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long will we be here?’ And as she asked, again, she knew the answer.
    â€˜You are staying here.’
    Mara was not going to let herself cry.
    â€˜Where are my father and mother?’
    â€˜What did Gorda tell you?’
    Mara said, ‘I was so thirsty while he was telling me things, I couldn’t listen.’
    â€˜That’s rather a pity. You see, I don’t know much myself. I was hoping you could tell me.’ She got up, and yawned. ‘I was awake all night. I was expecting you sooner.’
    â€˜There was a flood.’
    â€˜I know. I was up there watching it go past.’ She pointed to the window, which was just a square hole in the wall with nothing to cover it or stop people looking in. It was light outside: the sun was up. Daima pointed through it, past some rock houses to a ridge. ‘That’s where you came. Over that ridge is the river. Not the place you crossed, but the same one higher up. And beyond that is another river – if you can call them rivers now. They are just waterholes.’ Then she took Mara by the shoulders and turned her round so that she was facing into the room. ‘Your home is in that direction. Rustam is there.’
    â€˜How far is it from here?’
    â€˜In the old days, by sky skimmer, half a day. Walking, six days.’
    â€˜We came part of the way with a cart bird. But it got tired and stopped.’ And now Mara’s eyes filled and she said, beginning to cry, ‘I think it must be dead, it was so thin.’
    â€˜I think you are tired. I’m going to put you to bed.’
    Daima took Mara into an inner room. It was like the outer roomwithout the big table of rocks in the middle, but it had couches made of rocks, three of them, built against the walls. It wasn’t thatch here but a roof of thin pieces of stone.
    Daima showed Mara which shelf to use and a little rock room that was the lavatory and said, ‘I shall lie down for a little too. Don’t take any notice when I get up.’ And she lay down on a shelf that had pads on it to make it soft, and seemed to be asleep.
    Mara on her rocky shelf, which was hard in spite of the pads, was far from sleeping. For one thing she was worrying about Dann next door. Suppose he woke and found himself alone in a strange place? She wanted to wake Daima and tell her, but didn’t dare. Several times she crept off this hard shelf that was supposed to be a bed and crept to the doorway to listen, but then Daima got up and went next door. Mara had time to take a good look at her.
    Daima was old. She was like Mara’s grandmothers and grand-aunts. She had the same glossy, long, black hair, streaked all the way to the ends with grey, and her legs had knots of veins on them. Her hands were long and bony. Mara suddenly thought, But she’s a Person, she’s one of the People, so what is she doing here in a rock village?
    Now Mara knew she wouldn’t sleep. She sat up and looked carefully around her. A big floor candle made a good, steady light she could see nearly everything by. These walls were made of big blocks of rock. They were smooth, and she could see carvings on them, some coloured. These walls were not like the ones in the other rock house, whose walls had been rough. Overhead, the big stone columns that held up the stone slabs of the roof had carvings on them. There were shelves made of rock, and in the corner a little room, sticking out, and opposite that a door into an inner room, with curtains of the brown, slippery stuff. This room had a window, but there were wooden shutters, not properly closed. People could see in if they wanted. Outside now, people were walking about; Mara could hear them: they were talking.
    Now Mara was sitting up, arms on her knees, and she had never thought harder in her life.
    At home there was a game that all the parents played with their children. It was called, What Did You See? Mara was about Dann’s age when she was first