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

She broke off, and for a few heartbeats all we could hear was the sound of the trees round us: hmmmph hmmmph hmmmph.

The fug was beginning to clear as we walked back to the cluster again and returned to the shelter where shadowspeakers stayed. Mary didn’t talk much. I felt I was getting on her nerves, and she didn’t seem to want me to hug her and soothe her down as she usually did after a show. I was sure she was disappointed in me, and I feared she might be angry too, but when I asked her she insisted it wasn’t so, reassuring me in a loud bright voice that I’d done nothing wrong at all.

Back at the shelter, I stirred up the ashes and fed the embers with dry twigs, then cooked up flowercakes and a couple of sweetbats whose meat, I knew, Mary especially liked. She rested for a bit after that – she always needed to settle herself after a show – and then went off for a while to see the guard leader, Harry, Strongheart’s second son, who’d asked to see her. I walked about a bit by myself, but not for long because I wanted to be sure to be there when Mary came back. I couldn’t bear the thought of letting her down, this strong woman who’d chosen me, Angie Redlantern, out of all the hundreds of people who came to her shows in every part of the Davidfolk Ground! She’d always told me she’d seen something in me that was different to anyone else, and I was terrified that she’d change her mind.

It was some time before she came back, but when she did she was in a more relaxed mood. It often cheered her up like that, I noticed, when one of the high people had asked for her. They wanted her advice sometimes about difficult things, like whether or not the baby of one of their shelterwomen was really their own, and it felt good to her that these important people were interested in what she had to say.

‘Fug’s almost gone now,’ she said. ‘Good job too. I don’t like it when it gets like that. Get some sleep now, Angie, and we’ll have another go when we wake.’

I didn’t sleep so well, but Mary seemed to, snoring away steadily in her corner. (Mary did everything firmly and loudly: even sleep.) When she woke and we came out of the shelter, the fug had cleared completely, Starry Swirl was blazing down, and bats were once again hunting the flutterbyes that flipped and flapped between the lanterns and the airholes of the trees.

‘This is a good waking for you, Angie,’ she said, as I brought her a flowercake and some dried fish. ‘Everything is lovely and clear.’