Becoming Calder

CHAPTER EIGHT


Calder



It rained for the next couple days so I wasn't able to meet Eden at our spring. I actually wasn't able to get out at all. I supposed the gods had decided I needed a mini-vacation and were overseeing my work for me.
Instead, two long days after I'd lain with Eden under the stars, I stood in the doorway of our small, dim cabin and looked up toward what I knew to be Eden's room on the second floor. It was filled with light and I wondered what she was doing up there while I was down here. Was she lonely? Bored? I imagined she was. I imagined standing a ladder against that window, climbing up to her, and then taking her hand as we ran through the warm rain, the smell of apples scenting the air, her dress clinging to her, revealing her pink skin beneath. I groaned. This line of thought was not productive. I had told her we couldn't kiss, that we couldn't be more than friends. But half my mind and my body—certainly my body—didn't seem to agree with that plan. In fact, there seemed to be a full out mutiny to that plan as my thoughts constantly turned to Eden, setting my blood on fire. Several times I had given in to temptation, gone up into the hills and leaned back against a rock, and stroked myself until release flashed through my body, potent and intense. I knew it was sinful, but in the moments right before, it felt necessary, vital to my very survival. That water-cleansing ceremony had its work cut out for it where I was concerned.
"Quit pacing. You're like a caged animal," my mom nagged.
I snorted softly, recalling Xander using those same words a few days before when we'd spoken.
"This damn rain," I muttered, sticking my head out the door, covered by a small wooden overhang.
"You want something to do, I have a hundred cans that need filled with tomatoes," my mom said, looking over her shoulder where she stood at the table. Cans were lined up neatly in front of her as was a large pot of peeled, cooling tomatoes. She was helping stockpile food for the winter months. It didn't get very cold here in the desert, even in winter, but everything had a season and tomatoes only flourished through November.
I breathed out, and reluctantly went to help with the canning. After a few minutes, I said, "Cans aren't provided by nature."
"What?" My mom looked up.
"Hector always says we should use the instruments and materials the gods have naturally provided for us, that using the wicked tools of the big society only corrupts our purity."
My mom didn't acknowledge me for a few minutes, just kept spooning tomatoes into cans. After a bit she said, "We use as little as we can from the big society. Some things simply can't be fashioned from rock, dirt, and tree branches."
"Oh, I see. So when it's convenient, we use what the gods have provided. I didn't get the updated version of the Holy Book. Maybe that's in the new edition," I said sarcastically.
My mom looked up sharply. "Calder! You're being blasphemous." Her voice was a whisper as if someone was listening in—the gods themselves perhaps—although you couldn't hide from the gods.
"We make many, many sacrifices as Hector's people." She waved her hand around the cabin. "No running water, no electricity."
"Yes, but clearly Hector doesn't make those same concessions. Why? Has anyone ever asked him? Perhaps the gods ordained it so? Is that it?"
"Calder," my mom hissed. I had never spoken to her this way and I was suddenly ashamed.
"I'm sorry, Mom. I shouldn't have said any of that."
She waved her hand in front of her. "It's the rain. It's gotten under your skin. This cabin is small for four. It will clear tomorrow, and this mood will lift. You'll see." She smiled at me and patted my cheek. I did my best to smile back.
We were quiet in our work for a minute. "You'll be able to marry soon if you wish. As soon as you've had your water cleansing," she said. "Have any of the girls caught your eye?"
Yes, as a matter of fact. Funny story, though . . .
"No."
My mom huffed out a breath. "Oh, Calder, surely one has." She hesitated in her canning, looking upward as if thinking. "Let's see, there are four girls here about your age. Lucie Jennings, Hannah Jacobson, Leah Perez, Sadie Campbell . . ."
"What does it matter anyway? The great floods draw closer every day," I interrupted.
My mom stopped her work and looked up at me. "Yes, and that's precisely why you want to take a wife. So you can bring her to Elysium with you."
I laughed a humorless laugh. "Maybe I should wait until I get there. What if the options are better?"
My mom narrowed her eyes at me and put down the ladle that was in her hands. "What's gotten into you?"
I let out a breath. "I just . . . don't you ever question things, Mom? Don't you ever have questions you wish someone other than Hector would answer?"
Her eyes went to the small window next to her for a minute. Finally, she looked back at me. "We'll never have all the answers to all the questions, Calder. But Hector is good and Hector has only our best interests at heart. That's all I need to know, and that's all you need to know. The devil is testing your faith and you must win against him." She picked up the ladle and began working again before continuing on. "You know, if not for Hector, you wouldn't even be here. He saved my life, Calder, and he saved your dad's life, too. He gave us a family, a purpose."
"I know, Mom," I responded. She had told me the story many times, how she and my dad had grown up in loveless homes where harsh beatings were a daily occurrence. They had met Hector when they were both eighteen, when he was on one of his missions. My mom had been pregnant with Maya and they didn't have anywhere to go. Hector showed them the first kindness they had ever known, and they were thrilled to know they were meant to be two of his people, and among the first to live on Acadia. It was the very first time they'd felt their lives had meaning.
My mom waved her hand around our small cabin. "This may not look like much, but there is peace here. There is order here. There is faith, and there is purpose. We're all very lucky. Blessed. I know sometimes the simplicity of life here seems difficult. But there is peace in simplicity. The big society is filled with chaos, uncertainty, and hurt. Believe me, I know." She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. "Have you had a good life, Calder?"
I regarded her. "Yes, Mom." But I want more.
She nodded as if she'd known what my answer would be. "Then you have Hector to thank for that."
"I have you to thank for that."
My mom looked like she was about to say something more, when my dad and Maya came laughing into the room from the bedroom where they had been doing their Holy Book reading, their matching red hair glinting in the sunshine coming through the kitchen window. My mom had red hair, too. My mom said I had gotten my dark coloring from the "black Irish" in our genes.
My dad sat Maya down on the chair directly beside me and I put my arm around her small, rounded shoulders, tickling her ribs with my other hand. Maya was nineteen now, but she still had the mind of a child—a sweet, angelic child.
She laughed out and it ended in a coughing fit. She had had this same cough for days and days now and I was a little worried about her. When she finally cleared her throat, she said, "Calder. Take me out in the rain on a piggyback! I want to get wet!"
I laughed down at her, thinking that she needed to stay right here in this cabin, probably under a warm blanket. "Can't. Know why?"
She looked at me and shook her head, her eyes curious.
I leaned over and whispered in her ear. "You know how I bring you sugar cubes sometimes?" I leaned back up and put my finger over my mouth to indicate it was our secret. I glanced at my dad and mom and they were talking in hushed tones about what other canning needed to get done. Truly, it wasn't even our work, but in the rain, we all needed to occupy ourselves, so we all helped out with whatever inside work there was.
"Well, you're just as sweet as those sugar cubes. You get sweeter every day. And if I bring you out in the rain, you'll melt away, just like sugar."
Her eyes widened, but then she laughed. "That's not true!"
I winked. "Well, the part about you being as sweet as sugar is. Come on though, if you bundle up, we can sit under the porch and I'll draw you something in the dirt."
"Do I get to guess what it is?" She clapped.
"Yup. I won't tell you."
I helped her put on a sweater and a pair of warm socks, and then we sat under the roof overhang as I drew small pictures in the dirt and she guessed what they were.
When I looked up toward Eden's room, I saw her outline in the window. And I swore that despite the distance and the rain, for a brief second, our eyes met.

**********

The rain stopped the next day. I bounded down the trail, even faster than I usually went, my calf muscles burning with the exertion. I had a strange feeling I couldn't even explain swirling through me from not seeing Eden these past few days. Was it protectiveness? Maybe. I wanted to know she was okay. I wanted to know she was being cared for, happy. Those feelings were friendly, right? Only, I had never felt anything remotely similar for Xander. I pushed that aside.
When I squeezed through the rocks, at first I didn't think she was there. Disappointment, swift and strong, hit me. But then her head surfaced from the spring and she took in a big breath of air.
She caught sight of me and grinned.
"What are you doing?"
"Swimming," she answered, smiling happily.
I walked closer until I was just at the edge of the spring.
"Well yes, I can see that. Why exactly?"
She squinted at me, sunlight hitting her face, making the water droplets on her skin sparkle and dance. Her hair, although wet, was still golden and it cast a halo around her delicately beautiful face. She looked like an angel or a mermaid—a magical, mythical creature. I took a mental photo of her, meaning to draw her later, just like that.
"Well, I've decided this," she waved her hand around, indicating our spring and the surrounding rocks, "is my school. And I mean to learn every little thing I can while I'm here. I mean to soak up every piece of knowledge possible. And I didn't know how to swim. And now I do. Sort of."
I raised an eyebrow. "You taught yourself to swim in the last," I looked up at the sky to see how far past noon it was, when I assumed she'd arrived, "fifteen minutes?"
She nodded, leaning down and taking some water in her mouth and then spitting it out. Something about that had my body stirring in ways that, again, didn't feel friendly.
"Do you know how to swim?" she asked.
I nodded, willing my body to cooperate. "Yeah. I bathe in the river. Us worker kids have been swimming since we were young."
She paused, staring at me for a second and then nodded. "Come on in then. The water's nice." It was almost winter, but the temperature was still in the seventies. I'd bet it did feel nice.
I hesitated. This felt dangerous in ways that had nothing to do with drowning or stubbing my toe on a rock under the water. Nonetheless, I took off my shirt and waded into the water in my pants. I moved to the other side of the spring and regarded Eden. I noticed she was fully submerged, but she was still wearing her long, modest dress. Although it would be less modest now that it would be sticking to her skin. Lust spiked through my body, leaving a fierce longing in its wake.
I moved away a little farther and Eden rolled her eyes. "You don't have to be afraid of me, Calder. Friends, remember? And actually, I've been up in my room thinking about it these past few rainy days and you're right. It's better this way. Not just for the community as a whole, but for me, too. I've been too fixated on you these past few years. Silly, really. I mean, think of all the things I could have been teaching myself if I had had a different focus. There's knowledge everywhere! And instead, I've been wasting time staring at your muscles." She laughed. I frowned.
"Well, I wouldn't call it a complete waste of time," I muttered.
Eden laughed again, but then went serious. The swell of her breasts was just barely showing over the surface of the water. "No, but really . . ." She swirled her arm across the water, causing it to ripple. I watched as the ripples moved away from her, reaching toward me as if she meant to span the distance between us, using the water as an extension of her. When the first small wave hit my naked belly, I almost groaned as if it was her hand stroking my skin. Oh for the love of the gods, what's wrong with me? "When the rain hit my window, it fogged up. I remembered your lesson about the states of matter, and I was able to figure out the window fogged because of the different temperature of the glass on the inside and the outside." Her eyes lit up, like she had just solved the mystery of the universe. I couldn't help but smile.
"And music," she continued. "It's all numbers. I don't know why Hector never taught me math. I could have been an even better piano player than I am."
Her eyes widened. "Last night I snuck down to the kitchen and read through some recipes. There's lots of math in those, too . . . some you still have to teach me." She laughed softly, puckering her lips and taking water into her mouth again and then spitting it out. I groaned softly, but she didn't appear to hear. "Anyway, my point is, you taught me a couple things, and I was able to apply them to other things. And now I want more. I want to learn everything you have to teach me. And I want to teach myself as much as possible." She looked thoughtful for a minute. "It's a sort of freedom for me, Calder. And maybe that's hard to understand. But . . . most of my life, I've had so many questions and no answers. And now . . . well, I might not have all the answers, but I have a few, and my life feels fuller. And I can carry all that knowledge inside me and no one else can ever take it. It's mine. It belongs to me." She lowered her eyes briefly and then raised them back to mine. "Thank you."
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.