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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

She gave my hand a squeeze. ‘And right now, my dearest, she’s reaching out specially to you.’

She led me along the side of Longpool, where a couple of jewel bats were out hunting fish in spite of the fug, and back again to Circle Clearing. Mary asked the guard there to keep people out of the way for a while, because I was going back into the Circle and needed quietness. I was more scared this time round than I had been the first time, but Mary told me there was no need to worry, I should relax, I shouldn’t think of this as something I had to work at, I should just let it come.

I nodded, and she hugged me, and then I made my way out into middle, stepping between the stones into that special place and squatting down once more by the five stones at the centre of the Circle.

Round me the fug was thickening once more. At first the edge of the clearing was blurred, and the lanterns had rings of colour round them, but soon I couldn’t see the lanterns any more, just patches of different-coloured light, and I couldn’t make out the tree trunks at all. I couldn’t see Mary either. Even the stones of the Circle were half-hidden from me, though I was right there in middle of them. I was all by myself and no one could see me.

‘Mother, are you going to speak to me?’ I whispered.

There was no answer. Nothing at all. Nothing that wasn’t either my own thoughts or the muffled sounds from the cluster and forest round me.

Well, of course she doesn’t answer! I suddenly heard myself thinking. She’s dead, isn’t she? I’ve just been where her bones are. She’s just an old skeleton under a heap of stones!

That was what the Kneefolk thought, after all. That was what we were always taught that Jeff Redlantern had said: Gela was simply a human being called Angela Young, who died a long time ago.

As soon as I’d had that thought, I felt so ashamed that I felt the red blood rushing into my face. How could I? After seeing that huge pile of stones, that pile of love, bigger even than the pile over Great David himself, how could I come into middle of the Circle, this special special place that was closer to our home on Earth than anywhere in Eden, and think that thought? I’d been so so lucky – most people were never allowed to come here from the moment they were born to the waking they died – and this was how I showed my gratitude!