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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

When the Michael’s Place people left Davidstand again, our bucks were carrying even more stuff than when we’d arrived because we’d loaded them up with our new, hastily made wraps tied up in rolls. There were bodywraps, headwraps with holes for eyes and mouth, footwraps with three layers of skin and grease to keep the snow from soaking through, big ones for the grownups and little ones for the kids. We hadn’t had enough skins with us to make them all, but I’d managed to get a few more as a trade for some metal cubes that I’d carried with me ever since I left Knee Tree Grounds. (They’d been a present from Greenstone to the Kneefolk when he took Starlight away with him across the Pool.) No one in Davidstand would give food in exchange for anything – they knew they’d need it themselves – but people were happy enough to trade their heavy buckskins for things that were easier to hide and lighter to carry.

The path soon began to climb, though the slopes ahead of us were still warm and shining and covered in trees. We were all afraid of crossing the Dark and we didn’t talk much. Whatever I might have said to try and calm the fears of the others, I knew how dangerous it was up there. Sometimes the snow fell so heavily that you couldn’t see through it, or cloud came right down from the sky and wrapped the mountains up in a mist so thick you could hold out your hand in front of you and not be able to make it out. Poles stuck in the snow weren’t much use if you couldn’t see them, and nor were guards’ fires. People often got lost when when the mist was like that and were never found again; experienced people who knew the Dark well, never mind folk like us. And of course it was in those times when the path was hidden by snow or cloud that the snow­leopards still felt safe enough to come back down from their hiding places up in the high cold places where people had never been, and hunt for human meat. In normal times, few people crossed the Dark without a guide, even if they’d crossed it before. But darkguides now were asking for more sticks than we Michael’s Place people had ever had.