There she was, the shadowspeaker, standing right in middle of our own Meeting Place, the same place where we Kneefolk met every waking to listen out, not for some long-dead person, or some far off voice calling out to us from Earth, but for the Watcher who was as close as can be, the secret awakeness that looks out from the eyes of everyone. I could see the tree right behind her where Jeff Redlantern’s own words were carved. WE ARE REELY HEAR, he’d written.

I heard one of the older grownups mutter that the shadowspeaker was trampling on purpose on the things that mattered most to us, trampling on the story that made us Kneefolk into who we were, and I must say it felt like that to me as well. But I’d decided the best way of dealing with this was to see the funny side of it. Just like we’d done at Nob Head, I’d listen politely, and then have a good laugh when she and her guards had gone.

But now we were actually faced with the shadowspeaker, things felt different. This woman wasn’t really ridiculous at all. You could see she was smart smart. You could see her studying our faces with her sharp sharp eyes, and it was like she could see right through us. Her name was Mary. She was a short, solid, fierce-looking woman, with a big square face, reddish hair that she’d cut short so it stuck out in little tufts and spikes, and small piercing grey eyes. She wore a longwrap made of fakeskin, woven from crushed starflower stems, much as the high people wore on Mainground, though without the fancy colours or the feathers and beads and dried batwings. We Kneefolk just wore little buckskin waistwraps, with bare feet and bare breasts.

Mary stood there waiting until we were all silent, and then, without speaking a word, she took a stick and drew a circle in the sand, the way that Davidfolk always do when they find themselves in a place where there isn’t already a circle of stones. Then she stood up straight again and looked round at us. She’d made the Davidfolk sign, right there in middle of the place where we met to tell our own stories, and it was like she was daring us to object. None of us did – we knew better than to do anything that might upset the Davidfolk, and in any case, Mary wasn’t the kind of person you’d want to argue with – so then she stepped inside her circle, which was something that only shadowspeakers and Head Guards were supposed to do.

‘Do you know what the Circle stands for?’ she asked.

No one wanted to answer, but she just waited, knowing quite well that sooner or later someone wouldn’t be able to bear the silence any longer. And sure enough, a woman called Fire finally spoke.