The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth

THE DAUGHTERS OF EDEN TRILOGY

THE SHADOW CATCHER,
FEVER HILL
&
THE SERPENT'S TOOTH

Copyright © Michelle Paver 2002, 2004, 2005

This complete anthology copyright © Michelle Paver 2013

The right of Michelle Paver to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Condition of Sale
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

The individual titles were first published in Great Britain by Transworld Publishers, a division of The Random House Group Ltd

ISBN 978-0-9927494-5-3 (ePub)

This edition digitally published by

THE SHADOW CATCHER

Part one of the
Daughters of Eden
trilogy

Michelle Paver

Digitally published by

Michelle Paver was born in Malawi; her father was South African and her mother is Belgian. They moved to England when she was small and she was brought up in Wimbledon, where she still lives.

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THE SHADOW CATCHER

Copyright © Michelle Paver 2002

The right of Michelle Paver to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Condition of Sale
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

First publication in Great Britain by Transworld Publishers, a division of The Random House Group Ltd

ISBN 978-0-9927494-2-2 (ePub)

This edition digitally published by

Also by Michelle Paver

Without Charity

A Place In The Hills

The Shadow Catcher: Book One in The Eden Trilogy

Fever Hill: Book Two in The Eden Trilogy

The Serpent's Tooth: Book Three in The Eden Trilogy

Wolf Brother: Book One in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series

Spirit Walker: Book Two in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series

Soul Eater: Book Three in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series

Outcast: Book Four in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series

Oath Breaker: Book Five in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series

Ghost Hunter: Book Six in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series

Dark Matter: A Ghost Story

The Outsiders: Book One in the Gods and Warriors series

The Burning Shadow: Book Two in the Gods and Warriors series

THE
SHADOW CATCHER

Prologue

Jamaica, 1895

She is dizzy with hunger, and the laudanum is making her sick. It’s becoming harder to think in straight lines.

What is she doing out here, and why did she forget to put on her riding habit? What made her think she could tackle a jungle in her underclothes?

Mosquitoes whine in her ears as she wades through the hot green shade. The rasp of crickets is deafening. She steps on a dumb-cane leaf, and poison oozes like milk.

The forest is watching her, waiting to see if she will survive. Bird calls echo through the canopy. A cinnamon streak brushes her shins, and through the leaves she catches the red eye of a mongoose.

She doesn’t belong in these demon-haunted hills. They’re not for white people. They’re for outlaws and witches and the ghosts of runaway slaves. Even the names are haunted. Turnaround. Disappointment. Look Behind. If she weren’t so dizzy, she would be frightened.

Beneath her feet the ground is soft with rottenness, but through the vegetable stink she can smell the blood on her hands. Her husband would be appalled. He has always had such a horror of blood.

Why is everyone obsessed with blood?
Bad blood. In cold blood. Dr Hay’s Tablets to Purify the Blood.
Vice, insanity and disease. It’s all in the blood. At least, that’s what they say.

On a tree trunk an emerald lizard watches her pass. She wonders what it sees. Everyone seems to see someone different when they look at her. But whatever they see, it’s mostly bad. Actually, it’s all bad.

Her husband says she’s insane, for she never does what he says. ‘Woman’s purpose’, he tells her, ‘is to praise and to obey. If you cannot accept that, it is because you are not a proper woman.’

Dr Valentine says that she has nerve fever, and must become a child again, so that he can re-create a more appropriate personality.

The washerwoman who talks to ghosts tells her that she’s dangerous. ‘You bring trouble to this house, Miss Maddy. You not who you say.’

And her lover says he doesn’t know her any more, and walks away. After what she did, she can hardly blame him for that. But she does, just the same.

She reaches a clearing where hummingbirds dart and hover in the dusty sunlight. Beyond it the forest is thinning, and on a distant slope she sees an enormous silk-cotton tree. Its outstretched limbs are draped with strangler fig and Spanish moss, and orchids like little darts of flame.

Is that the Tree of Life of her mother’s stories? Has she found Eden? Has she?
In Eden everything is wilder and more alive. The sun shines more fiercely, the rain strikes harder, and the leaves are so green that it hurts your eyes. And deep in the forest stands the Tree of Life, and from its branches the creepers hang down to the ground, and at night after the rains they’re speckled with fireflies, and you can smell the vanilla flowers and the sweet decay.

Behind her a branch snaps. She whips round. But the clearing is empty.

Her mind floods with clarity. She understands why she is here, and why she is frightened. Only one man knows where she is, and if he finds her, it’s finished.

Another twig snaps. She hears the chink of a bridle, and forgets to breathe.

One way or another, it won’t be long now.

Part One

Chapter One

Galloway, south-west Scotland, March 1884 – eleven years earlier

The important thing, her mother always said, is to think for yourself.

Then she would bundle Madeleine into hat and coat and galoshes and muff and send her out onto the beach – with orders to find ten different kinds of seaweed, or learn how the Corsewall lighthouse got its name. Come back when you’re hungry, she would say. And watch the tides or you’ll drown.

What will I look like drowned, Madeleine would ask. Will you take a photograph of me?

Several, her mother would reply. And if I’m lucky I might get one published in
Amateur Photographer
.

Watch the tides, and think for yourself.
As Madeleine stood at the edge of the Forbidden Kingdom, she thought, well at least I am thinking for myself. Although this probably wasn’t what Mama had in mind.

Her breath steamed in the frozen stillness, and cold seeped through her cork-soled boots. But she couldn’t stamp her feet in case she alerted some guardian of the forest.