BooksBarbecue
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

‘And what if he said he didn’t want to go rockway because all his friends would be angry with him, and he’d prefer to get there by going alpway?’

‘Well, we’d tell him . . .’ I laughed, seeing how her story had trapped me. ‘I guess we’d tell him he could go whichever he liked, but if he went alpway from here he’d never get to Veeklehouse.’

‘Exactly,’ said Mary.

‘Please don’t be angry with me, Mary, for saying this, but how can we be sure it works like that? Surely the way to Gela depends where you start from, doesn’t it? I mean . . .’ I struggled to think of a little story to explain what I meant that would be as smart as hers. ‘I mean, if you started off from Nob Head, you would need to go alpway to get to Veeklehouse. And don’t the Johnfolk start in a different place from us? Yes, and anyway, please don’t be angry with me, Mary, but you said the Gela the Johnfolk believe they love is just an idea in their heads. But how can we be sure that the Gela we think we know isn’t just an idea in ours ?’

Mary laughed. ‘You mean like that Watcher of yours on Knee Tree Grounds?’ She reached out and took my hand to show she wasn’t cross and was only teasing. I didn’t try to tell her that the Watcher wasn’t supposed to be in our heads, but behind the whole world, looking out at everything through our eyes, because I knew she’d say, as she always did, that that came to the same thing.

‘Listen, Angie,’ she said. ‘We know our Gela’s not just an idea in our heads because she speaks to us. It’s difficult for you now to understand this, I know, it’s difficult difficult, but I promise you, my dear, when you hear our Mother’s voice more clearly, you’ll know exactly what I mean.’

Eventually we came to Veeklehouse. It was the first time I’d been there since I said goodbye to Starlight, and it was strange strange to be back again, in that place where me and her had seen all the wonders and possibilities that lay beyond our home, and she’d gone after them, and I’d just paddled back home again. All those old feelings were still there, it turned out, waiting for me just where I’d left them. Grief, loneliness, jealousy, anger: they all welled up inside me again, as if no time had passed at all since I was last there. And as they welled up, they stirred up newer feelings that had been building up since I’d been with Mary: mixed-up feelings about leaving my home behind out in the bright water, and spending all my time with no one but Mary to be my family and my friend.