Read Online Mother of Eden by Chris Beckett - Free Book Online Page B

of place do you think it is over there?”
    “Those men are like guards,” I told her. “They’re not guards, of course; they’re ringmen. But it’s a job, like being a guard, that men are better at because they’re stronger.”
    “We’ve never needed any guards on Grounds,” Dixon said. “Seems to me you only need guards in places where people have to be made to do things they don’t want to do.”
    I turned on him.
    “ Listen to me, Uncle! They’re not guards. They’re against guards. David Redlantern started guards because he wanted to catch John and Jeff and Tina and do for them. Why would the Johnfolk have anything to do with guards?”
    “Okay, but just answer me this,” Julie persisted. “What exactly is he offering you? What does he want from you? What kind of life would you have if you went with him?”
    I wasn’t fooling Julie one bit. She knew I was desperate. She knew I was close to tears. She knew I had no idea what I was letting myself in for.
    “And there’s something else, too, Starlight,” she said, taking my hand and refusing to let me shake her off. “Even some of the New Earth people don’t want you to go. I overheard something earlier. There was this tall man in blue. He was talking to Greenstone about you, and he was threatening him, Starlight. He was threatening him with fire.”
    “Fire?” I snorted. “What are you talking about, Julie?”
    “Don’t be angry with me, Starlight. I don’t know what he meant any better than you do. I’m just telling you what I heard. All I know for certain is that he was making a threat, a real, angry threat. I wondered if maybe they use fire there for punishments, like the Davidfolk use scalding trees.”
    I shrugged. “I’d better go and talk to Greenstone.”
    “I’ll come, too, then,” Dixon said at once, standing there in that ridiculous colored wrap.
    “Thank you, Uncle, but I’d rather you didn’t come. I want him to know it’s up to me.”
    “Well, why not take me, then?” Angie said. “He won’t think it’s up to me . He’s hardly noticed my existence . ”
    I hesitated for a moment. Whatever I pretended, I was scared scared. “Yes, thanks, Angie. That’s a good idea.”
    “I reckon we should put on these wraps they gave us,” she said.
    There was a weird little time, then, while Angie and me got silly and excited about putting on our new wraps, like we were just kids and would be together forever and ever. And then, just as quickly as it started, that little game was over, and the two of us were walking along the ledge to where Greenstone kept his boats, with nothing to say to each other at all.
    “What does Julie know about except paddling boats and cutting bark from trees?” I whispered to myself. “It was Gela herself who said a woman should choose a man like Greenstone, and where she came from, they know so much about everything that they can fly between the stars.”
    I had sometimes wondered, since Mum told me the Secret Story, how anyone could be sure it really came from Gela and why, even if it did, that should necessarily make it true. I’d sometimes wondered, too, about that strange expression on Mum’s face each time she repeated those words. But who cared about all that now, when the Secret Story was telling me what I wanted to hear?

Greenstone Johnson
     
    There she was! She’d come! There was Starlight, the shining water on one side of her and the flamelight of Veeklehouse on the other, and no one with her except her holeface friend. She was beautiful beautiful in the blue wrap I’d sent for her, truly more beautiful than any woman I’d ever seen.
    I was so relieved. I’d been so afraid she’d turn away from me. And now I couldn’t help myself. Ignoring Chief Dixon calling out to me to behave like a Headmanson, I ran toward her like an excited kid.
    “Starlight! You came! I’m so glad! I’m so so glad! And, Gela’s heart, you look lovely in that wrap!”
    “You said   ...”