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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, dearest, your mum! She’s in Half Sky now.’ She saw the expression on my face – that news was just too much for me, on top of everything else, and my tears were already flowing – and reached out at once to hug me. ‘Oh Angie dear, she’s there, and so are your brothers and sisters. So are a whole lot of the people we knew at Knee Tree Grounds. Julie Deepwater persuaded a bunch of them to come, when they got tired of the guards from Nob Head bossing them round. Even my sister Glitterfish is there. And you know how she would never go anywhere !’

Gela’s heart, if the dead really had come back to life and health from under the stones of the Burial Ground, it would hardly have been any stranger than what was actually happening. First, the Earth people, then Starlight, and now this! Our home on Earth, my dead friend, my lost family: all of them restored to me in a single waking! I sobbed and sobbed. Starlight hugged me and rocked me. Candy and Fox came running over.

‘Why are you crying, Mum?’ Candy demanded. Kids do not like it, I’ve noticed, when their mothers are upset. If their mums need looking after, who’s going to look after them?

‘Don’t worry, dear,’ said Starlight. As she gently touched Candy’s hand to reassure her, I remembered that, when she was younger, she’d never been easy with little kids. ‘I think she’s crying because she’s happy.’

My old friend was still the star and I was still the grateful darkness. She was the high person who surprised and impressed my new friends. And she was the one who’d given the Kneefolk a new home, while I’d just run away from them to live among the Davidfolk. But right then I didn’t care. Candy and Fox squeezed in to hug me along with Starlight, and I felt happy happy happy.

‘They left Knee Tree because it was becoming part of the Davidfolk Ground,’ Starlight said, ‘with guards and traders and shadowspeakers and all the rest. I don’t think there’s anyone left there now. The ones who didn’t come to join us went over to join the Davidfolk on Mainground instead. Like you did, I guess. You must tell me that story, Angie. I still can’t imagine you with a shadowspeaker.’

‘Later,’ I sniffed, wiping my face and pulling myself out of that little huddle of people that loved me, so I could look at my old friend’s face. ‘I’ll tell you later. Shadowspeakers are different from what you might think. But now I want to hear more about Half Sky. And then I want to hear more about the Kneefolk.’