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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

‘I can hear her,’ Mary said, struggling to get her voice under control. ‘I can hear her now. Mother Gela is crying, but . . . but – oh our dear good Mother! – she’s not crying for herself, however much you’ve hurt her. She’s crying for you. She’s crying crying crying for her foolish children. And she’ll never stop crying until every single one of you turns away from wicked John and foolish Jeff, and comes back to True Family of Eden.’

I could feel my own tears running down my face now, and I could see others crying all round the Meeting Place. Well, we had been hiding out here, hadn’t we? We’d been hiding out here for generations! The world went on without us across the water, Eden grew and changed, but we refused to be part of it, staying here on our own, cutting bark and fishing just as our parents and their ­parents had done, and turning our backs on everything else.

Mary walked over to a girl called Brightwater and asked her name.

‘Do you know why our Mother cries for you, Brightwater?’ she said.

Brightwater had been crying and crying. ‘Because . . .’ She sniffed. ‘Because we’re bad!’

Mary shook her head, half-smiling through her own tears.

‘No, it’s not because you’re bad, Brightwater. It’s because if you don’t reach out to her, she can’t reach back to you. And do you know what will happen then?’

Brightwater shook her head. Wiping the tears from her own face with the back of her hand, Mary strode back into her circle in middle of the Meeting Place.

‘I’ll tell you what will happen, Brightwater. You’ll die one waking, as we all will, and your shadow will fly out from your body, and from our poor dark Eden, into the blackness between the stars. It’s cold cold out there, with no trees to warm you. You’ll be shivering, you’ll be lonely and scared, and you’ll search and search, as all our shadows must do, for the brightness and warmth of Earth. But look up at the stars, Brightwater. They’re like a forest, aren’t they? They’re like a huge huge forest, full full of lanternflowers. We know little Earth is hiding out there somewhere among all those thousand thousand stars, but do you know where to find it? Look up at the stars, Brightwater, and tell me. Do you know the way back to Earth?’

Brightwater glanced fearfully upwards at the vast wheel of Starry Swirl, where the stars were packed so tightly that most of them were just a blur of light. She sobbed and shook her head.