by Mia Sheridan
"What do the stars teach us?"
I paused for a second. "That some things are seen more clearly in light . . . and some things are seen more clearly in darkness."
Calder turned his face toward mine seeming to study my face in the dim light. His expression seemed wistful. He didn't say anything, but after a moment, he grasped my hand in his, and we both turned back to look at the sky.
We talked about the stars, his beautiful, slightly gravelly voice filling the night air.
As I lay close to him, the warmth of his body next to mine, I listened to him talk. I felt content, something I hadn’t known before. I closed my eyes for just a second.
What seemed like a few moments later, someone shook me. "Hey." I heard Calder's voice and looked around, disoriented. The sweet smell of the fruit trees awakened my senses and my eyes slowly opened. "I have to get you back," Calder said. "We both fell asleep."
"No one even knows I left," I said sleepily.
"I'll be missed though," he said, standing up and reaching down to me.
I stood up and brushed myself off. I guess his family would know he hadn't come to bed since they only had two rooms.
We started walking and Calder grabbed my hand. We took the long way around the outer perimeter of the cabins, walking as quietly as possible, not speaking.
The bonfires were all just embers now, dying down, and most of the people had already gone inside.
I walked as slowly as possible, wishing I could stay out all night, just roaming around, doing as I pleased. With Calder. I sighed.
Calder looked over at me. "Meet me at the spring tomorrow?"
I nodded. It was lighter now as the electricity from the main lodge reached the path we were walking.
"Thank you for this," I said, glancing at him, feeling shy. "It's hard to explain what this meant to me, but thank you."
Calder looked over at me and smiled. "Maybe we'll do it again."
Hopefulness filled me and I nodded, smiling back at him and removing the cloak that had provided me anonymity and handed it back.
He left me at the place where the cabins ended, and the large courtyard between the workers' homes and the main lodge began. I looked back several times to see him standing where he'd left me as he watched me walk the rest of the way. His hands were in his pockets and as my steps separated us, he became nothing more than a shadow. As our distance grew, so did the loneliness in my heart. I missed him already.
**********
When I entered the lodge, someone grabbed my wrist and I cried out in surprise.
I looked up to see Clive Richter, my least favorite council member, a shifty-eyed man who used too much hair product. I thought it fit his personality—greasy all around. Why Hector considered him holy enough to be one of the leaders to his people, I didn't have a clue.
"You're not supposed to leave the lodge, are you? Especially at night."
My heart began racing and I swallowed. If Clive knew I was leaving the lodge for something Hector hadn't approved, it'd all be over. No more lessons. No more Calder. I cast my eyes down, trying to look as obedient as possible.
"I just wanted to see what the workers did at night," I lied. "I walked through their camp once. That's all. How can I lead people if I don't understand them? If they don't think I care about who they are?" My eyes remained down as I waited for him to respond.
"They're all a bunch of degenerates, you know. You're lucky you didn't get raped by a group of them."
"Degenerates?" I asked, my eyes rising to his.
"Yeah, degenerates. You hear their stories," he said, referring to the information Hector gave us about their lives when they joined our family in Temple.
"Yes, but they're here because they want to be washed clean," I said.
Clive snorted. "The point is, don't go walking around the camp again, Eden. I'll be looking in every night to make sure you're here. Don't do it again or I'll have to mention this to Hector."
I nodded, my head still downcast. When I finally looked up, I found his eyes raking over my body, a dark glint to them. He focused on my breasts for so long I almost brought my arms up to cover them under his scrutiny, but I made myself stay still. A perfect princess.
"Hmm hmm," he said, finally raising his eyes to my face. He pushed a lock of hair behind my ear and I bit down on my tongue to keep myself from spitting at him.
"Such beauty," he hummed. "You're almost eighteen, aren't you, Eden?"
"No. I just turned seventeen."
"Hmm. I can only imagine Hector is impatient for the day you'll become his." He leaned closer so I could smell his stale breath. "You'll be a good wife, won't you, Eden? So lovely. So obedient."
"I'll hardly have time to be a good wife, will I? The floods will come and it will all be over."
Clive leaned back and smiled. "No, just beginning, my lovely. Just beginning." He laughed and caressed my cheek once more and then turned and walked away. I shuddered as I watched him retreat, not understanding what he had meant with his statement. I hurried to my room where I quickly undressed and got in bed.
My dreams were filled with Calder bathed in starlight.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Calder
It rained for the next couple days so I wasn't able to meet Eden at our spring. I actually wasn't able to get out at all. I supposed the gods had decided I needed a mini-vacation and were overseeing my work for me.
Instead, two long days after I'd lain with Eden under the stars, I stood in the doorway of our small, dim cabin and looked up toward what I knew to be Eden's room on the second floor. It was filled with light and I wondered what she was doing up there while I was down here. Was she lonely? Bored? I imagined she was. I imagined standing a ladder against that window, climbing up to her, and then taking her hand as we ran through the warm rain, the smell of apples scenting the air, her dress clinging to her, revealing her pink skin beneath. I groaned. This line of thought was not productive. I had told her we couldn't kiss, that we couldn't be more than friends. But half my mind and my body—certainly my body—didn't seem to agree with that plan. In fact, there seemed to be a full out mutiny to that plan as my thoughts constantly turned to Eden, setting my blood on fire. Several times I had given in to temptation, gone up into the hills and leaned back against a rock, and stroked myself until release flashed through my body, potent and intense. I knew it was sinful, but in the moments right before, it felt necessary, vital to my very survival. That water-cleansing ceremony had its work cut out for it where I was concerned.
"Quit pacing. You're like a caged animal," my mom nagged.
I snorted softly, recalling Xander using those same words a few days before when we'd spoken.
"This damn rain," I muttered, sticking my head out the door, covered by a small wooden overhang.
"You want something to do, I have a hundred cans that need filled with tomatoes," my mom said, looking over her shoulder where she stood at the table. Cans were lined up neatly in front of her as was a large pot of peeled, cooling tomatoes. She was helping stockpile food for the winter months. It didn't get very cold here in the desert, even in winter, but everything had a season and tomatoes only flourished through November.
I breathed out, and reluctantly went to help with the canning. After a few minutes, I said, "Cans aren't provided by nature."
"What?" My mom looked up.
"Hector always says we should use the instruments and materials the gods have naturally provided for us, that using the wicked tools of the big society only corrupts our purity."
My mom didn't acknowledge me for a few minutes, just kept spooning tomatoes into cans. After a bit she said, "We use as little as we can from the big society. Some things simply can't be fashioned from rock, dirt, and tree branches."
"Oh, I see. So when it's convenient, we use what the gods have provided. I didn't get the updated version of the Holy Book. Maybe that's in the new edition," I said sarcastically.
My mom looked up sharply. "Calder!
You're being blasphemous." Her voice was a whisper as if someone was listening in—the gods themselves perhaps—although you couldn't hide from the gods.
"We make many, many sacrifices as Hector's people." She waved her hand around the cabin. "No running water, no electricity."
"Yes, but clearly Hector doesn't make those same concessions. Why? Has anyone ever asked him? Perhaps the gods ordained it so? Is that it?"
"Calder," my mom hissed. I had never spoken to her this way and I was suddenly ashamed.
"I'm sorry, Mom. I shouldn't have said any of that."
She waved her hand in front of her. "It's the rain. It's gotten under your skin. This cabin is small for four. It will clear tomorrow, and this mood will lift. You'll see." She smiled at me and patted my cheek. I did my best to smile back.
We were quiet in our work for a minute. "You'll be able to marry soon if you wish. As soon as you've had your water cleansing," she said. "Have any of the girls caught your eye?"
Yes, as a matter of fact. Funny story, though . . .
"No."
My mom huffed out a breath. "Oh, Calder, surely one has." She hesitated in her canning, looking upward as if thinking. "Let's see, there are four girls here about your age. Lucie Jennings, Hannah Jacobson, Leah Perez, Sadie Campbell . . ."
"What does it matter anyway? The great floods draw closer every day," I interrupted.
My mom stopped her work and looked up at me. "Yes, and that's precisely why you want to take a wife. So you can bring her to Elysium with you."
I laughed a humorless laugh. "Maybe I should wait until I get there. What if the options are better?"
My mom narrowed her eyes at me and put down the ladle that was in her hands. "What's gotten into you?"
I let out a breath. "I just . . . don't you ever question things, Mom? Don't you ever have questions you wish someone other than Hector would answer?"
Her eyes went to the small window next to her for a minute. Finally, she looked back at me. "We'll never have all the answers to all the questions, Calder. But Hector is good and Hector has only our best interests at heart. That's all I need to know, and that's all you need to know. The devil is testing your faith and you must win against him." She picked up the ladle and began working again before continuing on. "You know, if not for Hector, you wouldn't even be here. He saved my life, Calder, and he saved your dad's life, too. He gave us a family, a purpose."
"I know, Mom," I responded. She had told me the story many times, how she and my dad had grown up in loveless homes where harsh beatings were a daily occurrence. They had met Hector when they were both eighteen, when he was on one of his missions. My mom had been pregnant with Maya and they didn't have anywhere to go. Hector showed them the first kindness they had ever known, and they were thrilled to know they were meant to be two of his people, and among the first to live on Acadia. It was the very first time they'd felt their lives had meaning.
My mom waved her hand around our small cabin. "This may not look like much, but there is peace here. There is order here. There is faith, and there is purpose. We're all very lucky. Blessed. I know sometimes the simplicity of life here seems difficult. But there is peace in simplicity. The big society is filled with chaos, uncertainty, and hurt. Believe me, I know." She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. "Have you had a good life, Calder?"
I regarded her. "Yes, Mom." But I want more.
She nodded as if she'd known what my answer would be. "Then you have Hector to thank for that."
"I have you to thank for that."
My mom looked like she was about to say something more, when my dad and Maya came laughing into the room from the bedroom where they had been doing their Holy Book reading, their matching red hair glinting in the sunshine coming through the kitchen window. My mom had red hair, too. My mom said I had gotten my dark coloring from the "black Irish" in our genes.
My dad sat Maya down on the chair directly beside me and I put my arm around her small, rounded shoulders, tickling her ribs with my other hand. Maya was nineteen now, but she still had the mind of a child—a sweet, angelic child.
She laughed out and it ended in a coughing fit. She had had this same cough for days and days now and I was a little worried about her. When she finally cleared her throat, she said, "Calder. Take me out in the rain on a piggyback! I want to get wet!"
I laughed down at her, thinking that she needed to stay right here in this cabin, probably under a warm blanket. "Can't. Know why?"
She looked at me and shook her head, her eyes curious.
I leaned over and whispered in her ear. "You know how I bring you sugar cubes sometimes?" I leaned back up and put my finger over my mouth to indicate it was our secret. I glanced at my dad and mom and they were talking in hushed tones about what other canning needed to get done. Truly, it wasn't even our work, but in the rain, we all needed to occupy ourselves, so we all helped out with whatever inside work there was.
"Well, you're just as sweet as those sugar cubes. You get sweeter every day. And if I bring you out in the rain, you'll melt away, just like sugar."
Her eyes widened, but then she laughed. "That's not true!"
I winked. "Well, the part about you being as sweet as sugar is. Come on though, if you bundle up, we can sit under the porch and I'll draw you something in the dirt."
"Do I get to guess what it is?" She clapped.
"Yup. I won't tell you."
I helped her put on a sweater and a pair of warm socks, and then we sat under the roof overhang as I drew small pictures in the dirt and she guessed what they were.
When I looked up toward Eden's room, I saw her outline in the window. And I swore that despite the distance and the rain, for a brief second, our eyes met.
**********
The rain stopped the next day. I bounded down the trail, even faster than I usually went, my calf muscles burning with the exertion. I had a strange feeling I couldn't even explain swirling through me from not seeing Eden these past few days. Was it protectiveness? Maybe. I wanted to know she was okay. I wanted to know she was being cared for, happy. Those feelings were friendly, right? Only, I had never felt anything remotely similar for Xander. I pushed that aside.
When I squeezed through the rocks, at first I didn't think she was there. Disappointment, swift and strong, hit me. But then her head surfaced from the spring and she took in a big breath of air.
She caught sight of me and grinned.
"What are you doing?"
"Swimming," she answered, smiling happily.
I walked closer until I was just at the edge of the spring.
"Well yes, I can see that. Why exactly?"
She squinted at me, sunlight hitting her face, making the water droplets on her skin sparkle and dance. Her hair, although wet, was still golden and it cast a halo around her delicately beautiful face. She looked like an angel or a mermaid—a magical, mythical creature. I took a mental photo of her, meaning to draw her later, just like that.
"Well, I've decided this," she waved her hand around, indicating our spring and the surrounding rocks, "is my school. And I mean to learn every little thing I can while I'm here. I mean to soak up every piece of knowledge possible. And I didn't know how to swim. And now I do. Sort of."
I raised an eyebrow. "You taught yourself to swim in the last," I looked up at the sky to see how far past noon it was, when I assumed she'd arrived, "fifteen minutes?"
She nodded, leaning down and taking some water in her mouth and then spitting it out. Something about that had my body stirring in ways that, again, didn't feel friendly.
"Do you know how to swim?" she asked.
I nodded, willing my body to cooperate. "Yeah. I bathe in the river. Us worker kids have been swimming since we were young."
She paused, staring at me for a second and then nodded. "Come on in then. The water's nice." It was almost winter, but the temperature was still in the seventies. I'd bet it did feel nice.
I hesitated. This felt dangero
us in ways that had nothing to do with drowning or stubbing my toe on a rock under the water. Nonetheless, I took off my shirt and waded into the water in my pants. I moved to the other side of the spring and regarded Eden. I noticed she was fully submerged, but she was still wearing her long, modest dress. Although it would be less modest now that it would be sticking to her skin. Lust spiked through my body, leaving a fierce longing in its wake.
I moved away a little farther and Eden rolled her eyes. "You don't have to be afraid of me, Calder. Friends, remember? And actually, I've been up in my room thinking about it these past few rainy days and you're right. It's better this way. Not just for the community as a whole, but for me, too. I've been too fixated on you these past few years. Silly, really. I mean, think of all the things I could have been teaching myself if I had had a different focus. There's knowledge everywhere! And instead, I've been wasting time staring at your muscles." She laughed. I frowned.
"Well, I wouldn't call it a complete waste of time," I muttered.
Eden laughed again, but then went serious. The swell of her breasts was just barely showing over the surface of the water. "No, but really . . ." She swirled her arm across the water, causing it to ripple. I watched as the ripples moved away from her, reaching toward me as if she meant to span the distance between us, using the water as an extension of her. When the first small wave hit my naked belly, I almost groaned as if it was her hand stroking my skin. Oh for the love of the gods, what's wrong with me? "When the rain hit my window, it fogged up. I remembered your lesson about the states of matter, and I was able to figure out the window fogged because of the different temperature of the glass on the inside and the outside." Her eyes lit up, like she had just solved the mystery of the universe. I couldn't help but smile.
"And music," she continued. "It's all numbers. I don't know why Hector never taught me math. I could have been an even better piano player than I am."
Her eyes widened. "Last night I snuck down to the kitchen and read through some recipes. There's lots of math in those, too . . . some you still have to teach me." She laughed softly, puckering her lips and taking water into her mouth again and then spitting it out. I groaned softly, but she didn't appear to hear. "Anyway, my point is, you taught me a couple things, and I was able to apply them to other things. And now I want more. I want to learn everything you have to teach me. And I want to teach myself as much as possible." She looked thoughtful for a minute. "It's a sort of freedom for me, Calder. And maybe that's hard to understand. But . . . most of my life, I've had so many questions and no answers. And now . . . well, I might not have all the answers, but I have a few, and my life feels fuller. And I can carry all that knowledge inside me and no one else can ever take it. It's mine. It belongs to me." She lowered her eyes briefly and then raised them back to mine. "Thank you."