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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

Again, the guard paused and looked round at all the faces watching him. ‘So there it is,’ he said. ‘That’s all I can tell you. I know it sounds weird – Tom’s dick, it sounds weird to me as well! – but don’t tell me Leader Harry would joke about a thing like that, least of all when we’re in middle of fight with the Johnfolk. A veekle has come down, people, and Mother Gela is alive on Eden.’

I heard about all this later from four five people who were there. Apparently, when that guard had finished speaking, there were two whole heartbeats of complete silence, and then, all at once, the people began to sob and scream, until it seemed that whole of that lonely bowl of rock called Tall Tree Valley was full up to the brim with the sound.

Poor Mary. No one took any notice of her. What news did she have to offer compared with the news that the guard had brought down from the Dark? And anyway, who would believe anything she said? Only just before the guard spoke she’d been claiming to hear the voice of Mother Gela speaking to her, yet she’d obviously had no idea that Gela was actually here on Eden. If our Mother really did speak to her, as Mary claimed, why wouldn’t she have told her that?

And Mary was smart smart. If other people could figure that out, then she could figure it out for herself. She’d built her whole life on a story about her being able to hear the voice of Gela, and she’d travelled back and forth, back and forth for more than twenty years, telling people to get ready for Earth to return. She believed in that story more than pretty much anyone, and she’d proved her belief in it by giving her life up to it. But now the thing that she’d looked forward to for so long had happened, the thing that she’d worked and worked so hard for. Earth had returned, Gela had returned, the Circle of Stones had finally done the job that it was laid out to do, four hundred years ago. You’d think she’d have been happy happy, happier even than all the other people who right now were singing ‘Come Tree Row’ with tears running down their faces. And Mary knew that too. She knew she ought to be happy. Of course she did. The thing she’d been telling people about for twenty years had finally happened! And yet how could she be happy when the news had made her look, not just to others but to herself, like she was either a liar or a fool?