I stared at her. She was captivating, amazing. And gods help me, the seed of love that had taken root, the seed I had vowed not to nourish, started to grow anyway. I swore I could feel the velvety tendrils moving through me, wrapping around the vital parts of who I was. I was helpless to stop it. She had invaded me. I was the field and she was the morning glory. I had been overtaken. Just like that. Or maybe not just like that. Maybe it had been growing for years. But in that moment, I recognized it for what it was.
She isn't yours, I whispered harshly to myself. But something inside rebelled against the words, as if the thought itself was a virus to my system.
Still, I didn't have to act on my feelings, my attraction. I had sacrificed before in one way or another. I could certainly do it now.
"Calder? Are you okay?" My eyes focused on Eden and she was looking at me strangely. "Are you well?"
"Uhh . . ." I cleared my throat, feeling shell-shocked, off-balance. "Yes, I'm fine. So, uh, speaking of all the knowledge you need to soak up, what should we get started on today?"
"Oh. Okay. But first, ask me my multiplication tables."
"Oh, uh, seven times seve—"
"Forty-nine."
I laughed softly. "Okay, nine times eigh—"
"Seventy-two."
I laughed louder, not being able to help the grin that spread over my face. "You pass."
"No, really, I know them all."
"I believe you."
"I just don't want you to think that your time's being wasted here."
"I don't think that, Eden, not even close."
We stared at each other across the water for a few seconds. Finally, she looked away and said, "All right. Well, my basic math is coming along. How about we just practice some swimming today?"
I thought that might be a decent idea, considering it was a bad time for me to get out of the water right at the moment.
Eden looked down for a minute and seemed to be contemplating something.
"What is it?" I asked.
She looked up, worrying her bottom lip. "Do you think . . . well, do you think when the great flood comes, there'll be any chance of survival?"
I shook my head slowly. "That's not what the foretelling says."
She lowered her eyes. "I know. It's just . . . like you said, Hector is only human, and, well, maybe he misinterpreted something? Is it possible?"
I paused for several beats. "I suppose it is, Eden."
She nodded her head quickly and let out a breath. "Then I'd like to learn to float. I'd like to learn how not to drown."
I stared at her for a few minutes. This girl was going to attempt to survive the end of the world? "Where do you find your strength, Morning Glory?" I asked softly.
She laughed and shook her head as if I was crazy. She tilted her head. "You can come closer, you know. You really don't have to worry about me."
"I'm not worried about you. I'm worried about me," I blurted out.
Her eyes widened and we stared at each other over the still water for a few minutes, the only sound the quiet splashing of the small waterfall hitting the spring water.
"You know, if you're with Hector, you don't have to worry about not surviving. We'll all be led to Elysium."
She looked down for a few beats, watching her own hand move back and forth in the water. "Maybe I'd rather take my own chances. Maybe I'd rather not end up in Elysium with Hector."
"Eden . . ."
She didn't wait to hear what I was going to say, which was fine because, truthfully, I didn't know anyway. She leaned back and brought her body up in an attempt to float and promptly sunk. She came up sputtering. I moved quickly over to her. "Whoa, you okay? Here, I'll hold you up until you get a feel for it, and then I'll let you go."
I put my hands underneath her back, only touching her with my fingertips. She straightened her body out and leaned her head back and closed her eyes, a small, peaceful smile on her face. I gazed at her, drinking in her features and her golden hair floating around her face. And then my mutinous eyes roamed down past her face to her body, her dress pressed and clinging to her delicate curves. I swallowed and my eyes paused when they got to her hardened nipples. Then they moved slowly downward over her flat stomach and down further to that small mysterious, feminine mound. My blood felt like it was boiling in my body. I'd never felt this way before, even those times when I'd touched myself out of sheer necessity. And right now, I was about to pass out from testosterone poisoning and the only part of me touching her was my fingertips. Oh no, this wasn't good. This had disaster written all over it. Even if I could successfully control myself around Eden, it would be disastrous for me.
And yet. And yet, I couldn't stop myself. Looking down at her, I felt a rush of heat, but also a rush of tenderness.
"I'm floating," she said, not opening her eyes, a small, serene look on her face.
"Not yet," I whispered and very slowly removed my fingertips from her upper and lower back. I took a small step back. "Now you're floating."
She remained still, the corners of her full, pink lips turning up very slightly.
"Can I teach you an even better way not to expend energy in the water?"
She gave a barely noticeable nod of her head and so I stepped forward again and put my hands on both of her arms. "I'm going to flip you over. Take a big breath and then let yourself float so that the back of your head is just above the water. Just let the water support you. Then, when I touch your arms, let them float toward the surface with your elbows bent. Have you got it so far?"
Another small nod.
"Okay, good. Then when you're ready, press downward on the water with your hands until your mouth clears the water. Breathe out quickly and then inhale. And then go back under. You could hang out in the water all day doing that if you needed to. Even if the whole world was underwater."
Eden took in a big breath and then I turned her body over slowly until she was face down in the water. I removed my hands and let her float there for a minute until I knew she had it, and then I touched her arms and she let them float upwards until her elbows were bent and her hands were above her shoulders. She pushed downward gently and her mouth came up above the water and I heard her exhale and then inhale before she let herself float back down.
I grinned and she brought her head up and set her feet on the bottom of the spring so she was upright. She let out a little triumphant laugh and threw her arms around my neck. I froze. Every part of her was pressed up against every part of me. I immediately went hard, my body pulsating with want, and prayed she couldn't tell. She tilted her head back and looked up at me, that same triumphant smile on her face. I let out my breath and smiled down at her. "Add floating to your list of accomplishments," I said.
She laughed. "I will." She let go of my neck and I felt the loss of her as she moved back and started walking through the water to the large, flat rock. She pulled herself up and then lay back. "We don't have much time to get dry," she called. "Better get up here in the sun."
I waited a minute until my body had settled down, and then waded toward her and pulled myself up on the rock, too. I lay back and turned my head to look over at her. Her head was already turned, looking at me as well. "Thank you for teaching me things, Calder," she said.
"You teach me things, too, Eden," I said back.
She regarded me silently for a minute and then simply smiled in answer.
Then we both tilted our heads toward the sun.
CHAPTER NINE
Eden
Over the next few months, I met Calder mostly everyday for my lessons. Some days we missed seeing each other when his chores got in the way, or when there were too many council members at the main lodge. Those days were the hardest. But the days we did meet, Calder would recline lazily against a rock and draw something or another while he taught me math, science, and the rules I didn't know about the English language. Often, he'd have to stop and go over something in the notebook I filled with everything he talked about.
But mostly I just took notes, and then the next day, he'd quiz me a little. I was an excellent student. Of course, I knew the value of knowledge, having been deprived of it for so long.
I didn't just learn the academics Calder taught me, I learned them from his specific point of view. Not just the information he remembered, but the way he saw the world. When we lay on the grass and looked up at the sky and talked about the color spectrum, he told me about a rainbow he'd seen once as he watered the tomato crops in the fields, after too short of a rainfall to do any good. It was as if each time a rainbow appeared, that rich smell of soil came back to him, and Elysium and earth were joined for just that moment, even if only in his own mind. We'd both gotten slightly sleepy, lying there together, and he'd been musing when he said it and he almost looked embarrassed when he realized he'd been speaking aloud. But I loved those moments—when just for a second, I was a part of Calder's innermost mind. It humbled me and warmed me, as if for just a moment, I'd stepped into a ray of sunlight.
He was goodness—raw, unguarded goodness. It glowed in him. It was impossible not to want to drown in that type of beauty . . . to feel like I could happily wrap around his bones and suffocate in his skin.
It alarmed me, and comforted me.
As we lay by our spring day after day, Calder not only told me the things he remembered from each year of his schooling, but he told me the things he'd learned from the others living in our community who had previously lived in the big society. He had learned about gambling from a man who had come to be a part of our family five years previous. He'd told Calder, as he worked alongside him, that he'd had a real problem with going to big casinos, places where adult games were played for money. If you won, you went home with more money, and if you lost, you went home with nothing. He'd lost far more than he'd won and in the end, he lost everything: his wife, his children, his job, and his friends. No one wanted him. That's when Hector had come along. And Hector had wanted him.
There were many of those stories, and I listened intently to them all.
Physically, Calder kept his distance from me, flinching when I got too near, watching me like a hawk. I wasn't so naïve I didn't understand he was having a difficult time with our closeness, and I had been telling the truth when I'd said I was going to pour all my focus into learning, but it still stung. And the unfairness of it made me angry.
Yes, my childish crush had disappeared, but I knew him now. I knew his kindness, and his protective nature. I knew his patient spirit and his sharp wit. Simply put, I was in love with him. As if my love for Calder could ever be simple.
Meeting him at our spring for an hour and a half every afternoon, as my friend and my tutor, wasn't everything. But it would have to be enough.
We didn't meet again in the evening. Clive Richter was home at night and he always seemed to be watching for me. It was safer to keep our lessons to the daytime hours. I wouldn't jeopardize those.
We talked about the names for groups of animals one day. "Gorillas come in a band, grasshoppers come in a cloud, pigs come in a team," he said as I wrote down the list. He named a few more and then couldn't remember any more. I sighed.
"Sorry," he said, laughing slightly. "I told you, I could only give you what I remember."
"The problem is," I said, tapping my pencil on my chin, "if you were prompted, or given a choice of a few, you could probably remember a lot more than you think. It's somewhere in there." I tapped my pencil on his head.
"Ouch."
I rolled my eyes. "But me, all I have is what you give me. There's literally no more."
"Well then, good thing I'm smarter than the everyday person." He winked. "I figure, even having a quarter of what I ever learned, you're better off than the average numbskull."
"Haha. Well, how comforting that I'm an above average numbskull."
Calder grinned. "Penguins come in a colony."
I scrawled it down.
He looked thoughtful like he did when he was trying to recall something specific he'd learned on a certain topic. "Penguins spend seventy-five percent of their lives in water. I wonder if they'll survive the flood. How could they not?"
We both quietly mulled that over.
"We had cockroaches in our cabin last year. My mom said in the big community, the joke is that cockroaches can survive anything."
"Even the end of the world?" I asked quietly.
Calder glanced at me and shrugged. "Maybe." He was silent for a minute. "But that's probably a good thing. Who wants cockroaches in Elysium anyway?" He grinned. "Let 'em stay."
I let out a small laugh, picturing the great flood finally receding, and the cockroaches climbing out of their holes in the earth.
Calder turned toward me and propped his head up on his hand. "Anyway, back to penguins, there's a certain kind who proposes to his mate by giving her some thing or another."
I looked over at him with interest. "Really? What does he give her?"
"I don't remember. Maybe a feather, or a stick or something."
"You don't remember? Why not? That's so romantic. You remember precisely what percentage of time a penguin spends of its life in the water," I threw up my hands in impatience, "and how cockroaches will survive us all, but you don't remember what gift a male penguin gives his mate to propose to her? That's ridiculous." I shook my head in exasperation.
Calder laughed. "Why should I care? I'm not a penguin. It's not exactly information that was going to come in handy when I pick my own mate."
My face fell. I couldn't help it. I looked away from him, out at the spring water, glistening in the sunshine.
"Do you plan on picking a mate?" I'd never asked him, but I wondered. Why shouldn't he? It's not like he could pick me, even if he wanted to. But surely he must want one. He was a man now, with a man's body. He must have . . . needs. I had seen other girls our age look at him with interest. With them, he wouldn't have to hide. I glanced back at him, my heart sinking.
He was looking at me thoughtfully. What does he think when he looks at me that way? "No. I can't even think about that. The only thing I can think about right now is getting a spot on the council and going out into the world."
I nodded, taking in his handsome face. His male beauty stole my breath. Calder had turned eighteen in January and it seemed in the span of a year, he had grown even taller and broader in the shoulders. He was lean, but hard everywhere and I couldn't help but let my eyes roam over him while his eyes were focused on his sketchpad. Sometimes, he showed up with a shadow of dark stubble on his jaw. That was my favorite—it's how he would have looked if I had had the opportunity to wake up beside him. He looked extra tired those days, too, but when I asked him what was wrong, he just told me he hadn't slept very well.
One day, as I sat waiting for Calder, my face tilted toward the sky, I was surprised when I looked up to the sound of him coming through the brush, and saw Xander instead.
"Hi," I said, standing up.
"Hey, Eden. Calder can't make it today. I wanted to come tell you so you didn't worry." He ran a hand through his black hair as he approached me.
I hadn't seen Xander in several months and he looked bigger to me, too. It seemed like both of those boys had shot up several inches in half a year.
"Oh, okay. Is he all right?"
"Yeah, he's fine. His sister isn't doing so well, though. She's had a pretty bad cough forever it seems like, and she does better, then worse, then better. She's worse right now."
I realized then I hadn't seen Maya in weeks. But I had just figured there wasn't much mending to do in the main lodge. Why hadn't Calder told me? Was that why he had looked so haggard recently? It hit me how separate our lives truly were. Hurt filled my chest, but I pushed it away and focused on Xander.
"Why didn't he tell me?"
Xander studied me for a minute. "Knowing Calder, he just didn't want to burden you. And he was hopeful. He's always so damned hopeful." He stared off behind me for a second, and then looked back at me. "You know he ha
s feelings for you, right?"
I stared at him. I opened my mouth to say something, decided I didn't know what, and then closed it again. Did I know Calder had feelings for me? Yes. I didn't have a complete handle on what those feelings might be, other than a close friendship, but just knowing Xander could see Calder cared for me had my heart beating faster. It made everything worse. And it made everything better.
"Whatever his feelings mean, he won't do anything about it, Xander." I didn't know if he was looking for reassurance, but I figured he probably was. His fate would be affected by our decisions, too, after all.
"No, I don't guess he will." He didn't look exactly happy about that. He rubbed his eye and let out a breath. "Want to sit for a minute?" he finally said, indicating the small patch of grass with a large rock behind it where Calder usually sketched.
I nodded and walked the few steps to it and sat down on my knees. I felt awkward, and the unfamiliar feeling in this place made me realize how comfortable I'd grown with Calder. And how much I missed him, even though I'd just seen him yesterday.
Xander sat down next to me and brought his knees up and wrapped his arms around them loosely. "Any word on when Hector's coming back?"
I shook my head. "No, Mother Hailey receives letters from him, but he doesn't write to me. She told me he's living with some people who he believes the gods want to become part of our family."