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162 pages

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Romance

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Publié par	eBook Versions
Date de parution	09 juillet 2018
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781843964902
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0250€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Published by
Gallery 41 Books
3 Church End, London E17 9RJ
books@gallery41.co.uk

Copyright © 2005, 2018 Liz Berry

All rights reserved

Liz Berry has asserted her right
under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988 to be identified as the author
of this work

ISBN 978-1-84396-490-2

Also available in paperback
ISBN 978-1-98121-456-3
No part of this book may be reproduced
in any material or electronic form, including
photocopying, without written permission
from the publisher, except for the
quotation of brief passages in criticism.

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THE
CHINA GARDEN

Liz Berry

Gallery 41 Books
Contents

Cover
Copyright Credits
Praise for The China Garden
Dedication
Author s Note

Title Page
Map of the China Garden
The Legend of Demeter and Persephone

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3
Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6
Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9
Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12
Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15
Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18
Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21
Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24
Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27
Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30
Praise for
The China Garden

Like a jewel box with hidden drawers and compartments, this finely crafted, multilayered novel holds many secrets. Berry builds a setting and atmosphere richly laden with mystery and suspense, in which the ordinary often masks unexpected inter-connections and the extraordinary is natural to the story s wildly imagined terrain.
Publisher s Weekly (starred review)

There are hidden mysteries, concealed relationships, visions and dreams. Tense, convincing, powerful.
Bookchat

A tense, gripping thriller. The story is a dense mixture of realism and romance, magic, mystery and history, which altogether makes an exciting read.
Children s Books in Ireland

A lushly romantic tale that unfolds in layers and is firmly grounded in mythology.
Booklist

Great stuff this, strong, sexy, emotional.
The Junior Bookshelf

Awards

The China Garden received the pewter award from the Virginia State Reading Association, for best book , voted for by 90,000 high school pupils of that State.

Selected for New York Public Library s Best Books for Teenagers Exhibition and List

Chosen by the Young Adult Library Association (TAKSA) of the American Library Association Select list: Best Books for Young Adults.
This book is dedicated to
my readers - the new generation
of Earth Guardians - and to
Debbie Lewis, who went through the
Seventh Gate as I completed this book.
Author s Note

The reader may be interested to know that the idea in this book came from customs and legends in the English countryside. There is, alas, no Ravensmere (that I know of), but there are numerous healing stones and standing stones that are reputed to go down to the water to drink at certain times.

There are customs like Turning the Stone (the whole village takes part) and Washing the Stone in holy well water, which continues to be done each year. And there are, of course, many stone circles, healing springs, mazes, and strange and enchanting gardens and houses, like Stourhead, Studley Royal at Fountains Abbey, Lacock Abbey and Calke Abbey - all National Trust properties, which I visited when researching this book. There are also China Houses-but the octagonal China Garden with its Moon Gates is my own invention.

The reader is recommended to any of the books by Janet and Colin Bord-in particular, Sacred Waters and Mysterious Britain , and Labyrinths by Sig Lonegren.

The Legend of
Demeter and Persephone

Demeter, Goddess of grain and fertility, the Great Earth Mother, searched for nine days for her lost daughter Persephone, who had been carried off by Hades, God of the Underworld. Demeter, full of grief, wandered the Earth, pretending to be an old woman. When she came to Eleusis she cared for Demophoon, the infant son of the king. She was seen placing him in the sacred fire to make him immortal. She was recognized and a famous temple was erected to her at Eleusis.
Demeter, grieving for Persephone, made all the vegetation die-trees, plants, corn, rice, vegetables, everything died, and the earth lay desolate and barren. At last Hades promised Persephone that she could spend two-thirds of each year on Earth, and every year Persephone, Goddess of Spring and Rebirth, comes home to the light of the sun, the wind and the rain, and her mother bestows abundant food upon the Earth.
The legend symbolizes the cycle of human life-rebirth in Man as in nature. Human life is like corn, it grows with the season, ages, dies—and is reborn.
Chapter 1

Dark of the moon. Near dawn. Starlight shimmered along the dragon walls. Nothing stirred in the China Garden. No breeze. No night sound. The only waking creature was a tortoiseshell cat sitting on the step of the First Moon Gate like a creature from a pharaoh s tomb, watching and waiting.
It was many years since anyone had walked here, but now the grass was bending in the still air. Invisible feet were passing to and fro, leaving a winding track.
There was a drift of sound, ancient pipe music, then a strange shifting, something coming alive, and a whisper, like a breath, moving through the shadows, She s coming ... She s coming ...

On the great hill that rose above the Garden, a tall figure detached itself from the darkness of the ancient standing stone. The starlight gleamed on the wide shoulders of his leather jacket, as he stretched, stiff from his long wait. Sometimes it seemed he had been waiting for her forever, but now at last he knew she was coming. He stared down at the darkened house. There was a light burning in a big window overlooking the terrace. Was the old man waiting too?

The clock clicked onto the hour loudly.
Stop. Put down your pens now .
There was a muffled groan from the students.
Clare Meredith leaned back, added a final comma to the sheets she had been reading, checked her name and clipped them together. Finished. Her last A-level paper. All over at last.
She could hear Sara behind her, muttering to herself and dropping her papers on the floor.
No more worry, panic and effort. So why was this ball of anxiety and tension in her chest getting bigger all the time, as though something unpleasant was about to happen?
You all right, Clare? You look a bit odd. Sara tucked her arm through Clare s as they left the room.
I m fine. Impossible to explain this eerie feeling even to Sara.
Listen-I ve got plans for us this summer! Come on, I ll stand you a coffee and a burger. Let s live it up!

You re late, Clare. Where on earth have you been?
Clare s fingers tightened on her house key. She glanced at the hall clock. It s not half-five yet!
I ve been waiting for you to get home. I ve got to talk to you.
We all went to Macdonald s.
With dear Adrian, I suppose.
With Sara, actually.
Her mother s taut shoulders relaxed.
Oh, Clare, I m sorry. I forgot you had another exam today.
The last one. We were celebrating.
How did it go?
Okay, Clare said, shortly. All topics I d revised. She threw her book bag, strangely light now, into its usual corner by the front door, for the last time. She felt flattened, still hardly able to take it in.
I can t believe it s finished.
When will you get the results?
August sometime. Not quite out of the woods yet, she reminded herself. Not enough to pass. She needed three good grades for university.
She watched her mother in the hall mirror. Frances was getting ready for work, stabbing pins nervously into her dark gold French pleat to go under her Ward Sister s cap.
Well, it s done now, thank goodness, Frances said. It s been a strain on both of us. You ve been hard to live with, Clare.
I know. I m sorry. But it came out too stiffly. They both knew that the tension of the exams was only part of the trouble between them. There was her choice of career. And there was Adrian.
Until she had started to date Adrian they had always got on well together-joking, sharing, talking things over.
They went shopping, poking about for bargains in the street markets, having a Chinese meal, wandering around the London museums on Sunday afternoons. They hadn t done that for a long time, Clare thought, with a sense of loss.
And it wasn t all on her side. Lately her mother had been unreasonably irritable and tense.
She said, embarrassed, I...er... wanted to say thanks for everything. Letting me stay on into sixth-form college.
Giving me a chance at university. I really do appreciate all you re doing for me. I wish you didn t have to work all the extra hours.
Frances looked at her in the mirror. I haven t got anybody else, Clare. And, besides, you re worth it. You haven t wasted your chances, or taken them for granted. You ve worked really hard.
Her mother was a good-looking woman, Clare thought. No, be honest. She was beautiful. High cheek bones, pale translucent skin. But there was something strange about her face that sometimes had people turning around in the street to take a second look.
They stood shoulder to shoulder staring into the mirror, feeling closer than they had for weeks. Clare was the same height as her mother, but she favoured her father s family. She had a mass of wiry black hair which she tamed by plaiting it back lightly from the crown of her head.
This afternoon though, as they stood in a shaft of sunlight from the small window next to the front door, Clare was suddenly struck by their likeness. It s our eyes, she thought. Wide and silvery, tilting slightly upwards.
Her mother laughed aloud. We re alike, Clare. Something weird about us. Look at those strange witchy eyes! You know they d have burned both of us five hundred years ago.
Clare was not surprised Frances had picked up her own thought. Telepathy. It happened so frequently