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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

I could see Mary tense slightly, but she didn’t let go of his hand. ‘So you are one of the Johnfolk?’

‘Yes, mother, and I know you think that’s wrong, but we love Mother Gela too, you know, in our own way. It’s just that we don’t have shadowspeakers as you do here who can help us to reach her. Only storytellers that wander round and remind us of the old ­stories. I thought perhaps you could—’

‘My dear, I can’t help you unless you turn away from John the ringstealer. I know you Johnfolk think you love Gela as we do, but you really don’t. What you love is John’s idea of Gela, his childish dream of a mother who will tell him that whatever he chooses to do is right, and that whoever tries to stop him is bad and wrong. That’s not really Gela at all. It’s just something that came from John’s head.’

‘But I live in Brown River. If I was to follow David, I’d be driven out. Surely I can—’

‘Unless you turn away from John, I can’t help you. If you want your little girl’s shadow to find her way back to Earth, you need to teach her about the true Gela, and not the Gela that John dreamed up to make it seem alright that he stole the ring from True Family.’

The man became angry then. ‘Tom’s dick, it was hard enough for me to speak to you at all!’ He pulled his hand away from her. ‘Have you got any idea what people at home would say, if they knew I’d asked the advice of a shadowspeaker? But I came to your show, and I thought you were a wise kind woman who could see past all those old stories. I guess I was wrong.’

Mary just shrugged. ‘Unless you turn away from John, I can’t help,’ she told him as he turned his back and walked away.

I was shocked by this. The man had been so desperate, and it seemed obvious to me that it must have been hard hard hard for him to approach her at all.

‘He can’t help coming from Brown River, Mary,’ I said. ‘He can’t help it that he grew up with the Johnfolk stories. Surely we could have helped him just a bit?’

Mary snorted. ‘I did help him, Angie. I told him exactly what he needs to know. What else could I have done?’

‘But he can’t do what you said, Mary! Someone in Brown River can’t follow David, any more than someone in Davidstand could follow John.’

Mary studied my face for a moment with her small grey eyes. ‘Suppose someone was to come up to us now and ask the way to Veeklehouse,’ she said, ‘what would we tell him?’

‘We’d say to head rockway along poolside.’