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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

‘My father, Dixon, is the Headman of New Earth,’ he said. ‘My mother, Lucy, wears Gela’s ring. We are not your enemies, and you don’t need to run from us. You’ve been told a lot of lies about us Johnfolk. You’ve been told that we steal and are cruel. But you need to remember it was Johnfolk who first found this forest that’s all round us and gave it its name; Johnfolk who found the Veekle; Johnfolk who first saw Worldpool and stood at the top of the cliffs. So-called Great David had forbidden John to come here. He sent guards to do for John. He threatened to tie him to a spiketree and let him burn. And yet you’ll notice that when John had found the way for him, David was happy enough to follow him across the Dark.’

Again he smiled, and I noticed for the first time that it wasn’t just his dad he reminded me of, but Greenstone too. This guy’s mum was Greenstone’s cousin, from what I’d heard. And it occurred to me now that my friend Starlight would almost certainly have met him, though he would only have been a kid when she went over to New Earth. It was strange to think that she would have met him, not as a low person meeting a high one, but as one high person meeting another. Not that that would help us now.

‘Well, I say it was us Johnfolk who found Wide Forest,’ Headmanson Luke corrected himself, ‘but actually there was no such thing as Johnfolk and Davidfolk back then. John Redlantern didn’t want to split Family in two. That’s another lie you people get told. He wanted everyone to follow him. He wanted to find a way for everyone to spread out from Circle Valley into all the rest of our beautiful Eden. I know you’ve been told that John was the disobedient one, the one that turned away from Mother Gela, but think about that for a moment. How come Gela guided him to the ring? Don’t tell me it just happened! It had lain on the ground for generations since she lost it, remember, but John was the one who found it. And do you know what? That isn’t the only time that Gela brought the ring to us. Just thirty forty hundredwakes ago – ten years, I guess you guys would call it – a wicked woman stole that ring and brought it right across the Pool to Old Ground here. We thought we’d lost it then. But it still came back to us. Gela brought it to us again!’