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shapes.
    “‘Healing,’” Greenstone read out. “That’s handy.”
    He and one of the men led me inside and up a ladder, where an old woman wiped the cut with soft buckskin and put some fatty stuff on it.
    “Did you trade those sticks I gave you for something nice?” Greenstone asked me when we were back outside.
    “No, I shared them with the others,” I said. “Otherwise it wouldn’t really have been   ... well, fair.”
    He frowned.
    “I’ve caused you a problem of some sort with your people, haven’t I? I knew it was stupid. To give a gift to a girl like that, without asking her father! I’d never have done a thing like that at home. It’s just that, well, you looked so lovely.”
    I had no idea what he was talking about. “Dixon’s my uncle,” I told him.
    “Your uncle, then. I’m sorry. How can I make it up to you? Would it be okay if I were to get you a meal?”
    I glanced at Angie, who kind of shrugged. Of course this wasn’t so exciting for her as it was for me.
    “A problem?” I gabbled, turning back to him at once. “A meal? No. Why would it be?”
    He gestured toward another of the shelters of Veeklehouse.
    “Are you fond of woollybuck meat? They cook it good good there, in a juice of fruit and starflowers.” Then he laughed. “Do you know what? I don’t even know your name!”
    “I’m Starlight, and this is my best friend, Angie.”
    He looked in Angie’s direction and nodded, but didn’t meet her eyes. Batfaces aren’t a pretty sight, of course, with their noses and mouths all mashed up together, but this seemed more than that. It was almost like he’d never been this close to a batface before.
    The three of us sat on a log on top of the clifftop, sharing a bark plate piled with stew. The dark shapes of boats were moving slowly over the shining water beneath us, and bats were circling above them, their bellies lit by the water’s light, and diving down from time to time to snatch up fish and scraps. Greenstone’s two companions were someway off along the cliff, and their faces were hidden by shadow, but Greenstone himself had his back to Worldpool, so that the flamelight of Veeklehouse fell on his lovely face, lively and full of confidence. I’d never seen anyone so beautiful.
    I felt like I’d melted inside. I felt like the solid parts of my body had been scooped out of me and replaced with something warm and liquid and light. I felt I’d finally broken out of the ordinariness and sameness of the world.
    “You should learn to settle for the good things we have in Knee Tree Grounds!” Glitterfish had often told me, but I’d always always known that if I looked hard enough I’d find something more.
    “You’re not from Veeklehouse yourself, I think?”
    Greenstone helped himself to a large green lump of buckmeat.
    “We’re not from Mainground at all,” I told him. “We’re from Knee Tree Grounds. It’s a little place out in Worldpool.”
    “You mean it’s a waterhill?”
    “Waterhill?”
    “You don’t know that word?” Greenstone laughed. “People do speak strangely over on this side of the Pool. It just means a bit of ground with water all round it.”
    I smiled and nodded. “Oh, well, yes. It is, then. A waterhill. ” It was kind of fun saying it. “We just call that a grounds . But you come from right across the far side, yes?”
    I’d never noticed before how delicious it could feel to say the word you .
    “That’s right. From New Earth.”
    “New Earth?”
    “Noo Urf!” He laughed as he copied my way of speaking. “We say   New Earth. But please please go on saying it your way.”
    He took some more of the meat, then wiped the green juice from his fingers and lips with a square of plain fakeskin he took out from inside his wrap.
    “You’re not eating, Starlight!”
    How could I eat when all my insides had melted away? I picked at the corner of a piece of meat.
    “New Earth’s a long way away,” Greenstone said. “Ten whole wakings’