LITMIR.BIZ

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took up a good amount of their time and yielded them less than their gathering, but her father persisted in it because he believed that one day, it would pay off for them.

      ‘I could see that could be true about your da,’ Tats said quietly.

      ‘My mother said that everything she cherished had been sacrificed for my father’s dream. Maybe it’s true. I don’t know. When I was little, and he was a gatherer all the time, we lived in four rooms, built so close to a trunk that they scarcely swayed even in storm winds.’

      Those were the best houses in the Rain Wilds. The closer one lived to a trunk, the sturdier everything was, and the less wind and rain found them. The trunk markets were closer, and if one went down the trunks, there were taverns and playhouses. It was also true that there was less sunlight close to the trunk, but Thymara had always thought that a body could climb if she had a mind to feel sunlight and wind. The bridges and walkways that spanned the trees near their first home had been stoutly built, their guard walls tightly woven and kept in excellent repair. If she had to climb to find the sunlight, she also had the ability to go down and feel solid earth beneath her feet sometimes. She was never that enthused about those visits to the ground, but her mother had enjoyed them.

      ‘Why didn’t you like the ground? Seems the most natural place to live to me. I miss the ground. I miss just being able to run or walk and not be afraid of falling.’

      Thymara shook her head. ‘I don’t think I could ever trust the ground. Here in the Rain Wilds if you’re close to the ground, then you’re close to the river. And sooner or later, the river always rises. Sometimes so suddenly that there is no warning. Anything we build on the ground, we know it won’t last. Once, the river rose high enough to flood the old city. That was awful. A lot of workers were trapped and drowned.’ The wide relentless river frightened Thymara. She knew that seasonally it rose and flooded and that sometimes there had been sudden floods. The water was mildly acidic at the best of times; after quakes, it sometimes turned a deathly grey-white, and when it ran that colour, it could mean a man’s death to fall into it, and those who had boats knew to hoist them from the water until the river returned to its usual colour. Every moment she was on the ground, she dreaded that suddenly the river would rush up and devour her. Only when she was in the sturdy trees, high above the vagaries of the river and surrounding swamplands did she feel safe. It was a foolish fear, a child’s fear, but one that many Rain Wilders shared.

      Tats dismissed her fears with a shrug. He glanced around at the leafy branches that screened her from their neighbours and from a clear view of either sky or earth below. ‘You never seemed poor to me,’ he said quietly. ‘I always thought you had it pretty good, living up here.’

      ‘It’s not so bad, for me. It’s harder for my mother. She was used to a fancier way of life, with parties and pretty clothes and fine things. But there are other things I miss about where we used to live. Maybe it was just the age I was. But back then, down there, I had a lot more friends. When we were little, I guess no one cared so much about claws or nails. We just all played on the landings between levels. My father paid for me to be schooled; he bought my books, even though most of the other children paid by the week to borrow them. People thought he really spoiled me, and it made my mother furious about the wasted money. And we used to go places. I remember that once we travelled way down trunk to a play put on by actors from Jamaillia. I couldn’t understand what it was about, but the costumes were beautiful. Once we went to a grand entertainment, music, and a play, and jugglers and singers! I loved that. The stage was suspended in an opening among several trees, with the platform that supported it and the seating cross-roped and netted for sturdiness. That was the first time I realized just how big a city Trehaug really was. Leaves and branches hid most of the ground below us, but there was one vista of the river and overhead, through the hole in the canopy, I could see a huge patch of black sky and all sorts of stars. But the lights of thousands of homes twinkled, too, in the trees surrounding us, and the lantern-lit walkways reminded me of jewelled necklaces reaching from tree to tree.’ Thymara closed her eyes and turned her face up, recalling that sight.

      ‘And back then, once a month, as a family, we’d go out for an evening meal in Grassara’s Spice Bazaar, and we’d have meat as our main course. A whole piece of meat to eat myself, and one for my mother and one for my father.’ She shook her head. ‘My mother was discontented even then. But I guess she always was and always will be. No matter how much we have, she wants more.’

      ‘Sounds pretty normal to me,’ Tats said quietly. She opened her eyes and was surprised to see that he had edged closer to her perch without her even feeling it. He was getting better at moving though the branches. Before she could compliment him on it, he asked, ‘So when did it all change?’

      ‘It changed when my father started putting more of his time into trying to grow things. Seems like every year we had to move a bit higher and farther out.’ She glanced at Tats. He sat astride the limb, with one ankle locked around his other leg. He looked secure if a bit uncomfortable. His attention to her face made her self-conscious. Was he staring at her scaling? At the tiny scales that outlined her lips, at the nub of fringe that ran along her jawline? She turned her face away from him and spoke to the trees. ‘The last place we lived before we came to the Cricket Cages was the Bird Nests. Those used to be the poorest part of Trehaug. But then the Tattooed came and then other newcomers and we got pushed out of there.’

      The houses in the Bird Nests had consisted of small rooms, woven of vine and lath, with airy narrow pathways that led down several levels before one reached the good wide walkways and branch paths. ‘We lived in the Bird Nests for only a couple of years before we saw a flood of artists and artisans moving in. A lot of them were Tattooed, new to the Rain Wilds and needing cheaper rents and neighbourhoods where their neighbours would not complain about noise and parties and strange lifestyles.’ Thymara smiled to herself. She had loved living in the Bird Nests as much as her mother had despised it. Artists displayed their creations on every branch. The poorest section of the city became rich in beauty. Wind chimes hung at every crossroads, the safety walls along the paths were tapestries of coloured string and beads, and faces were painted on the rough bark of the tree branches that supported the flimsy homes. Even her family’s chambers became bright with colour, for her father often was offered only barter for the small crops he managed to grow. Long before Diana earned a reputation as an inspired weaver, Thymara wore a sweater and scarf made by her clever fingers and the carved chest that held her clothing had been made by Raffles himself. She loved those things not because they were valuable, but because they were daring and new. It was only later that her mother would be able to sell them for prices that amazed them all, but did not console Thymara for their loss.

      As always happens, or so her father said, the wealthy patrons of the artists began to frequent the Bird Nests. Not content to purchase merely what the artists made, the patrons began to buy their lifestyles as well. Soon the sons and daughters of the wealthier Rain Wild Trader families were living amongst them, behaving as if they were artists but creating nothing save noise, traffic and a wild reputation for the Bird Nests. Their families were able to pay much higher rents than her father could afford. The wealthy folk who had holiday homes among them demanded safer walkways and wider branch roads, and so they were taxed accordingly. Shops and cafés moved into adjacent trees. The artists who had established themselves were delighted. They were becoming wealthy and well known. ‘But the high rents pushed us right out. We couldn’t afford to pay the taxes any more, let alone eat in the cafés. We had to sell off all the art my father had received as barter, take what coin we could get, and move up again.’ She craned her head and looked up. A few yellow lights in tiny cottages flickered above. ‘I suppose the next time we get pushed out we’ll end up in the Tops. You get light every day up there, but I hear the rooms rock in the wind almost all the time.’

      ‘I don’t think I’d like all that swaying,’ Tats agreed.

      ‘Well, no. But I like it here in the Cricket Cages. We get plenty of rainwater, so we don’t have to haul it ourselves or buy it from the water-carriers. My mother wove us a bathing hammock when we first moved here, and it’s lovely in the summer when the water is naturally warm. Moss grows along the edges, and we get visits from little frogs and butterflies and basking lizards. And it isn’t

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