Eden Box Set

by G. C. Julien

  The little girl is still reaching in the air when her mom turns away, and she bursts into tears. Other adults walk by, ignoring the little girl’s cries, and the corridor fills with footsteps and whispers.

  “Nothing you need to worry about,” Nola says, patting me on the back.

  I know when Nola’s lying. There’s a twitch in her right nostril every time she does. It almost looks like she caught a whiff of something rank.

  “Is this about the boy?” I ask.

  Nola slaps a finger over her mouth, lets out a long shhhh, and pulls me back into my cell. She’s hunched over, her finger still over her freckled lips and her candy-green eyes popping out at me.

  “You need to keep quiet about that. You aren’t even supposed to know,” she says.

  I know I’m not supposed to know. I overheard it outside a few minutes ago. I’ll keep quiet, all right, but I want an answer.

  “Well, is it?” I ask.

  Nola nods quickly, her eyes shooting toward the now empty corridor. “Go watch the children outside. I’ll be back shortly.”

  She squeezes my shoulders, kisses me on the forehead, and disappears into the main hall. I’m about to head toward the corridor’s exit door that leads into the courtyard, when Emily jumps out of nowhere, her hands grasping my cell’s iron bars.

  “Emily! You scared me,” I say.

  She laughs. She always loves scaring me even when she doesn’t mean to. “Where’re you going?”

  “Outside,” I say. “Nola asked me to watch the kids.”

  Her braid is splitting all over the place now, but she’s still playing with it over her shoulder. I wonder how often she takes it apart and rebraids it. And why the visit? That’s twice now that she’s come to see me uninvited. She must be lonely.

  “Gabriella’s already watching the kids,” she says, and she retightens the elastic at the end of her braid.

  Gabriella’s one of Division Five’s eldest teenagers, having graduated last year. I stare at her because I’m not sure what it is she wants from me.

  She jerks her head sideways, and a sly smile creeps up on her thin little lips. She’s trying to tell me something, but I have no clue what it is.

  I make my eyes go big as if to say, “Well, spit it out,” and she quick-steps her way into my cell. She drops down on my bed and pushes aside my book, Magical Herbs, under my pillow.

  “Aren’t you curious?” she asks, kicking her feet back and forth.

  “About the meeting?” I ask.

  She nods and her braid slides up and down on her shoulder. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was planning something mischievous.

  “Of course I’m curious,” I say, “but Nola—”

  “Nola, schmola.” She flicks her wrist in the air.

  Since coming to Eden, I’ve never had the chance to get to know Emily. She’s always been so reserved. She’s the type of girl who’s too shy to talk to anyone in her class, who walks through the corridors with her head bowed and her schoolbooks pressed tight against her chest. And me, having become a major introvert since I lost my mom, well, I never made much of an effort to get to know her, either.

  She seems pretty cool, though.

  I raise an eyebrow. “Do you know where the meeting’s taking place?”

  She twirls her braid around her index finger over and over, then lets it go, and it dances on her shoulder. “Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out.”

  She hops up onto her feet and pokes her head out of my cell. The loose, straggly strands of hair at the top of her head follow her back-and-forth movements.

  “Clear,” she says, and she waves at me to follow her.

  She makes her way down Division Five’s corridor, avoiding eye contact with some of the little girls who look up at us from inside their cells. Some are playing with wooden dolls and combing through their hair that’s made of grass, some are reading books, and some are playing with their friends.

  “Where you going?” one girl asks, but Emily just walks faster.

  “Hey, you’re not allowed!” someone else says.

  A few heads pop out into the open, and they watch us as we make our way to the main hall. During the adult meetings, we’re not supposed to leave our Division.

  “They’re probably in Division Four’s theater room,” Emily whispers, but her voice carries out across the hall. “That’s where I see them go all the time.”

  All the time? How often do they hold meetings without us around? And why is it for adults only? When will everyone stop treating me like a friggin’ kid? I graduated. I’m an adult now. Plain and simple.

  “When do you think we’ll start going?” I ask. “To the meetings, I mean.”

  She shrugs. “Can’t say… Marylin’s eighteen and she still hasn’t gone to one. I hear her complain about it a lot.”

  I know who she’s talking about. Marylin was one of the first girls to graduate a few years ago, but I don’t know anything about her.

  “Come on,” Emily says, and she leads me through an office door.

  We enter a small office space. “This isn’t the theater room,” I say.

  It’s dark, but there’s enough light coming through the dust-caked window for me to make out the furniture and décor. There’s an old pine desk and a chair that looks like it hasn’t been used in decades. An old broom leans in the corner with cobwebs all over it. A few dozen boxes piled up on the back wall look pretty new.

  She smirks back at me. “No, it isn’t, but it leads to it.”

  “What is this place?” I ask.

  “Storage,” she says. “We’re not supposed to be in here, and if you talk about this room to anyone, they’ll tell you it’s haunted. That’s something the parents say to keep the kids out.”

  “What do they store?” I ask, stretching my neck toward one of the boxes.

  “I haven’t checked,” she says.

  I avoid the temptation and follow her as she crosses the room. Then, I notice something. I can hear people. The sound of voices filters through the wall.

  “Is that them?” I ask.

  She nods, and a small-toothed grin stretches her pale face. “We’re right beside the theater room. See this door?” She points at a white door with half its paint peeled off. “That leads to the lounge.”

  “Lounge?” I ask.

  “Yeah, the lounge at the back of the theater. That’s where the kids get ready for a play, or where you would have been waiting for graduation. There’s a couch to sit on and everything.”

  I remember the lounge, now. I sat on a sofa while Nola poked her head out through the front door, waiting for my name to be called out. I wonder how often Emily comes to the theater room. She seems to know this place inside and out. I watch her reach for the door, looking excited and sneaky all at the same time. She doesn’t look like the shy little Emily I thought I knew.

  “This isn’t your first time, is it?” I ask.

  She goes quiet for a second, then looks back and says, “You can’t tell anyone about this.”

  “I won’t,” I say. “Promise.”

  Before she turns the handle, she looks at me, her chocolate eyes almost glowing. “Whatever you do, don’t make a sound.”

  I close an invisible zipper over my lips and pretend to toss away the key. She turns the ancient doorknob and slowly pushes, but only a crack. Only enough for us to see through. A strip of yellow light shines into the office. I stick my head out over Emily’s and with one eye, look through the thin crack of the door.

  The first thing I see is a table—the type you’d find at a family picnic or a school event. It wasn’t there when I was in the room with Nola. It’s plastic and foldable, and on top of it are a bunch of small cups. There are dozens of them. It looks like they’re filled with something. A drink, perhaps.

  “Happy-oh, happy-ah, happy-vanilamalay,” someone says.

  I’d recognize that crazy, frog-like voice anywhere. It’s Mavis. What’s Mavis doing in the theater’
s Preparation Room?

  “Quit your gibberish,” comes Perula’s voice.

  “Only a pinch,” Mavis says.

  “I know what I’m doing,” Perula says.

  I see one of their long fingernailed hands, but I’m not sure whose, stretch over the little cups and sprinkle powder, or herbs, into each one.

  I look down at Emily, and we exchange a confused look. What the heck is going on? Are they planning on poisoning the adults? Mavis and Perula wouldn’t do that, would they?

  But then I hear another voice, and it makes me feel like my stomach just dropped to the floor.

  “Mavis, Perula… are the drinks ready?” Aunt Eve asks.

  Lucy – Flashback

  My mom’s hunched over my birthday cake and her chin looks like a fuzzy peach over the candles. A big smile spreads across her face, and she’s clapping her hands together while singing “Happy Birthday.”

  I look down at the cake. I know my grandma helped her because my mom can’t bake. I also know my grandma helped her because the bright green writing on the cake isn’t my mom’s. It’s in cursive writing, and my mom doesn’t know how to write in cursive. It says, “Happy Birthday Little Lucy.” That’s more of a guess because it’s so hard to read.

  Other than the writing, there isn’t much. It’s a plain vanilla cake with creamy vanilla frosting.

  My mom looks back at my grandma, who’s wearing an old birthday cone hat that’s probably twenty years old, and she says, “I know it’s not much, honey, but it’s the best we could do.”

  “It’s perfect,” I say, and I blow out the two mismatched candles.

  They worked so hard to make this cake.

  “I wanted to get you a present,” my mom says, and she looks back at Grandma again, “but you know—”

  “I know, Mom,” I say. “It’s not a big deal.”

  I know that buying groceries is almost impossible now. From what I saw on the news, the economy is crashing, whatever that means, and it’s making everything so expensive. The other day, my grandma came home with a loaf of white bread that she says cost her eighty-three dollars. I don’t buy groceries, but I know that’s expensive. It’s usually ten dollars for the cheapest bread.

  Most nights, we eat pasta or rice. It’s the cheapest thing to buy, and it lasts a long time. We also try to eat fresh fruit and vegetables whenever we can. Grandma has a garden in the backyard, but a lot of the time, her fruits and vegetables go missing overnight. Some kids in the neighborhood must have found out about it, and they’re probably stealing our food.

  I’m pretty mad about that because Grandma works so hard even to grow one tomato, but maybe these kids don’t have any money. They might not be able to buy groceries at all, and Grandma’s garden is the only thing keeping them alive.

  Then there’s a whole other problem. There’s the looters¸ as mom calls them. She won’t even let me go to town with her anymore. She says it’s too dangerous. There’s only one grocery store left, and it’s surrounded by men with big guns and suits.

  All the other stores are being broken into, and no one has control anymore. We’re lucky that we’re here at Grandma’s house. She lives in Bruntonburg, a small town close to Washington DC. It’s a historic place, Grandma says, with buildings as old as 400 years.

  I’ve been in town a few times with my mom to buy groceries. There were cobblestone sidewalks and roads so small you can barely fit two cars. There were a lot of people on bikes and a lot of people walking around.

  It was really pretty. I loved it. Well, when people weren’t fighting with each other or breaking stuff. A few months ago, Mom said I couldn’t go with her anymore. She took a picture on her phone to show Grandma and me, and I wanted to cry. In the picture, there was broken glass everywhere. There was even a car flipped over, with its belly on fire. There were a lot of the old stone and brick buildings covered with spray paint. The words were written in red across doors and over the brick walls. I couldn’t read all of it because Mom isn’t very good at taking pictures, but I remember a few of them:

  Stand Our Ground

  Not My President

  We Will Not Fall

  Mom says the women who are rioting are putting all of that on the buildings, and even though it makes me sad to see such a pretty town get ruined like that, Mom doesn’t seem too upset about it. She says this is what happens when the government doesn’t listen to its people. I think she’s on their side. The rioters, I mean.

  And after seeing everything that’s happening now, I’m on their side, too.

  Mom’s been letting me watch the news a bit more. She says there’s no use trying to protect me and that it’s better if I know what’s going on.

  I look up at my mom while she cuts me a slice of birthday cake. I’m so thankful for everything she’s doing. I’m so scared because I feel like every time she goes out to town, something bad could happen. Ever since all of this started happening, I’ve been nicer to my mom. I don’t disappear to play on my H-Cap anymore. I’d rather spend time with my mom and Grandma because I’m scared I don’t have much time left. I know I shouldn’t be thinking like this, especially because I’m only nine, but it’s a feeling I have in my stomach and it makes me cry every night.

  My mom hands me my piece and I take a big bite full of soft frosting.

  “Delicious,” I say, and the warm frosting squishes out of my mouth and onto my face.

  My mom looks down at me and blinks hard like she’s fighting off tears. She’s probably having the same feelings as me. I think she’s scared something bad will happen to me. She brushes her thumb on my cheek and squints her eyes like she’s smiling with them.

  “I’m glad,” she says. “Next year, though, I’ll get you a special gift—could even be a dog.”

  I laugh because I know Mom will never get me a dog. She’s only saying that because she feels so bad right now. And by the look on her face, it almost looks like she’s not sure we’ll even make it that long. I think she’s trying to make herself feel better.

  I swallow my bite of cake. I have to try to make her feel better, so I say, “I’d love that.”

  Mom’s about to cut herself a slice, but there’s a weird noise coming from outside. It sounds like a deep rumbling. Like a junky old car.

  My mom gets up from the table and rushes over to the living room. She moves the blinds a little bit and sticks one eye close to the window. “What is it, Ophelia?” Grandma asks.

  But Mom doesn’t say anything. She pulls back and slaps a hand over her mouth, and her eyes are big and round.

  What’s going on?

  I drop my fork onto my plate and it makes a loud metal noise. I run to the curtains to see for myself, but Mom holds me back from moving the curtains. That doesn’t matter, though, because I can still see what’s outside through the little crack.

  It’s an old red truck. It looks almost yellow in some spots, and there’s a bunch of dark gray smoke coming out from the back of it. It’s moving slowly, and the guy inside seems to be looking for someone. He’s wearing a baseball cap, and it moves from side to side because he’s eyeballing every house.

  I don’t have to ask my mom who that is. I know who it is. I recognize the truck because that’s the same truck that’s followed us before when my mom started acting funny. And I also heard my mom talking to Aunty Eve on the phone about the red truck.

  It’s Jason, the man who’s trying to hurt us.

  He found us.

  CHAPTER 25 – EVE

  Eve – Present Day

  Mavis and Perula step out into the theater room carrying silver saucers filled with small foam cups. Fortunately, we have bags of these by the thousand in our basement supply room. I’m not entirely sure what Mavis and Perula concoct when they make these elixirs, but I do know they’ve mentioned the use of something called scopolamine, which they’ve also referred to as Devil’s Breath.

  According to myths, Devil’s Breath is capable of removing one’s free will, rendering them
entirely complacent. I don’t believe in the myth, mind you, because these women don’t become blank slates after drinking what Mavis and Perula now refer to as Devil’s tea.

  But, over the last few years, their Devil’s tea has time again spread an indescribable euphoria among the women. This became especially useful when we first established Eden because many of these women lost people they cared about and many fell into depressive states. But now, I can see it in their eyes after they drink; there’s an indescribable happiness. Every time they drink, their pupils become dilated and they’re more receptive, making it easier for me to emphasize Eden’s direction without opposition.

  Mavis and Perula are the only ones who know the ingredients to Devil’s tea. The women believe it to be a mixture of chamomile flower, alcohol, and cannabis oil. The truth, however, is that the ingredients are far more potent than anyone could ever guess, which is why I did not want any young graduate choosing the path of Healer. I’ve made it quite clear to the twins that Lucy is to know nothing about Devil’s tea. The last thing I need is for her to begin questioning my ways—to doubt my methods.

  The twins make their way around the room, bending over as women desperately reach for their tea.

  “Welcome,” I say, stepping up onto the stage.

  The women greet me with glazed eyes and smiles on their faces. Every time I step up here, I feel like royalty. This isn’t what I expected when I led the women to Eden, but over the last few years, I’ve grown to crave their love—to desire their obedience and loyalty.

  I wait a few minutes, watching as everyone finishes their drinks.

  “Thank you all for coming,” I say. I twirl a finger in the air, and Freyda sweeps through the room, picking up the empty cups.

  She knows about the tea, but she doesn’t drink it; I’d rather have her clearheaded.

  “I believe some of you may have heard voices over the wall,” I say, and bickering spreads across the room like fruit flies in an abandoned kitchen.

  With the click of my fingers, everyone goes quiet.