Mother of Eden (18 page)

Quietstream Batwing

One waking when I was plaiting her hair, the mother told me about a dream she’d had.

“I was in some dark dark sheltercluster somewhere—
it smelled of death—
and I’d got down from the car to give some woman a hug. I hugged her and hugged her, but when I let go, I saw it was my sister, Glitterfish. She’d been holding her little boy, and my hug had suffocated both of them. They were both dead.”

“That’s a horrible dream, Mother.”

“All the other people from back in Grounds were standing round: my friend Angie, and Julie, who I’ve told you about, and my brother and my uncle. They were standing there, silently accusing me. I wanted to explain to them, but I knew I had no excuse.”

“But you’re awake now, Mother, and they’re all alive.”

“I
suppose
they’re alive. I’ve no way of knowing.” She looked down at her hands, turning the ring round on her finger as she often did. “I guess you know the chiefs’ plan to cross the water,” she said after a bit, “and take back the Veekle and Circle Valley for the Johnfolk?”

“Yes, Mother, everyone knows that one waking we’ll take them back for Gela.”

“Take them back for Gela! Gela’s long dead, Quietstream, and if she was alive, I’m sure she wouldn’t want her children doing for each other in her name.”

I knew that was true, of course, but I didn’t say anything, and once again I wished the mother was more careful about what she said.

“Greenstone says that at least if he’s Headman we can make sure that Knee Tree Grounds is left alone. He can’t stop the plan itself, apparently. It’s been the plan for too long. Whole of New Earth is held together, it seems, by the idea of more ground and more greenstone and more forest across the water.”

That was big people talk, of course, and not for me. I asked her about something else.

“How many children does your sister have, Mother?”

“Just one little boy. She loves him more than anything in the world.”

I paused for a moment to rub my aching knuckles, making sure I did it where she couldn’t see.

“I thought she was older than you, Mother?”

“Yes, she is. She’s about six wombs older.”

“It seems strange to reach that age and still only have one child.”

“We don’t have big families on Grounds like you do here. There isn’t room for a lot of people, so women try not to get pregnant too often.”

Mother of Eden, the things she
said
! Didn’t she know it was
 
wrong to stop yourself from having babies? All the teachers said so, and every hundredwake or so, some woman was punished when her man complained she wouldn’t take his juice inside her.

“Remind me how many kids you’ve got, Quietstream?” she asked me.

“Fourteen, Mother. Sixteen born and fourteen who lived, thank the Mother.”

“
Fourteen!
Gela’s heart! How did you raise them? You’re here all the time.”

“Most of them are grown up now, Mother, with kids of their own, but my mum looked after them when they were little. We thought that best, so I could work here at the Headmanhouse. My mum couldn’t work here, you see, because her face is broken. And most of my children’s faces, too.”

“They’re batfaces?”

“As you call it, Mother, yes.”

“It’s a stupid stupid rule that says batfaces can’t work here. It’s no fun being a batface. No one thinks it’s sexy, and no one wants to kiss you or slip with you if they can find someone else. We can’t help that. But batfaces can work and think and talk just the same as anyone. Some of the rules in this place are just—”

“Excuse me, Mother,” said a voice from the door.

Purelight was standing there, that cold scheming creature. Gela’s heart, how long had she been listening?

“The Headman would like to see you, Quietstream,” she said, “when you’ve finished with the mother, of course.”

The Headman asking for me didn’t scare me. He liked to see me sometimes and have me talk to him and tease him while he stroked my face. When I was younger, he used to slip with me, too; he might even have given me one of my holefaced kids. But Purelight
did
scare me. Ever since she came to the Headmanhouse, she’d been looking around for ways to get herself more power.

When she’d gone I walked over to the door to check she wasn’t hiding outside.

“Mother,” I whispered. “You must be careful what you say. You can’t just speak what’s in your mind.”

She wouldn’t hear it, though. “Jeff’s ride, Quietstream. All waking long people are telling me what I should say and what I shouldn’t say. All waking and every waking. Apart from Greenstone, you’re the only person I can say what I like to. If you don’t let me, I’ll bloody burst!”

Greenstone Johnson

I kept thinking about the story of Harry. Not my uncle Harry, nor the Harry that was with John Redlantern, but First Harry, Gela’s son, Harry Rulemaker, the third of the Three Fathers. I kept thinking about how he and his sisters were told two opposite things. One: Brothers and sisters must never slip together. Two: You
must
slip with one another, or you will grow old and die alone. Whatever they did, it would be wrong.

I called Council together again. I brought all those vain, wary, jealous men to the Headmanhouse. I sat in Dad’s stone seat under the whitelantern tree and told them that me and my dad had agreed to make a new rule that each of the metal chiefs could make forest people work in his digs, as many as he liked, as long as he took them from the forest next to his own grounds. He just had to send out his ringmen and bring them in.

The metal chiefs were pleased with this, and Dixon was specially happy because they all knew I was agreeing to his request. The flower chiefs and bat chiefs weren’t so happy, though. Some of them wanted to know why they couldn’t bring in forest people, too, if they needed them. The teachers weren’t happy, either, complaining that they needed more helpers in the Teachinghouse, and how come extra help was being given to chiefs and not to them? Not one chief or teacher mentioned that the new rule would be hard on the forest people, who minded their own business and harmed no one. Not one of them pointed out how cruel it was to take them from the light of the forest into the darkness and danger of the digs. It seemed it was only me who worried about that.

I told them another decision I’d made as well. I gave Dixon the name of Pool Chief, and put him in charge of all the plans to gather together the boats and spears and arrows we’d need to cross Worldpool and take the Veekle and Circle Valley. He was disappointed and angry, of course, that he’d not got the job he asked for, but all the same, many of the other chiefs, specially the flower chiefs and bat chiefs, were jealous that I’d given this to him and not to them.

That was something I could turn to my advantage later, I thought, if Dixon got too big and needed cutting down, and I congratulated myself on my own cleverness, feeling strong and tall as I walked down the Red Cave at the end of the meeting, with the chiefs and teachers clapping and bowing. Later on it would strike me as strange that I should have felt so strong and powerful and in charge of things when I’d just made two rules that went completely against my own heart—
for I hated the idea of attacking Old Ground as much as I hated forcing forest people into the digs—
but all the same, that’s how it was.

“Get someone to come and tell me where the Ringwearer is,” I said as I came out into the Tall Cave.

Third Horn had just blown, I felt hungry hungry, and I looked forward to eating with Starlight.

“Certainly, Father,” said a ringman, bowing his head. “And just to let you know, two whisperers have been caught up at Gerry Cave. They’re being questioned now at the Teachinghouse, and they should be ready for the Rock next waking.”

Starlight Brooking

Greenstone didn’t tell me about the two being sent to the Rock until after First Horn, when we’d been bathed and wrapped by our helpers.

“I thought I wouldn’t tell you earlier,” he said, “so you wouldn’t have to think about it until you needed to. We have to be there, you see, so as to show that the punishment comes from all of New Earth. It’s the worst part of our job.”

I remembered how weirdly proud I once had been of how my dad had punished people in Mainground. It had made me feel hard and tough compared to the other kids in gentle, boring Knee Tree Grounds: the idea that my own dad had run people through with spears, or tied them to hot trees. Sometimes I’d even boasted about it, just as my mother boasted about it to me. But it all felt different now.

“We have to watch them fall?”

“We have to be there when it happens, and usually the Ringwearer says a few words so people can see that the mother consents to it, too.”

“I guess they scream when the moment comes?”

“Usually there’s something tied round their mouths so they don’t.”

“What must it be like, in those last moments, knowing that they
 
.
.
.
?”

“I just hope we never find out.”

A distance came suddenly into Greenstone’s face, like he’d had a glimpse of the future. Then he shook himself back into the world. “You need to bear in mind,” he said, “that everyone in New Earth knows the rules and the punishments for breaking them. These women could have avoided this.”

“I suppose at least it’s people who’ve done something wrong, not just some poor chief’s son who might one waking want to be Headman.”

“Yes. It’s people who broke the rules, and it won’t be anyone we know.”

Greenstone had the car brought up for us. The Head Teacher had arrived from the Teachinghouse and, after he’d slobbered over the ring, two strong ringmen heaved his fat body up into the car and he rode with us down to Steam Fall.

“What did these people do, anyway?” I asked as we set off.

“They were whisperers, Ringwearer,” the Head Teacher told me. “The Rock is the punishment for all whisperers, and for anyone who listens to whispering without reporting it.”

“What’s a whisperer?”

Teacher Michael laughed. “I’m sorry, Ringwearer. It’s so easy to forget that you come from a different place. Whisperers are women who claim to have received a special secret message passed down from Mother Gela, which they themselves pass on to others. For that reason, it’s
particularly
important that you’re there so you can make quite clear that Mother Gela doesn’t
 
.
.
.”

He went on talking and explaining things for some time after that, but I’d stopped being able to hear him. The car was bumping along the path. Trees were shining around us. Glitterbirds were most probably squabbling on the roof above. But I was no longer there.

“Are you all right, Starlight?” Greenstone asked me.

Hmmmph hmmmph hmmmph
went the trees of the Great Cave forest, like this was no different from any other waking. My tongue was so dry that it seemed to be stuck to the roof of my mouth.

“I’ve
 
.
.
. I’ve never seen a person being done for before,” I said.

“Never seen a person done for?” said the Head Teacher. “Well, it’s a good thing to see, if you know the person’s done wrong. It’s good to see New Earth being made stronger.”

I tried to moisten my mouth.

“It seems harsh to do for someone just for whispering some silly story.”

“Oh, really, Ringwearer!” the Head Teacher exclaimed. “It’s
because
the story is so silly that it must punished. John Redlantern was Gela’s truest son, we know that for certain. Gela guided him to the ring so he could lead the way out of Circle Valley—
well, we wouldn’t be here otherwise, would we?—
and, for her sake, he set himself to rebuild all Eden as a New Earth for Gela’s children.
We
are Gela’s people, and we can’t have these women confusing things with these lies.”

“It is harsh, I know, Starlight,” Greenstone said, “but you’ve got to remember that you’re new here. Everyone in New Earth knows that whispering is against the rules, and everyone knows the Rock is the punishment. So these women did have a choice. All they had to do was not whisper, and they’d not be where they are now.”

“Well, they
might
still be, actually,” Teacher Michael pointed out, “if we’d discovered in some other way that they’d been told the story and not reported it. It often happens when we catch a whisperer that she gives us the names of other people she’s whispered to. And of course we always question the daughters of every whisperer, because nine times out of ten, it’s her own daughters she’s told.”

“What, and then the ones she’s whispered to get thrown to the fire as well?”

“Certainly, if they failed to report it. How will we ever stamp out this stupid story otherwise?”

A little buck stopped for a moment in our path, turned its flat black eyes toward us, sampled the air with its feelers.

“I can’t see why anyone ever answers your questions, if it means they’re going to send their own mother or daughter to the Rock.”

The Head Teacher gave Greenstone a look like grown-
ups give each other over the head of a child. “Well, the ringmen do help us with the questioning, Ringwearer. Most people are afraid of pain.”

“I don’t
 
.
.
. What? Are you saying you hurt them on purpose?”

“Like the Headmanson said, people know they have a choice. They tell us what we need to know, or they get hurt.”

Again, I ran my tongue round inside my mouth, trying to moisten it.

“Well, I don’t think these people should go to the Rock. Killers I could understand, but not people who’ve just heard a story. And anyway, Gela has been dead a long long time. How does anyone really know which of the stories about her is true? Like our Jeff used to say, the past keeps changing. You guys have one version of the story of Eden. The Davidfolk have another. These women have another again. How can you be sure which one is right? How can you be sure their story
doesn’t
come from Gela?”

The Head Teacher’s face darkened, like it always did when I questioned whether he knew best. “Ringwearer, you must be careful careful what you say. Remember that you speak for Mother Gela, and people listen to every word. I hope you’re not suggesting that we teachers have got it wrong?”

Greenstone came in now. “Oh, come on now, Teacher,” he said firmly. “It’s a big big thing to do for a human being on purpose, and Starlight has never seen it before. You can’t expect her not to be uneasy about it! It wouldn’t be human.”

Teacher Michael shrugged and looked away. I’d been wishing that this journey could go on forever and never reach where it was going, but the dreadful edge of Steam Fall had already appeared ahead of us, and I could see the little shadowy shapes of thirty forty people there, black against the steam.

The Head Teacher turned stiffly toward me. “I’m sorry if I was too hard on you, then, Ringwearer. It’s not your fault that some of the things you’ve been taught are wrong, and I can see that death might seem a harsh punishment to one who doesn’t yet understand the damage these people do to John’s great plan. I don’t ask you to say you
agree
with the punishment if you’re not ready to do so, but I do ask you to make clear that these whisperers do
not
speak for the Mother of Eden.”

We climbed down from the car, and walked toward the people. There were about ten ringmen there, and a chief called Sky, and a bunch of small people come to watch, but I hardly noticed any of them because there in middle were two women with their hands tied behind their backs and pieces of plantstuff pulled tight across their mouths. One—
her name was Brightflame—
was an old stooped thing with white hair. The other, Sue, was about the same age as Glitterfish. She was a fat, dumpy little woman who looked like she might be a slowhead, and there were five fat little boys all around her, clinging to her and crying.

“They’re both stonebreakers in the digs at Gerry Cave,” the Head Teacher said, glancing down at one of his barks. “As you can see, the woman Sue has five sons but no daughters. She apparently decided to tell the so-
called Secret Story to a niece whose dad was a ringman. The niece probably wouldn’t have told anyone, but someone had seen Sue talking to her and she was afraid of being reported, so she went and told her dad. The old woman is Sue’s mother. Sue tried at first to say that she’d heard the story from her great grandmother, who of course is conveniently dead, but they all do that, and we got the truth out of her in the end.”

I could see the cuts and bruises on the younger woman’s head.

“You need to let go of your mum now, boys,” a ringman told the children in a gentle voice, but they took no notice, and he and the other ringmen had to peel them off her one by one, while they kicked and scratched and screamed.

When the two women were standing on their own, I walked forward. I touched their arms and then, although I hadn’t planned to do it, I kissed each of them on the cheek. As soon as I’d done it, I felt I’d done a horrible, stupid thing, though I couldn’t think what else I might have done.

“Right then, you two,” the first ringman said to them. “Time to get you up on top, I’m afraid.”

He spoke kindly to them, just as he’d spoken to their children, as if a kind voice could somehow make this right. The women shuffled forward and were gently helped up onto the top of that black rock by two more ringmen, who climbed up after them.

“We watch from here, Starlight,” Greenstone said, pointing to a place on the edge, where a long branch had been set up to prevent us from falling over.

I felt numb. It was like when you’ve been lying on your arm and it’s gone to sleep, but it wasn’t my arm but my mind that was all thick and useless. I walked with him to the edge. I looked down. It was one of those moments when the steam had blown aside and I could see straight away, I could numbly see, exactly why they used this particular spot, for there were none of those rocks sticking out from the side, and the drop went straight on down all the way to that brilliant orange fire.

“Ringwearer?” I heard a voice saying, and I realized that someone nearby had been trying to get my attention.

“Starlight?” said Greenstone. “Can’t you hear? Teacher Michael is asking you to speak. It only needs to be a few words and, like he said, you don’t have to say you agree with the punishment.”

“Speak?”

I looked round and saw the ringmen and the little boys and all the other people behind them waiting for me.

“It’s
 
.
.
. It’s silly to believe a story just because it’s been passed down to you,” I began.

“You need to speak louder, Starlight,” Greenstone murmured, “or no one will know you’re speaking at all.”

I’d shrunk down inside myself, I realized, and my voice had shrunk with me. Now I stood up taller, took a deep breath, and made myself speak in the strong voice of the Ringwearer. At once my head cleared and words came.

“It’s silly to pass on a story just because it’s been passed down to you from the past. You can’t really know if it comes from where it says it comes from, and you can’t know who may have changed it over the generations. The only way you can be sure a thing is true is
 
.
.
.”

I hesitated here. How could you be sure
anything
was true? And, Gela’s heart, why was I talking about this, anyway, when those poor women were standing there with that awful drop beneath them, and those little boys were waiting?

“You often can’t be sure at all,” I said. “All you can do is decide for yourself whether a story is likely to be true. So I think these two women have been silly, but looking at them now, I’m not sure they’re all that smart. I’m quite sure they haven’t had a chance to read any of those barks full of knowledge the teachers have in the Teachinghouse, and I think maybe they just made a mistake. So
 
.
.
. well, I’m the Ringwearer. I try to speak as Mother Gela would speak if she was here, and I try to remember that she’s the mother of us all: Johnfolk and Davidfolk, big people and small people, smart people and foolish people. And what I think is that she’d want her children to be given another chance, if she knew they weren’t too smart and had done a silly thing. That’s why I’m asking the ringmen here kindly to let these women get down from the Rock. If they promise never to whisper those stories again, I think we should let them go.”

The little boys’ eyes were shining with hope, and though you couldn’t make out the two whisperers’ faces properly with that plantstuff round their mouths, I could see them relax and breathe. Even the ringmen looked relieved.

I glanced toward Greenstone. He opened his mouth, but the Head Teacher spoke first.

“Push them over, men.”

And they did. They pushed them with the blunt ends of their spears, and the women fell backward over the edge.

“Mum!”
screamed one of the little boys.

It was so loud, so piercing, that even through the roaring of that huge waterfall, it seemed to fill up the cave.

I looked round at the boys’ faces—
I guess they were like my face that time I came back to the Sand and learned what had happened to my mum—
and then I looked down. Far far below us, those two women were still falling, already tiny, already far beyond the reach of anyone else, but still whole, still alive and thinking. And then suddenly, one after the other, they burst into flames.

The sight of it made me throw up. My sick fell down after them through the steam.

“How can the Head Teacher
 
.
.
.
?”

Greenstone was pale and trembling, and his hands gripping that branch were white white. “I
 
.
.
.” he began.