Eden, Dawn

  ***

  The remainder of the day wound down in painful, mind-numbing tedium. In complete silence, Jordi and I retrieved the bow and arrows Shawz had littered the jungle with during his panic-fuelled dash. Jordin didn’t say a word, and I wasn’t going to try to force him to make small talk. I knew if Ruzzell asked him to join his little mob, he’d do so in a heartbeat. Just how far and how fast my stock had plummeted within the clan disturbed me. The force was definitely not with me.

  Nice one, genius!

  In a twist of spine-tingling satire, a Hog had found a way to fall into our trap even though I hadn’t replaced the covering foliage. Since I’d removed the spikes, it was still very much alive but had worn itself out trying to scale the hole. Hearing us approach, the dumb creature hefted itself to its feet, snuffled the air and grunted brainlessly, before plonking down again exhausted.

  It made for a grisly sight.

  The Hog had ripped apart the claws on its front feet in its desperate but vain attempts to escape, tearing the soft pads beneath its feet to shreds. And it had worn the top of its head bald, evidently in fear or pain; sporting now, a scab-encrusted scalp. I felt an instant pang of guilt for its unnecessary suffering. Putting it out of its misery was all that pressed me now.

  It made for an easy kill, so I asked Jordin if he wanted to do the honours.

  Useless with the bow, even Jordin could kill a worn-out, captive Hog. Even though he regularly pleaded to be allowed to hunt, and was always declined, he snubbed the opportunity this time with a groan. A personal snub perhaps. He did seem afraid of coming anywhere near the pit. Shawz and Dixan’s frightening description of Shumbalic, possibly another reason he spurned the chance.

  After killing the petrified creature, I jumped into the hole to retrieve it. Being back in the pit, where my actions the day before had cast a doubtful shadow over my character, felt surreal. Did I really defend one of them against my clan, the enemy against my family? Was I totally deceived? The choices we make. I couldn’t blame Judd or Dixan or Jordin or any of the others. I’d have misgivings about me if I wasn’t me.

  After getting back to camp, and skinning and gutting the Hog, I speared it on the spit over the fire the girls had freshly stoked. During lunch, amid an eerie silence, we ate without a word being shared. I would have loved to know what Gellica and Nadalie were thinking, but I dared not ask. I knew they’d have questions that I couldn’t answer yet.

  A much-welcomed breeze swirled through the camp, stirring the lazy, dangling leaves above us to life, helping to dispel some of the midday jungle heat. When the others left after lunch to engage with their planned afternoon activities, I watched the sunlight probing through a natural window in the jungle canopy shift and wane, and the shadows respond to its prying. It was my haven of calm, chance to take a long, loaded breath; a lull before the storm to come.

  The return of the gang a couple of hours before sundown was unnerving; ungluing actually. The first headwinds before a tempest in the offering. Ruzzell and the younger guys were unruly and bombastic. Clearly, they planned to keep mum on the exploits of their day, but they sure wanted us to know they had secrets to keep. While Gellica, Nadalie, Jordin and I were on the end of boisterous disdain—we weren’t part of the gang, and they wanted us to know it—haughty looks and sneering half comments were reserved for me alone. To be fair, Judd, and to a lesser extent Dixan, looked uncomfortable with the juvenile bravado on display.

  I was grateful for the excuse of nightfall to escape up my tree. And it goes without saying, there weren’t too many times over the last decade that I looked forward to nighttime.

  “You can run but you can’t hide, Villain!” Ruzzell bellowed after me, with enough attendant bile to poison an adult Hog—the first words he had spoken to me directly since yesterday’s episode. “Your traitorous actions are now public knowledge!” The howls of laughter that followed seemed forced but the apprehension I felt was not.

  I strapped myself up for the night, and peered through a gap in the foliage cover above my head through which I could see the pale silver moon in a starless sky.

  While Eden had only one moon, it seemed that it may have had a second. Forming a thin ring of debris around the planet, the alleged remains of Eden’s second moon were most evident during summer at full moon when the night sky appeared encircled by a necklace of pearls. Breathtaking. In those infrequent moments, the brilliant radiance that illuminated the darkness meant that those were the only nights during the year when we could be sure they would not attack. Given that the middle of summer was scorching hot, and we were forced to hide from the sun’s scalding rays—often trapped in the shade of our trees, numbed with boredom and covered in a perpetual layer of perspiration—those nights of spectacular beauty and wonder were a cherished highlight. And there were far too few on this damnable planet.

  Tonight, however, the insipid light of a waning moon meant it was even darker than usual. In a goading conflict of two minds, as a bead of nervous sweat slipped down the small of my back, I heard myself mutter, “Please come tonight, Shumbalic.”

  Even though I was scared stiff that my desire might actually be fulfilled.