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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

‘Tom’s dick, Auntie, I’ve never said there’s no Earth! I’ve never said there’s no Gela! Of course she’s there. I know that for myself. I don’t need bloody shadowspeakers to tell me. You know how sometimes when Dad’s hit me, I have to go out into forest until he’s calmed down? Well, I’m all my own then, aren’t I? Everyone’s angry with me, everyone’s wishing I’d just bloody shut up, and I think to myself, well, what am I anyway? Just a batfaced newhair, who doesn’t know anything, stuck here in bloody old Eden, where no one else knows anything either. And sometimes Gela comes to me then. I feel her near me. I feel I’m not alone. She comes to me like she comes to everyone. What I hate are the stories that say she only comes to some people: only to the Davidfolk, only to the shadowspeakers.’

We sat there in silence under the trees at the edge of the clearing. The old guard had dozed off, his back against a warm whitelantern trunk. All round us, Old Family cluster slept, except over there in Brooklyn where the high people from the Davidfolk Ground and Brown River and Half Sky were still talking talking talking.

‘Do you think Suzie will die?’ asked Trueheart.

‘I think it’s quite likely, I’m afraid, dear. Germs must have got into the cut, and now their poison is spreading, and—’

‘Germs!’ Trueheart snorted. ‘What exactly are germs? We say that word like it explains something, but it’s just a made-up word. We’ve got no idea what we mean by it.’

‘I guess not.’

‘Poor little Suzie. Poor Flame too, I guess. I mean, I don’t like her because she slips with my dad and that makes Mum unhappy. But I guess she hasn’t got much choice.’

I wondered what Trueheart would say if she knew her dad sometimes slipped with me as well?

‘I guess we should go back soon,’ I said. ‘Maybe we could look after Suzie for a bit and let Flame get some rest.’

‘Yeah, soon, Auntie. But let’s stay here just a little bit longer. I like it here. It makes me feel stronger.’

We looked at those stones out there, all by themselves in the criss-crossing light from the treelanterns round them: white, blue, pink, yellow. Bats and flutterbyes dived and looped round the trees round the edge of the clearing, and sometimes the pattern of light and shadow moved just a little when a wind blew the branches of the trees. But the world was still still.