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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

How could half the old story be so right, she wondered – Earth would come back, a veekle would come down again in the Circle of Stones – if the other half was so wrong, the part about Gela reaching out and speaking to us through the stars? Mary always tried hard to be honest with herself, and she knew it no longer made any sense to say that Gela had been speaking to her, right up to that show in Tall Tree, if Gela herself had been on Eden right at that moment and Mary hadn’t known. She felt a fool. She felt deep deep shame. She remembered times when she’d laughed at other people’s ideas, and she knew quite well that she was the one who deserved to be laughed at now. She had given up many things to help the Davidfolk find meaning, but now the meaning was pouring out from her own life. It was like when you crack a jug of badjuice. You put your hand over the crack to keep the juice inside, but the crack is too big, the jug itself is falling apart, and the juice just comes streaming out anyway over your fingers and down onto the dirt.

But if it hadn’t been Gela who’d spoken to her and kept her strong all these years, then who had it been? Mary kept reminding herself that it wasn’t as if the whole story had been nonsense. Earth had come, just as she’d always said it would, and Gela was alive, just as she’d always told people, over and over, in all those little clusters, up and down between Rockway Edge and the White Streams.

‘I must be patient,’ Mary kept telling herself. ‘I just have to wait for Gela to set me straight.’ Gela was good and wise, and must surely know that Mary had done her best. She’d help Mary understand as Mary herself had helped so many others. She’d explain everything, and then it would all fit together again, just like it did before.

She remembered that her helpers and guards were behind her, and stopped to look round at them.

‘You lot are quiet!’ she called out, in the most cheerful voice she could manage. ‘Cheer up! We’re going to see Gela and the people from Earth. I’d have thought you’d be happy happy!’ And she made herself laugh loudly, trying not to notice too much the lonely sound of her voice echoing back from bare rocks, hidden in the darkness above them.

‘I guess you’re worried that I may have got the story wrong? Is that right?’

They didn’t answer, and of course she couldn’t see their faces behind their buckskin headwraps.