Once An Eve Novel

eleven



WE STOOD LIKE THAT FOR A SECOND, HIS HAND ON THE BACK of my head, until I broke free. I couldn’t speak. His words rushed in and corrupted everything—past and present—with their horrible implications.

I felt light-headed. What had my mother told me? What had she said? It was always the two of us, for as long as I remembered. There were no pictures of my father on the wall above the staircase, no stories told about him at bedtime. When I was finally old enough to realize I was different from the children I played with, the plague had swept through, taking their fathers as well. He was gone, that was all I needed to know, she’d said. And she loved me enough for both of them.

He produced a shiny piece of paper from the inside pocket of his suit jacket and held it out to me. A photograph. I took it, studying the picture of him, many years before, his face not yet touched by time. He looked happy, handsome even, with his arm around a young woman, her dark bangs falling in her eyes. He was gazing down at her as she stared into the camera, unsmiling. Her face held the confident expression of a woman who knows she is beautiful.

I held the picture to my chest. It was her. I remembered every line of my mother’s face, the slight dimple in her chin, the way her black hair fell onto her forehead. She was always scrambling for a pin to hold it back. We had played dress up that day in my room, before the plague came. I could still hear the children outside, shouting and laughing, the sound of skateboards on the pavement. I wore my shoes with the pink bows. She took my other elephant barrette and put it in her hair, right above her ear. Look, my sweet girl, she said, kissing my hand, now we are twins.

“I met her two years before you were born,” the King began. He led me to the table, pulling out a chair for me. I obliged, thankful when my body sunk into the cushion, my legs still shaking. “I was already the Governor then, and was doing a fund-raising event at the museum where she worked. She was a curator before it happened,” he said. “But I’m sure you know that.”

“I hardly know anything about her,” I managed, staring at her eyes in the photo.

He stood behind me, his hands resting on the back of the chair, looking over my shoulder. “She was giving me a private tour of the gardens, pointing out these plants that smelled like garlic and kept the deer away.” He sat down beside me, raking his fingers through his hair. “And there was something in the way she spoke that struck me, as if she were always laughing at some joke only she understood. I stayed two weeks there, and then we kept in touch after. I would come to see her whenever I wasn’t in Sacramento. But eventually the distance was too much for us. We lost touch.

“Two years later, the plague came. It was gradual at first. There were news reports of the disease in China, in parts of Europe. For a long time we thought it had been contained abroad. American doctors were coming up with a vaccine. Then it mutated. The virus was stronger; it killed faster. It reached the States and people began dying by the thousands. The vaccine was rushed onto the market, but it only slowed the disease’s progress, drew out the suffering for months. Your mother was trying to reach me but I had no idea. She sent emails and letters, called before the phones went out. It wasn’t until I was quarantined that I discovered the correspondence in my office. A whole stack of letters was piled on my desk, unopened.”

I remembered that time. The bleeds had gotten worse. She went through handkerchief after handkerchief, trying to keep her nose dry. She’d finally gone to sleep one afternoon, her bedroom dark as I wandered out. The house across the street was marked with a red X. The lawn beside it was dug up, the dirt turned over where they’d buried the first bodies. The quiet scared me. All the children were gone. A broken bicycle sat in the middle of the road. The neighbor’s cat was outside, lapping at the end of a hose, as I approached the door. I’d walked in, looking for the couple I’d seen coming and going so many times before, the man with the brown hat. I remembered the smell, thick and foul, and the dust that had accumulated in the corners. We need help, I’d said, as I took a few tentative steps into the living room. Then I saw his remains on the couch. His skin was gray, his face partially sunken in from decay.

“You left us,” I said, unable to hide the anger in my voice. “She was alone, she died alone in that house, and you could have helped her. I was waiting for someone to save us.”

He covered my hand with his own, but I pulled away. “I would’ve, Genevieve—”

“That’s not my name,” I snapped. I clutched the picture to my chest. “You can’t just call me that.”

He stood and walked to the window, his back to me. Outside, the land beyond the wall was black, not one light visible for miles. “I didn’t even know you existed until I read her letters.” He sighed. “How could you be angry with me for that? They had to put soldiers at my door to prevent people from attacking me. I was one of the few government officials in Sacramento who survived. The people were convinced I had some magical cure, that I could save their families. As soon as the outbreak ended, as soon as I had the resources, I sent soldiers. I was setting up a new, temporary capital, and trying to assemble the survivors. I sent them to her house to find you both. You were already gone.”

“Was she there?” I asked, my hands folded over the photo. I remembered her standing in the doorway, blowing me a kiss. She had looked so fragile, her bones jutting out beneath her skin. Still, it didn’t stop me from imagining that things could’ve been different. That maybe—against all logic—she could’ve survived.

“They found her remains,” he said. He turned and came toward me. “That’s when I started searching for you, in the orphanages at first, and then, when the Schools were assembled, I looked at the rosters there. But there was no girl named Genevieve at any of them—you must’ve started going by Eve already. It wasn’t until they sent back the graduation photos and I saw your picture that I knew you were alive. You look so much like her.”

“I’m supposed to believe all of this based on this one picture?” I held it up.

“There are tests,” he said calmly.

“How am I supposed to trust anything you say? My friends are in those Schools still. They’re all there because of you.”

He walked around the table, letting out a deep breath. “I don’t expect you to understand it yet. You couldn’t possibly.”

I let out a tiny laugh. “What’s to understand? There doesn’t seem to be anything complicated about what you’re doing. They’re all there, against their will, because of you. You’re the one who started the labor camps and the Schools.” I shook my head, trying not to notice the way our noses both slanted to the left, or how we shared the same heavy-lidded eyes. I hated his thinning hair, the subtle cleft in his chin, the deep creases at the corners of his mouth. I couldn’t believe I was related to this man—that we shared history or blood.

His skin glistened with sweat. He covered his face but I watched him, refusing to look away. Finally he turned and pressed a button on the wall. “Beatrice, please come now,” he said, his voice low. He brushed a piece of lint off the front of his suit jacket. “You’ve had a trying day, to say the least. You must be tired. Your maid will see you to your room.”

The door opened. A short, middle-aged woman came in, clad in a red skirt and jacket, the New American crest on the lapel. Her face was lined with deep wrinkles. She smiled when she saw me and curtsied, a “Your Royal Highness” escaping her lips.

The King put his hand lightly on my arm. “Get a good night’s rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I started walking to the door, but he grabbed my hand and brought me into a hug, squeezing me close. When he pulled back his expression was soft, his eyes fixed on mine. He wanted me to believe him, that much was clear, but I steeled myself against it. I thought only of Arden’s bound ankles, her body writhing as she tried to free herself.

I was relieved when he finally dropped my hand. “Please show Princess Genevieve to her suite and help her out of those clothes.”

The woman looked at my tattered pants, the blood on my arm, the bits of dried leaves tangled in my hair. She smiled sweetly as he disappeared down the hall, his shoes snapping against the shiny wood floor. I stood frozen, my heart loud in my chest, until the room was silent, all traces of him gone.