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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

The woman pulled off her headwrap. Her face was big and square. Her hair was turning to grey, and there was a stoop in her shoulders that hadn’t been there last time I’d seen her, but she looked as firm and determined as ever. She sat there on the back of her buck, looking down into Tall Tree Valley, and then she gave a little nod, pulled the wrap back onto her head, and began to ride forwards again down the steep snow-covered slope.

There are many things I found out later, and had to piece together as best I could with what I already knew, and this was one of them. Mary Shadowspeaker had been over near Nob Head when the Johnfolk came from New Earth, and she’d chosen to head up to Tall Tree Valley to get away from them, going not by the main path – David’s Path – that went up from Davidstand, but by another smaller steeper path that climbed up someway rockway from that, called High Valley Shortcut.

Mary liked Tall Tree Valley and had taken me there on our way over to Circle Valley. Her father had come from there, and she often told people about how one of her own many-greats grandfathers had been Mehmet Batwing, Wise Mehmet, who’d built the first stone shelters there, and been guard leader there when he died.

‘And of course, it was Mehmet Batwing who first found Tall Tree Valley all those years ago when he was with John Redlantern and the others,’ she’d also told me. ‘He saved all their lives when they were lost in the darkness and the cold.’

On Knee Tree Grounds I’d heard that it was Jeff Redlantern who found Tall Tree, that time he rode off bravely all by himself on the back of a woollybuck in search of warmth and light when the others were all stuck on a snowslug and didn’t know which way to go. We called the story Jeff’s Shining Ride and, as I said before, it was a particular favourite of ours, but I let Mary have her version as I usually did. After all, it was Jeff himself who said that the past keeps changing, and it’s the present that always stays the same, so he couldn’t really complain that I didn’t stand up for him.