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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

Yes, and that wasn’t just what made the story work for the Kneefolk. It was one of the things that made it work for me and Starlight too. It helped me because people would have noticed me a lot less if I hadn’t come as a pair with her. And Starlight, well, her name was well chosen, she really was bright like a star, and stars look best against the darkness of the sky. Don’t get me wrong. The two of us really did love each other, really did have fun together, really did talk to each other about almost everything that happened. But still, when we made a necklace, it was Starlight that put it on and me that ran along behind her to show it to the grownups. She was the star and I was the grateful darkness.

And look at us now! Here she was beside me, tall beautiful Starlight in her blue longwrap, with pretty coloured stones hanging from her ears and her wrists: one of the highest and most powerful people in all of Eden. And here was me in my rough skin waistwrap, a mum of three kids from a little cluster that no one had heard of, the shelterwoman of a clawfoot man I didn’t really love.

All that stuff I’ve just said, I don’t mean I went over it all in my mind. Of course not! There was no time. Two heartbeats and it was done. But it was there all the same, that old bundle, and I didn’t need to unwrap it to know what it contained. I was happy happy to have Starlight beside me again, happy happy to know she was alive and doing well. But I wasn’t so pleased to find that old story still lying between us, that old familiar shape.

And yet having it there close again made me notice something. There was no time to think about it right then, but in those two heartbeats, maybe because those tall and beautiful Earth people made even Starlight shine less brightly, I’d glimpsed something that I’d never quite noticed before. Seeing that old story up close, seeing it there between us in its wrap, made me realize that it hadn’t just shaped my life on Knee Tree Grounds, but my life ever since as well. With Mary as we travelled round the Davidfolk Ground, with Tom when I first met him in Davidstand, with the Michael’s Place people when I’d come to join them, over and over again I’d played the part of the grateful darkness.

Twenty-nine