Children of Eden (21 page)

I meet Lachlan's eyes, still smiling . . . and remember my night of torture. My smile dies, and I stand, turning away from him.

The tree looms before me, a true behemoth, dwarfing me as I creep closer. I pick up a dead leaf from the litter at my feet and rub it gently between my fingers, releasing a burst of that sharp, stimulating smell that permeates the air and makes me feel so alert and alive.

And then I'm touching the tree, tentatively at first, like a newfound love, then pressing my cheek against the rough, fragrant bark, embracing it. My tears wet the bark, soak into it, and are gone.

With my arms wrapped around the huge tree, my chin on the trunk, I look up into the canopy with all its myriad shades of light and dark green. As I look, a leaf detaches from its twig and drifts slowly down, tacking left and right in elegant swoops. I catch it in my hand. Can I keep it? One leaf is more precious than a jewel. I don't care if I hang for it—I slip the leaf beneath my shirt, nestling it close to my heart. It is a gift from the tree to me.

“Stop! Look out!” a voice calls from behind me, and I whip around on high alert, ready for Greenshirts, for anything.

Anything, except being under attack from a horde of tiny people in patchwork clothes.

I haven't seen children since I was one, and then only Ash. It feels strange to see this pack of screaming, laughing, tiny humans, and I brace myself as they surge toward me, having no idea what they will do, no real comprehension of childish behavior.

But they're not running for me. As one they tackle Lachlan, clinging to his legs, squealing with glee and pretend aggression. And that big, hard man, the one who allowed me to be tortured, is suddenly on the ground beneath a pile of children, laughing, tickling them, letting them put him in headlocks, giving them rides on his back . . .

Which is the real Lachlan? The one who said that torturing me was perfectly fine? Or the one who is currently letting a four-year-old girl in pigtails pull his hair?

He flashes me a quick, almost apologetic smile before a little boy does a belly flop on his head and brings him down. “Lach!” they squeal. “You're back! We missed you, Lach!
What did you bring us? Did you fight anyone? Lach, tell us a story of the Above!”

“That's quite enough of that, kidlets,” says a plump but solid maternal-looking woman as she bustles up behind the children. “Let Lachlan breathe.”

The tiny girl in pigtails looks up at the woman with huge, sincere eyes and says emphatically, “But Lach is our
favorite
.”

The woman nods. “I've heard that before, perhaps a bit too often.” She looks archly at Lachlan as he rises and brushes the dirt from his clothes.

And I realize, as the children gaze lovingly at Lachlan, that this is what he did it for. These little second children are the reason he thought it was justifiable to torture a girl who had just lost her mother, who had been hunted through the streets. They need to be protected, at any cost. Now that I understand, I wonder if I would do the same thing myself. I don't know . . . but I understand why Lachlan did it, and I find that I can't be mad at him anymore.

The woman holds out her hand to me. “I'm Iris, housemother of the Underground. Welcome.” I introduce myself, and she tells me to come to her if I need any clothes or personal items. “A ruffian like our Lachlan here wouldn't think of creature comforts like lotion and nail files and such. We might be a bit primitive down here, but I like to think we manage to hold on to the best parts of civilization.”

She gives my shoulder a friendly squeeze and herds the children away. The children all say hello as they pass, making me feel welcome. All except the little girl in pigtails. She shakes my hand very formally, and then says, “You can like Lach a little, but not too much. He says
I'm
his favorite girl. Don't you forget!” She shakes a warning finger at me and scampers off. I manage to keep a straight face until she's gone.

“I'll take you to your room,” Lachlan says. “I know you
need to shower and change. Do you have clothes in there?” He nods to my backpack.

I don't even know. I haven't had a moment to open it.

“I'll see what I can scrounge up in your size.”

“Thanks . . . Lach,” I say, and he grins sidelong at me as he leads me to my room.

ONCE I'M ALONE,
the bed looks so inviting I want to flop down on it, curl beneath the crisp new-leaf green sheets, and sleep for years. But I'm so filthy I can't bear to dirty the sheets, so I go into the little shower alcove and let the cold water wash over me until I'm approximately, if not completely, clean.

Being in this room—in the Underground itself—is like being in the heart of the Earth. The rooms are carved directly into the stone, and every surface is smooth, connected, without the edges and corners and seams of the rest of Eden. I know the rooms are man-made, not natural caves, but because the material is all-natural it feels almost like the Earth made this place for them.

For
us
. I'm a part of all this now.

Finally I lie in bed, still damp and cool from my shower, and stare at the ceiling, somewhere between happy and sad and drained. My backpack is on the floor beside me. I know I need to go through it soon, take stock . . . but I also know that once I delve into the last thing Mom did for me, the sorrow I've kept at bay will return. I will grieve forever, but I know I can't let myself weep forever.

So I think about this wonderful, strange place I find myself
in. Lachlan said there are about two hundred people living here, from infants to elders, all second children. The community has been thriving below ground for around fifty years, ever since a second child rediscovered the hidden world. Even though many of its members venture out into Eden for supplies, it is separate enough that it has developed its own culture.

I haven't found out exactly what life is like down here, but I can see the difference even in the clothes. In Eden, styles are brash and sharp, deliberately loud and provocative. Here, colors are a little more muted, more natural. The cut is easy, flowing, and often the material is a beautiful patchwork, made up of complementary fabrics interspersed with occasional jarring—but oddly fitting—elements that make the whole outfit extraordinary. The effect of the pieced-together motley somehow isn't one of patching and make-do, but of a deliberate choice, taking the best of everything and fitting it together into something even better.

Almost everyone I see is wearing a piece of crystal. Most have a simple chunk on a piece of cord around their necks. One pretty young girl has a purple piece at the center of a circlet in her flowing hair. I see one older man with no visible crystal jewelry reach into his pocket and pull out a piece of clear, polished crystal which he rubs meditatively as he talks to me.

I don't see one on Lachlan, but I notice a thin cord around his neck, braided red and orange in a snake-like pattern. Maybe he has a crystal, too.

I haven't met anyone beyond Iris and the children, but attitudes here seem so relaxed, so low-key. No one is hurrying to work or entertainment like they do in the inner circles, or hustling in search of money, or away from danger, as they do in the outer circles. People down here seem to operate
on a different internal clock. No one seems hunted, harried, like they do up in Eden. Everyone up there, now that I think about it, seems caffeinated, driven, a little too sharp.

Maybe it's the tree that calms them down, the soothing proximity of nature. Maybe it is a relief to finally be in a place they truly belong.

I start to feel it myself, breathing in the leafy scent, feeling the cool cavern air touch my skin. Eventually, I feel centered enough to go through my backpack.

The first thing I pull out almost makes me lose it: my ragged stuffed chimpanzee. Mom must have rescued him from the garbage and stuck him in the pack when I wasn't looking. I hug him tight to my chest . . . but then set him gently aside.

There's one change of clothes, and a pair of soft shoes. A pretty filigree hair ornament Mom often wore. A new sketchbook and a set of pencils.

And, in a tightly sealed bag, a notebook.

Its pages are made from a substance I don't quite recognize, a plastic of some sort, I think. We use a kind of plastic that is completely recyclable, but I learned in Eco-history that people used to use plastics that couldn't be easily broken down, that persisted in the environment forever. Plastics choked entire oceans, and the animals that lived in them. I shudder when I touch it . . . though I have to admit that such an enduring substance makes a perfect medium for a book. Waterproof, virtually time-proof, whatever is in here will last through the centuries.

Written in cramped, awkward hand is a manifesto, or maybe a confession. Sometimes the words are perfectly lucid, textbook-clear. In some passages, though, the language rambles incoherently, the handwriting becomes almost illegible, as if the only way the author could squeeze the words out was to scribble them as fast, as unthinkingly, as possible.

I have a sneaking suspicion who the author might be even before I turn to the last written page. The page is at the end . . . and at the middle. That is, the last half of the notebook has been cut out, carved raggedly, hacked, even. The scrunched signature has been added in a different ink on the last remaining page that grips the binding weakly, flapping loosely in the space where the missing pages used to be. I stare at the signature.

Aaron Al-Baz. Prophet of environmental doom. Founder of Eden. Savior of Earth.

And, if these, his own words, are true, a deluded, psychotic monster.

I read through the notebook, and then read it again to be sure I understand. It takes me hours to parse the tale, and when I have, I still can't believe it. Aaron Al-Baz is a hero, half-god, the whole reason any humans still survive and the only reason the Earth will one day flourish again after the global devastation we caused. Every textbook says so. Every temple hails him as near-divine.

I need to tell someone about what I've read, I think at once. But at that very moment there's a knock on my door and Lachlan walks in without waiting for an answer. I shove the notebook under the bedclothes and force a friendly smile. It must look pained, but he doesn't say anything. He knows I have plenty to be distraught about.

I need more time to digest what I just read. Society is held together by a common belief. What will happen if that belief is shattered? I have to think. The secret has been kept for more than two hundred years already. It can keep another hour or two.

But I'm numb when Lachlan takes me to meet some of the more prominent members of the Underground. There are cooks, clothiers, musicians, storytellers, healers, and even clergy for the Underground temple. I've always wanted to go
to a temple meeting. Now everything about the ritual would ring false.

No, not everything. Not the message of hope, the desperate need for us to revive and reconnect with the environment, to love and cherish and respect it.

But as for the focal point of that worship, the man behind it all . . . My lip curls involuntarily. I can hardly pay attention to what I'm doing. I forget to smile, forget names, stand dumb like a post.

Before I've met everybody, Lachlan makes my apologies. “She needs rest,” he says, “and peace. We'll give her time.”

Understanding, the beautiful, happy, mellow people go about their lives. They seem ready to accept me no matter how churlishly I behave.

Lachlan leads me back to the roots of the tree. Some of them snake above the ground before plunging into the Earth. As soon as I get near the tree I feel calmer.

“Do you know what kind of tree it is?” Lachlan asks. His voice is soft here, gentle.

There were once thousands of kinds of trees in the world. In my Eco-history books I've read about a few of them. Grand oaks, delicate silver birches, maple trees milked for their sweet syrup, fir trees treated with such profligacy that they were chopped down and brought indoors for winter festivals, decorated with lights.

But I don't know what this tree is. “It is called a camphor tree,” Lachlan explains. “They grow into giants—as you see—and the oldest one at the time of the Ecofail was more than two thousand years old.”

“And that's why . . .” I can't say his name. “Why the creators of the Underground chose this species?”

“Partly, and for the smell.” He inhales deeply. “Think of all of our bodies crammed down here, sealed off from the out
side. I don't like to imagine what this place might smell like without the scent of camphor leaves filling the air.”

I want to tell him so much, if only to share the burden of knowledge. But I bite my tongue, and he goes on.

“The tree has medicinal qualities, too. We don't harvest much, of course, but the oil of camphor can treat lung problems, even some heart problems, in small doses. At larger doses it is poisonous.”