He looked back pointedly at Teresa and then back at the lily. "Who would want this lily now?" he asked, his voice lowering. "Who could love a used-up, passed-around flower such as this one?" He thrust the lily out in front of him and looked around at us questioningly.
A single tear slipped down Teresa's cheek and she bit her own lip, her eyes cast downward again.
Now that I was ten, I understood what a metaphor was. I knew Teresa was that used-up lily, and I saw she knew it, too. And no one on the gods' green earth really wants to be a used-up lily, despite their behavior to the contrary, or at least that's what my mom had explained to me when I first asked her about all that business.
"WHO COULD WANT A FLOWER LIKE THIS ONE? WHO COULD FIND ANYTHING BEAUTIFUL ABOUT SOMETHING DIRTY AND SOILED LIKE THIS?" Hector boomed, spittle flying from his mouth as we all stared, spell bound by his intensity.
Teresa let out one small cry. But I had been witness to this same speech before and so although I was as captivated as I was each time I saw it, I just waited, as did the rest of us.
"Who?" Hector asked us more quietly. "Who?"
And that was our cue. "You can, Father! And we can, Father!" we all said joyfully.
Teresa's head came up and she seemed baffled as she looked around, her mouth fell open and her eyes flew to Hector as he walked toward her.
"That's right, my beloved. I can. We can. We can all love you, our flower, made new again with love, with family, with purpose, with belonging." And then he brought the lily from behind his back, and it was as perfect as it was when he first plucked it from the vase. New and fresh and so very beautiful.
I loved that part and it always made a strange chill run down my spine. It was like a plot twist that you came upon in a story, and it made your heart jump and you wanted to tell someone about it right away. Only when Hector brought someone new up on the podium, the plot twist was part of their life and it was a good one, and they usually cried and carried on and on about it.
Naturally.
Teresa gasped and I could see she felt the same way, and her tears began to flow even harder as she sobbed out. Hector wrapped his arms around her, cradling her to his body, repeating, "I can, we can, I can, my love."
Hector looked out into the audience in my direction and I knew that was my cue to bring the water.
My dad took his arms from around my shoulders and I made my way to the marble font of water at the back of the Temple. I filled the small cup sitting next to it and walked down the center aisle toward Hector.
"My water bearer," Hector said, smiling at me. I smiled back proudly and handed him the cup and then stood to the side with my head bowed and my hands clasped.
As Hector gave Teresa a drink of the purifying water, I kept my head bowed but moved my eyes to look at Eden to my right, trying to secretly get a closer look at her. My eyes met hers and she stared at me without blinking. I looked away, but I couldn't help the small smile that curved my lips up and when I dared to look at her again, she was smiling a very small, shy smile as well.
I forced myself to bow my head again as Hector hugged Teresa to him and then handed the cup back to me. Then he presented her to all of us with simply a wave of his hand as she beamed out to the audience, wiping the tears off her cheeks.
And with that, Teresa was made new and would join our family, just as many had before her. And although Maya and I had been born into this community, my mother said that there was something extra special about those who chose it on their own.
She said the gods led Hector to them, but it was their choice whether they followed him.
I walked back toward my family, and we all filed out of the Temple quietly, ready to begin preparing the evening meal. I looked back as I walked behind my parents, and although other people moving behind me mostly blocked my view, I made eye contact with Eden several times, and I wondered if it was possible she was watching me leave.
CHAPTER TWO
Calder – Twelve-Years-Old
The dusty canyon trail was steep and narrow, but now that I'd almost made it to the valley floor where the harsh rays of the sun couldn't reach, I sighed in relief at the feel of the cooler air. It was January and the weather during the day was only in the seventies, but the shade still felt good while I was moving so quickly.
Even though it was a tough hike, I loved this bi-weekly ritual of collecting the purified water I brought and served at Temple. I made my way down the trail as quickly as possible, practically running in some spots, so I could spend extra time at the spring. Every so often, Hector would accompany me and say a blessing over the water himself, although it was actually the gods who provided the healing water for us so we would be pure and cleansed when the great flood came. It was this purification that would balance our systems and help ward off evil and temptation.
Whenever someone was injured or sick, I would fetch an extra dose of the water for them, as sickness was mostly a massive state of imbalance, or so Hector said. Hector also said that although the gods provided the water for us, and it would help with the situation, ultimately it was to be seen whether the gods' will was for healing or not. Sometimes they deemed healing to occur, and sometimes, Hector said, it was not their will, and we had to accept that and not question the reasons why. It was not for us to know, at least not yet.
That was the case with Maya. My parents had told me that when they saw the deformity of her leg and the fact her features were different, they had dripped the healing waters into her small, baby mouth, but apparently the gods had their reasons for keeping her the way she was, because that time, the water didn't work.
But, just last summer, when I had served the water to Franklin Massey who was doubled over in agonizing stomach pain, later that day, he suddenly straightened up and was healed, wouldn't you know.
I guessed it was true you never could know the reasons of the gods because from what I'd seen, Franklin Massey was a mean old crab who walked around with a puss on his face all the livelong day. And Maya, well she was like a little ray of sunshine. It wasn't how I'd run things when I got some authority up in Elysium, that was for sure. Although I guessed that was a moot point anyway, because there was no sickness in Elysium. Maya would run through the fields on two perfectly working legs and her mind would work just like everyone else's. I had to smile at the picture.
I knew for sure the water was magical though, because every time I drank it, a feeling of peace and happiness flowed through me, and I felt cleansed and strengthened.
I made a sharp turn and the spring came into view. The water was crystal blue and sparkling and it had green plants blooming around it. It always struck me as a small paradise and I stood simply admiring it for a few minutes.
I set down the canvas bag that held the water containers and dropped to the grass, laying back and lacing my fingers behind my head so I could gaze at the clear, blue sky, surrounded by the towering canyon walls. Everything around me was grand and beautiful and full of color and light. I wondered how Elysium could be any more beautiful than what the gods had already created right here on earth.
As I lay there, my eyes landed on some brush that seemed to have been pushed aside in a way I'd never noticed before. I frowned in curiosity and pulled myself up and walked over to the strange, little opening. There was a break between the rocks I'd never seen because of the vegetation that had been in front of it.
I peeked inside a little nervously, and then stepped in when I couldn't see anything much from where I stood. On the other side, it suddenly opened up and I stood upright and walked through the space, mostly consisting of dirt, rock, and a few sparse patches of desert grass. But as I walked farther, I heard running water and noticed more vegetation. Moving through another doorway-sized opening I found another spring! I laughed out loud, looking around in wonder at the hidden pool of water. How was it I didn't know about this? I spent more time than anyone down at the healing spring. This one was even larger than the other one—just as clear and just as blue—with plants growing everywhere. There was even a very small waterfall, mostly a trickle really, that ran between two of the larger rocks.
Something caught my attention to my right, in between two rocks. When I moved closer, I saw that someone had written in the dirt and there were several toys sitting neatly on a small blanket where both rocks met, creating a small alcove.
I tilted my head, taking it in. Two baby dolls, a plastic tea set, and a small, pink horse. Strange.
My eyes moved down to the dirt in front of the toys and I saw "Eden" had been spelled out in small pieces of broken sticks.
I scrunched up my face in confusion. Was this where she played? The items looked older. Had she been playing here since she arrived? I stared down at the toys for a minute, curious and wanting to touch them, but I didn't. The council member kids were given toys and the worker kids were not. Still, I kept my hands to myself. Something about those toys sitting there struck me as very, very sad and weakened my desire to pick them up and study them one by one. I thought about the many friends I had and how we played together every afternoon after our work was done—variations on sports our parents taught us, like hide and seek, tag . . . From my experience, there was never a lack of someone to spend time with inside Acadia. As a matter of fact, you had to put some effort into finding some quiet time if you got fed up with people chattering at you from sunup 'til sundown.
But Eden . . . didn't she play with the other kids who lived at the lodge with her? The council members' kids? Or was she forbidden for some reason? I had seen the way my friends looked at her as she walked to the front of the Temple month after month—still with some interest—but clearly she was different than the rest of us. Separate . . . and looked upon with a certain suspicion, probably even jealousy.
I guessed it might be the same with the council members' kids, too. She was separate from them as well—not just another ordinary kid, not yet a wife—sort of a strange mixture of both and not one of an “us.”
I stood up slowly and chewed on my lip for several minutes considering Eden, picturing her playing here in this place she'd found. All alone.
I was jolted out of my thoughts by the loud call of a hawk and made my way back to our spring to fill my water containers. My mom would be looking for me if I wasn't home soon.
I walked back through the brush between the two rocks and arranged it so it wasn't noticeable this time. Hopefully Eden would remember to do the same. For some reason, I didn't want anyone else finding out about that secret spring through the hidden passage.
**********
I watched for Eden more closely after that day, more curious about her now, what she did, how she lived. She was so close and yet seemed so far away from the rest of us.
I looked up at the main lodge, brilliant with its electricity in the midst of the darkness of our small cabins, where we only had candlelight in the evenings.
I saw her now and again, too, peeking through her window if we were playing in the large dirt area a little way from the main lodge, just beyond the first of the small worker homes.
One hot day at the end of that May, we were playing Kick the Can. Only in this case, our "can" was a small piece of driftwood I had retrieved from the river that ran behind our land—our source of clean, drinking water. I tried to keep referring to the game in my head as "kick the driftwood" because thinking about a can made me think about Coca-Cola, and man, that would have tasted good right then and there, sweaty and thirsty under a noontime sun.
All of a sudden, I noticed a blonde head peeking out from behind a tree just a little way away. I pretended not to see her and just kept on playing, every now and again glancing over where I could now see Eden standing among the small grove of Acacia trees, pretty much right out in the open.
Over the next fifteen minutes, she inched closer and closer to our game field, until she was standing right on the edge with some of the other players who had already gotten out.
As she got near, a small brunette girl named Hannah looked at her with wide eyes and blurted out nervously, "Should you be here?"
Eden pulled her shoulders back and glanced around, her eyes lingering on me as she whispered, "I was wondering if I could join your game."
Everyone backed away from her slightly, looking around at each other with disbelief. None of the other council members' kids had ever asked to play with us, ever, not once.
Finally Aaron Swift declared, "No. Uh uh. Go on back up to your palace, princess. You're not one of us." But then he softened his rejection by saying, "You're a flower, we're the weeds. You're either one or the other. You need to play with the other flowers." And he smiled a small, slightly nervous smile at her.
The rest of the kids standing around nodded as Eden's cheeks flamed. She looked down and breathed out shakily, resigned. I realized then she might have been working up the courage to ask us if she could play with us for weeks, maybe even months.
I thought of those toys hidden in the canyon by the spring and realized the council kids didn't play with her either. She was an outsider in both groups. I didn't know why exactly, because I didn't know what went on up in the main lodge, I just knew that she was. Just as she started to turn away, and before I even thought too much about it, I blurted out, "That's not true."
Eden halted and turned back around toward me as several other kids came off the field to see what was going on and what the game holdup was.
I walked over to Eden and made my way around her in a slow circle as she stood still, turning her head to watch me. "Do you know anything about morning glories?" I smiled as I looked into her deep, blue eyes. She was just a kid, but I couldn't help notice she sure was pretty.
She furrowed her brow and bit her lip, as she shook her head, no.