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Back Daughter of Eden Save as PDF
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

I didn’t bother to look. Boats were always coming back and forth between Veeklehouse and the rest of Eden. My little Candy always always pointed them out and usually I obliged her by looking and making surprised or amazed or impressed sounds at what she’d spotted. But sometimes, when I was thinking about the past and the things I’d lost, it made me sad looking out over the water, and I preferred to keep my eyes on the things near me, the shining trees, the stones on the path, the waves right below us splashing on the rocks, with the supple branches of the shining watertrees, green and pink, swaying this way and that beneath them. It just seemed to make sense to keep my attention on the things that were nearby, not the ones that were far away and out of reach.

Out there on the bright water was where I’d last seen my friend Starlight. I’d stood crying down there on that rocky ledge and watched her boat, dark on the bright water, until World’s Edge swallowed it up. And out there too – out there and behind us, way, way up rockway – I’d said goodbye to everyone else I knew, in little peaceful Knee Tree Grounds in its little patch of water forest, far out in the bright water.

‘Come on, look, Mum!’ my little girl called out again, tugging impatiently at my hand. ‘Lots of boats! One-two-three-four-five boats! And they’re all together. You haven’t even looked once yet.’

So finally I looked, and I saw five boats side by side, strung out along World’s Edge: five dark shapes with their windcatchers changing from pink to green to pink in the waterlight shining up from beneath them.

‘So there are, Candy. Five boats. Clever girl. You’re getting good good at counting.’

It wasn’t at all unusual to be able to see five six boats all at once out there. Often there were more than that. Veeklehouse was a busy place, and boats came from all over Eden, but I’d never before seen five all together like that, all heading the same way. I wondered where they were from. Time had been when you knew that any boat with a windcatcher must have come from New Earth, but everyone was making them that way by then, and no one bothered with logboats any more, or with the little bark Knee Boats we used to make back on Knee Tree Grounds. Once again, I guess, the Johnfolk had led the way.

‘I wonder what they’re bringing,’ I said.

‘Metal,’ said Candy. ‘Or colour-stones. Or buckfat. Or bark.’