Free Mother of Eden by Chris Beckett Page B

were even people watching from the top of the cliff.
    And all those watching eyes changed me somehow, made me feel taller and stronger as I walked back to Greenstone. I wasn’t just Starlight anymore, but someone in a story.
    “Okay,” I said. “I’ll come with you and be your housewoman.”
    Sweet man. Tears came into his eyes at once. “But does your uncle not need to   ... I mean, don’t you   ...?”
    It was like he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing.
    “My uncle knows this is my choice.”
    “Oh, that’s good.” He sighed, like he’d been holding his breath for a long long time. “That’s good good!”
    I leaned forward and kissed his cheek, and then I looked past him at Chief Dixon. I looked straight at that cold cold man, daring daring daring him to interfere. Jeff’s shining ride, he looked angry angry—he looked so angry he could kill—but he didn’t speak. He just snarled and turned away. It was obvious this wasn’t the end of it as far as he was concerned, but I’d stood up to him, whoever he was, and Greenstone had stood up to him, too, for the sake of being with me.
    Greenstone turned toward the ringmen who were waiting by the fires and around the boats.
    “This is Starlight,” he told them all in a loud voice. “And she will be my housewoman.”
    I turned to them and waved, and they all stood and cheered.
    “Greenstone,” I said. “I met three men up in Veeklehouse: big, tough men who protected me when this horrible guard attacked me. They want to come and be ringmen for you, and I’d really like that. They were friends of my dad’s, and I’d like to have people with us who came from my side of the Pool.”
    “Well, of course we’ll bring them,” he said. “We’ll bring them to Edenheart, and then your dad’s friends will always be nearby.”
    Angie touched my shoulder. She was crying and, as I kissed her squishy face and squeezed her hands, the tears finally came from my own eyes.
    “You need to go back and be with your people for a bit,” Greenstone said. “Take whatever time you need.”
    I shrugged. “Why not get the boats ready now?” I said, feeling Angie’s grip tightening as I spoke. “No point in hanging around.”

Julie Deepwater
     
    Tall Chief Dixon stood on the first boat, with a row of strong ringmen kneeling in the out-boats on either side of him, pulling quickly away from the ground. Starlight and Greenstone were to ride in the second boat, and the ringmen brought it up to the ledge so they could step onto it without getting wet.
    Starlight had changed when she came back to us from meeting Greenstone. She seemed taller, somehow—even taller than she was already—and more grown-up. But now, in this last moment, she was her old self, and she cried as she said good-bye to us.
    “I will come back,” she kept saying. “I promise I’ll come back.”
    She kissed me, and she kissed Lucky and Delight. She gave her brother, Johnny, a bigger kiss, and an even bigger one to her uncle Dixon, who was sobbing like a child. But the biggest and longest kiss was the one she gave to her friend Angie, right in middle of that funny, twisty bat mouth that Starlight had been kissing since before she could even walk. On and on the two of them clung together, still wearing the wraps that Greenstone had given them, Angie’s green and Starlight’s blue. Then quite suddenly Starlight let go, took Greenstone’s hand, and stepped onto the boat, never looking back as the men pushed away from the rock and began to paddle out into the bright bright water.
    When the third boat had set out, and Starlight’s boat was so far away that we could no longer make her out, we walked back along the ledge and loaded up our own rough long-boat with the things we’d traded for those sticks: blackglass spearheads, leopardtooth knives, woollybuck skins. It was a good load, and if Starlight had still been with us we’d have been pleased pleased, but none of us smiled now, and none