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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

Mary had been the centre of attention up to that moment. Those terrified and grief-striken people had been listening raptly to every word she spoke, hungry hungry for any little comfort the shadow­speaker could give them, however tiny it might be, desperate for any story she could tell that would bind their broken world together again, at least a little bit, and make them feel like there was still a home for them somewhere, and a path that led to it. But in the space of one heartbeat, all that changed. Mary was forgotten and every head turned towards the man who’d called out. They saw straight away he wasn’t some crazy guy, but a guard who’d just come down from the Dark. They all began shouting at once.

‘What do you mean a veekle’s come down ? What do you mean Gela ?’

The guard laughed and raised his hands. He’d never had this much attention in his life.

‘Whoa, people! Whoa! Listen to me and I’ll tell what I know.’

Everyone fell silent, everyone craned towards him. Mary was forgotten.

The man pointed to the circle of white dots painted on his forehead. ‘As you can see I’m a guard. Me and my mates were sitting by our fire at Five Ways crossing when Leader Harry came through with eight men, riding full speed from Circle Valley towards Wide Forest. They were in a big big hurry, I can tell you. Their bucks were spitting out green froth. If they kept going at that pace much longer, they’d have a bunch of dead bucks on their hands. They didn’t stop to talk, but the men shouted down to us that a new veekle had come down back in the Circle, and that Gela herself was walking round. Her skin was black black, they said, just like in the story.’

The guard rubbed his hand over his beard as he paused for breath, looking round all the while at the watching faces to see if he’d been understood. Everyone was silent. The only sound was the pulsing of trees and the tinkling of streams running down from the snow.

‘If it had just been the men that told us that,’ he said, ‘we might have taken it for a stupid joke. You know how blokes like to wind each other up! But then Leader Harry called down to us too. Leader Harry, mind you! Strongheart’s second son. Guard Leader of Circle Valley. The third highest man among the Davidfolk, with only Strongheart himself and Leader Mehmet above him. He took off his headwrap so we could see who he was, and he called out to us that what his men said was true, and that one of us should come down here and spread the story among the High Valleys.’