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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

Every Virsry time, we go back to Veeklehouse and I spend a hundred wakings in Michael’s Place. That’s part of the deal I made with Dave and Tom. I hate leaving Fox when the hundred wakings are up – it feels like tearing out my heart – and I hate how distant he is at first when I return, each time a little more distant than the last. Dave mutters that it’s a funny kind of mum who can walk away from one of her kids for two hundred wakings at a time, and take her other kids away from their dad, and I do feel badly about it myself. But I know my kids are proud of me – the older two, anyway: Metty’s not really big enough for that – and I kind of hope my example will help them see that, if they don’t want, they don’t have to be exactly like the other people in Michael’s Place.

I’m sure Dave misses Candy and Metty like I miss Fox, but a big part of why he hates me going away is that it makes him feel ashamed. It shames him that, though he’s told me I shouldn’t go and that I shouldn’t take the little ones with me, I still do go and still do take them, and he and his brother Tom don’t feel able to stop me. They know that Mary is the most powerful shadowspeaker in all the Davidfolk Ground. They know that my old friend Starlight has become a friend of Head Guard Mehmet since she helped his old dad get rid of the Johnfolk, and that she comes over the Blue Mountains each year to share the Virsry with him in Circle Valley. They know that I’m known myself across the Davidfolk Ground as the one who made friends with the dark-skinned woman who came in a veekle from Earth. And all those things give me power.

Being a shadowspeaker gives me power as well, of course. It makes me into a kind of high person, in a way, far more so than I would have ever been if I’d gone with Starlight to Half Sky, or with Gaia to Earth. And that’s one of the things I like about it, if I’m honest. I like being well known, I’ve found out, and I like being looked up to. Come to that, I don’t mind the presents people give us either. They’re not my reason for being a shadowspeaker, but I do like them, and they certainly help me to smooth things over with the people at Michael’s Place. It’s easier to get past that awkwardness when I go back there if I can bring a metal knife for Dave, or a necklace for Clare, or a handful of sticks for Tom.