My mother was beaten in the streets twice, just for being older. Someone had to be blamed and it was the old people. She survived the beatings, one of which broke her arm in three places. She died when Sorrel was twelve, because she went looking for plums in a small, still-wooded valley in the foothills, where, it was rumoured, there was a bearing tree – she hated being inside all the time. Two days later she got the circular mark of the new tick disease, named the same as an old-time party on Bajacu. A lyme. We used to joke about the name, she told me, when the red circles on her arm appeared. I paid a cartman all the skynuts we had to take her body away, so Sorrel wouldn’t see her. She always was close to her Grammy.

CHAPTER 15 – FIRST CAVE

Sorrel walked behind Emrallie, touching her shoulder. The Tribal girl’s hair tickled her wrist. Maybe she was fifteen or sixteen. The cave smelled musty and the Tribal carried no light. No PlAK, Sorrel thought suddenly. Maybe she had a bargaining tool after all.

There was a wavering light ahead and she began to see more of the large cave. She heard the murmur of voices and the sound of rushing water somewhere.

“Let me go now,” Emrallie said, and Sorrel dropped her hand.

The Tribal led her into the light. A group of about ten females sat in a circle around a torch stuck in a receptacle. The light revealed brown faces under the same type of woven hat worn by Emrallie. Sorrel judged they were all teenagers.

One very tall girl had long black hair in a plait down her back. “Who’s this?” she demanded, rising to her feet. She held a rusty shovel like a weapon. “Looks like a guatan Lowlander.”

“She fell into the cenote. I pulled her out,” Emrallie said.

“Why?” demanded the standing girl.

Emrallie shrugged. “She’d have drowned.”

“She’s got good boots,” observed another with curly reddish hair. “You’ve got a real saviour complex, Emrallie.”

“I’ve got a PlAK,” blurted Sorrel and she felt the gaze of the Tribals. “A working PlAK. With a solar charger. We could go and get it when it’s night. Also, two backpacks full of stuff.”

“Why don’t you have all this with you?” said the standing girl.

“She left it with her mother,” Emrallie said.

“In the open?”

“Sounds like she was inside the culvert at Choreto Spring,” Emrallie said. “I figure we should let Caroni decide what to do.”

The standing female looked unconvinced. Sorrel saw one of the other girls put something in her mouth and she realised she was starving. “Do you have food?”

“Oh guata, Rashelope. Let her sit. Give her some food. We decide what to do nextnight,” Emrallie said, taking Sorrel’s elbow and pulling her into the circle of females.