by Lane, Styna
“You,” he said, pointing at me as he shoved the last bite of food into his mouth, “I like you.”
And with that, he left without another word.
“What was that?” I questioned.
“Sorry,” Lily sighed, shaking her head. “He’s a jerk.”
“You don’t say?” I said, peeking through the window to watch as Gabe meandered his way through the dispersing crowd. “But no, I meant all the people.”
“News spreads pretty quickly, around here. They just wanted to see you for themselves, before—” Lily was cut off by a very aggressive headshake from Al.
“Before what?” Lakin asked.
“Well,” she sighed, “exciting things don’t happen very often in the Eden. And your presence is quite exciting, so…”
“They are having a welcoming party, of sorts,” Al said, glancing at me from the corner of his eye to judge my reaction.
I continued to stare out the window, as strangers mumbled enthusiastically in small groups. Normally, I probably wouldn’t have been fond of the idea of a party, but it would at least be interesting to meet all the people who were like me. And it had to happen sometime, so it may as well have been all at once.
“Cool,” I said plainly, trying to hide my enthusiasm.
Al chuckled and shook his head, carrying a plate of fresh pancakes to the table.
The clinks of forks against plates were the only sounds resonating throughout the house. I had never been so hungry, and I suddenly felt very grateful for the life I’d had at The Facility. Sure, I had basically been a lab-rat for the majority of my existence, but at least lab-rats were well-fed. I couldn’t imagine surviving in the way Lyla had—couch-surfing, scavenging for food, and sleeping on the streets when the couches ran out. We’d lived in excess at The Facility, and going just a day without food made me realize how weak that excess had made me.
“You okay?” Al asked, jabbing his fork into another pancake from the stack in the middle of the table.
“Fine,” I said, staring down at my barely-touched plate as my appetite unexpectedly faded.
Other than Joseph, I’d had the easiest life of my generation. Maybe not the easiest, but at least the most consistent. I generally knew what to expect on a daily basis. We’d run labs, I’d hang out with Eric, head down to the farm to chill with the cows, perhaps… I’d get shocked if I acted out, but going without food or water or a place to sleep had never been a concern. It’d never even crossed my mind as a possibility. And yet, I’d complained the most out of everyone. I'd only ever wanted to get out of the life I’d been forced into. Lakin had never whined about the physical abuse he’d put up with on a daily basis. Lyla had never moaned about how uncomfortable it was to sleep behind a dumpster. Bryant had never even spoken a word about how his adoptive family barely acknowledged his existence. We all knew what each other was feeling, but I was the only one to pipe up about how I despised what I had truly thought was a terrible life. Could I really have been so self-centered?
‘It was all you knew,’ Al’s voice said reassuringly inside my head. ‘Everyone deals with things in the only way they know how.’
I stared at him for a moment from across the table, trying to believe in his words.
‘You’re just trying to make me feel better,’ I accused.
‘Yup,’ his voice said as he smirked.
And it worked. Maybe I had complained the most, but we did know how each other felt, after all. None of my generation had been irritated by my ramblings of life within The Facility. We only ever cared for, and empathized with, one another. We were a family.
Chapter Five
Presidents
“Are you ready?” Lily asked, after the dishes were cleared, and everyone had had ample time to soothe their food-babies.
Lakin and I glanced at each other nervously.
“Don’t worry,” Al said, “it’ll be fun. Everyone is really excited to meet you.”
“Can we maybe do a ‘pop in, pop out’ kind of thing?” I asked as my nerves started to wobble.
“That’s not really how parties work around here,” Lily said, eyes flicking to Al for a moment.
“What do you mean?” I asked, as we followed them through the door.
If she answered me, I didn’t hear her. I was far too busy gawking at all the hoopla that was going on in the clearing near the stone tunnel. It appeared that every soul in the Eden had gathered in the field, some with instruments, some with odd-looking games. Children laughed and rolled and tumbled, adults chatted and sang and danced. Lyla’s words, ‘hippie farmer commune,’ were the first that came to mind. Everyone seemed so happy and celebrative… I wanted to turn and run in the exact opposite direction. Not that I had anything against hippies, of course. I just found that much joy to be incredibly exhausting.
As I hesitantly trailed Lakin behind Lily and Al, the commotion in the clearing came to a standstill. At first, a sinking feeling sprouted up in my gut. I was reminded of the night in the hospital at The Facility, after I’d caused the massively damaging quake. Scowls of accusation had stabbed at me, looks of concern and fear spreading over everyone’s face. But this was different. All the faces were smiling. They were warm and inviting. They were happy that we were there. Once again, I became very conscious of my appearance.
I was discreetly running my fingers through my hair, unsuccessfully attempting to yank through some unruly knots, when four bodies met us halfway between the field and Al’s house. I recognized one of them as Gabe, and immediately squinted my harshest glare.
“Angie, Lakin,” Lily started, beaming as she turned to us, “this is my generation.”
“Hello,” Lakin and I said in unison, nodding timidly as the commotion started back up behind the group of strangers.
“You’ve already met Gabe, of course,” Lily muttered, irritation flaring in her voice at just the mention of her brother’s name. “This is his bond, Reagan, and her brother, Nixon.”
“Like the presidents?” Lakin asked, shaking their hands one at a time.
“Never heard that one before,” Nixon mumbled, words completely saturated with sarcasm.
As he reached in to shake my hand, my mind was blinded by muscle. He looked kind of like someone had sculpted a stocky, super-ripped statue, and then suddenly remembered there was supposed to be a face in there somewhere, so they slapped on some eyes about halfway up his beefy neck, and then tried to make it all blend together by plopping a mane of long black hair on top his head. I couldn’t help but compare myself to a scarecrow made of spaghetti noodles.
I was a bit taken aback when Lakin protectively wrapped his arm around my shoulder, but I realized it must have been because I was staring inappropriately. I wasn’t attracted to Nixon, of course. I was simply mesmerized by the massive blob of muscle that was standing before us.
Reagan, on the other hand, was the exact opposite of her brother. She was as tall and wispy as a willow. If she felt like popping off to France for a weekend, she probably could have hitched a ride on a gentle breeze across the Atlantic. Short, green hair with black roots stuck out from her head in all directions, and her eyes seemed almost too big for her face. In shaking her hand, I quickly understood that not everyone in the Eden was as old-fashioned as the game of horseshoes in the field suggested; a vivid sleeve of tattoos decorated the girl’s arm, from her wrist all the way up to her neck. Oddly enough, Lakin didn’t seem as threatened by my new stares of amazement.
“And this is Cora,” Al said, wrapping his arm around a different girl’s neck and tousling her dark, wavy hair with his knuckle. “My sister.”
It wouldn’t have taken an introduction to conclude that they were related. If Al had put on a wig and a bra, he would have looked exactly like her. As Cora wriggled free from his grasp, her icy-blue eyes glared daggers at her brother, and she seemed less than enthused about meeting us. I had no idea what the bitterness was based on, but she made it more than obvious.
“It’s nice t
o meet you all,” Lakin said courteously. I nodded and smiled in agreement.
“Even me?” Gabe piped up with a smirk.
“I don’t know. Are you less of an ass now than you were a couple of hours ago?” I asked. At that point, I wished I’d been born with that filter other people seemed to have, which kept your mouth from saying all the stupid things that ran through your brain.
Reagan’s breathy laugh was accompanied by chuckles from Al and Nixon, but Lily and Cora seemed a bit put off by my comment. Less than two full days in the Eden, and I was already upsetting people? Yeah, that sounded about right.
“I told you,” Gabe said to his bond, before looking back to me, “she’s all right for having grown up in a test-tube.”
“Gabe!” Lily said in a harsh, hushed tone, thwacking him on the arm with the back of her hand.
“Chill, sis. She’s not offended. Are you offended?” he asked, raising his eyebrows at me.
I shook my head, still a bit uncomfortable around the people with whom we were so unfamiliar. I couldn’t make any more stupid remarks if I just kept my mouth closed.
“See?” Gabe said, smiling at his frustrated sister. “We’re good.”
“There’s something wrong with you,” I heard Lily whisper as she shoved past her brother.
“I’m just being friendly!” Gabe called after us. I wondered if anything that came out of his mouth ever sounded sincere.
Lakin and I followed closely behind Lily and Al, as we joined the rest of the community in the field. I hadn’t really gotten a chance to observe the faces while we were in the house, but the amount of diversity that filled the Eden was as clear as the water above us. Close-up, it didn’t look like a hippie-farmer-commune at all. There were people with tattoos, and piercings, and flowers in their hair. There were people wearing flowing skirts, and skinny jeans, and pant-suits. High-heels, flip-flops, and no shoes at all. Everyone was different, and everyone was themselves. There was no judgment. It was beautiful, and fascinating, and I would have been perfectly content spending the rest of my life with them.
“Everyone,” Lily’s voice boomed louder than I would have ever thought possible, “gather ‘round!”
Lakin and I huddled in closely to each other, eyeing unacquainted faces nervously. What if we weren’t what they were expecting? What if they didn’t like us? Would they kick us out of the Eden?
‘They haven’t thrown Gabe out, yet,’ Al’s voice laughed in my head. ‘You’ll be fine.’
“As I’m sure you all have heard, this is Angela Dawson and Lakin Adams, born of our lost generation,” Lily called.
An older man with two long, silver braids and a face full of white stubble stepped out from the crowd.
“On behalf of all the Oracles, and every soul in the Eden,” the man said, spreading his arms to gesture to those around him, “welcome to our home.”
A long, extremely awkward silence lingered in the air as all eyes stared at us expectantly.
“Uh,” I whispered, trying to find my voice. “T-thank you.”
Before my lips even closed around my words, the static-sound of applause broke out and filled the entirety of the Eden. It was so surprising that I jumped a few inches back, sheltering myself behind Lakin, who obviously found my reaction amusing, and laughed as he wrapped a soothing arm around me.
After the clapping had faded off, the festivities quickly picked back up. The sounds of music and happiness floated all around us, as generation after generation took their turns meeting us in groups.
The old man, Roland, we were told, was the oldest person in the Eden, from a recycled generation. He’d been the Oracle of his group, and had been fortunate enough—or, perhaps, unfortunate enough—to be the only one to retain his memories. All others from his generation had passed years ago, for as strong as the healing powers of the Elementums were, the effects of time were wounds we could never touch.
The generation below that of our parents’ seemed the most emotional when meeting us.
“I never thought this day would come,” a woman named Michelle said with tears in her eyes as she smothered me in a hug.
Al then explained that the parents of Michelle’s generation had recycled into us when we were born, and that they’d always felt a sort of emptiness in having never seen us. Of course, there was no way to tell whose parent had recycled into whom, but, apparently, after all the sadness of some lost memories had passed, the Elementums made a sort of game out of guessing. It all sounded a bit weird and morbid to me.
“Has Patrick’s generation not returned, yet?” Lily asked, after Michelle had finally released me.
“They’re on their way back, now. I’ve been keeping in touch with Cain. He said they did very well,” Michelle said, face beaming with pride.
“That’s wonderful,” Lily said, patting the woman’s hand, “but we all had the utmost faith in them. They’ve always been a very promising generation.”
As Lily ushered us around the field, she clarified that Patrick’s was the generation younger than ours, and that they had set out on their first mission a few days earlier. They’d gone with Michelle’s bond, Patrick’s father, to heal a forest that had been nearly burnt to the ground by a stray fire.
“Won’t anyone notice that an entire forest sprouted back up overnight?” I questioned incredulously in the rare moment of downtime between introductions.
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Al said with a half-smile.
“Most humans are all too willing to overlook things that can’t be explained by their laws of nature,” Lily said. “Some take notice, but they are few enough that the majority consider them to be unrespectable resources. Human ignorance, as frustrating as it may be at times, has kept us well hidden.”
“The thing is,” Al whispered, as Lily went off to gather another group of strangers, “most of the people who’re thought of as crazy... are actually right.”
Chapter Six
Presents
“Oh, wow… Uh… Thank you,” I said, holding the jar of mushy greenish-yellow stuff up to the light for examination.
Lily and Al had neglected to mention that the other Elementums would be giving us gifts. It was uncomfortable enough accepting presents from total strangers, but even more so when we didn’t know what half of the things were.
“It’s dandelion jelly,” a woman I remembered as Karen said, seemingly unoffended by my lack of knowledge on homemade canned goods.
At least the majority of the gifts were hand-made. It wasn’t like accepting a beautiful necklace from someone you’d just met. They’d put the gathering together so quickly, it was pretty obvious that most had grabbed something random out of their cupboards. Still, I would have been perfectly happy with handshakes and the odd hug.
“You can make jelly from dandelions?” I questioned, spinning the top off the jar to take a whiff. It actually smelled pretty good, not at all like a lawn.
Karen chuckled and waved her hand at me, as if she were brushing off a silly joke. I wish I’d been joking. I knew very little about preparing even the simplest of foods, let alone ones made from weeds.
“Has everyone given their gifts?” Lily asked, hair nearly glowing in the dimming sunlight.
“Wait!” a squeaky voice called from somewhere in the crowd.
I recognized the girl, coppery hair bouncing as she led her young generation toward us. She’d given me a dandelion on the day before, when I’d first set foot in the Eden. My heart ached as I thought of Jenny.
“We made these for you,” the girl said, as she and another young girl held out rings of little white flowers.
“They’re lovely,” I smiled, kneeling down so she could place the band on my head. A snicker escaped as Lakin did the same, returning upright with a lopsided crown of foliage.
“You’re a princess, now,” the girl cheered as she threw her arms around me in a hug.
“Thank you,” I chuckled.
“Do I get to be a princess, too?”
Lakin asked with excitement. I’d never seen him interact with kids before. It was kind of adorable.
Laughs rang out from the crowd as the girl nodded with certainty.
“Thank you, Amelia,” Lily said sweetly, as the girl led her generation back to their parents. “Roland, if you would?”
The old man stepped forward, braids swinging elegantly behind him. In front of us, branches and logs had been stacked into a massive pile, nearly as tall as Lakin. I felt a tinge of anticipation as I finally realized what the wood was for. The closest I’d ever come to seeing a bonfire in real life was when Eddie had accidentally turned the gas up too high on his grill.
Roland took hold of one of the many torches that lined the field. One by one, others met him, igniting flames in their palms. Soon, everyone was gathered around the wood pile in a circle, hands blazing in a scene that could have easily been mistaken for a cult ritual.
“Angie? Lakin? Will you join us?” Roland asked politely, reaching out his torch.
I began stretching my arm toward the flame, when Al’s voice resonated in my mind.
‘Better not…’ His words of caution reminded me of the incident in the bathroom, and I quickly withdrew my hand.
“I’ll just watch, thanks,” I said quietly, slightly disappointed by my inability to participate.
“Lakin, then?” Roland prodded.
“I… I can’t,” Lakin admitted shamefully, looking down to his feet.
“Sure you can,” the old man said, grinning as he took Lakin’s hand into his own and held it above the flame.
Lakin struggled for a moment, trying to pull away so as not to be burned, but when Roland finally let go, a ball of flickering fire rested comfortably in his palm. His wide eyes flashed in the light as he beamed at me with all the excitement of a child seeing the ocean for the first time.
I smiled, wrapping my arm around Lakin’s in support.