caroline, with Secret Ree tucking her writing-barks under her arm and rushing off to hide them in a secret place she had somewhere that no one but Council was supposed to know about.

But I stayed where I was, and over in middle of Circle, Caroline stayed where she was as well, nodding and smiling to anyone that came up to her, or looked in her direction. Sometimes, when she wasn’t dealing with anyone else, she glanced over towards me, and I thought maybe she was going to speak to me about what I’d done, but when I caught her eye she quickly looked away. She tended not to deal with troublesome newhairs in Family — that was a job for group leaders — so I guessed she was just waiting for me to go.

Well, I’d go in my own good time. I had things to think about.

When Michael named the plants and the animals, did he hear us calling back to him? Was that possible? Because if he did, then I should be able to hear voices from our future too, voices calling back to me, telling me what I needed to do, because I’d had an idea. And it was a big idea, a big big idea. It was big like Dixon refusing to obey the President, big like Tommy and Angela lying down together to bring us all into the world. And if I went through with it, it would be a story like those stories that would be remembered, and talked about, not just for a period or two, but for generations and generations.

But what was it that those future people would call out to me when the story was acted out? That was what I was trying to figure out. Were they shouting ‘Go ahead! Do it! You’ll save us from starving and drowning!’ or were they telling me ‘No, you’ll ruin everything! You’ll lose us Earth forever!’?

The clearing emptied quickly. Everyone was anxious to get away from that cramped space between the trees and Circle of Stones. Some people wanted to eat, or to settle down their littles, but most just wanted to crawl under the bark roofs of their shelters and sleep. I wouldn’t have minded sleeping myself. I was so tired and felt so battered. And I was dreading dreading the things that might soon be coming my way if I stayed awake, really awake I mean, like I was awake when I stood and faced that leopard.

‘Hey John? What you doing?’ Gerry asked.

Little Jeff stood behind him, watching me with his big clever eyes, as if he already knew what was in my mind.

I looked round for David, but he had already gone. I guessed he thought I couldn’t do much harm now Any Virsry was over. That made me smile. There was a lot of harm I could still do.

‘Go on back,’ I said to them. ‘I might go see Tina for a bit. I’ll join you later.’

Then Tina herself came over.

‘Tom’s dick, John, you don’t let go, do you?’ she said, and laughed. It seemed she’d enjoyed my boldness earlier that waking. ‘Shall we go up Deep Pool for a bit before we sleep? Swim in the water. Clear our heads of all this?’

I nodded.

‘Good idea,’ I said, ‘but I’ve got something I need to do first, though. I’ll come to Deep Pool a bit later, if you’re willing to wait for me.’

‘What have you got to do?’

‘I’ll . . . I’ll tell you later.’

‘Does it involve Bella by any chance, or Martha London?’

‘No, no. Nothing like that. You’ll understand when I tell you.’

She examined me closely with her eyes narrowed. Then, reluctantly, she shrugged and nodded and headed off.

I noticed Caroline looking at me again. All of Council had gone, and nearly all of Family, but she was still standing there. I made a pretence of leaving myself, heading in the general direction of Stream’s Join, but walking slowly and letting people pass me. When there was no one left behind me, I doubled back to Circle Clearing.

Sure enough, Caroline had gone, and so had everyone else. There was no one there but me.

Nothing looks more lovely than something that’s about to end, and that’s true even if you yourself are going to be the cause of its ending.

That clearing was beautiful beautiful with the bright whitelanterns all round, extra bright and shiny as they were from being pruned for all those wombtimes since the beginning, and with shiny bright Main Stream running past one edge of it. But of course there were other pretty clearings in forest, and what made Circle Clearing special were the white stones in middle. They were what made it different from every single one of all the other gaps and openings in forest between Alps and Rockies, and between Blue Mountains and Peckham Hills. That white Circle gave it a mystery and a story. And they made it ours.

So I hesitated, feeling in the little pocket at the edge of my waistwrap for Angela’s ring, as if I thought she might help me decide what to do. But she was silent. All I heard was, far off in the future, voices calling back to me across time.

‘No, no, don’t do it!’ some of them were saying. ‘Angela said we must stay together by Circle, John. You know she did. She made Circle herself! Her and Tommy. They made it to show us where we must wait until Earth comes back for us at last!’

‘Do it, John, do it!’ other voices were saying. ‘Angela wanted us to make a life on Eden. If she hadn’t wanted that she’d never have stayed and never have laid down with Tommy.’

They couldn’t settle it for me. They were no use at all. I’d have to make up my own mind. My mouth was dry, my hands clammy with sweat, but I looked around one more time to make sure no one was watching, then walked over to one of the stones and picked it up.

No one had ever picked up one of those stones before, not that I’d heard of, not since they were first laid there by Tommy and Angela themselves. It was just a stone, cold to the touch like other stones, heavy like other stones, but I felt like the thing might burst into flames in my hand and sear off my skin. I feared it would shriek out loud, like a living creature, screaming for Oldest and Council and Family to come and save it. I even feared, a little tiny bit, that I would simply drop down dead.

But of course none of that happened. It was just a stone, wasn’t it? It wasn’t alive. It wasn’t even dead. It was just a stone. And once I’d taken it over to Main Stream and chucked it in, I couldn’t even tell it apart from the other stones that lay on the bottom there, lit by the shining weed. It was just another stone, and the fishes swam over it like they swam over the other stones, trailing their spindly boneless hands. So I went back for another, and then another. Then I took two at once, then another two. I’d gone completely numb by then. I wasn’t feeling anything. I wasn’t thinking about where this would lead to. I wasn’t noticing anything around me. It was like with the leopard. I was doing the job I’d set myself.

Then a voice called out to me, a real human voice, as I was halfway between the remains of Circle and the stream, and I felt like my heart had stopped in my body.

‘Hey, John! You’re breaking Circle!’

It wasn’t David or Caroline, not a grownup at all, just little Jeff hobbling into the clearing.

‘Go away, Jeff. Don’t get involved in this.’

‘What will this do to Oldest, John? Think what it will do to them!’

I’d been shutting all my feelings out of my mind, like I did when I was facing that leopard, but now, just for one moment, they all came pouring in. I imagined old Mitch’s feelings about this special place, made by his grandmother and grandfather, which had been here for all his long long life, and I knew that I’d ruined all that. I’d ruined the peaceful centre of Family. Even if I stopped now, I’d already ruined it. It was all broken to pieces forever.

I looked at Jeff. He could see the horror in my eyes and his own eyes reflected it.

‘Don’t you believe that Angela told us to wait here for Earth?’ he asked me. ‘Or do you just think that she was wrong?’

Not many people in Family could have asked those questions without letting you know what they thought you ought to reply, but Jeff really wanted to know. He watched my face and waited for me to answer.

‘I think Angela knew a whole lot of things,’ I said at last, ‘but I don’t think she knew just how long long this wait for Earth would be.’

He didn’t say anything. He just stood looking up at me, studying my face.

‘It needs to be done, Jeff,’ I said. ‘I don’t like it, but it needs to be done. We need to break away.’

Even now he didn’t speak, but after a few more seconds he slowly reached out and touched one of the stones in my hands, like he was making himself part of what I was doing. He nodded.

‘I’ll go back to Redlantern, then,’ he said.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘That’s best.’

I waited until he’d gone before I went to the stream and dropped in the stones I was holding. Then I went back for two more, and two more after that. I finished off with the five stones in middle. It didn’t take me long. There was no more Circle in Circle Clearing. It was empty and blank. It was sort of . . . dead.

And I felt dead too. Empty. I couldn’t find any feelings inside me about anything. I knew I must have destroyed Circle for a reason, but I could barely remember what that reason was. I knew that big big things would happen now as a result, but I couldn’t make myself care what they would be. It was like I’d turned to stone myself.

But I walked up Dixon Stream by myself — even old Jeffo was asleep in his shelter — and I climbed the rocks round Deep Pool to where Tina was waiting for me.

She’d been squatting on the bank, eating nuts. She stood up as I came scrambling towards her.

‘You took your time, John. What have you been . . . ?’

When she looked into my face her expression changed completely.

‘Gela’s heart, John! What’s up with you? What have you done?’

I didn’t say anything at all. I pushed her back down on the ground again, I pulled off her wrap, I pressed my mouth against hers . . .

‘Hey John, careful. I don’t want a baby . . .’

I pushed into her and into her and into her until I was ready to come, which was pretty soon. And then, when I’d spurted out my juice over her belly, I didn’t even speak to her, just dived into the pool and swam a long way under the warm bright water before I surfaced, as if I could wash away everything just by letting the water rinse the sweat from my skin, as if this would make Circle whole again, or make it alright with everyone that it had gone.

Tina didn’t swim. She waited for me on the bank and when I tried to climb out, she kicked me back in again. And she didn’t do it in play. She really kicked me.

‘Just tell me what you did, John.’

I didn’t want to hear my voice say it, but I knew I had to.

‘I destroyed it, Tina. I destroyed Circle of Stones.’

‘You . . . You what? You’re bloody joking, aren’t you, John? Tell me you’re joking.’

But of course she could see by my face, and by everything that had happened so far, that I wasn’t.

‘Tom’s neck, John! You idiot. You bloody idiot. Who do you think you are?’

She grabbed her wrap and started climbing up the rocks away from me.

‘Hey Tina, wait . . .’

‘Keep away from me, John. You did it on your own. You can take what’s coming to you on your own. I’m not part of it, alright? I’m going back to Spiketree. Don’t come after me. I mean that, John, I really mean it.’

Well, I could see she meant it and I really hadn’t expected this. I’d thought that she’d be of the same sort of mind as me. In fact I’d thought she’d be impressed by what I’d done, like she was impressed with the way I spoke out at Any Virsry. I’d thought it would make me seem brave and strong in her eyes.

I listened to her climbing up the rocks, heading back to sleeping Family where some time soon, maybe in an hour, maybe in two or three or four, someone or other would wake up and pass through Circle Clearing and see what I’d done.

And I knew I was alone in whole world. I was lonelier even than Angela was, all those wombs ago, when she came up here by herself and cried.

I took Angela’s ring out of the pocket in my wrap. Of course I didn’t really believe Angela would come to me or anything. I wasn’t like Lucy Lu. But I sort of hoped I would be able to see her in my mind as I’d seen her before.

It didn’t happen, though. Why should it? And why would Angela want to help me out anyway, when she and Tommy made Circle and started Any Virsries? They didn’t want those things ended, did they? Whole point of those things was to last and last. And Angela had specifically told all of us to stay by the stones and wait for Earth.

I put the ring away again. For a bit I just sat there rocking back and forth on my haunches, like I’ve seen mothers do when they’ve lost a child and they don’t know how to get through it, just rocking and rocking and rocking themselves to make a rhythm and make the time go past.

After a bit I made up my mind to get back in control of myself.

‘It’s not like I’ve made some kind of blunder,’ I told myself. ‘This wasn’t a mistake. I thought about it. I knew what I was doing. I knew it would be horrible, for everyone else and for me. But I was trying to make something happen that needed to happen.’

I couldn’t see Angela or feel her presence, but I could sort of feel the voices of people in the future watching this scene that I was in. John All Alone, they’d call it. The scene that came after John Destroys Circle and Tina Dumps John.

I imagined them standing round me, those future people, looking in, calling things out. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Maybe they were thanking me for what I’d done. Maybe they were shouting out to me that I’d done wrong. But in a way it didn’t matter, the same as it didn’t really matter whether Tommy and Mehmet and Dixon, the Disobedient Three, did wrong that time they refused to listen to President and carried on instead towards Hole-in-Sky.

‘No. Don’t do it!’ we yelled out to them, every Any Virsry. But the fact is that if they hadn’t made that choice, we wouldn’t have existed. We wouldn’t even have been there to yell back to them. Most probably no human being would ever even have heard of this dark world called Eden.

So we couldn’t really mean it, could we, when we called that out to them? Or at least we could only really mean it in those dark dark moments that no one ever talks about when life itself seems to have no worth at all.

Then I heard a shout coming from Family way. It was quite faint. I couldn’t hear the words.

Soon there was another shout, and another, and then the horns started up. It wasn’t long slow blasts this time but the quick Parp! Parp! Parp! Parp! Parp! that means a Strornry Meeting. All over Family people would be waking up, afraid. What could it be? What dreadful thing could have happened? They’d look round anxiously at each other, to see if anyone else had a clue. What could it mean? What terrible event could justify another meeting so soon, when they hadn’t even had half a sleep to let them recover from the three wakings of the last one?

I stood up. A couple of jewel bats were zipping along just above the surface of Deep Pool: dark shadows, fast and smooth across the smooth bright water, one just a little in front and to the side of the other. Their little arms were hanging down and their fingertips were trailing over the surface as they swerved and darted around the lilies looking for fish. If they saw one — grab! — they’d have it in a flash and then, all in one smooth smooth movement, they’d curve off up to the rocks and the trees to find a place where they could divide the fish up between them with their sharp little teeth and their nifty little hands. If I’d left the stones alone I could have been out here now watching those bats with Tina, with nothing at all to worry about. Life would have been easy for me. Family wasn’t going to starve yet, after all. Not for a long time. Not for another generation maybe.

But it was like with the leopard. I’d made a decision that I knew could turn out badly, I’d taken a chance on it and now it was too late to go back. The leopard had to be faced.

I started up the rocks, heading back towards Family.