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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

‘You can look but you mustn’t touch,’ murmured a guard with a blackglass spear. He was the only other person in sight, and he was another old guy, like the guard at the peckside gate: I guessed the young ones had been sent to fight the Johnfolk. ‘You mustn’t touch and you mustn’t step inside the Circle.’

I nodded. Only the sons of David could invite people inside the Circle, only them and the shadowspeakers. I’d had my moment there, and it wouldn’t come back.

Twenty-four

The third time I went into the Circle there was no fug to hide behind. I could clearly see Mary there waiting at the edge of the clearing. I could see the guard. I could see other people moving round through the trees. And I couldn’t pretend that I was in a world apart. I was in Eden, plain ordinary Eden, with its lanterns and its bats and its people. Even the Circle seemed more ordinary than it had done before. It might be a place full of stories, but still, what was it but a bunch of round white stones that you could find any waking in a stream? I remembered how, back on Knee Tree Grounds, I’d been told that these weren’t even the original stones laid here by Tommy and Gela. Everyone knew that John Red­lantern had thrown the whole Circle into the stream, but only the Davidfolk believed that Mother Gela had guided the hands of Lucy Lu, so that she found the exact same stones again, and returned them to the exact same places.

I squatted down in middle. I closed my eyes.

‘Please, Mother Gela, if you love me, speak to me, or I will disappoint Mary and lose all the trust she put in me.’

I waited for a moment, just in case our Mother was going to answer at once, but of course she didn’t. Under the pulsing of the trees, I heard the faint slap and flick of flutterbyes’ wings.

‘I know I shouldn’t keep secrets from Mary,’ I whispered. ­‘Perhaps you can help me figure out the best way to tell her?’

That’s easy, I answered myself at once, just as I’d done the first time. Walk over there now and tell her that you have these secrets and you think they might be stopping you from hearing Gela.

Again I wondered if that thought, so clear and strong, could have been Gela, Gela herself telling me to go and talk to Mary? Perhaps that’s what Gela’s voice was like?