BooksBarbecue
Back Daughter of Eden
Chapters (68)
  1. Title page
  2. Dedication
  3. Part I
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-one
  25. Twenty-two
  26. Twenty-three
  27. Twenty-four
  28. Twenty-five
  29. GAIA YOUNG. SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS.MISSION DAY 20. 20:25 MT.
  30. Part II
  31. Twenty-six
  32. Twenty-seven
  33. Twenty-eight
  34. Twenty-nine
  35. Thirty
  36. Thirty-one
  37. Thirty-two
  38. Thirty-three
  39. Thirty-four
  40. Thirty-five
  41. Thirty-six
  42. Thirty-seven
  43. GAIA YOUNG. SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS.MISSION DAY 22. 20:05 MT.
  44. Thirty-eight
  45. Thirty-nine
  46. Forty
  47. Forty-one
  48. GAIA YOUNG. SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS.MISSION DAY 25. 15:30 MT.
  49. Forty-two
  50. Forty-three
  51. Forty-four
  52. Forty-five
  53. Forty-six
  54. Forty-seven
  55. Forty-eight
  56. Forty-nine
  57. Fifty
  58. Fifty-one
  59. Fifty-two
  60. Fifty-three
  61. Fifty-four
  62. Part III
  63. Fifty-five
  64. Fifty-six
  65. Fifty-seven
  66. Fifty-eight
  67. Also by Chris Beckett
  68. Copyright page

The biggest pile of all was right in middle, and of course it was the pile that covered the bones of Gela. It was like a little hill, twice as high as me, and Mary and I made it a little bit bigger still by laying two more stones on it that we’d brought down specially from the edge of Snowy Dark. Not far away from it, there was another smaller pile for Tommy, with the words ‘Tommy Schneider: Astronaut’ scratched on a flat stone in front of it. He’d once lain next to Gela, Mary told me, but her pile had grown so big that it had begun to bury his and he’d had to be moved. At far end of the clearing there was another big pile over Great David, which also rose well above my head, though it still wasn’t anything like as big as Gela’s.

We walked round for a bit and Mary read out some of the names and words scratched on flat stones that were propped in front of the piles. The fug was round and above us, and we could see nothing at all beyond these dark piles that waited there silently in every direction, some of them close and clear, some further away and pale and shadowy. We were in a peaceful little world all on its own that had been set apart for the dead.

‘This is Wise Mehmet,’ said Mary, stopping in front of a ­middle-sized heap. ‘A lot of people love him, especially in Tall Tree Valley and up at Rockway Edge.’ She bent down to look at the small writing: ‘“Mehmet Batwing,” it says. “He showed the way back to Family.”’

She had a soft spot for Wise Mehmet, and liked to tell people when she got the chance that she was his great-great-great-great-granddaughter. I guess it’s not surprising that Wise Mehmet would be a favourite for a shadowspeaker, whose work was all about finding the ones who’d wandered away and bringing them back again into True Family.

‘And look,’ she said. ‘Over here is Strongheart’s dad, Harry.’

But though there were many dead people from generations ago who were still remembered, Gela’s pile rose high above them all. When we’d walked round all the others, we came back to it, and Mary read out the writing that had been scratched on her flat stone by Gela’s son, First Harry. ‘Angela Young,’ it said. ‘Orbit Police’. Mary took my hand and we both stood quietly looking at that great hill of stones.

‘You get back the love you give, don’t you?’ she said. ‘You only have to look at the size of this pile compared with all the others to see that our Gela is still pouring out her love, still reaching out to everyone, still making herself heard.’