‘They were named after a place on Earth, apparently,’ said Mary, her face friendly and familiar once again. ‘A place called Night. The light of Earth’s star never shines there, and there are no lanterns or flowers either, so it’s dark dark.’

‘I guess the Earth people have lecky-trickity to help them, don’t they?’ I said. ‘They use it to make light of their own.’

Out on Knee Tree Grounds, where there were only water creatures and bats, we used to love hearing stories about the big animals on Mainground, like nightmakers and leopards and woollybucks. We were always told that nightmakers were named by John Redlantern, and that he’d named them, not after a place, but after a kind of enormous shadow that swept across the Earth each waking, hiding it from its star for a while. When the shadow passed, the light came back again, pouring down from the sky like it does on Earth. And weren’t nightmakers just like that? They made a big shadow as they passed through forest, but then new lanterns grew in a waking or so, and the shadow passed.

But I didn’t talk about that to Mary. Any mention of John Redlantern or the Johnfolk always made her cross, and I didn’t like it when she reminded me that my old friends were Johnfolk too.

I remembered when I was first told the Secret Story by my aunt Sue back there on the Grounds. She was a bit embarrassed about it, not because she thought it was bad in any way, but more because the way we lived back then, a lot of it seemed so obvious:

‘Always remember that women are just as good as men . . . Just because someone thinks they’re special doesn’t mean they’re really better than anyone else, and nor does having a big shelter, or a fancy wrap . . . Don’t treat people like they’re things that belong to you . . .’

Obvious obvious all this had seemed back then! Who could possibly disagree? But there were also odd bits that made no sense at all, like: ‘Don’t ever treat someone differently because of the colour of their skin.’

The colour of their skin? If you really thought about it, it was true that some people’s skin was a lighter shade of yellowy-brown than others. But who would ever think of making something out of that?

Thirteen

I’m just saying, Dad,’ said Trueheart, ‘that if the Johnfolk are really as wicked as you’ve always said they are, how come they let us go without hurting us or even taking any of our stuff ?’

The two of them had been arguing for some time, and Tom had been getting crosser and crosser. Now his face was red, his breathing fast, his eyes bulging. He was almost too angry to speak.