Book of Knowledge
Page 26
“That was for him, huh?” Daphna asked.
Evelyn nodded and handed it to Daphna. She was nearly incapacitated by grief. Tears gushed.
Daphna looked at Dex as she pulled the wrapping off. Inside was the thinnest book she’d ever seen. And though it was well cared for, it was also obviously ancient. Dex came near as Daphna opened the book, and the twins peered inside. There was only one page, and it contained only one word. It was a blur to Dexter, but Daphna couldn’t read it either.
Then it clicked.
The twins looked up at Evelyn, whose head was bowed. Her pointy shoulders jerked up and down with her every wracking sob.
“This is the Book of Life,” Daphna gasped.
Dex swallowed hard and looked at Evelyn, who was now looking up at the twins with red-rimmed eyes. “And you’re—” he said, “you’re— Eve.”
CHAPTER 32
the difference a day makes
Evelyn, Eve, told Dexter and Daphna her story. She’d taken the other sacred Book after Adam forced her out of Eden. She never mastered the Word it contained but was able to use it well enough to prolong life. And that’s exactly what she did, secretly stretching her days and the days of her beloved down through the millennia so that one day he would finally understand his duty to love and be loved by her. She hovered near him all that time to keep him safe as best she could, waiting. But he was not invulnerable. He could never have survived that fall.
Evelyn was a master of physical transformation, so Adam never realized he was constantly meeting the same woman all over the world up and down the years. It was terribly disappointing for her when he began meeting and marrying other women, but the marriages didn’t seem to last long. Even when he married Shimona—who of course he’d instructed as a child called Sophia Logos—she never gave up because she knew Time was on her side.
Evelyn did lie to Milton on the plane ride from New York by pretending to be moving from Brooklyn. The twins could only shake their heads at this information.
In all the time she’d followed Adam, Evelyn never once tried to discover what it was he was doing. She never questioned why he sought to have others read the Book of Nonsense, nor why he recruited those children, though she saw the consequences were disastrous. No matter what Adam did, her response was always the same: change how she looked, meet him again and try to make him love her.
But Evelyn had been preparing to let go. That’s why the Book was wrapped and ready. She was going to give it to Adam and finish her days helping the old folks at the Home. She just hadn’t quite worked up the courage until just that night.
When the story was over, the twins burned the Book. The moment it disintegrated, Evelyn said that it was so true that love can make you blind.
After that, they all went to bed.
In the morning, Evelyn fixed breakfast for Dex and Daphna and then left to file a missing persons report for Milton Wax and to look into the paperwork she’d need to start the adoption process when things settled down.
The twins cleaned up and headed out for school. As they walked, Dex and Daphna chatted about this and that. It was mostly nonsense—anything as long as it wasn’t important. This kept them distracted until they’d just come in sight of the school. That’s when a convertible full of Pops sped by. The driver was a high school boy. Wren and Teal were in the front seat smiling and laughing at whatever he was saying. Their skin was still blotchy, but Daphna clearly saw the old looks of entitlement plastered all over their faces anyway.
“I just realized something,” Daphna said.
“What?”
“Flirting.”
“What about it?”
“It’s pretty much the same thing as using the First Tongue. It’s trying to bend people.”
“I guess you could look at it that way,” Dex replied. He was glad finally to have a reason to be so irritated with the idea, but he quickly lost his train of thought. A high school bus passed just then, and he could have sworn he saw Antin in the back seat. He could have sworn Antin nodded at him slightly, too. Intimidating people, Dex suddenly thought, trying to make them back down, it was pretty much like flirting—the other side of flirting, anyway—just one more way to bend people.
“You know this whole living trillions of lives thing you keep talking about?” he asked.
“I’m not so sure about that anymore,” Daphna replied. She hadn’t thought about it in a while, and it suddenly dawned on her that, though she thought she believed it, she hadn’t really been acting like it. She wondered what that meant.
“You’re not?” Dex questioned. “I was hoping you could explain it once and for all.”
“I’m not sure it matters,” Daphna replied, “but I’d love to talk about it some more.”
“Good,” said Dex, “‘cause I’ve been thinking about revenge, you know?”
“What about it?”
“Well, I was thinking about how you never really know what people are thinking when they do bad stuff.”
“Yeah?”
“And how, if you know that you don’t know ahead of time—I mean, now that we know what Adem—what Adam—what Dad wanted—It’s like Emmet, and Antin. Let me put it another way: if we all live a trillion lives and that means we do everything, good and bad, that also means one time I’ll be Adem Tarik, and I’ll do all that bad stuff, and so will you. So, what I’m saying is that, if you know that—all I’m saying is that the revenge doesn’t feel that great. You know what I’m saying?”
“I know exactly what you’re saying,” Daphna assured. And she did. “Believe me, I wanted revenge worse than you,” she added. “Like I said, I don’t know what to think anymore. There’s still something I don’t get.”
“What’s that?”
“Why did God bother putting the Books in the Library to begin with? Just to test Adam and Eve? Why do that if, at that time, he knew how things would go?”
“I don’t know.”
“I mean, life is more complicated than that. People fail tests for all kinds of reasons. I mean, look at you! I was thinking about how both Adam and Eve misunderstood what God wanted them to do, and they actually spoke with him!”
“Do you think it’s true what Dad said about asking too many questions,” Dex asked, “that everything was ruined because Adam and Eve wouldn’t leave well enough alone? Maybe we’re not supposed to know some things. Maybe Fikret Cihan was right: thinking is suffering.”
“I was wondering about that, too,” Daphna said. “And I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“When Adam and Eve were kicked out, Adam’s punishment—mankind’s punishment—was that it would have to work to make food grow. But it was a Library, not a garden, so I think it’s not about food. I think it’s about knowledge. I think mankind’s punishment is that we have to work to get knowledge, and that’s not really so awful if you think about it. So, no, I don’t think we can ask too many questions.”
“That’s not bad,” Dex said. “You’re pretty smart.”
“Maybe it’s all beyond our understanding,” Daphna replied, too embarrassed to acknowledge the compliment, “but I’m not going to give up thinking about it, even though I’m pretty sure I’m going to come to the same conclusion no matter what.”
“What’s that?”
“That the only thing to do is try to be the best person you can be here and now. That’s hard enough for one lifetime.”
The twins were climbing the front steps of the school now. Once inside, Dex veered toward the office.
“Isn’t your homeroom that way?” Daphna asked.
“Yeah,” Dex said, “but I’m gonna make a meeting with the Counselor. Maybe they can help with this syndrome thing you heard about, if that’s really what I’ve got. I guess the answer isn’t going to grow on a tree.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t find out more about it,” Daphna said. “I’ve been meaning to.”
“I guess you’ve been a bit busy.”
Daphna s
miled. “I’ll help you if you want me to,” she offered.
“Thanks,” Dexter said, but then he smiled back and said, “but not if I was Adam and you were Eve.”
AFTERWORD
worth a thousand words (of power)
When Dex and Daphna got home from school, they found a package covered in strange stamps sitting on their porch. A closer look revealed the stamps to be Turkish. At once, they recoiled, regarding the box as if it contained all the world’s horrors. But then they pushed their fears aside.
Neither Dex nor Daphna could explain why, but they both understood that the world’s horrors were what they were, and when they arrive at your doorstep, they have to be faced.
Dex used his key to slice open the box. Then he folded the flaps out.
The twins peered inside.
Photo albums.
Their mother had taken them with her all the way to Turkey. She probably couldn’t bear to throw them away, but she also had to make sure Adam, their father, never laid eyes on them. She must’ve felt safe sending them back when she was certain he was staying in Eden.
The twins turned to each other. Words failed—but the look they exchanged was magic.