But the fact was that when Mary went back into middle of the circle and carried on with her show, the words she spoke from then on didn’t seem so silly any more, and they still didn’t seem silly now, walking through forest with Trueheart, even though I’d since fallen out with Mary. Of course Mother Gela didn’t want her family to break up. What mother would? And why shouldn’t it be true, just as Mary and all the Davidfolk said, that Gela herself had come alive again back on Earth, and was reaching out to us through the emptiness between the stars? Earth people could do all kinds of wonderful things, after all, and we ourselves were proof of it. For wasn’t it amazing that human beings from across the stars should be here at all, living among creatures with green-black blood and flat flat black eyes, who are kin to one another but not to us at all? If Earth people could find a way of crossing that cold black sky, who was to say they couldn’t bring someone’s shadow home and give it flesh?

‘Well, I know you don’t like shadowspeakers, Trueheart, but I liked Mary. She taught me things. You’ve got to remember that I didn’t grow up with the True Story as you did, so some things that seem obvious to you were fresh and new to me. We Kneefolk were Jeffsfolk, remember, not Davidfolk.’

‘So she said you were beautiful and she asked you to go with her?’