I stood in front of her and crossed my arms over my chest. "A morning glory is a beautiful flower, delicate-like. Blue, just like your eyes." I paused and smiled again. "But the thing about a morning glory?" I leaned in closer and so did she, her eyes filled with curiosity. "The thing about a morning glory is if you let it, it will totally take over your crops, because it's not just a flower. It's also a weed, totally invasive. Stronger than it looks."
I looked around at my friends standing around. "The point is, you don't have to be just a flower or a weed. You can be both." I shrugged my shoulders. "I figure some people are both." I looked around at my friends and grinned at them, raising my eyebrows.
"Aw, geez, Calder, I swear sometimes you make things up out of the clear blue sky," Xander scoffed. "Fine, flower, weed, whatever, let's just play. Eden can be on your team."
Everyone ran to get in their positions. I looked back at Eden as a slow grin spread over her face, and she laughed out loud as she looked at me.
Her grin was contagious, I guessed, because I realized I was grinning, too, as I ran to my own position.
What I had said, though, was true. Morning glories were flowers and weeds—at least here in Arizona. I should know. I'd helped to tug out whole batches of them trying to suck up all the water from our crops.
We played in that hot sun for at least an hour before Mother Miriam came stalking down from the main lodge looking annoyed. "Eden!" she shouted. Eden ran off the field past me, her long, blonde hair and long, heavy skirt flying up behind her. She had played with more gusto than anyone else on the field and within half an hour or so, everyone was treating her like one of the regular "weeds." I didn't think the smile left her face the whole time she was with us.
Eden, yeah, she was definitely a morning glory: as pretty as a flower, with the strength of a weed.
She looked back when she made it to Miriam and although I could tell Miriam was already giving her a tongue lashing, Eden flashed me a smile as if to say it was worth it, completely worth it. I smiled back.
Suddenly, Eden broke free of Mother Miriam and came running back to me as Mother Miriam screeched her name. She stopped in front of me, breathing hard and reached into a small pocket at the side of her skirt. She grabbed my hand hanging at my side and cupped her hand over my open palm, and then closed my fingers around something small and hard. We both looked up at the same time and our eyes met for several long seconds. Then she grinned at me and went running back to Miriam who grabbed her arm and started walking even quicker than before, practically dragging Eden behind her.
I looked down at my hand and slowly opened my fingers. Inside sat a butterscotch candy.
I laughed and raised my head, staring after Eden. It had been her that day, listening to Xander and me as we talked about butterscotch candies beneath her open window. Eden and Mother Miriam reached the main lodge and disappeared inside. I unwrapped that butterscotch candy and popped it in my mouth, trying not to grin around the mouthful of sweet deliciousness.
CHAPTER THREE
Five Years Later
Eden
Through the years, it was our game, Calder's and mine. He would somehow sneak pressed morning glories places where I would find them. Mostly in the Temple, around my seat so any other person would think it was just a flower that had blown in from outside. Some months, I found several, and other months none would show up.
After the second year, though, I started finding them in my room, and I would breathe out a shocked breath and clamp my hand over my mouth not to laugh out loud. How he snuck them in there, I had no idea and I wanted so badly to ask him. But after the day Mother Miriam had caught me playing with the worker kids, she kept a closer eye on me. I hadn't even been able to make it back to my secret spring I'd found when I first arrived. They had me practicing the piano all day long and there was no way to sneak away from that. The silence would give me away. I loved the piano, though. It was my mind's one big escape. I'd sit there and think about Calder as the music floated out around me.
I watched him from my window on the second floor. I had a pretty good view of the path he took to carry the water from the river to the worker cabins. I watched the way he was always smiling and laughing and the way other people, whenever they were around him, seemed to smile, too. It was like he just exuded joy and goodness. I knew from my own experience he was kind, but I also watched the way he rushed to help a woman whose cartful of vegetables had overturned, when he could have turned away, and the way he carried his sister everywhere piggyback, turning his head to laugh up at something she said.
He was working on something, too, and I didn't know what it was. He spent hours after he'd finished his regular work, down by the river hollowing out logs and binding them together. I squinted as best as I could, trying to see what he was doing, but I didn't have any idea. All I knew was he must be smart and industrious.
Perhaps I'd built Calder Raynes up in my lovesick mind to be someone he wasn't. I wasn't sure. It'd been years since I'd actually spoken to him. But the looks we shared in Temple when I leaned up from picking up one of his flowers, made my stomach clench and my heart race. And finding one of them had me walking on air for days and days.
And he was beautiful. There was that.
He had grown tall and broad and his skin was bronzed and smooth. He was constantly without a shirt in the summertime, keeping only a small piece of fabric hanging loosely around his neck so he could wipe his brow as he worked. My eyes wandered unabashedly over his muscled arms and his flat, ridged stomach. To me, he looked like a god who had come straight down from Elysium.
It was sinful to watch his nakedness, I knew, but something in me was wicked and I couldn't stop myself.
His eyes were slanted slightly so that he looked exotic and his dark brown hair was thick and shiny. And his smile . . . his smile lit up my world, even from afar.
He was perfect. And I loved him. I loved him desperately.
And I was destined to marry Hector. Or so I was told. Only destiny hadn't checked with me first. If she had, I would have told her that I was pretty sure Calder Raynes was my destiny—or at least I would have begged for it to be made so.
Instead, I left him butterscotch candies.
It was hard at first. I was never allowed to leave the lodge for one thing, and for another, I didn't exactly blend.
But luckily, the workers in Acadia kept to a specific schedule and I always knew where they'd be and when. And so I would pretend I had to go to the bathroom while I knew Calder and his family were working, and I'd sneak out the back door and run as fast as I could to his small cabin and plant a butterscotch candy somewhere among his bedding or his things. I may have smelled his pillow once or twice, or, okay fine, every single time. I'd close my eyes and inhale the clean, male scent, picturing him on his stomach, his skin a golden contrast to the white linens, his muscular arms wrapped around that pillow, his cheek pressed to it as he slept. And a flock of butterflies would take up a thrilling flight in my ribcage.
In any case, that's how I managed to leave those small sweets for him. I'd return from the "bathroom" slightly sweaty and just a little bit giddy, and I'm sure Mother Miriam, who was Hector's mistress and my piano teacher, wondered what exactly it was I did in there.
Everything changed for me one late afternoon when Hector called me in to his office on the first floor.
"Eden, my love." Hector smiled as I took a seat on the small couch to the right of the fireplace.
"Father," I said, looking down and only glancing at him with my upturned eyes. I chewed on my lip nervously.
Hector sat down next to me and I felt the weight of his stare as I focused on my hands in my lap. I admired Hector, but he scared me just a little bit, too. Not only because I would one day be his wife, and this was confusing to me and not exactly in line with my personal wishes, but because he was a powerfully built man with an intense presence. He always seemed to tower over me, not just in person, but in spirit somehow, too. I imagined his large shadow following me everywhere, making sure I was acting in the manner befitting of both his wife and his blessed one. I understood why all the people of Acadia looked at him as if he were a god himself.
He sighed and moved some of my long hair back over one shoulder. I glanced nervously at his fingers next to my cheek.
"Eden, you grow more lovely by the day. The gods, in their infinite wisdom, have chosen an angel to lead us to the angels." He smiled and pulled his hand back and the breath I'd been holding came out in a sharp exhale. Hector didn't seem to notice.
He stood and walked the few steps to the fireplace and held his hands out to warm them, even though it was hardly chilly in his office. He straightened the fireplace tools, frowning down at them as if they displeased him. I remained quiet and simply watched him.
"I have to go away for a little while, my love." He turned to me fully. "Mother Miriam will be joining me on my quest this time. The gods have spoken and told me where I'm needed. I'll miss my little princess. But you'll be in good hands. Mother Hailey will be in charge of your care and will make sure you practice the piano and do your lessons as you should."
I nodded enthusiastically. I liked Mother Hailey much, much more than I liked sour Mother Miriam, and as it was now, I had very little interaction with Mother Hailey and her four boys. They lived in the opposite wing of the house with the other council members, and our paths didn't cross very often, except during meals.
When I realized I might look happy about Hector's impending trip, I lowered my head again and made sure my expression was properly depressed.
"How long will you be gone, Father?"
"I'm not sure just yet. The gods will tell me when my mission is complete." I nodded. Hector had been on several missions since I'd come to live with him. He usually brought someone new back with him, twice a council member, more often a family or person to live among the workers.
He looked perplexed for just a second, but then his expression cleared. "Our family is off balance. I sense it, and so I must ensure it's put back in harmony. I'll know the person, a council member I think." He stared off into space for a second and then seemed to suddenly snap out of it. His sentence continued as if he'd never paused at all. "And when I find them, just as I found you once upon a time, my princess—the girl to bring me peace and balance, to bring us all peace and balance—I'll bring them back here."
He paused again. "The whole world is off balance, Eden. Imbalance brings nothing but sin and greed . . . pain. I must protect Acadia from that."
I looked down at my feet, not really sure what he meant. "I'll miss you, of course, Father." And I thought I would, at least just a little. After all, he was the only father I had.
Hector was silent for a minute. Then he walked behind me and put both hands on my shoulders. He moved my hair off the back of my neck and I froze as I felt his warm breath on my skin right before his lips pressed against me. I shivered, forcing myself to stay still on the couch.
I felt Hector stand back up and he returned both hands to my shoulders. My heart thudded in my chest and everything within me urged me to flee. But I didn't.
"It won't be long now that we'll be married and I'll take you as my wife. And the foretelling will truly come to pass."
Dread raced through my veins. Suddenly, a year and a few weeks seemed so very near. The foretelling had said I would be his only wife and that couldn't be made so until I was of legal age. Eighteen loomed like a death sentence, literally and figuratively.
A flash of Calder's face raced through my mind and I wondered momentarily if I would have to watch him marry as well. Most likely. Despair made my chest ache. I'd have to bear that pain alone, as I did all my sadness.
"Yes, Father," I whispered.
**********
Hector and Mother Miriam left the following week, and so Mother Hailey and her four boys moved into our wing of the main lodge.
Mother Miriam had never been blessed with children, and so to now have the noise and laughter of kids around brought me happiness.
Mother Hailey had a kind, quiet demeanor and I loved simply being near her. Although I wasn't allowed to cook or clean like Hector's mistresses, Mother Hailey didn't seem to mind that I sat with her as she prepared meals and did laundry.
The first week they were there, I watched her play a game of jacks on the floor as her littlest boy laughed and chased after the small, rubber ball whenever it bounced away from someone.
Standing off to the side, watching them from behind a large column, I felt deep sadness and a memory I chose not to explore, skated around the edges of my mind.
Once, once I had been loved.
The tears began to fall and so I picked up my long skirt and walked quietly up the stairs to my room where I sat on my bed staring out my window at the city lights far, far beyond. I had come from lights just like those—another world entirely—a world almost as distant as the lights of the stars above.
Suddenly my door squeaked open and Mother Hailey stood there, smiling gently at me. She moved her long, light brown hair behind her shoulder.
I wiped the tears from my cheeks, and Mother Hailey came and sat on the bed next to me and took my hands in hers. "You're sad all the time. Why, Eden?" Her gentle, blue eyes regarded me with concern.
I sniffled as another tear made its way down my cheek. "I watch you play with your boys and I . . ." I looked up into her kind, pretty face. "I guess I was just wondering, with so many boys, if maybe you . . . could use a girl?" My last word came out on a squeak and my cheeks heated. I knew I was far too old to be useful as somebody's child. I didn't even really know what I was asking her exactly. I felt the loneliness I'd lived with so long consume me.