Eden (11 page)

And Eden knew the donkey had dreamed the same dream.

She caught a curious look on the face of the one called Judas. The man had undergone a subtle change. He seemed to understand every bray that came out of Samson's mouth, and Eden wondered if he understood the language of animals now. Would he understand if she talked to him?

“Why do you look like that?” she growled.

And Judas gazed back at her with knowing eyes.

“I know you can understand me,” Eden said. “Why don't you answer?”

But Judas merely smiled a crooked smile. The strangest feeling came over the dog that this was not the Judas they all knew, but someone or something else inside his skin. Was this the Hollow Man on the ledge looking at her? Was this the Adversary, then? Had that creature from the time in the wilderness somehow taken over Judas' sick and troubled mind?

The twisted hateful feelings slowly passed and after a moment Judas looked merely sad, and above all worried, troubled by his new powers … as if understanding the words of beasts was unnatural and forbidden.

He let go of Samson's long ear, sat heavily in the midst of the lambs planting his hands upon his knees, and hung his head. The lambs crowded around him, hopeful as usual. “We're here! We're here!” they cried. And Eden came among them, forgiving him now his moment of weakness. She nosed his hand off his knee, nosed it and nosed it again, until he touched her head and stroked her white face.

“I'm all right,” Judas told Eden. “Our master takes the pain away. And I return. But then I am still here. Alone with you.”

Wind and Waves

That day they marched without rest.

Dusk came, and as night fell the companions arrived again at the great lake. The travelers straggled like shipwreck survivors, strung out along the beach. Eden felt confused and lost. She walked along a sandbar as the ripples lapped quietly over her paws. Then she stood in the shallow tide pools with Samson the donkey, the lambs and the companions. A boat came to shore, and the companions pulled it close to the sandbar and climbed aboard. But their master stood aside, bidding them enter the boat, for he wished to be alone.

Judas lifted Eden over the gunwale into the others' waiting arms, and she wriggled in distress. But Judas calmed her, saying, “Come now, we'll be all right. Never so far he can't find us.”

But as there was no room for the donkey in the boat, and no room for the lambs, they remained behind with their master. And once upon the sea Eden watched Samson standing on the shore, swishing his tail, while the cluster of lambs surrounded his legs and their master kneeled on the sandbar to pray.

As the boat sailed out to deeper water, the wind freshened and waves struck the bow; they slid into the swells and lost the land from sight. With each gust the swells mounted, causing the shore to vanish and reappear as they rode the slopes of a churning sea.

Back on the beach, Samson and the lambs retreated further and further from sight, yet even at a great distance Eden saw the other animals staring anxiously over the water while her master was nowhere to be seen.
Never so far?

Dark clouds closed in from above and the wind sharpened. Now white-crested water splashed across their faces, raining into the belly of the boat.

And Eden became afraid.

The companions began to clamor in fear, clutching their oars and shouting into the wind as the sailcloth snapped above their heads. The mast shook and the sheets whipped away like writhing snakes.

The waves rose and dashed down. Everyone clung to a rope or plank to keep from being tossed over the side. Eden felt the gathering cry in every throat, a cry to heaven begging for their lives. The wind tried to shout them down but suddenly they did cry, Judas first among them. And he clasped Eden to his chest.

Their master stood upon the waves.

A few lengths from the tossing boat he beckoned them, as if to say,
if I can … so can you.…
Her master held out his hands to beckon her. Gently bobbing up and down, yet standing firmly in the trough, as one would stand in a field of wheat, the crests rising to his waist then falling to his calves. He stared boldly at the crowded boat, daring any of them to come to him. Any of them …

One of the companions rose from his seat at the stern, leaving the tiller to another. Eden watched him as he prepared himself, slipping his robes from his shoulders and wrapping them around his waist, girding his loins. His face pale with fear, he put one leg over the gunwale, and then the other and stepped out of the boat. For a moment it seemed he would reach their master, for the waves and water did not swallow him up. He reached out like a baby learning to walk, took one step, then another—

And that's when the water, sensing his doubt, seized him. The surf took his limbs and he struggled in the sea like any other man.

Yet the fear and sickness left Eden and she struggled out of Judas' arms.

Once more, as with the drowning lamb in the river, she leapt from the boat. But a man was much bigger to save than a kid, and Eden floundered with the companion as the wind and waves tossed them about, from trough to crest and down again.

Was it a wave, or her master who brought them both back to the boat?

Not a wave. Though the companions' clothes were wet and dripping and Eden's white fur was soaked to the skin, her master remained for a moment. He rocked gently back and forth buoyed in the troughs, and then climbed into the boat with the rest. When he came aboard, his clothes were mostly dry, and with an easy hand he wiped away the spray from the waves that had beaded on his hair and face.

He held Eden close, so proud of her for being brave. She felt his mind full of praise as he petted her. Her master's safe arms seemed to glow through the damp wet, warming her spiky fur, deep into her body.

Now her master stared into the storm-wracked sky, challenging it to defy him. He glared boldly into the face of the waves and wind, even as his companions cowered in pale awe. They had seen what they refused to accept, and yet still they could not deny their eyes.

Eden's master then sighed sadly in his heart of hearts, as though finally realizing what he could expect from those in the boat and what was too much to hope for.

Even the sky took notice.

The clouds shrank upon themselves and the wind calmed.

In a few moments the boat no longer rocked in the heavy troughs, and the sail luffed gladly. Judas clamped his arm about the till and grasped the sheet. The moon's face broke through the dark night, glistening over the water.

Samson the donkey and the lambs waited patiently on the shore as the boat sailed ever closer. The lambs clustered about Samson's legs, shuffling in anticipation. Eden leapt over the gunwale and shook all over.

The lambs bleated, “Did you walk
too
? Did youwalk?”

“No,” Eden told them. “I paddled. I've always paddled.”

“Ahem,” Samson cleared his throat, getting ready for a pronouncement. He dipped his long gray nose, “Every little lamb should know by now it's best to paddle,” he told them wisely.

And the lambs thought very seriously about this, softly bleating amongst themselves, “Paddle. Paddle. Best to paddle—”

Until Eden noticed her master's footprints in the sand and the companions hurrying to keep up. “Hush now!” she barked at the lambs.

Over the passing weeks Eden had grown accustomed to lambs that stayed young, that never grew up into sheep. And to old Samson who walked night and day without tiring. And more than delighted in her own strong limbs, for she ran all day long, dodging the old donkey as he stoically plodded forward, round and round the lambs, keeping everyone in line and on the move.

But other things began to change.

Changes the spry old dog couldn't quite put her paw on. For one thing, Eden seemed to hear everything human people kept inside their minds. Judas especially, of all the companions—Eden felt his every trouble. Pain from deep within twisted like a vine about a sapling, slowly strangling him. A deep ache turning his face into a mask of pain he could never take off. With every mile that passed he grew more and more fearful.

But something else had changed, something that troubled her, causing a kind of foreboding as they tramped toward each day's horizon. The light flickered in her master's eyes, a knowing look that spoke a thousand thoughts. The dog sensed their days together growing short, every moment precious. And Eden somehow knew their journey was drawing to a close.… Time like a candle burning to the nub.

Add to that, the stranger that came amongst them—

Not only to trouble Judas in his mind, but all of them, and in the flesh.

Eden remembered him well—their Adversary—the Hollow Man who'd tempted her master and herself in the wilderness. Long ago she knew the creature squatting before the empty cave could not be banished. Now she sensed him all around. Sometimes in the crowd listening at their master's feet.
There
, that man with the cowl over his head covering his face. Other times she sensed him hiding in a clump of trees, or sitting in a cluster of boulders at night. Eden sensed him every time he drew near, invisible like a breath of wind, a shadow on their heels even in the dark.

Whether close at hand or farther away, the Hollow Man almost always stayed within sight, and if not then within earshot … and if not, then trailing behind on the last turn in the road, with only a little swirl of dust for anyone to see.

Once Eden thought she caught him whispering in the ear of poor Judas, only to see her master's companion shrink away in horror. Judas stumbled toward her with his eyes covered as if he could not bear to behold this strange man. Then he clutched Eden desperately, his mind a black cloud of toil and confusion. She felt his tears upon her muzzle.

Samson noticed too, and perked his ears.

The lambs gathered around the strong donkey's legs as they often did when they felt him thinking, and this time he bid them, “Run away and play.”

But the lambs only shuffled closer, and the animals watched over Judas for a long time. Until the man left off weeping and Eden could shake his tears from her nose.

The Women

Then there were the women: one who begged them to save her, and the other who cursed Eden's master with all her might. Two women brought before them on the same day, both in a muddy street, beside the damp canvas stalls of merchants in a marketplace. The woman who begged them, they saved, and left her behind for she did not join them.

But the other who cursed with all her might stayed with them until the end.

That day the clouds rolled in over the sea and pelted their road with rain all morning. A troop of soldiers on horseback galloped past with the heavy thunder of hooves, kicking up wet dirt. Their faces splattered, their robes drenched, Samson the donkey a clopping mess, and Eden's silvery fur spiky where she'd run through puddled craters. Sodden lambs followed without complaint but none of them laughed. By the time Eden's master, the companions, Samson and the lambs entered the village they each wore the same coat of mud.