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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

‘Mother Gela is watching you, remember,’ she said, ‘and she’s watching all your old friends too. Never forget that. Just because they turned their backs on Gela doesn’t mean she loves them any less. She’s a mother, isn’t she? And what mother loves her children less just because they’re naughty and run away from her? You need to trust Gela, my dearest. When you trust her, that’s when she can help you. Trust her, and I promise you she won’t let you down.’

‘Please forgive me for saying this, Mary,’ I said, ‘but I can’t see Mother Gela, and I can’t touch her. But I could touch those people, I could talk to them, I could see their faces.’

‘I understand, dear one,’ said Mary, still holding me close to her and gently gently rocking me. ‘Of course I understand. We all need people we can touch.’

For a moment I felt grateful with Mary for understanding that we needed real people more than her precious Gela, but then I felt angry with her instead. It was all well and good her being nice and understanding now, but if she hadn’t insisted that I stay away from the Grounds until I was a shadowspeaker, I would have gone there much sooner, and I might have got there in time to learn what the Kneefolk’s plans were, and why they were leaving, and where it was they were all going to.

I didn’t speak my anger out loud and if Mary had noticed any change in me at all, it would have been me suddenly tensing for a moment in her arms, arching my back away from her touch. But I quickly realized it wasn’t really fair to blame Mary and pushed the anger out of my mind. She couldn’t have known that the Kneefolk were suddenly going to leave a place where they’d lived for over two hundred years, any more than I could have done. And she hadn’t really insisted that I didn’t go back yet, either. She’d just suggested it. She’d just given it as her opinion that it might be better to wait, and asked me if I’d agreed. She’d even offered to go there sooner if I couldn’t wait, and I knew quite well that she’d have done just that if I’d asked her. The only reason I hadn’t asked her was that I’d been feeling guilty about things I hadn’t told her.

‘It just makes me feel so alone,’ I told her. ‘It makes me feel I’m all alone in Eden.’