Children of Eden (9 page)

“It's a cult, or a political movement, depending on who you talk to,” Lark said. “They believe that humans were meant to rule the Earth, and that destroying it was just part of the master plan.”

“Whose master plan?” I ask.

She shrugs. “They talk about a book written thousands of years ago that gives them permission to kill and destroy and conquer whatever they like. Far as I know, no one has ever seen or read this book, though. Now they mostly just spout off about how when the Earth is finally healed then people
can reclaim their rightful place at the top of the food chain, slaughtering animals and laying waste to the land.”

I shudder. How could anyone actually think like that? I remember reading in Eco-history how in our distant past huge animals like cows and sheep were raised only to be killed and eaten. If a cow walked through Eden right now, every citizen would fall on their knees in amazement.

Except for the Dominion members. They'd probably start slicing steaks.

“But the Dominion does have one thing right,” Lark said.

“What's that?” I ask nervously. I know that mere association with the Dominion carries a mandatory prison sentence.

“Humans belong out in the world, not trapped in a prison city.”

“But Eden is the only reason we survive!” I say. “How could we live out there?” I gesture in the direction of the far edge of the city.

Lark shrugs. “I didn't say it was possible,” she says. “Only that's where we belong. We're part of nature, not this artificial paradise.”

I look back at the proselytizer. “Why don't they arrest him?”

“Oh, they will once someone starts listening to him, agreeing with him. He's safe until he has an audience. As long as he has no support he's just an advertisement for the movement's foolishness. He'll be in prison soon enough.”

I shudder again. That's my fate—at the very least—if I get caught.

Lark notices. “Don't worry,” she says. “As long as you're with me you're safe. I know these streets like the back of my hand.” That phrase makes me think of Mom, and calms me. Lark seems so fearless, so confident, that it's rubbing off on me. I feel safe with her at my side.

It's
a long, circuitous walk back to my house. We even pass her house, though she doesn't point it out until we've walked beyond it. I crane my neck and see the soft warm glow in one of the windows.

Lark is chatty, which is a novelty to me. Ash tells me all about his day as soon as he gets home, and no matter how tired Mom is after work she always makes a point of sitting down with me for a while before I go to sleep. But so many of my hours have been spent in silence. Just hearing Lark's patter is so interesting that sometimes I lose the train of her conversation and just listen to the flow of her voice, marveling that it is directed at me. Soon all of my life will be like this, with friends and conversation. But Lark will always be the first.

I'm lucky, too, that she takes the burden of conversation on herself. Most of the time I really don't know what to say, how to respond. But she seems to understand, and barrels through any of my awkward pauses with a steady flow of words. She makes all this new socializing almost easy for me.

When we reach our home circle Lark suddenly stops, gripping my hand tightly.

“What is it?” I ask in alarm. She seems frozen. A few seconds later, though, she relaxes, though she doesn't let go of my hand.

“I thought . . . never mind.”

“No, tell me,” I say.

She sighs, then smiles. “After what you've shared with me, I guess I don't have the right to hide anything from you. I have seizures.”

She explains how a quirk in her brain makes her have seizures. “It's kind of like a lightning storm in my brain. The neurons go crazy. The episodes usually aren't too bad, and I can almost always feel them coming on. The world goes kinda . . . different. Floaty. I get a little dizzy. That's why I thought I was
going to have a seizure just now. The ground seemed to shift and I felt off-balance. Did you feel it?”

I shake my head. I think my heart is pounding too fast, too loud in my chest for me to notice any other sensation.

She smiles at me, and we walk on, still hand in hand.

When we finally reach my house, I almost don't recognize it. I've always seen it from the inside. My only glimpse from the outside was when I was fleeing it, and I didn't look back. It seems strangely staid after the opulence of the rest of the city. The gray stones look . . . natural.

The rest of the city is all artifice. Beautiful, bright, but not natural.

The sight of home, with its interlocked pattern of real stones, its muted mossy gray color, makes me homesick in anticipation. This is where I belong, I think. I can't leave home! I can't . . .

Lark lays a hand on my shoulder, distracting me. “You are so lucky to live here,” she says.

I know I am, but I ask, “Why?” expecting a conventional answer.

She surprises me. “I can't imagine what a thrill it must be to live in the home of Aaron Al-Baz. Always wondered why there isn't a plaque on the wall, commemorating it.”

I look at her blankly. “The creator of EcoPan lived here?”

“You didn't know?”

I shake my head.

“My dad told me. He was the only one in Eden allowed to have a real stone house. Everything else is synthetic, but he insisted on keeping a connection to the Earth. Stones aren't alive, people said, but he told them that stones are the Earth's bones.”

I process for a moment, then say, “So I'm living inside a skeleton?”

She tilts her head and laughs. “An ossuary—a bone house!”

“Why don't I know this?” I ask.

She shrugs. “We all have our secrets,” she says, and winks at me. “Are you going to be in trouble when you go in?”

I honestly have no idea what awaits me.

“Thanks for getting me back safely,” I tell her, thinking I should make some formal gesture: a bow, a handshake. “I really like you . . . I mean, meeting you . . .” I stammer.

“Can you sneak out tomorrow?” she blurts out.

“Of course,” I say without thinking. Will it be possible? After tonight's escapade I doubt I can elude my parents again. Would I be brave enough? I look into Lark's earnest eyes. Yes, I think I will be.

“Good,” Lark says. “I'll meet you here tomorrow. Just after dark. Don't worry, I won't tell Ash what you've been up to.” I asked her not to earlier. I'm still undecided about whether I want to tell Ash about sneaking out and meeting Lark. On balance, I don't think I will. At least, not yet. I want this to stay mine. I don't want to share.

She tilts her head to peer up at the wall around my courtyard. Her wisps of lilac hair fall away from her face. “Can you really climb that?” she asks, amazed.

Remembering how I had to fall the last few feet, I have my doubts. Nervously, I find a tiny handhold and grip, tensing my muscles to pull myself up.

“Hold on, silly,” Lark says as she catches my shoulder and gently wheels me around. “Aren't you even going to say good-bye?”

Just say the word
, I tell myself. But I can't. She's looking at me with a quirky smile, curled up at one side, down at the other. Good-bye feels tragic.

“Until tomorrow,” I say instead, and she laughs and hugs me.

“Until tomorrow,” she repeats, as if it is a magic spell.

Suddenly I want to impress Lark. She's been the strong one, guiding me through the city, soothing my worries. Now I want to look strong and capable. While she's watching, I leap onto the wall and with nothing but instinct find the perfect holds. Though they're hardly more than hairline cracks, my fingertips and toes seem glued to the wall. Smoothly, hiding the effort under a veneer of pure grace, I ascend halfway up, then throw my head back to look down at her. It's a reckless move, almost pitching me off balance . . . but isn't that what this night is about? Throwing caution to the wind?

I'm gratified to see her look at me in open-mouthed amazement. Her lilac hair is almost glowing, a bright spot against the gray of my house. “Rowan, you're . . . quite a surprise,” she says, almost too softly for me to hear.

Elated, I scale the rest of the wall without a single mishap. At the top I pause and look at her for a long moment. Then I swing my legs over the wall to continue the last few days of my prison sentence.

I'm prepared for anything. Mom weeping. Dad shouting. Everyone gone, searching for me. But to my surprise the house is quiet and dark. I creep inside, slip off my shoes, and pad silently to Mom and Dad's bedroom. The door is slightly ajar. Peeking in, I can see their shapes as they sleep: Dad on his back on one side of the bed, Mom curled away from him at the far corner. Did they really not know I left, or did they just give up?

Mom, always sensitive, surely decided I needed time alone and left me in the courtyard, apparently mulling over my fate. I close their bedroom door and head to my tiny bedroom.

I pass by Ash's bedroom and pause by the door.

He's sleeping, too, his breath steady but slightly raspy. For a long moment I look at his face.
My
face, almost. The
resentment surges again. Why does he get everything, while I—a healthier version of him, rightfully first—get nothing.

Then his breath catches and stops for a long moment. This happens a lot when he sleeps. I can't tell you how many times I've waited, my own breath held, for his breathing to start up again. So far it always has. Someday, I fear, it won't.

I count, seven . . . eight . . . nine . . . Finally he sucks in a ragged breath, and begins to snore gently. On one hand the sound is annoying, but on the other it is reassuring. The snores are a constant gentle reminder that he's still breathing, still alive.

I creep closer and look at his face, calm and restful in sleep. He looks young, much younger than I myself feel tonight. But then, I remember wryly, I'm technically older than him.

How could I have harbored a jealous thought about him? Suddenly I understand why Mom had to strip me of my first child privilege and let the world believe Ash is the one and only. She must have known even then that I could endure whatever suffering came my way. Ash—sick, sensitive—never could have.

I look back at the endless weeks, months, years of solitude, hidden away in this house. Somehow, I managed to find a measure of happiness for myself all that time. Or if not happiness, contentment. Sure, sometimes I cried. Other times I raged. But I got through it. And as ripped apart as I might be about having to leave home now, a part of me knows that I can deal with it. It will be hard, but I can do it.

A sense of peace washes over me. My anger is gone. Did meeting Lark do all that? Or did it just come from inside, the same acceptance that helped me get through all these years?

I'm so tired. So tired and so happy. Mom's right—every child leaves home. I'm just doing it a little earlier than most, and under stranger conditions. But whoever's identity I assume, I'll
still get to see my family, I'm sure of that. Mom wouldn't allow it to be any other way. And now I have Lark. Wherever I am in Eden, I'll have Lark.

I'm almost to my room when I hear Ash stir behind me. “Rowan?” he asks. I know he's only half-awake, that I could make it to my room and be alone with my thoughts of freedom and Lark and friendship if only I keep going. But I turn and sit at his bedside.

His eyes open a bit when he feels the compression of the bed. “Where were you?” he asks sleepily.

“In the courtyard,” I reply.

“No you weren't.”

“I . . . I was. You just didn't see me. Or maybe I was inside when you were looking for me.”

He smiles, then the grin breaks in a yawn. “It's a big house, but it's not
that
big. Where did you go? I checked all your hiding spots.”

I don't say anything.

“You went out, didn't you.” It's a statement, not a question.

My chin juts out defiantly. “Maybe.”

He covers his eyes with his hand, rubbing them hard. “What were you thinking, Rowan? You could have gotten caught, or killed!”

I feel an urge to say I'm sorry. But I'm not, not at all. “I was just fine,” I say instead. “W—” I catch myself. I almost said
we
, but I've decided not to tell Ash about Lark. Not yet. Sometimes a thing is too precious to bring out into the light. Somehow, talking about it might make the magic of the night evaporate. “I didn't have any problems. No one looked at me twice.”

He's still angry, or scared. “How could you do something so stupid?” he asks. “Never mind what would happen to our family if you got caught.” I flush and hang my head. I've hardly thought about that possible consequence of my adventure.
“You know what the authorities would do to you if they found out you existed.”

I don't, not really. I've never been told exactly, but the consequences hinted at ranged from torture to prison to slavery to death. But oh, great Earth, it was worth it just to escape for one night! I try to explain this to Ash, telling him about the joy—and fear—of seeing the people, the lights, hearing the blare of music and the babble of hundreds of people at once.

He nods, understanding the depth of my loneliness, my need for more. In a conciliatory voice he says, “Mom said you're going to get your lenses soon.”

The way he says this makes me think Mom hasn't told him I only have a few days left with my family.

“I'm so happy for you!” He puts a hand over mine. “Are you scared?” Before I can answer he adds, “Of course you're not. You're not scared of anything.”

I give a small, rueful laugh. “There's not much to be afraid of when you never leave the house.”

“No, that's not true,” he says. There's a new depth to him, and he seems to be looking inside himself as he talks to me. “Just being alive can make people afraid. To have something so precious as life, that can be taken away at any moment . . .” He swallows hard and licks his dry lips. “Not you, though. I've never seen you afraid.”