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 The
Forbidden
Fruit
The Eden Chronicles #2
S.K MUNT

Cover by S.K Munt

© 2015 S.K Munt all rights reserved

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Edited by Howard Parsons, Emm Cole and Donella Brown

 To Howard Parsons, long-time book reviewer – soon to be
published author. Congratulations on the imminent release of

Urban Mermaid, and may the kindness you have bestowed upon
other writers be returned three-fold with gracious words from your
soon-to-be reviewers!
 THE CREATION STORY
BOOK IV OF VI

THIS TEXT IS NOT TO BE EDITED, ALTERED, SUMMARISED OR

TRANSLATED INTO ANY LANGUAGE. OFFENDERS WHO
ATTEMPT TO WILL BE CHARGED WITH TREASON AGAINST
CALLIEL AND PUT TO DEATH.

Religions had always insisted that God would obliterate

mankind if they did not follow his rules, but God had never believed
that he’d be moved to do anything so drastic until Los Angeles
exploded. It was followed by Seattle, then Israel, then San
Francisco, then and Tokyo, then and Paris and finally, several
third-world capitals disintegrated as well. The nuclear war played
out with no rhyme and millions of tiny reasons that confounded
him, but made sense to the people pushing the buttons. The goal
wasn’t to eradicate the largest populations, but to break hearts and
yes, the people who watched the carnage unfold while unharmed
on televisions in New York City and Beijing were absolutely
devastated to see Miami, Melbourne, Auckland, Baku, Bristol and
Dubai vaporised. Bombs were fired at New York City but divine
intervention made it through in time to see it spared… for a while.
World War four would come to be known as the shortest war
ever waged, but time meant little from the moment it started. The
powerful radicals attacked at random and without reprieve for three
days until the man in charge in Washington D.C sent back a bomb
of his own which the world hoped would serve as the final word.
The antagonistic nation who had released hell on earth ceased to
be after America acted, but the final word was still coming and
from a much higher power than the President of The United States.
God was not merely furious at the world- he was done with it.
He was done watching people fight to have more than the other of
what they’d been freely given. He was done with them taking his
love and twisting it into something that was practically unattainable,
and for all of his pious goodness- he was through sharing anything
with Satan. Ignited to the point of detonation, he ordered his angels
to go down and start looking for Satan’s minions, while he
unleashed an Armageddon so vicious that she would either come
out of hiding to challenge him, or have nowhere left to hide.
Millions of souls were going to die but those that loved him would
make it to Heaven, and those that didn’t would cease to be a
burden upon the others. After, there would only be Heaven and
Hell and no middle ground for them to fight over and if he played
his cards right, Hell would disintegrate soon after when he
smashed Satan’s spirit flat.
The angels didn’t want to see the world ended- Miguel
especially who had been there from the beginning and wept to
know that his Barachiel had become a hole in the ground full of
toxic waste. He had settled there first, and his people had evolved
from being the kind who worshipped the dirt beneath their feet, to
some of the most thoughtless and shallow of all, and he knew that
wouldn’t have happened if he’d stayed, or had set a better
example in the very beginning.
Yes, the angels were heartsick, but they loved God and
Heaven, and so they swooped upon the earth and used their now
glorious reserves of power and energy to turn over every stone,
looking for their fallen counterparts and destroying them, while God
ripped chaos forth from the earth. First, he gave himself form again
and then, he started eliminating all that he had created. He made
the ground shake so that Satan’s buildings toppled, and he made
the oceans heave and reclaim savaged shorelines for miles inland.
He drew energy from the earth’s core, causing mountains and
underground chambers of molten heat to explode and scald the
earth, and he breathed fire and smoke, burning forests to the
ground and then whipped up winds and rains to wash them clear
after. The angels- both kinds- watched in astonishment as God
made his power truly seen for the first time in three thousand
years, and for many of the black-winged hellions, his light was so
bright that they could not even turn to face him, and his ire so clear
that many of them- the dark Nephilim without the power of their
angelic parents especially- dropped to their knees and allowed the
golden souls to best them, screaming their love for God with their
lasts breaths and seeing their feathers turn white just before they
were taken.
And it was not just the supernatural beings that saw this take
place- humans everywhere were shocked, appalled and awed by
God’s power and as they cried out their love, he cast them up into
Heaven- growing stronger with each life that he took. Some lands
were unpopulated, so God let them be, but people tried to hide in
others, living off the land and cowering in their homes, but God
sent forth plagues of locusts to swarm and destroy the crops to
chase these people out of hiding and give them the chance to
appeal to him. Satan he knew, could be anywhere but she’d
certainly be with people, not hiding in some cavern alone and so
he was going to find her if he had to end the life of every last
person on earth with his bare hands, and take his time doing it.
Creating the world had taken a heartbeat, perfecting the world
for the good of the human race had taken millions of years but in
the end- destroying it took just over nine hundred days. People
tried to survive, but word of God’s return spread, as well as being
photographed, recorded and circulated until the humans saw that
resistance was futile. Some lay down and waited for him to find
them, others took their own lives and screamed their love for God
first, others allowed the carnage to swallow them whole with open
arms, but many fought back and God knew these were the
unbelievers. He demanded their love but when they did not grant it,
he left them to die or fend for themselves without wasting his time
in convincing them, and he didn’t have the heart to destroy them to
end their suffering. He had enough souls to fortify Heaven for an
eternity, but if he wanted to wipe out Satan’s cancerous influence,
he had to take out the source, not the people who were
symptomatic of her hatred- those he would be able to handle all at
once in the end.
Miguel had known where Satan was at the time of her ultimate
betrayal, but by the time he returned to the earth, she was gone
and he found himself drawn to the edge of the wasteland that had
been Barachiel amidst the carnage. He was supposed to be
looking for Satan and her black-feathered minions, but someone
was calling out to him, and though he could not tell who it was for
the chaos and millions fleeing the epicentre of the nuclear strike,
he knew that he could not leave until he had answered that prayer.
And so he salvaged soul after dying soul, making the bodies of the
dead vanish while taking the souls of those dying, or those who
asked for his help up to Heaven. He worked and worked and
though he did not find the soul screaming to him by the name Saint
Michael, the way that he heard it in his heart, he found many
others in equal need and this distracted him from his mounting
frustration.
But strangely, it was the survivors who he would have made a
priority over the other mortals, who refused to give him the word
that they loved God. Instead, they shooed him away and went
back to what they were doing, determined to save and not be
saved by the God they’d been told did not love them. Their actions
were self-sacrificing and pious, but their hearts had hardened
toward the lord long before and because Miguel did not want to
see them taken up by Satan, he let them be and worked around
them, praying that they would change their minds before the very
end came.
One of the survivors was a young male trainee doctor, Korbin,
who had set up a makeshift hospital in an abandoned building and
was attempting to minister to over three hundred sick and dying
people alone- and resented God because he’d lost his father to
cancer at the age of nine and now his angel was trying to stop him
from saving other children’s fathers too. There was also an elderly,
ex-marine who was digging graves for the people who’d been left
to rot in the earth, and he was furious to be stopped and laughed
off Miguel’s pleas to love God, whom he had lost faith in, decades
before during the Vietnam War. Another was an unattractive
female scientist, Maryah, who wanted to stay and urge people
away from ground zero to places that she believed might be safe,
and when Miguel told her that there was no place safe left in the
world, she spat at him and told him that she hadn’t stretched her
brain to the limits of scientific exploration for her entire life, just to
be told by a shirtless man wearing wings that he understood
radiation better.
‘I know how fallout works, and where we will be safe from it too!’
she screamed. ‘Men- and religious men- you’re all the same! I
suppose you’re going to try and tell me that dinosaurs never
existed either, huh? Yes well, off you go!’ Miguel tried to correct her
and point out the fact that his wings actually worked and that in
itself was proof of God, but she started throwing rocks at him- big
ones- and he left not only because he was laughing too hard, but
because she was tiring herself further in her need to scare him off,
and if he didn’t give her a chance to calm down, she would
probably drop dead from exhaustion anyway.
Ironically, it was the first woman he’d ever met who didn’t fall at
his feet, but she would not be the last and it was during the
apocalypse that Miguel finally found a cure to his only flaw- his
ego- because suddenly, people were lining up to tell him how
useless and unappealing he was.
One of the girls who fought him off the most violently had run a
great distance with a deceased infant in her arms, and did not think
that she deserved to end up in Heaven, for having failed the child.
When Miguel tried to grab her, she ran so fast away from him that
in his fatigue, he could not keep up on human feet and so he
sighed and vowed to find her later when he’d revived, if she
survived. There was also a middle-aged man who had been
building a structure to shelter survivors who couldn’t move from the
acid rains and fallout that was surely coming, and resented being
interrupted because he had cancer and was dying anyway, and
there was an older, gay gentleman who refused to leave his
deceased lover’s side. Instead, he had lain down beside him to
hold onto love until the end came, believing that his way of life had
barred him access to a heavenly afterlife anyway.
But the most exceptional case to Miguel was a frazzled and
scrawny South American girl aged only sixteen, who screamed at
him in a foreign language when he tried to pull her and her child
away from a busload of trapped senior citizens. She was intent on
opening the buckled door to let them all out, but Miguel pulled her
back anyway, knowing that it was seconds away from exploding,
and that everyone on board not only loved God and would get to
Heaven, but had lived their human lives and were ready for their
end.
‘Come with me, before Satan feels your loathing towards God
and steals your soul!’ he cried, terrified beyond measure that her
hysteria would certainly trigger Satan’s notice. He wanted the dark
temptress to come to him of course, but not while this girl was
within reach of her, and her child too! And because he still hadn’t
found the person calling out to him with a weakening spirit, he
started to worry that it was a Nephilim illusion of sorts that was
leading him into a trap.
But the girl cried that Satan had already come to her but she
had scared her away from her child, Rosa. Then she said that her
life had forced her into becoming a prostitute at the age of thirteen,
and a mother too, so God would not want her anyway.
‘Let me stay and be a mother, as both God and Satan decided
that I must be!’ she screamed. ‘I will enter purgatory after, and deal
with that as well as I have this mortal life without YOUR help!’
Miguel yanked her back at the last moment as the bus exploded,
and earned himself a slap for his trouble that made him smile for
the first time in years. She had Satan’s temper, but God’s bravery,
which sort of made her more powerful and intimidating than any
angel or Nephilim that he had ever met and now that he’d met her
and saved her, he was ready to leave Los Angeles. He hadn’t
found the person calling his name but the voice had silenced and
that told Miguel that it was already too late to save the person and
prayed that they had loved God enough to get to Heaven on their
own.
Gabriella screamed when Miguel lifted her and Rosa up in his
arms and took flight, but he did not let her go to damn herself or
her child. He flew north with her until he found a place where she
would be safe- a place where the radiation from Seattle’s
obliteration would not be carried on the raging westerly winds, and
a place so elevated that the rising ocean would not drown it. A
place that was close to a forest that had not been burned, and
where a river with burst banks sped by so rapidly that it was
pouring over the edge of the cliff and into the tide below, coming
from one of the few places left on earth where the water was still
unpolluted. He deposited Gabriella and her child there, and then
started going back for the other brave survivors. In the end, he had
eleven, and a whole lot of ruckus! The souls he had saved were
furious with him, but it wasn’t until Miguel touched Raoul’s dead
lover’s forehead, that they all hushed enough to listen.
‘He is gay, like me,’ Raoul sobbed. ‘Emilio always tried to go to
church but they wouldn’t let him in because of me, so if what you
say is true, then Satan has already claimed him!’
But Miguel smiled and fingered the medallion around Emilo’s
neck. Engraved into it was an image of an angel wrestling a
dragon. ‘That is me, or a version of me as Saint Michael,’ he said,
showing it to Raoul. ‘Your lover is the one who called me here, and
if he has been dead for days as you said, then his faith and love for
God was strong enough to get me to you even after his body had
given up. So rest assured- he is in Heaven now, waiting for you to
join him.’
Raoul wiped at his eyes. ‘Are you saying it’s all true?’
‘I am saying that there is a God, and he loves you all equally,
regardless of how you lived,’ Miguel ran his hands over Emilio’s
body, and the corpse vanished from sight, eliciting a gasp from the
others. ‘But almost none of anything else you have ever heard is
true, and it is Satan who he is angry with, not the people that she
tried to turn against him. Anyone who has room for God in their
hearts will end up safe in Heaven, after this form of purgatory is
over.’
‘I love this planet,’ the scientist, Maryah whispered unhappily. ‘If
he loved us, he would never take it from us.’
‘He isn’t taking anything that he won’t return to you tenfold,’
Miguel assured her, but barely any of them look comforted.
Raoul was the exception. He was so grateful to learn that God’s
love could be extended to him despite his sexual preference, that
he dropped to Miguel’s feet and gave his own love right then and
there, but even though Miguel could have given him the touch and
sent him to Heaven immediately, he hesitated and looked around
to assess his beautiful surroundings, and the group of survivors
who were now sharing it. They were sinners by their own definition,
but heroes by their actions, and though the world was falling apart
around them, Gabriella picked up a flower from the grass and
leaned down so that her daughter could inhale the fragrance.
‘It’s beautiful, mummy,’ Rosa whispered, touching the petals.
‘Why would God want to ruin them by ripping apart the earth?’
‘To stop us from ruining it first,’ Gabriella whispered.
‘But I never pick flowers,’ the little girl said. ‘I wait for them to
fall.’
‘That does not matter,’ her mother said, giving Miguel a
murderous look. ‘Others have and so, we must now atone for that.
All we can do now, is enjoy it while we are still here and ask
ourselves if we can love God more than we love ourselves, or each
other.’
‘Are there flowers in Heaven?’ the girl asked him, and all of the
faces turned to Miguel who looked away.
‘There is no need for such things…’ he answered softly. ‘What
you feel when you scent and touch one is just… there.’
‘Oh,’ the girl said, but she didn’t look any more convinced than
he felt, and Miguel was thunderstruck by this exchange. Stopping
to smell the roses was a common phrase, but Miguel realised that
for all of Heaven’s glory, he had not done so for thousands of
years, and he began to cry, knowing that God probably had not
either. Only the angels who left paradise to spend time on the earth
seemed to value it when they returned. Miguel- who had been lost
in a loving, oblivious embrace of his daughter’s spirit for thousands
of years- felt nothing there now. No sorrow no, but… nothing.
It’s not nothing, and you must curb these betraying thoughts!
Heaven is everything! If that is now beyond compare to you, then it
is you who is nothing!
Every one of these humans was exceptional to Miguel, but they
were weary and angry and hungry and the north was rapidly
freezing over, ensuring that an ice age would start before God
ended it all. They’d all be better off in Heaven and now it seemed
like they believed enough to be willing to go, and yet Miguel was
compelled to keep them alive long enough for them to meet God
as they were, and show him how despite all of their flaws, they
were still capable of love and prepared to fight for their lives on a
dying planet.
Perhaps, God could make them Soul Mates like me! Satan has
many, and look how they fortified her! Maybe when this world is
over, God can start a new one, the right way!
Then and there, Miguel decided to abandon his plans to find
Satan until he had recuperated and healed his frayed wings, and
settled with his survivors for a while, ensuring that they all had
food, shelter and knowledge of what God was really like. He told
them stories of Eden and Barachiel and Heaven by night, and they
told him their own stories after, and eventually, he began to think of
them as friends and they began to love God through him. During
the days, he rested, waking only to intercept whatever crisis
emerged, or to melt away the frost slowly creeping across the land
from the north, and once a few months had passed and snow had
started to fall in the middle of what should have been a warm fall
afternoon, Miguel knew that the world was dying, and that he had
fallen in love with the prostitute Gabriella, and her daughter.
They were nothing like Satan, Neveah, Heaven or Hell, but they
were extraordinary to him for the strength of their will in the
absence of power or privilege. They’d come from nothing but
shared everything, and though they were relatively plain and weak
to look at, they were funny and kind and bright and glowed with
everything that was good in the world. When Miguel touched
Gabriella’s scarred cheek for the first time without her striking him
for it, he felt a soul almost as bright as Heaven’s, and a desire that
shook him to the very core, and when she grew round with his
child, he closed his eyes and farewelled Satan and God in the one
prayer- he would not cry out for either of them again now that he
had all any man could ever need, and he would not return to
Heaven while his life was so blessed on Earth. He began erecting
her a stone cottage while she planted a garden around it and
together, they named it Eden.
‘We will die here,’ Miguel whispered to his love as she plucked
strawberries from a vine. ‘And soon. You know that, yes?’
It was so cold that her breath decorated her words with misty
clouds. She smiled at him and popped a strawberry into his mouth,
looking prettier than she ever had in the glow of his love. ‘So long
as we live here first.’
Everyone’s needs were catered to in Eden, so though no two
individuals were alike in appearance or power or worth, they never
fought over anything but what was best for them all. Everyone had
a strength, and that strength gave them purpose and served them
as a community. Amalie would run to look for survivors, Gabriella
would sing with an old guitar to entertain them at night, others
would build and as the group expanded, so did their tasks. It was
like back in the beginning only this time, the people alive were too
grateful for their existence to despair over what they did not have,
for they’d known what having nothing was.
Miguel loved them all equally, but gave only his heart to
Gabriella, and when his son was born, he named him Elijah. The
name had two meanings- a harbinger who would come before the
lord, and after the Pagan sky God, for when Elijah laughed for the
first time, the clouds broke and for just one moment, sun shone
through on the beautiful Nephilim boy and melted more of the
snow.

Satan saw this while she was admiring the smoky, heavy skies
and unfurled her wings, taking flight and following the light, thinking
that only God could pierce such blackness with his golden aura-
and that putting that light out was the only chance that the human
race had left.
God had made the world, then he had changed it and now that
he was disappointed with it and didn’t want it anymore, he had
started to destroy it. But Satan wanted the world still- very much- if
she could trick God into abandoning it before he vanquished it, it
would be hers for the taking.
PART ONE
 1.
Sneaking into the upper level of the north wing wasn’t the
most inspired or well thought out plan that I’d ever had before in
my life, so when the handle on the entry turned easily for me, I
didn’t know whether I’d struck it lucky, or if I was about to be struck
by King Elijah The Second’s lightning. Still, I needed to get in there
and the unlocked door made that easier, so I inhaled quickly and
let myself in, pausing to scan the silent room before I dared ease
the door shut behind me.
Oh boy oh boy… what’s the punishment for breaking in here
again? A week locked in my room? Huh… that’s not so bad, unless
I get whipped first!
The foyer was as cloaked in silence as it was luxury- the king of
silence that suggested abandonment without so much the settling
of furniture or echo of clattering cutlery, so after lingering by the
door and eyeing off the salt and pepper bearskin rug on the floor
as though it were a guard dog apt to bite me for a full moment, I
exhaled lightly and crossed though the foyer and into the next
room, clutching my book and the precious photocopies within it to
my chest as I scanned the room for signs of danger.
Wow okay, so this was not what I expected...
I had tiptoed directly into what had to be the main living quarters
for the royal family, and was not only thrilled to see it had been
completely abandoned, but shocked to see that it was nothing like
the rest of the castle. There were no dark corridors, no heavy
stone furniture; everything was light and open and almost rustic in
design, from the white timber table with its spray of spring-bright
blooms on the centre of it, to the fireplace, which was as wide as
three of the one in my own room (which I had not yet lit) and
topped with a mantel carved in the shape of a white mermaid
streaming across a wave on one side, and an angel taking flight on
the other so that both figures curled up on the ends as though
stretching for heaven. It was gorgeous, and the array of framed
photographs arranged across the top of it were touching, and
begged me to stop and examine them. They were all family shots:
Constance between Elijah and his younger brother Ewan on their
Joining day, Karol as a youth looking so much like Kohén now that
I had to look twice, the duchess with both new-borns in her arms
and most moving of all- a picture of the ten-year old twins on the
sands of Caldera, grinning at me as if to say: ‘Play ball?’
It was easy to tell which was Kohén- not only because Kohl had
his eye patch on, but also because he was MY Kohén and that had
been my childhood best friend. I stepped up to the frame and
touched his cheek dimple tenderly through the glass, and my eyes
and nose began to sting.
‘Come again soon?’ Emmerly had asked.
‘Tomorrow,’ Kohén replied.
A sob escaped me, and I turned away.
Not now, Duckling! Keep it together!
The dining room was still set for breakfast but the plates look
mostly untouched (no fruit there either) and when I walked across
the formal lounge and looked out the rear window, I smiled to see
that I had guessed right and Kohén, Kohl and their parents were all
out on the lawn, surrounded by at least one hundred people who’d
been let in to gawk at my statue, as well as a handful of the
‘special’ royal servants who should have been up there shooing
flies off everybody’s breakfast in their golden aprons.
I moved closer and squinted down at the people below, trying to
see if Karol was down there too but I couldn’t find him, and I
smiled. I’d come upstairs seeking him on the instinct that he was
the kind of guy who slept in and had breakfast delivered in bed on
naked breasts, and it seemed like I was on the right track. Well, my
breasts weren’t bare but they were obvious and I was serving
myself to him on a platter so it was sort of the same thing. Either
way, I felt cheap but prepared to face him down.
I momentarily stared down through the window, watching
everyone admiring the statue, and was bewildered by how
motionless and awed some of them looked, and how quickly the
lawn had filled with people. Happy people. From above, it was
pretty easy to see why we had handed the Barachiel family power.
Everyone was clean and smiling and healthy. No one jostled
roughly for the best spot, and kids stood watching patiently. The
world really was a better place, and because of my influence on
Kohén, this day had become miraculous to them.
This is… this is all because of me, right? This is the reach of my
influence on this family or at least, the boys in this family? If I can
get her here- what else can I do once I am free? Oh God Martya-
give me strength like yours if you are watching over me!
Clearly everybody in Arcadia, and possible Calliel, had been
aware of Lady Liberty’s relocation for the past five days and while
I’d been locked in the east wing, and most of the castle had been
working hard to make my birthday present comfortable. It must
have been quite the spectacle, however they’d gotten her there,
and the novelty probably wouldn’t wear off for months, if ever. I had
a feeling that she would be on the front page of the next edition of
the newspaper, which now came every two weeks, and that made
me chuckle as I imagined a headline that would suffice: ‘Loss of
liberty, gain of Liberty.’ ‘Prince spoils whore rotten!’ ‘Don’t lose
hope yet, ugly women of the world!’
Okay so they probably weren’t going to word the story like that,
but my statue would be the biggest news in the nation for weeks
and I had a feeling that that had been Elijah’s motivation for
agreeing to his son’s ostentatious request, and not because he
treasured me so. Kohén would have barged into his office and
made some passionate declaration to make a dream come true for
me, and Elijah would have seen an opportunity to get the food
shortage out of the headlines because as that creep Elbert Yael
had said: money Arcadia had- finding food to purchase was the
issue, so why not buy something awe-inspiring?
Would the world ever know that her move had been at a
whore’s request? Possibly. It seemed like the sort of thing Elijah
Barachiel would emphasise in order to hide the flaws in the caste
system. ‘How dare you accuse me of hiding a cure for Locusts?
I’ve been toiling away with my hands and knees all week to please
a common hooker! See how equal we are? I am hungry too, but
pride for my family I have in spades!’
But then again, he’d come off better if he’d said he’d done it for
national pride, than for me. Although strangely, for all of the ill
feelings I had towards Elijah now because of the Companion
system, he’d never even frowned at me, not like his wife, or given
any indication that I irritated him or was beneath him. Even when
I’d been in trouble for discussing politics with the King of Yael, he’d
still managed to look grudgingly proud of me for holding the other
king’s attention for so long. So was that all an act, or I was a bug
like Martya to him- one that needed to be squashed but was too
clever to be allowed to see it coming? Could the descendant of
angel be capable of such evil doings?
I glanced over at the abandoned plates of toast, and though I
was fairly impressed to see that the royals weren’t eating anything
as lavish as my Danishes, anger spiked inside me at the sight of
the gold-edged china. I picked up a slice of buttered toast from a
plate beside a juice glass with lipstick on it, and dropped it on the
rug beneath the table, before picking it up and putting it back on
the plate- fuzzy side down. Then, I moved to the plate next to it,
which had a pipe beside it, and took a bite out of Elijah’s half-eaten
toast. Chewing and moaning for how good the creamed cheese
tasted (we hadn’t seen strawberry jam or marmalade for awhile
either), I glanced over at the other two settings, deciphered which
was Kohén’s by the pair of cufflinks sitting on the napkin beside it
and then drank half of his juice before moving the toast around so
that the better-looking ones were on Kohl’s plate.
Satisfied that I had treated the royal family by ranking them as
they would us in the Given suite, I turned in a semi-circle, trying to
work out which beautiful door was the one to the heir-apparent’s
boudoir. Following my instincts again, I walked straight past the
dining and lounge rooms and passed two locked doors, and then
paused in yet another living space, which housed a grand piano,
and to my absolute befuddlement- a television!
‘Okay… what?!’ I hissed and stomped over to it, needing to
touch it to make sure it was real because its presence in the
Barachiel living room made even less sense than the statue of
Liberty standing on the west coast six hundred and fifty years after
she’d fallen. I bent and looked for buttons to touch but there was
nothing: the screen was black but when I peered around the back,
saw that a power lead snaked it’s way to the wall, and was on, and
another cord was going into the roof! I stood up, looking around
suspiciously as though I expected to find a TV guide and a stack of
what they’d called ‘discs’ but there was no sign that the television
had ever been used. Was it just a conversation piece, like the
grand piano in the corner? Or was I going to walk on and discover
a garage full of working cars and a fast-food restaurant too?
I was in an indignant mood, but not so silly as to actually plonk
myself down in front of the television to see if it worked, so I vowed
to work the subject into what would be one of many stilted
conversations between Kohén and I to come, and tried the first
door on the right. It opened into a very simple space: a bedroom
with a two-person, neatly-made sleigh bed carved from mahogany,
a roll-top desk in the same timber, and absolutely no sign of
personalisation anywhere, except for the packing trunk on the floor.
Whoever lived in here was neat and transient and I knew that it
had to be Kohl. I went over to the trunk and lifted the lid before
slipping a token of my affection inside the inner pocket, along with
the last of the writing paper that Kelia had stencilled for me on my
fourteenth birthday, and ran my hand down a worn-looking pair of
denim jeans, trying to imagine how Kohl would look in something
like that and then, with a skipping heart, my Kohén. Tears
threatened so I closed the lid and left the room, closing the door
quietly behind me and looking around once more. This was the
youngest, temporary brother’s suite, so, which was the eldest’s?
I heard it then- the door turning to the entrance of the formal
living room and I squeaked and dove for the closest door, praying
that it wasn’t Kohén’s because if he walked in and found me
waiting for him on his bed, I’d be in serious trouble! And not the
GOOD bad kind but the sleazy kind. As I was running for it, I
realised that I’d never seen Kohén’s room before, and the thought
gave me a pang and also a twinge of excitement. In the books I’d
read, best friends lived in each other’s bedrooms, but a grey area
for had separated him and me so long that we’d convinced
ourselves that it was a normal shade of our otherwise colourful life.
I closed the door quietly behind me, trying to think of a decent
explanation for being in Kohén’s room that wouldn’t get me
slobbered on again, and the bored voice spoke as soon as I did,
making me freeze:
‘Are they delighted beyond measure?’ Karol asked, as though
he already knew the answer.
‘They are,’ I said as calmly as I could, sort of impressed with
myself for having been spot on with the locational instincts, if not
dead wrong about the conditions.
I was in Karol’s room and so was he, but he wasn’t in bed
licking sugar-dusted strawberries off a Companion- he was bent
over a stately desk, reading. Around him, his bedroom (once again
nice, but no fancier than mine) was in shambles. Everywhere I
looked there was a half-packed trunk or storage crate- but the
Prince had clearly gotten distracted mid-packing and had settled in
to read instead and was apparently so engrossed that he hadn’t
yet looked up and hadn’t managed to get any inflection in his tone
either. I knew that pose- he was either lost in words, or feigning it
to make the intruder buzz off. And because curiosity hadn’t quite
managed to kill this cat yet I couldn’t help but ask: ‘Why do you
guys have a television? I can see that you live as nicely as most
people in Arcadia and so I believe that you are not spoiled
unfairly… but a TV?’
He looked up then and when he saw me standing there,
hugging a book to my chest and shifting from foot to foot, his eye
colour shifted from the palest green to an emerald. For a moment
he just stared at me, and I was so interested in the answer to the
question that I forgot the whole reason why I was there and waited
patiently why he tried to arrange his dazzling features into a
suitable expression to convey how out of place I was there.
‘Am I having that dream again?’ he asked, turning to look
beside him as though the sandman was there, waiting to consult
with. Then, he looked back at me and shook his head a little.
‘Wait… what?’
‘Why do you have a television?’ I asked, jerking my thumb to
the closed door behind me. ‘Do you have cable too? Wi-Fi? Is the
expense of owning one the reason why you don’t have any
Danishes, or is the bangle on Emmerly’s arm that’s got you living
so modestly?’
Karol blinked, rising. ‘How do you even know words like Wi-Fi?’
‘I read.’ I tapped the book in my hands with one polished
fingernail. ‘See?’ Then I nodded to his open book. ‘You too? Huh.
I’ve got to admit, that surprises me.’
Karol’s eyes darkened again and he stepped away from his
desk chair. ‘Is the girl who just snuck into a forbidden wing actually
insinuating that I’m stupid?’
‘No,’ I said, though I had been. ‘I just heard that people got
hooked on television and it rotted their brains in the time before, so
reading went out of style.’
Karol’s lip twitched. ‘It’s not a television so much as it is a
monitor, Larkin. A security monitor…’
I felt the air on my eyeballs. ‘You have surveillance cameras?!
In which rooms?! Oh I KNEW that Kohén was cheating at hide and
seek!’
But Karol chuckled. ‘Not in the rooms, no- Santa didn’t get that
Christmas Wish-’
‘Santa Claus was a fallen Nephilim who turned hearts away
from another overblown Nephilim,’ I reminded him, ‘and Kohén told
you that you’re not allowed to flirt with me anymore.’
Karol raised his palms. ‘Who said I wished for it to be in your
room?’ I rolled my eyes but he grinned and went on: ‘And to
answer your question, we have thirty-four cameras in Arcadia- all
of which are directed to face the surveillance fences so that we can
monitor the activity outside of the city’s perimeters…’ his lip
twitched. ‘And yes, Kohén most likely used them to cheat in hide
and seek because I taught him to do that long before you came
along to catch Coaxley and father.’
 ‘Are they there to watch people trying to get in?’ I asked. ‘Or
out?’
‘Both,’ Karol said matter-of-factly. ‘And don’t even give me that
invasion of privacy look- do you know how many heinous people
have tried to breech those fences in the past to get in and cause
trouble?’
I swallowed, remembering the man who’d had designs on
stealing me. ‘I do, actually.’
‘Good then, so I don’t have to explain myself. We take security
seriously Larkin- and that makes it easier for us to be more lax with
punishments. If a murderer doesn’t get to sneak in to Arcadia a
second or third time, we don’t have to take drastic measures.’ He
began to walk toward me and stopped a meter or so away. ‘And
now that we’ve straightened everything out, can I ask what the hell
you’re doing in my room without permission… and in piggy tails?’
My heart skipped a beat- I’d been so caught up in the
conversation that I’d forgotten my purpose for coming again and
now that I was remembering it, I was feeling a bit intimidated by my
own ambition. But it wasn’t for the first time. In fact, being more
ambitious than I ought to have been was a condition I’d been
suffering since birth and seeing as how I wasn’t being cured of it,
I’d resigned to the fact that I may as well just see it through.
‘I came to see you,’ I said frankly, and frank interest was the
look I got in return. I relaxed my book and let it slide down my hip
until my arm was hanging at my side, and then bit my thumbnail of
the other hand, making my eyes look as big and vulnerable as I
could manage. ‘Is that okay? I didn’t know how to find you without
alerting Kohén to the fact that I wanted to see you alone so…’ I
dropped my eyes and tried to look sorry, and though I felt like a
complete idiot, when I looked up again through my lashes, I was
pleased to see that his pupils had dilated. ‘I mean…’ I tucked a
strand of hair behind my ear and aimed for self-conscious bunny-
wabbit. ‘I… I can go and summon you officially if I have to-’ I turned
to move and when his fingers wrapped around my arm, holding in
the grin was almost impossible.
 ‘It’s fine Larkin,’ Karol’s voice had dropped an octave, and he
rubbed my arm, fixing me with a concerned look that was every bit
as fake as my self-consciousness was. His eyes drifted from mine,
to my hair, then down to my chest and then back up again. ‘I had
cause to speak with you this morning anyway, and my door’s
always open for you- you know that.’
Cause to do what… apologize perhaps? Or gloat?
‘I do?’
He smiled his flagitious smile. ‘You do now.’ He glanced at my
hair again and I saw him swallow. ‘What did you need?’
‘I need to trust you,’ I responded quickly, keeping my voice soft
and feminine as Maryah had taught us to do. I widened my eyes a
little and added: ‘And I need you to keep what I say between us…
it’s a confession of sorts, and one with possible ramifications for
me that I couldn’t bear to...’ I lowered my head and sighed, shaking
my head. ‘I’m so scared…’
‘Don’t be,’ his voice was as silken and sticky as cobwebs, ‘I’m
sure that I can help. But tell me first… does Kohén know that
you’re here?’
‘No,’ I whispered, and let my lip tremble. ‘This is the first thing
I’ve ever felt the need to keep from him, and I feel sick about it but
I know that you’re the only man in Arcadia with the power to…’ I bit
my lip. ‘I mean, you’re the only one who can…after I woke up this
morning I realised…’
Karol’s eyes flared and he leaned against the door, blocking my
exit while caging me in. And he was so tall and broad that I did feel
caged. ‘Just say it, Larkin,’ he whispered. ‘My power has limits, but
my mind has always managed to find a way around those limits…’
‘Really?’ I breathed, trying to look hopeful.
He dragged his teeth across his lower lip. ‘Actually yes- just last
night I gave the girl of my wet dreams her first orgasm, even
though I’m forbidden from making advancements on her for
another five years.’
Okay yeah, he wanted to gloat...
‘Well then…’ I said, for nothing else to say that wouldn’t get me
whipped.
 ‘I’m damned well, for it.’ He rubbed my arm again and this time,
he did so slowly and smoothly, and left his hand lingering near my
breast. ‘So tell me what you need from me now, and I’ll do
whatever I can in my power to help- and then some.’
I smiled and moved into him. ‘Is it true that you’re leaving
tonight for Janiel?’
Karol’s brows pulled together in confusion. ‘Yes… why?’
I inched in closer. ‘Are you going alone? Or are you permitted to
take… servants?’
Karol blinked. ‘Why do you ask?’
I bit my lip and said. ‘There’s a servant who needs to go with
you. She’s in trouble, and if she’s left behind…’ I reached up and
touched his hair, brushing it behind his ear and almost jumped
when his entire body folded in toward mine like a magnet had been
activated. What was with this guy? Did he know what a lousy,
reluctant lay I’d be? ‘Well, I don’t even want to think of how she’ll
suffer. But if you take her with you- you’ll be rewarded for it, that I
can promise you.’
‘Larkin!’ Karol had the grace to look shocked. ‘That’s a VERY
big request! What’s brought this about?’
‘Sex, and the need to express love with someone you love…’ I
let my finger trail down his jaw. ‘And the need to keep it hidden.
You understand THAT kind of need, don’t you? Please… tell me
you can help me!’
Karol stared at me. ‘Are you CERTAIN that I’m not dreaming?’
I leaned in and kissed his cheek, aware of the energy misting
around us, and though I’d intended to create such a charge, I was
a little startled to know that I could be this close to him without
throwing up. I’d counted on my skin crawling to be close to his, and
yet there was nothing repugnant about his aura. In fact, he was
warm, and his scent was pleasant enough to make my nostrils
twitch. ‘No, your highness,’ I whispered. ‘You are very much
awake…’ I trailed my finger along his sharp jaw. ‘And if you tell me
that you can find a way to take a servant along, I will show you just
how grateful I am, by making another dream of yours come true...’
my voice was soft, and my touch softer yet and a slight green glow
blazed along the underside of his jaw, making me feel powerful.
Actually, it made me feel like Scarlet O’Hara.
‘Fuck…’ Karol looked down at me and groaned. ‘So help me but
I’ll find a way, if that’s what you want.’ He rotated and pressed me
to the door, resting one hand on either side of my shoulder to pin
me under him. ‘Actually, there’s not much I wouldn’t do, to make
you look at me the way you’re looking at me right now, little
swan...’
I wet my lips as his leaned closer. ‘Really?’ He was about to
kiss me, and damn it, but my heart was pounding.
‘Really…’ he whispered, and there was coffee on his breath
intermingled with the scent of peppermint toothpaste, sharp and
warm. In another life, as rankled as I was with Kohén and hell-bent
on vengeance, I could have lifted my mouth to his beautiful older
brother’s, just to feel something. And as it was, the way he touched
his lips to the corner of my mouth in a prelude to a kiss was
smooth enough to momentarily distract me from the fact that I
hated him.
But not smooth enough.
‘Thank God…’ I wrapped my arms around his neck and then
leaned back and said brightly: ‘In that case- I need you to take a
servant, a guard and their two children! And if anyone tries to
change your mind, you need to stand your ground like the powerful
man you claim to be, okay?’ I paused, smiling winsomely. ‘And
then some!’
Karol pushed off me, looking like I’d just dumped a bucket of ice
water on his too-big erection, and I tensed, prepared for the fight of
my life.
 2.
I’d never had someone look at me the way Karol was looking
at me before- like I was so asinine that he was going to rip the
meat off my bones with his teeth.
‘Excuse me?!’ he barked. ‘Are we having the same
conversation here?’
‘Of course,’ I said loftily. ‘I told you that I needed you to take a
servant across the country and YOU said that you could take a
few!’
‘I thought that you meant you!’ he snapped, and his eyes were
forest-black now. ‘Why would I take another? And how DARE you
bait me with the offer of sexual rewards only to… for fuck’s sake
Larkin!’ He zoomed in and smashed me back against the door. ‘Do
you think I’m the kind of man you can just toy with?!’
‘I don’t know why you’d assume that I’d have sex with you when
that would be against the law,’ I said, holding his gaze steadily
even though I was trembling with fright. ‘I came to you for help, but
it’s not for me... it’s for my maid, Lindy.’
‘What?!’
‘She’s pregnant,’ I whispered, and his eyes bulged again so I
began speaking rapidly. ‘Yes, with her third and yes that’s against
the law and yes you could have me banished for trying to get you
to break that law for me but… but I meant it when I said that I
needed you! And if you help me get her out of Arcadia so that her
poor child won’t be taken from her and Coaxley I will return the
favour with one of my own! And I have something you want!’
‘Something I’m tempted to take for free right now to set you
straight over who needs whose favour here!’ he ranted, and I
shushed him, but he gave me a rotten look and turned away. ‘No,
okay? I’m sorry that you’re upset about your friend and I must
admit that I’m rather fond of the Trevasse family, and it will hurt me
to have to hold them accountable for this… but the law is the law,
and a prince has a responsibility to his nation!’
‘But it’s not just Lindy and Coaxley who are in trouble here!’ I
protested, my eyes filling with tears as I followed him. ‘It’s a baby,
Karol! A poor little baby! What they’ve done was an accident and
it’s illegal but it’s not immoral, or every kingdom in Arcadia would
have a two-child law- but they don’t! If you get her transferred to
Janiel or Yael before the child is born then they won’t be law-
breakers, the kid will be raised with parents who love her the way I
wasn’t, and you WILL be my hero.’
‘Your heroes get cold beds, big debts and dashed hopes,’ Karol
muttered, motioning out the window and towards my statue.
‘They also get devoted friends,’ I whispered tearfully. ‘And Lindy
is the only mother I’ve ever known. Karol… please…’
He looked back at me and frowned. ‘You think I’m going to
drown in your tears after being blinded by your feigned attraction?’
I sniffled. ‘We’re taught to seduce you, your highness, but to
keep the tears in at any cost. I assure you, these are genuine, and
if her baby is taken from her, or if she dies…’
‘Dies?’
I leaned against the edge of the desk and hugged my book
tightly. ‘She’s only six months along and she’s been having
complications for days. If she doesn’t get help soon-’
‘The problem will be solved!’
I shot him a look and he actually lowered his eyes. ‘There’s that
skeleton of yours again,’ I said, and pushed off the desk. ‘Serves
me right for believing that maybe you had at least one redeeming
quality. How you manage to heal with an ice-cold heart is beyond
me!’
‘Don’t…’ he said, and he sounded tired. ‘Honestly, Larkin, you
just don’t get it. Yes I can get her out of here but I couldn’t do so
with a good conscience- not only would I have to lie to my parents,
but I’d be making an exception that I couldn’t repeat for someone
equally as kind and equally as devoted to someone else, as Lindy
is to you.’ He stepped towards me and held out his hands. ‘And if I
could wriggle anyone out of the binds of our kingdom’s laws, little
swan, it would be you I released anyway- not Lindy.’ He crossed
his arms. ‘But the end result is the same- I can’t break a law that’s
been put in place to benefit Arcadia.’
‘You’ll just bend the ones to fit them into your harem?’ I
accused. ‘Not two minutes ago you were willing to screw me from
here to Janiel-’
‘I wouldn’t have slept with you, or come onto you out of loyalty
to Kohén and to adhere to your contract,’ he retorted, and
managed to look me straight in the eye when he did. ‘I was just
excited by the opportunity to make you fall for me so as soon as
you turned twenty-one, you’d come to me as I’ve asked and with a
bounce in your step.’ He sat on the desk next to me, looking weary.
‘But I have to be a leader, Larkin, and a fair one, to honour Miguel
Barachiel. For every third born child handed over to us, there is
one less hungry mouth to feed and one more job being done by
someone who has been fed and cared for. I know it doesn’t seem
fair but I’ve read about countries that existed before us where the
people bred like rabbits and produced millions of starving children.
And whether my father likes to acknowledge or not- Calliel is
already struggling to feed those we have allowed to be born so far,
and nowhere more than Yael, where they have no farming industry
to speak of to support their relaxed laws.’ He looked me in the eye
and said: ‘Lindy will lose her child to the Given, but that child would
be cared for. And hey…’ he slapped my shoulder. ‘There are no
Barachiel’s being born this year, so at least you don’t have to worry
about it ending up in a Harem, five years from now.’
‘Do you think Kohl would agree that being fed was
compensation for being loved?’ I demanded, taking his hand off my
shoulder. ‘Because I don’t!’
‘You’ve never been starving, and neither has my indentured
little brother. And to answer your question from earlier, yes we’ve
been eating plainer food up in this wing lately, so that you ladies
don’t cease to be spoiled. It’s not love, but it is consideration.’
‘You’ll still be the last ones to starve and you know it, and if you
are a true leader, you’ll seek no comfort from that,’ I said standing
and turning on him, ‘unless you help me.’
 Karol gave me a condescending look. ‘You think Lindy’s unborn
child is going to solve the locust issue?’
‘The locust issue is solved!’ I said. ‘But I’m only going to give
you that solution if you get that entire family out of Arcadia.
Tonight- before you leave. And I won’t hear you begging slippery
roads or blizzards either- your royal ass will be safe, and so if they
go with you, they’ll be safe too with no ‘accidental,’ carriage
accidents.’
Karol ran his hands through his hair, looking exasperated.
‘What’s this new nonsense?’
‘It’s not nonsense, and if you don’t believe me- listen and
decide for yourself, for I received a very interesting letter this
morning.’
Karol sighed again. ‘We don’t get mail on Sundays.’
‘I know. This wasn’t posted- it was left for me by a dead girl six
months ago.’ Karol’s brow rose again and I smiled tightly, opening
the book. ‘Would you like to hear Martya’s final words to me Karol?
Or shall I post it to Elbert Yael instead? Because I won’t be going
to your father if you can’t help me, and the letter explains precisely
why.’
Karol sat back down on the desk. ‘Read it,’ he said tersely.
‘Now.’
I smiled and looked down at the page, wondering if I was about
to become a hero, or be cast into the Wildwoods forever.
You’ve got a royal flush honey- so sit then show!
‘Dear Larkin…’ I began, my voice trembling. ‘I hope this letter
finds us both in a position where we can laugh off my paranoia, but
as I write it, I am frantically packing to leave Eden forever, and I am
feeling equal measures of triumph, paranoia and hysteria, so
forgive me if I sound a little crazy but… but just in case I don’t
make it to St Miguel, here is a copy of the real formula for the
locust panacea, because the one I have handed to the king is
missing one crucial ingredient and-’ I glanced up at Karol and saw
that he was staring at me with wide eyes, ‘-it’s yours. Look, this is
going to come off as confusing but… You should know that King
Elijah threatened me before I left.’ I heard Karol breathe in sharply,
but I went on. ‘It may very well be an empty threat and should be,
because my formula will work, and I know it will work because it’s
not just this field I practiced it on, but my grandmother’s as well.
My mother, as you knew, grew up on their farm near Rachiel,
and the fact that they’ve been so devastated by locusts is my
driving reason for curing the problem. So after I worked out this
formula, I sent the ingredients to them in concentrate to try, and
learned this very afternoon that it worked- their farm was the only
one spared in that entire region after these past two weeks. Theirs,
and our dear little garden.’ I looked up at Karol again and was
greeted with wide green eyes. I cleared my throat and went on. ‘So
I have created a cure to end the last of God’s apocalyptic wrath,
and something tells me that it’s a cure that the king needs more
than he’s let on. When I saw our garden this afternoon I realised
what a valuable secret I had, and that handing it over to one man
could be an error… and the way that he just treated me for
misspeaking, well, I fear that I am too smart for my own good.’
‘I’ve never been one to mince words but I will do so now- Elijah
took me aside and whispered that if I was lying, I would pay for it
dearly, and that there is a room in the harem where such
punishments can be carried out- a room in which no one will think
my screams amiss or of terror, rather than pleasure and it wouldn’t
matter if I had a contract or not so long as he had charges to lay
against me.’ My voice trembled and when I glanced at Karol again-
my suspicions were confirmed because he looked positively sick.
‘But then he added that I wasn’t the kind of girl whose screams he
craved, so I should be very careful about who I embarrass in the
future- because exceedingly-rational girls tend to make the most ill-
advised choices when they finally give in to their emotions; choices
which turn out to be their last.’ Karol groaned but I went on, my
voice shaking now that I’d put myself in the position to end up in
such a room with three out of four of the Barachiel men. ‘Needless
to say this rattled me but I’d been prepared for such a thing- clever
little duck that I am, I’ve written down the formula for this cure only
twice. One is missing two key ingredients and is in Elijah’s hands
now that he’s torn up my contract, and the other is written over the
next page. If I make it to St Miguel alive, I’ll send a correct formula
to King Elijah immediately and hopefully, become a renowned
scientist in the next few years- one who knows that she has earned
her King’s respect rather than his ire. But if I do not, and my
forthright way of talking has already sealed my fate, then you need
to take this formula and guard it with your life because it is your
ticket out of here.’
‘Oh my God…’ Karol whispered.
I swallowed, and there were tears in my eyes now. ‘I know that
you and Kohén are in love, and I know that one day, you will
believe it will work out and sometimes, I think it could too.
Sometimes, I watch you and Kohén play and think that the world
would have been a perfect place if it had been you and he alone in
the Garden of Eden, for your souls shine so brightly when you are
together that it can blind even the shrewdest mind into believing
that it has seen a miracle,’ my voice broke but I went on. ‘I do not
question why he loves you dearly, for I love you dearly, and your
ability to maintain your self-possession all of these years while
being Kohén’s clear favourite has inspired me. Truth be told, were
it not for you, I would have given up the books and taken up the
lipstick long ago, but if the ugly duckling can become a swan,
maybe the smart girl can learn to have faith in more than
mathematical formulas.’ My voice wobbled but I breathed past it.
‘But listen to me carefully Larkin; if our kind king could talk to me
the way he did, then there are no limits to what these so-called
angelic Barachiels are capable of doing in order to maintain
control, so if I do vanish off the face of the earth and find this
please, don’t take it to any of them- they cannot be trusted, not
even Kohén for he has more to gain from your imprisonment than
anyone, even if he does not feel that way right now. Make a copy
of it, hide it somewhere, and then go to King Elbert, or Elliot Bronx,
for they will be the most desperate for it. And then get the hell out
of there before my influence rubs off on you, and you become too
smart to survive within a man’s paradise as well!’ I looked up again
and Karol had his face in his hands. ‘I must go now for Coaxley is
coming for my things but please Larkin, try to laugh this off if you
find it after I write you to tell you I am fine, and do not judge the
king too harshly for making such awful threats. These men carry
the world on their backs, and God’s faith in mankind and they must
do it while closing their hearts off to love and being besieged by
energies that we cannot fathom as pure mortals. I am probably
only being foolish, but if I’m not… think the absolute worst, and
save yourself.’ I wiped at my nose. ‘Love always, your best friend,
Martya L.Rice.’
There was an awful silence after I’d finished, but Karol’s
laboured breathing could not be mistaken.
‘Is there a room in a harem where a girl could be expected to
scream in pain masquerading as pleasure?’ I asked.
‘Yes.’ Karol looked up at me, and his eyes were brighter than
any emeralds. ‘Did you make a second copy of that formula and
hide it before you came up here?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Are you going to give THAT one to me?’
‘Are you going to get Lindy out of here? Coaxley and their
children too?’
‘Yes.’ He paused, as I wilted in relief, studying me gravely. ‘Do
you believe that I will? You must know that I can’t agree until you
give me that book: letter, formula and all to protect my family.’
‘I know,’ I said.
‘But your best friend, who did die en route to St Miguel just told
you not to trust me. Opting to save your friends instead of yourself
would make her most unhappy- and for all you know, I could have
you killed the moment that book is in my hand, or them.’
‘I trust you,’ I said, lifting my head.
‘But not Kohén?’
‘No.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re not in love with me,’ I answered simply. ‘And
for all the sins man can commit in hatred- the ones they will do for
love are the worst.’
Karol stared hard at me. ‘But… but you could save yourself with
this!’
 ‘That would be selfish.’ I moved towards him. ‘And not the
smartest choice for me. If I stay here there’s a chance- a real
chance- that I could do something great with my life. But Lindy…
family is her only happiness, and I can’t bear to see her go through
what my mother did.’
‘So that’s it?’ he demanded. ‘You throw away your only chance
at freedom to save a middle-aged woman who treated you kindly?’
‘No, not just that. I do have one more stipulation.’
Karol narrowed his eyes at me. ‘And that would be?’
I handed him the book. ‘That you share the formula. If you open
a factory to produce it in large quantities then yes, I expect you to
sell it. But you will do so at production price with one coin extra-
money that will go the Given Corps to make their lives a little more
comfortable until the caste is eradicated. But only they will profit
from this- not the crown- not at the expense of all of those hungry
people that third-borns are being sacrificed to save.’
Karol’s mouth opened slightly wider before he said: ‘My father
will throttle me! This is the most valuable secret in the world and
King Elbert would no sooner share it than my father would, not for
nothing!’
‘So be better than all of them, and prove that your family name
is as worthy now as it was six hundred years ago. Besides, it’s one
copy of the most valuable secret in the world- and the other is in
the last place you’ll ever think to look for it- and with someone who
will benefit even more than you will, by revealing it.’ I said quickly.
‘If you don’t share it, I will have it mailed to the newspaper, but if
you do, you’ll not only prove what that skeleton of yours is made
of, compared to your father’s, but you’ll earn my trust and the
nation’s respect.’
‘I… I don’t think I can go behind his back like that!’
‘You will be acting regent, so it won’t be behind his back but as
your duty! And you will be so worshipped for curing this problem-
with Martya’s name credited for it, of course: you have to say that
she left this for you to find- that he won’t be able to touch you.’ I
stepped closer into him, feeling nervous for the first time for I knew
that as strong as a man could be, his parents opinion of them and
his people’s would always count more than his own. ‘Karol please-
I know this is scary but take it from a girl who lost her God-given
right to be a mother yesterday for your pleasure… things can be
scarier.’ I swallowed hard as I prepared myself to twist the key into
the lock and seal my fate. ‘Do this- save the world from hunger and
if you do… and if in five years from now, Lindy’s family is alive and
well and this cure in effect… I will show you my gratitude.’
Karol’s thick eyelashes lifted. ‘What?’
‘When I’m released at twenty-one, whether it as Kohén’s used
whore or a free woman who he no longer has need for… prove me
right in trusting you and I will come to you before I leave, willingly.’
‘You’ll…’ he pushed his dark hair off his forehead. ‘You’ll lie with
me? Willingly?’
‘It will be my pleasure,’ I whispered, ‘and my promise.’
He frowned at me, but his eyes were practically misting over
from the sudden humidity wafting off his countenance. ‘You think if
you get out of here unmolested, Kohén won’t want you for
himself?’
‘He can’t have me for himself,’ I said coldly, remembering
Emmerly wearing only a sheet, and he wearing her lip-gloss. ‘Law
states that the future queen or duchess must be fertile, and I will
not be. Kohén has big dreams for us, but you and I both know that
that is one thing that will not change.’
And as he gave his virginity to someone else, I will do the same
if I can!
‘Is that the reason why he can’t have you?’ Karol asked slowly.
‘Or is the fact that he had someone else last night the reason?’
I returned his gaze steadily. ‘You Barachiel men have the right
to dictate who I can give myself to and when… but with Kohén’s
graciousness, I get to say why. It will be for true love, or because I
know that it is the only option. True love doesn’t turn to a whore,
and I’m fairly certain that the only thing that will motivate a man like
you to do the right thing by me for the next five years to follow
through on your promises, is the promise that I will come to your
chamber.’
 ‘But if you give your virginity to me, you won’t be eligible to be
married until you’re thirty!’
‘I won’t want to be married if I leave here without Kohén’s love,
and he’s already lost mine so…’ I swallowed back tears, knowing
that was true- how could I ever love anyone now that I’d known a
boy like Kohén? Not even Kohl would compare. ‘So I will lie with
you.’
Karol took my arm and pulled me to him, widening his knees to
let me in. ‘Do it now!’
Something cold kissed the base of my spine. ‘What?!’
‘We already know that you’re going to break his heart for
breaking yours already, and I suffer from impatience as he does…
so do it now!’ He stroked my piggy tail. ‘Take off that dress,
celebrate this with me and I will give you my word that Lindy and
her family will be safe and that this cure will be shared for the
benefit of the world.’
‘No,’ I said, shaking my arm loose.
‘Why? If Kohén gets to you first-’
‘He promised me that he would not!’ I hissed, trying to sound
angry so he wouldn’t hear my fear. ‘And he’s proven himself
honest so far, even if it’s broken my heart to watch him seek out
other options! I gave him my word to stay and to be faithful to him,
not just when I moved in here and signed that contract, but several
times since- to my best friend! I won’t betray him for you, the nation
or myself so do not ask it of me Karol.’ I poked his chest. ‘Besides,
what sort of idiot hands over her chips before the hand has been
dealt? If I slept with you now the only threat I’d have left is to tell
everyone who will listen that your father murdered Martya five
years from now-’
‘You don’t know if that is true!’ Karol looked white again, and his
knees released me reflexively. ‘She said it could have been an
empty threat, and the people who attended the scene said it had
been an accident, and father hasn’t used that room for years!’
‘Very interesting points!’ I hissed. ‘Shall I go downstairs and
discuss it with the other girls in the harem to see what they think?
Or shall I just wait and bring it up at the next town meeting in front
of Shep?’
He blanched, but the light in his eyes remained on. ‘You haven’t
told anyone this?’
‘Outside of you, no! Why would I? If I was wrong, discussing it
could be seen as slander against the crown, and that could get
whoever I told banished as well as me!’
‘That’s… right.’ He blinked, looking dazed.
‘It was in the guidelines, along with the picture of the woman
being held by her ankles.’ I said sassily. ‘Besides, I wanted to know
if that room was true before I breathed a word of warning. By the
way- that’s to be mentioned in harem training from now on, and a
full tour of the vicinity needs to become standard from here out-
because it’s just icky and immoral to surprise us with whips and
chains!’
Karol gave me a speculative look. ‘Would you like to write down
your increasing list of demands?’
‘No!’ I said brightly. ‘I trust you to remember all three of them, by
the rewards offered for each if nothing else.’ I ticked off my fingers
‘One: Take Lindy to safety in exchange for the formula. Two: Share
the formula or know it will be forwarded to the King of Rabia in
exchange for safe passage out and three, keep Lindy safe and
include the dungeon training in our syllabus, and if you do- I’ll
come to you in gratitude when I am released.’
Karol’s eyes narrowed to slits. ‘And we thought Martya was the
clever one!’
‘No one thought a damned thing about me aside from my
ugliness until I showed up in that swan dress,’ I growled. ‘Now I’m
TELLING you what to think and you’d better listen Karol. I don’t
know if your father killed Martya and I really don’t want to believe
it’s true. But the threat is enough to blacken his name, the formula
is enough to save the country to your credit, and the offer to come
to your chamber hopefully appeals to the darker side of your
nature enough for you to give the good in you focus enough to
function for the next five years and leave me alone. So think very
carefully before you try and haggle me down, because after what I
went through last night I am already at rock bottom, got it? I’ll start
slinging mud from hereon out!’
Karol stared at me for a long moment but then finally shrugged
and said: ‘Fine.’
I blinked, breathing heavily from having given him what-for.
‘What?’
‘I was testing your loyalty to Kohén, and the worth of your word,’
he explained calmly, turning away. ‘Now I’m satisfied, so go seek
out your friend and tell her to- very quietly- have her and her
children’s family’s things packed for departure tomorrow morning.
And while you’re doing that, I’ll let mother know who I’m taking with
me.’ He closed the book on his desk and when I saw the title Gone
With The Wind, my eyes almost popped out of their sockets. ‘And
by the way, I need you to attend the judgement with me this
afternoon after services.’
‘With you?’ I asked. ‘Why?’
‘So you understand why those cameras are there- and so
you’re close enough for me to grab you by one of those fetching
piggy-tails if you try to scamper off.’
‘Okay…’ I stared at his back, still feeling off-balance. ‘That’s
it…?’
‘Unless you’d like to kiss me farewell,’ he said, glancing back at
me and smiling cheekily when I screwed up my face. ‘By the way, if
you pass any of my family on the way out, let them know that I
summoned you to alert Lindy please, or Kohén will have me by the
throat too tightly for me to be allowed to leave.’
‘Yes, your highness,’ I said, turning to open the door. ‘And,
um… thank you.’
‘Thank me? You may have just saved the world.’ My face
heated up and then he said: ‘Larkin?’
I glanced back at him. ‘Yes?’
‘You were meant to be here. I know that at times, our traditions
may seem… cruel, but there are worst alternatives to being the
object of two princes’ affection, you know.’
‘Objects of erection is more like it,’ I muttered, and Karol smiled
a beautiful, bright smile that made him look Kohén’s age. Not that
there was much telling the difference between their ages now that
the twins had shot up so.
‘You amuse me a great deal,’ he said. ‘What are you going to
do if I fall in love with you and try to prevent you from leaving?’
I smiled sweetly. ‘Probably kill you like I would Kohén.’
He laughed. ‘I thought so. Good thing that I’m cold-hearted,
huh?’
‘You’d be cold either way,’ I teased and closed the door
between us, wondering if he knew how deadly serious- and well-
trained in the art of self-defence- I had been thanks to his
thoughtful request that I be encouraged to be the most fascinating
little whore that I could be! As I passed the dining room table again
I removed the serrated bread-knife that I had taken from it on my
way in from the gold clasp at the back of my gown, put it back
beside Elijah’s place-setting and then walked off with hips swaying.
I didn’t like Karol, but I was glad that I hadn’t needed to use it all
the same!
 3.
The Shepherd services were as entertaining for me as they’d
always been. I adored Shep, who was a tiny little old man with a
long white beard braided with silver, and I loved watching him tell
stories because he got so excited about God that he’d jump up and
wave his arms, caught up in the thrill of his own tale. It was better
than attending a play, especially that day when he was so excited
over the statue.
On that Sunday, we learned about the horrific times that
followed after Miguel left Eden, and how the Native American
people that he left behind began to fight one another for land- only
to lose it to white settlers who came through and all but wiped the
ancient races off the face of the earth. Karma was the moral to the
story, and though we weren’t supposed to recycle old theological
terms like that, it did seem as though God had charged the
universe with that sort of power. What you sent out, you got back,
threefold, only in this case, the punishment did not fit the crime.
For all the anguish some of Miguel’s tribeswomen had given
Satan- they’d loved the land and had deserved to keep it, so it was
sort of poetic that the Barachiel family in charge of the land now
had Native American blood in their blue veins.
The other people in Eden had always gotten as caught up in the
Sunday service as I had, but I would have had to be made of stone
not to notice that things were off that day. At first, I was just aware
that I was the recipient of odd looks and that didn’t surprise me too
much. Karol saved me a seat beside him on the marble steps
beneath his father’s throne, and with a hostile look in his eye;
Kohén had sat on the other side of me, but closer. The Given girls
were obviously looking at me with interest because of that- and at
Emmerly who’d sat next to Kohén and made a show of admiring
her bangle right through service, but it wasn’t just the girls I’d
grown up with who kept shooting me little looks, but the queen and
the king too.
It must be the outfit- the make up, the curls… you’re not
yourself today and they’re wondering who you will be from hereon
out. Or maybe they’re just waiting for you to either start bragging
about the statue, or to claim Kohén’s knee back from Emmerly’s
grasp. Just ignore them and be attentive to Shep- no one in this
room has the right to know what’s on your mind OR in your heart!
Service ended and though a few people stood to shake Shep’s
hand, a sort of strange, thick tension swirled about the room in the
absence of his irenic voice and it made the back of my neck feel
sweaty. I made no move to rise, but leaned down and tapped Kohl
on the shoulder, who turned to smile blandly at me.
‘Are you staying for the judgement?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ he said, frowning a little. ‘I’m not looking forward to it, but
I have not seen one in many years and I suppose I must.’
‘Come sit by me then,’ I said moving aside and nudging Karol
along with my hip so he’d get the hint. ‘Karol wants me to stay for it
too.’
‘I know,’ Kohl said quickly, moving to sit beside me- but he did
not look at me and I frowned slightly, wondering what was going
on. I wasn’t going to be judged, was I? ‘Hey Karol… what was that
thing about the…’ Kohl turned away to make conversation with his
older brother and I sat there, staring behind his back to the hem of
the king’s faux-bejewelled golden robe and biting my lip, feeling
stung. Was this the same boy who’d handed me a jar of fireflies the
night before, or had they twin-switched again? I wanted to turn to
Kohén and ask him if I’d done something to anger Kohl, but then I
thought on it and my stomach filled with anxious acid. The letter I’d
left him! Had he found it already? No! I would die if he had, and if
this was his reaction to it. I’d counted on him being back in Pacifica
before he read it! Oh no! Maybe this judgement WAS for me! My
legs filled with nervous energy and tensed, prepared to flee, but a
soothing feeling swept down my back.
‘Stay, Larkin,’ Karol whispered softly, leaning behind Kohl to
address me and causing my nostrils to flare for his heady,
absolutely masculine scent of musk, incense and sunlight. ‘You’ll
be fine.’
I began to tremble. Anyone who’d ever said those words to me
had been proven wrong after! I turned to look at him to get a
reading on his face, but saw that the duchess was staring at me
with an indecipherable but steady focus, and goose bumps ran
down my arms. I did NOT feel fine.
‘Did you enjoy your statue, Larkin?’ she asked, and anyone in
the immediate vicinity quieted.
I smiled tightly and clasped my hands together, leaning them
against my chest. ‘There is no girl in Arcadia, luckier than I, so
thank you, your highness.’ I included King Elijah in on my smile.
‘And to you, your majesty.’
‘I tend to agree,’ the duchess said, but the king reached over
and playfully tugged on one of my piggy tails.
‘Look at you,’ he said, his hands curled around the golden vines
of his armrests. ‘So grown up since the last time she saw you…’
his face tightened on his smile, and my stomach lurched. She?
She WHO?
There was a stirring at the other end of the room then and I
turned to look with everyone else, feeling my pulse thumping in my
temples. A woman was being led into the room with her wrists
bound together by green vines, and I was so relieved that it wasn’t
my mother or sister or Martya that I almost slid down the marble
step as my fever broke into a proper sweat. I didn’t know the
woman at all, but she was middle-aged and wearing the white A-
line dress with the blue denim Peter Pan collar that most of the
women in her caste wore to official services, but her hair was out
and in brown shambles, and her eyes looked so red that for a
moment, I feared that she was a dark Nephilim.
‘Your majesty…’ the words fell to pieces as she voiced them
and fell to her knees in tandem, but Coaxley whispered something
to her and pulled her back to her feet as Shep turned to take her in
as well. ‘Shepherd-’
‘Abbey-Linn Culkin?’ Shep asked, his voice soft, but his eyes
harder than I’d ever seen them before.
 ‘Yes…’ she gasped, bowing her head to cry harder. ‘Please…
you have to hear me out!’
‘That is precisely our intention,’ Shep said, and he turned to
look at us all. I read the question in his eyes and settled, trying to
keep my emotions off my face and around me, I saw other people
do the same. There was no gavel and no cry of ‘order,’ and there
had never been need of one before. People in Arcadia did not
speak out of turn unless they were important or incredibly arrogant-
like Martya and I. And now that I was the only one out of the two of
us still standing, I intended to curtail my tongue.
‘Is her accuser here?’ King Elijah asked, and another woman
stepped forward from behind Coaxley, fisting a chef’s hat in her
hands and looking nervous.
‘Yes, your highness,’ she said. ‘I am Tera, and I witnessed the
crime.’
All of the attention moved to her and I heard Abbey-Linn cry
harder as soon as the word ‘crime’ had been uttered. ‘Good. Then
please, tell us all what you believe you saw Mrs Culkin do.’
Tera looked down at her hat, and I wondered if anyone else in
the room was impressed to see how pretty and young the chef
was, with her delicate features and haircut trendily short like a
blade above her shoulders. She had to be married to be a citizen
of Arcadia, or merely an apprentice. Either way, seeing a female
chef in such a stylish uniform was an exciting thing to behold!
Those positions almost always went to men!
‘It was Saturday night, sire, and I was here as a caterer for your
ball,’ Tera said in a low voice, keeping her eyes on her hat. ‘After
the explosion, we were evacuated and so, I took a moment to
retreat to the garden and to have a, um…’
‘You were smoking?’ Elijah asked, his voice kind, and a few
people exchanged incredulous looks. A woman who smoked
tobacco?! She must have earned a LOT of money to afford that!
‘Do not be afraid to state it, Miss Marron.
‘Yes your highness. I only do it in times of stress, and I was
quite shaken up by the fire so I moved away from the main house-’
 ‘To light a smaller fire of your own?’ the duchess joked and to
my horror, a snort escaped my nose. The duchess looked at me
and for the briefest moment, I felt some sort of connection to her
as well as an appreciation for her comic timing, but then Tera kept
talking, the duchess looked away and the moment was gone. I
lowered my head and fiddled with the edge of the king’s robe, and
he caught me tapping one of the fake rubies and smiled a strange
smile. Embarrassed, I turned back ahead and cupped my hands in
my knees.
‘I suppose, your highness. Anyway, I moved to the fence down
near the service gates at the front of the property, and that was
when I saw her-’
‘Mrs Culkin?’
‘Yes.’ Tera tucked a strand of her blue-black hair behind her ear
but it was too silken and short and immediately dropped forward.
‘She was on the public access path to the Tidal Fall, but she was
straining as though to reach over the fence, and though I was at an
odd angle, I was able to see her through one of the side gates. I
thought that she was some drunken party guest up to something
silly, so I raced up to warn her that the fence she was almost
touching was electrified, and that was when I saw the-’ Tera
swallowed. ‘The baby. She was trying to throw it over the fence.’
There was a moment of shocked but hushed exclamations, and
I brought a hand up to cover my mouth.
‘Over Eden’s fence?’ Shep asked quietly. ‘Or the perimeter
one?’
‘The perimeter one and into the Wildwoods...’
The room began to hum like a hive of angry bees but I couldn’t
even squeak for my disgust. The accused woman started to weep
openly then, and stole our focus once more.
‘I wasn’t going to hurt her!’ she cried. ‘I just needed to get her
back to her father! I couldn’t raise her here! No one could know!’
‘That is an eight foot, electrified fence!’ King Elijah snapped as
the admission of guilt damned the woman, and I felt Kohén take
my hand in both of his and squeeze it as I closed my eyes and
tried to hold in a wail. I could picture it all so easily! There were
several sections in Eden’s perimeter fence where gaps were
allowed in the stone, but fortified with wrought iron poles. They
were electrified for security purposes, and allowed the people
inside a glimpse out at the walkway and Wildwoods behind it, and
the people outside a chance to see a member of the royal family in
the rolling rear lawn while they made their way down to the Tidal
fall viewing platform. That track was always busy and it wasn’t rare
to see someone peering in as they ambled by at all- but only
during the day. It would take a brave soul indeed to venture up that
perilous corridor at night, especially given how the banished like to
huddle there and spit on people who passed. The fact that the
woman, Abbey-Linn had been there at all was damning enough,
but with a baby?
‘It was a dark night on that side of the castle, Miss Marron,’
Shep said quietly. ‘And you were in quite a state. Can you be
certain that you saw what you are claiming to have seen?’
‘Do you think that’s a point that is not already clear?’ a young
man across from us scoffed. ‘The woman accused has already
admitted as much!’
‘She will be heard in a moment, young Artisan,’ Shep said, not
taking his eyes off Tera. ‘It is important, and only fair, that I double
check every fact.’
‘Yes, Shepherd,’ Tera said in an even voice. ‘I wish I had been
mistaken, but the infant was wailing and as I approached, I heard
the woman fighting with another, who was trying to talk her out of
it. ‘He can’t be trusted to look after your child!’ the other woman
said, and I do not doubt it. ‘The Wildwoods are no place for an
innocent child, Abbey-Linn, think!’ Tera smoothed the blue collar of
her high-necked blouse and said softly. ‘The woman with her got
the baby out of her hands, and I screamed to alert a guard, but
they ran away, fighting, before one could come.’
‘So you gave Prince Karol the woman’s name, as you had
heard it cried?’ King Elijah asked.
‘Yes, sire. And the best description I could.’
‘And did you see a man on the other side of the fence waiting to
catch the baby and claim fatherhood?’ King Elijah went on. ‘Or do
you believe that she was allowing it to free fall in the hopes that it
would be collected?’
‘I saw no one on the Wildwoods side of the fence,’ Tera said. ‘If
the baby had made it over, only the ground would have broken the
poor thing’s fall.’
I groaned and Kohén wrapped his arm around me. Grateful, I
sunk my head onto his shoulder and then sighed in relief when
beside me, Kohl took the hand that his brother had let go of.
That could have been me...
‘Is there a chance you could be mistaken about that fact?’ Shep
asked. ‘And please think carefully, for your answer may make this
accusation one of attempted murder, rather than child smuggling.’
‘I could be mistaken,’ Tera said quietly. ‘But I am ninety-eight
percent sure that there was no one there. It only took me ten
seconds to get down to where they had been standing and though
I could hear the women’s feet on the pavement, I did not hear so
much as a branch breaking in the Wildwoods.’
Abbey-Linn began to cry harder, and when she fell forward, the
freckled redheaded Nephilim boy behind her frowned and
suddenly, the binds were gone so that she could catch herself
instead of landing flat on her face. Her hands slapped the marble
floor, and before the sound had even finished echoing, the vine
bonds reappeared on her ankles, impressing me. This guy would
be able to grow a pumpkin like NO ONE’s business! I exchanged a
look of shock with Kelia across the room from me, who was looking
right at me and appeared as astounded as I was while wiping tears
out of her eyes.
We could have been dropped in dirt, and now we fight over
satin and gold...
‘Thank you,’ Shep said to Tera, and then turned to the woman
on the floor. ‘Mrs Culkin, do you have a different excuse for your
behaviour? Or are you ready to admit that you were trying to get
rid of a child last Saturday night? We already know that you have
two, and that your Joined spouse has decided not to speak for you
today, or to attend this judgement.’
 ‘Well… there’s the proof…’ Kohén muttered, and I was inclined
to agree. An unsupportive spouse was a bad omen indeed.
‘This isn’t fair!’ the woman slapped the ground. ‘I let him see his
whores! I make one mistake- ONCE- with someone who swore
that they would marry me when my time was up, and I pay dearly
for what my spouse can do WITHOUT seeking my permission!’
‘You had the right to access a male Companion as well,’ Shep
said wearily. ‘Someone who you could legally go to- someone who
would be sterile, and yet you chose to go behind your spouse’s
back and Arcadian laws instead, and look at what that’s led you to
do, Miss Marron!’
‘It wasn’t like that!’ The woman looked up. ‘I didn’t cheat on my
spouse with another man! I am not attracted to men, Shepherd, but
women! I asked my spouse’s permission to have an affair with one,
and he consented! This baby could have been his and he thought
so too, or he would have kicked me out instead of helping me
conceal the state I was in for nine months!’
‘Oh, what rot!’ one of the guards snapped, and I jumped for I’d
never heard any of them speak so loudly before. ‘You were
overheard saying that you had to get the baby back to its father!
And then you yourself said that to us! Now… what? It’s an
immaculate conception?’ He turned to the king and said. ‘This
woman is insane, your highness. I’d suggest that you have Chronly
add extra binds!’
Ahh… so the Nephilim boy had a name. I scrutinised him idly,
wondering what else he could do, besides binding people and
blinding them with the perfect symmetry of his face against his
scarlet hair.
‘It wasn’t a man! Not at first! I… I don’t know what happened
but…’ Abbey-Linn began to cry, as we all gawked at her. ‘I don’t
deserve this… I don’t…’
‘Neither did your child. I must say- as horrified and perplexed as
I am by this story, Mrs Culkin, I am grateful that we have the
Government-run adoption process in place to lift it from such
appalling circumstances.’ I stiffened as everyone else murmured in
agreement and understood that THIS was what Karol wanted me
to see; a bad mother. A ‘worse’ circumstance than mine. I kept my
eyes trained on the woman and silently cursed her for being such a
selfish, crazy idiot for she wasn’t helping our nation get a queen
with behaviour like this! Were we supposed to believe that one
fruit-loop was the reason why I was being traded for sex? Were
they forgetting the part where THEY had made this stupid two-child
only law?!
But you’re still fighting over gold and favour...
‘I’m certain that I understand this scenario perfectly,’ the king
turned to Shep. ‘So are you sure that we must speak with this
other witness…?’
The Shepherd nodded. ‘She came forward of her own violation
sir, so we must.’
‘Very well.’ Elijah glanced at Coaxley and said, sighing: ‘Bring in
the accused’s witness, please.’
Another buzz went through the room, and just when I was
wondering what kind of unfeeling idiot could think to speak for a
woman who had tried to throw a day-old baby over a fence and to
its doom, I saw the worst mother imaginable to me walk in the door
and steal the oxygen from the room by doing it.
Mine.
 4.
Oh… my…
Kohén’s hand tightened around my waist, practically pulling me
onto his lap and I tried to slap him off when he for one second,
came between me and the view of Sapphire Whittaker entering the
throne room, faded so that the name ‘Quartz’ would have suited
her better.
‘I’m sorry…’ Kohén whispered, and all at once I understood that
he’d known in advance.
Eleven years had passed since I’d seen my mother last and yet
she wore those years like thirty. Her hair was streaked with grey,
her complexion was dry and lined and her gait had lost all of its
pride and strength. She had her eyes lowered to the floor and as
though fate were guiding her, when they lifted they landed on me
and her face twisted into an expression of horror and disbelief that
hit me like a kick to the stomach.
Yes mother, it’s me draped over two princes. Are you proud?
I couldn’t breathe or move- I could only stare at the bedraggled
woman who was prodded forth gently by Coaxley, who then looked
up with an expression of empathy that made me burn for the
betrayal. They all knew who she was! They’d all been expecting
her! And not ONE of them had warned me! I tried to get to my feet
but my legs wouldn’t work and though Shep reached for her hand
to turn her to face him, my mother did not take her eyes off me and
tears drizzled down her papery cheeks. Instinctively, I knew those
tears weren’t for me, but the ones that welled in my eyes were
most certainly for loss of what I’d never truly had.
‘Larkin..?’ Kohl’s voice sounded far away and he twisted his
fingers around mine as though testing for life. ‘Are you okay?’
My throat was on fire. ‘No.’
‘Okay.’ He squeezed my fingers again. ‘I’m here.’
‘And where is that, exactly?’ I asked bitterly. ‘Everyone seems
to know but me, and it feels like Hell.’
 ‘Sapphire Whittaker, is it?’ Shep asked my mother, but she did
not respond vocally- only with a nod of her head. She did not take
her eyes off my face. I stiffened- what was she looking at, or for?
What did she know of me now?
‘And you’ve come forward today to bear witness on Mrs
Culkin’s behalf?’ Shepherd asked, and everybody made agitated
sounds.
My mother nodded again, wet her lips and still looking at me
said: ‘Yes,’ and I flinched on the inside. I did not know her voice
anymore either!
‘And what can you tell us that would be considered a suitable
defence? After all- I’m right in assuming that you’re the one who
talked her out of throwing the infant over the fence last Saturday
night, yes?’
My mother finally faced Shep. ‘She wasn’t throwing the baby-
she was passing him to the baby’s father.’ She swallowed. ‘I told
her not to.’
Everyone started to murmur over that, and my mind spun. Was
my mother a liar? I didn’t even know! Oh, I wished everyone would
stop looking to me as though confirmation of her words would be
written on my face, because I was as confused as they!
‘The other witness said that there was no one there,’ Shep said,
his voice still low and calm. ‘Are you saying that she is lying, or
mistaken?’
‘He… he mistakes people on purpose…’ my mother muttered,
mostly to the crook of her arms. ‘He’s… duplicitous.’
‘Who is, Mrs Whittaker?’
‘The baby’s father.’
‘And who would that be?’
‘I don’t know!’ my mother erupted. ‘I’ve seen him many times,
but I don’t know his name! But he’s always there, haunting that
fence- I see him every time that I stray near to it! He’s waiting for
women to go walking alone, and for children. I… I know it sounds
crazy but I am not the only one who’s seen him! He has solicited
me, and once, my eldest son had to stop him from trying to take
Larkin!’
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
But there are times when he gets on my nerves. He has a faded old
bathrobe that saw him through college and his honeymoon, and that
he still refuses to part with, and he had it on.
It was rather short, and Bill's legs, though serviceable, are not
beautiful.
He waved his hand to me.
"If you'd do a little of that sort of thing, Clara," he called, "you
wouldn't need to have the fat rubbed off you by an expensive
masseuse."
"Quite a typical husbandly speech!" said Carrie Smith.
"Do they ever think of anything but exercise and expense?"
Well, the men bathed and dressed and had whisky-and-sodas, and
came out patronisingly and joined us at tea on the terrace. But
inside of ten minutes they were in a group round the ball news and
the financial page of the evening papers, and we were alone again.
Carrie Smith came over and sat down beside me, with her eyes
narrowed to a slit.
"I didn't want to hurt your feelings, Clara," she said, "but you see
what I mean. They're not interested in us. We manage their houses
and bring up their children. That's all."
As Carrie was the only one who had any children, and as they were
being reared by a trained nurse and a governess, and the baby
yelled like an Apache if Carrie went near him, her air of virtue was
rather out of place. However:
"What would you recommend?" I asked wearily. "They're all alike,
aren't they?"
"Not all." Her eyes were still narrowed. And at that moment Wallie
Smith came over and threw an envelope into her lap.
"It came to the office by mistake," he said grimly. "What made you
have your necklace reset when I'm practically bankrupt?"
"I bought hardly any new stones," she flashed at him. "Anyhow, I
intend to be decently clothed. Tear it up; nobody's paying any bills."
He stalked away, and Carrie looked at me.
"No," she said slowly, "they are not all alike. Thank heaven there are
a few men who don't hoist the dollar mark as a flag. Clara, do you
remember Harry Delaney?"
I looked at Carrie.
A little spot of red had come into each of her cheeks, and her eyes,
mere slits by now, were fixed on the far-away hills.
She and Harry had been engaged years ago, and she threw him over
because of his jealous nature. But she seemed to have forgotten
that.
"Of course," I said, rather startled.
"He was a dear. Sometimes I think he was the most generous soul in
the world. I cannot imagine his fussing about a necklace, or sulking
for hours over a bit of innocent pleasure like my playing a game of
pool after a lot of sleepyheads had gone to bed."
"What time did you and Bill go upstairs?"
"Something after two. We got tired of playing and sat out here and
talked. I knew you wouldn't mind, Clara. You've got too much sense.
Surely a woman ought to be allowed friends, even if she is married."
"Oh, friends!" I retorted. "If she's going to keep her husband a
friend she's got her hands full. Certainly I'm not jealous of you and
Bill, Carrie. But it's not friends most of us want, if you're after the
truth. We want passionate but perfectly respectable, commandment-
keeping lovers!"
Carrie laughed, but her colour died down.
"How silly you are!" she said, and got up. "Maybe we'd like to feel
that we're not clear out of the game, but that's all. We're a little tired
of being taken for granted. I don't want a lover; I want amusement,
and if I'd married Harry Delaney I'd have had it."
"If you'd married him he would have been down there at the pool,
showing off like a goldfish in a bowl, the same as the others."
"He would not. He can't swim," said Carrie, and sauntered away.
Somehow I got the impression that she had been sounding me, and
had got what she wanted. She looked very handsome that night,
and wore the necklace. Someone commented on it at dinner, and
Wallie glared across at it.
"It isn't paid for," he said, "and as far as I can see, it never will be."
Of course, even among old friends, that was going rather far.
Well, the usual thing happened after dinner. The men smoked and
argued, and we sat on the terrace and yawned. When they did come
out it was to say that golf and swimming had made them sleepy,
and Jim Elliott went asleep in his chair. Carrie said very little, except
once to lean over and ask me if I remembered the name of the man
Alice Warrington had thrown over for Ted. When I told her she
settled back into silence again.
The next morning all the husbands were up early and off to the club
for a Sunday's golfing. At ten o'clock a note came in on my breakfast
tray from Carrie.
"Slip on something and come to my room," it said.
When I got there Ida and Alice Warrington were there already, and
Carrie was sitting up in bed, with the same spots of colour I'd seen
before. I curled up on the bed with my hands round my knees.
"Go to it, Carrie," I said. "If it's church, it's too late. If it's a picnic, it
looks like rain."
"Close the door, Ida," said Carrie. "Girls, I'm getting pretty tired of
this."
"Of what?"
"Of dragging the matrimonial ball and chain wherever I go, and
having to hear it clank and swear and sulk, and—all the rest. I'm
tired, and so are all of you. Only I'm more honest."
"It's all rather a mess," Ida said languidly. "But divorce is a mess too.
And, anyhow, what's the use of changing? Just as one gets to know
a man's pet stories, and needn't pretend to laugh at them any more,
why take on a new bunch of stories—or habits?"
"The truth is," said Carrie, ignoring her, "that they have all the good
times. They don't have to look pretty. Their clothes last forever. And
they're utterly selfish socially. You girls know how much they dance
with the married women when there are any débutantes about."
We knew.
"The thing to do," said Carrie, "is to bring them back to a sense of
obligation. They've got us. We stay put. They take us to parties and
get up a table of bridge for us, and go off to a corner with a chit just
out of school, or dance through three handkerchiefs and two collars,
and grumble at paying our bridge losses. Or else they stay at home,
and nothing short of a high explosive would get them out of their
chairs."
"Destructive criticism," said Alice Warrington, "never gets anywhere.
We agree with you. There's no discussion. Are you recommending
the high explosive?"
"I am," said Carrie calmly. "I propose to wake them up, and to have
a good time doing it."
Well, as it turned out, it was I who wakened them up, and nobody
had a very good time about it.
"There's just one man a husband is always jealous of," Carrie went
on, and her eyes were slitted as usual. "That's the man his wife
could have married and didn't."
I expect I coloured, for Bill has always been insanely jealous of
Roger Waite, although honestly I never really cared for Roger. We
used to have good times together, of course. You know.
Carrie's plan came out by degrees.
"It will serve two purposes," she said. "It will bring the men to a
sense of responsibility, and stop this silly nonsense about bills and all
that sort of thing. And it will be rather fun. It's a sin to drop old
friends. Does Wallie drop his? Not so you could notice it. Every time
I'm out of town he lives at Grace Barnabee's."
Carrie had asked us all to spend the next week-end with her, but the
husbands were going to New York for the polo game and she had
called the party off. But now it was on again.
"Do you girls remember the house party I had when Wallie was in
Cuba, before we were engaged? We had a gorgeous time. I'm going
to repeat it. It's silly to say lightning doesn't strike twice in the same
place. Of course it does, if one doesn't use lightning rods. Peter
Arundel for Alice, and Roger for you, Clara. Ida, you were in Europe,
but we'll let you in. Who'll you have?"
"Only one?" asked Ida.
"Only one."
Ida chose Wilbur Bayne, and Carrie wrote the notes right there in
bed, with a pillow for a desk, and got ink on my best linen sheets.
"I'm sorry I never thought of it before," she said. "The house party is
bound to be fun, and if it turns out well we'll do it regularly. I'll ask
in a few people for dancing Saturday night, but we'll keep Sunday
for ourselves. We'll have a deliciously sentimental day."
She sat back and threw out her arms.
"Good Lord," she said, "I'm just ripe for a bit of sentiment. I want
about forty-eight hours without bills or butlers or bridge. I'm going
to send my diamond necklace to a safe deposit, and get out my
débutante pearls, and have the wave washed out of my hair, and fill
in the necks of one or two gowns. I warn you fairly, there won't be a
cigarette for any of you."
When I left them they were already talking clothes, and Carrie had a
hand glass and was looking at herself intently in it.
"I've changed, of course," she sighed. "One can't have two children
and not show the wear and tear of maternity. I could take off five
pounds by going on a milk diet. I think I will."
She went on the diet at luncheon that day, and Wallie told her that if
she would cut out heavy dinners and wine her stomach would be her
friend, not her enemy. She glanced at me, but I ignored her.
Somehow I was feeling blue.
The week-end had not been a success, and the girls had not been
slow to tell me about it. The very eagerness with which they planned
for the next week told me what a failure I'd had. Even then the idea
of getting even somehow with Carrie was in the back of my mind.
The men did some trap shooting that afternoon, and during dinner
Jim started a discussion about putting women on a clothes
allowance and making them keep within it.
"I can systematise my business," he said, "but I can't systematise
my home. I'm spending more now than I'm getting out of the mill."
Wallie Smith came up to scratch about that time by saying that his
mother raised him with the assistance of a nursemaid, and no
governess and trained nurse nonsense.
"That is why I insist on a trained nurse and a governess," said Carrie
coldly, and took another sip of milk.
They went home that night, and Bill, having seen them into the
motors, came up on the terrace.
"Bully party, old dear," he said enthusiastically. "Have 'em often,
won't you?"
He sat down near me and put a hand over mine. All at once I was
sorry I'd accepted Carrie's invitation. Not that there would be any
harm in seeing Roger again, but because Bill wouldn't like it. The
touch of his warm hand on mine, the quiet of the early summer
night after the noise that had gone before, the scent of the
honeysuckle over the pergola, all combined to soften me.
"I'm glad you had a good time, Bill," I said after a little silence. "I'm
afraid the girls didn't enjoy it much. You men were either golfing or
swimming or shooting, and there wasn't much to do but talk."
Bill said nothing. I thought he might be resentful, and I was in a
softened mood.
"I didn't really mind your staying downstairs the other night with
Carrie," I said. "Bill, do smell the honeysuckle. Doesn't it remind you
of the night you asked me to marry you?"
Still Bill said nothing. I leaned over and looked at him. As usual he
was asleep.
About the middle of the week Roger Waite called me up. We did not
often meet—two or three times in the winter at a ball, or once in a
season at a dinner. Ida Elliott always said he avoided me because it
hurt him to see me. We had been rather sentimental. He would
dance once with me, saying very little, and go away as soon as he
decently could directly the dance was over. Sometimes I had thought
that it pleased him to fancy himself still in love with me, and it's
perfectly true that he showed no signs of marrying. It was rather the
thing for the débutantes to go crazy about Roger. He had an air of
knowing such a lot and keeping it from them.
"Why don't you keep him around?" Ida asked me once. "He's so
ornamental. I'm not strong for tame cats, but I wouldn't mind Roger
on the hearthrug myself."
But up to this time I'd never really wanted anybody on the hearthrug
but Bill. If I do say it, I was a perfectly contented wife until the time
Carrie Smith made her historic effort to revive the past. "Let sleeping
dogs lie" is my motto now—and tame cats too.
Well, Roger called me up, and there was the little thrill in his voice
that I used to think he kept for me. I know better now.
"What's this about going out to Carrie Smith's?" he said over the
phone.
"That's all," I replied. "You're invited and I'm going."
"O!" said Roger. And waited a moment. Then:
"I was going on to the polo," he said, "but of course—What's wrong
with Bill and polo?"
"He's going."
"Oh!" said Roger. "Well, then, I think I'll go to Carrie's. It sounds too
good to be true—you, and no scowling husband in the offing!"
"It's—it's rather a long time since you and I had a real talk."
"Too long," said Roger. "Too long by about three years."
That afternoon he sent me a great box of flowers. My conscience
was troubling me rather, so I sent them down to the dinner table.
Whatever happened I was not going to lie about them.
But Bill only frowned.
"I've just paid a florist's bill of two hundred dollars," he grumbled.
"Cut out the American beauties, old dear."
It was not his tone that made me angry. It was his calm assumption
that I had bought the things. As if no one would think of sending me
flowers!
"If you would stop sending orchids to silly débutantes when they
come out," I snapped, "there would be no such florist's bills."
One way or another Bill got on my nerves that week. He brought
Wallie Smith home one night to dinner, and Wallie got on my nerves
too. I could remember, when Wallie and Carrie were engaged and
we were just married, how he used to come and talk us black in the
face about Carrie.
"How's Carrie, Wallie?" I said during the soup.
"She's all right," he replied, and changed the subject. But later in the
evening, while Bill was walking on the lawn with a cigar, he broke
out for fair.
"Carrie's on a milk diet," he said apropos of nothing. "If she stays on
it another week I'm going to Colorado. She's positively brutal, and
she hasn't ordered a real dinner for anybody for a week."
"Really!" I said.
He got up and towered over me.
"Look here, Clara," he said; "you're a sensible woman. Am I fat? Am
I bald? Am I a doddering and toothless venerable? To hear Carrie
this past few days you'd think I need to wear overshoes when I go
out in the grass."
I rather started, because I'd been looking at Bill at that minute and
wondering if he was getting his feet wet. He had only pumps on.
"It isn't only that she's brutal," he said, "she has soft moments when
she mothers me. Confound it, I don't want to be mothered! She's
taken off eight pounds," he went on gloomily. "And that isn't the
worst." He lowered his voice. "I found her crying over some old
letters the other day. She isn't happy, Clara. You know she could
have married a lot of fellows. She was the most popular girl I ever
knew."
Well, I'd known Carrie longer than he had, and of course a lot of
men used to hang round her house because there was always
something to do. But I'd never known that such a lot of them made
love to Carrie or wanted to marry her. She was clever enough to
hesitate over Wallie, but, believe me, she knew she had him cinched
before she ran any risk. However:
"I'm sure you've tried to make her happy," I said. "But of course she
was awfully popular."
I'm not so very keen about Carrie, but the way I felt that week,
when it was a question between a husband and a wife, I was for the
wife. "Of course," I said as Bill came within hearing distance, "it's
not easy, when one's had a lot of attention, to settle down to one
man, especially if the man is considerably older and—and settled."
That was a wrong move, as it turned out. For Bill, who never says
much, got quieter than ever, and announced, just before he went to
bed, that he'd given up the polo game. I was furious. I'd had one or
two simple little frocks run up for Carrie's party, and by the greatest
sort of luck I'd happened on a piece of flowered lawn almost exactly
like one Roger used to be crazy about.
For twenty-four hours things hung in the balance. Bill has a hideous
way of doing what he says he'll do. Roger had sent more flowers—
not roses this time, but mignonette and valley lilies, with a few white
orchids. It looked rather bridey. It would have been too maddening
to have Bill queer the whole thing at the last minute.
But I fixed things at bridge one night by saying that I thought
married people were always better off for short separations, and that
I was never so fond of Bill as when he'd been away for a few days.
"Polo for me!" said Bill.
And I went out during my dummy hand and telephoned Carrie.
I hope I have been clear about the way the thing began. I feel that
my situation should be explained. For one thing, all sorts of silly
stories are going round, and it is stupid of people to think they
cannot ask Roger and me to the same dinners. If Bill would only act
like a Christian, and not roar the moment his name is mentioned,
there would be a chance for the thing to die out. But you know what
Bill is.
Well, the husbands left on Saturday morning, and by eleven o'clock
Ida, Alice and I were all at Carrie's. The change in her was simply
startling. She looked like a willow wand. She'd put her hair low on
her neck, and except for a touch of black on her eyelashes, and of
course her lips coloured, she hadn't a speck of makeup on. She'd
taken the pearls out of her ears, too, and she wore tennis clothes
and flat-heeled shoes that made her look like a child.
She was sending the children off in the car as we went up the drive.
"They're off to mother's," she said. "I'll miss them frightfully, but this
is a real lark, girls, and I can't imagine anything more killing to
romance than small children."
She kissed the top of the baby's head, and he yelled like a trooper.
Then the motor drove off, and, as Alice Warrington said, the stage
was set.
"Get your tennis things on," Carrie said. "The men will be here for
lunch."
We said with one voice that we wouldn't play tennis. It was too hot.
She eyed us coldly.
"For heaven's sake," she said, "play up. Nobody asked you to play
tennis. But if you are asked don't say it's too hot. Do any of the
flappers at the club ever find it too hot to play? Sprain an ankle or
break a racket, but don't talk about its being too violent, or that
you've given it up the last few years. Try to remember that for two
days you're in the game again, and don't take on a handicap to
begin with."
Well, things started off all right, I'll have to admit that, although
Carrie looked a trifle queer when Harry Delaney, getting out of the
motor that had brought them from the station, held out a baby's
rattle to her.
"Found it in the car," he said. "How are the youngsters anyhow?"
"Adorable!" said Carrie, and flung the rattle into the house.
Roger came straight to me and took both my hands.
"Upon my word, Clara," he said, "this is more luck than I ever
expected again. Do you remember the last time we were all here
together?"
"Of course I do." He was still holding my hands and I felt rather silly.
But the others had paired off instantly and no one was paying any
attention.
"I was almost suicidal that last evening. You—you had just told me,
you know."
I withdrew my hands. When a man is being sentimental I like him to
be accurately sentimental. It had been a full month after that house
party, at a dance Carrie gave, that I had told him of my engagement
to Bill. However, I said nothing and took a good look at Roger. He
was wonderful.
Why is it that married men lose their boyishness, and look smug and
sleek and domesticated almost before the honeymoon is over? Roger
stood there with his hat in his hand and the hot noon sun shining on
him. And he hadn't changed a particle, except that his hair was grey
over his ears and maybe a bit thinner. He was just as eager, just as
boyish, just as lean as he'd ever been. And positively he was
handsomer than ever.
Bill is plain. He is large and strong, of course, but he says himself his
face must have been cut out with an axe. "Rugged and true," he
used to call himself. But lately, in spite of golf, he had put on weight.
Well, to get on.
Luncheon was gay. Everyone sat beside the person he wanted to sit
beside, and said idiotic things, and Peter Arundel insisted on feeding
Alice's strawberries to her one by one. Nobody talked bills or the
high cost of living. Roger is a capital raconteur, and we laughed until
we wept over his stories. I told some of Bill's stock jokes and they
went with a hurrah. At three o'clock we were still at the table, and
when Carrie asked the men if they wanted to run over to the
Country Club for a couple of hours of golf Wilbur Bayne put the
question to a vote and they voted "No" with a roar.
I remember that Harry Delaney said a most satisfactory thing just as
luncheon was over.
"It's what I call a real party," he said. "After a man is thirty or
thereabouts he finds débutantes still thrilling, of course, but not
restful. They're always wanting to go somewhere or do something.
They're too blooming healthy. The last week-end I spent I danced
until 4 a. m. and was wakened at seven-thirty by a fair young flower
throwing gravel through my open window and inviting me to a walk
before breakfast!"
"Anyone seen about the place before eleven to-morrow morning,"
said Carrie, "will be placed under restraint. For one thing, it would
make the servants talk. They're not used to it."
So far so good. I'll confess freely that if they'd let me alone I'd never
have thought of getting even. But you know Carrie Smith. She has
no reserves. And she had to tell about my party and the way the
husbands behaved.
"Don't glare, Clara," she said. "Your house is nice and your food and
drink all that could be desired. But it was not a hilarious party, and
I'll put it up to the others."
Then and there she told about the swimming and the golf and the
knitting. The men roared. She exaggerated, of course. Bill did not go
to sleep at dinner. But she made a good story of it, and I caught
Roger's eye fixed on me with a look that said plainly that he'd always
known I'd made a mistake, and here was the proof.
We went out into the garden and sat under a tree. But soon the
others paired off and wandered about. Roger and I were left alone,
and I was boiling.
"Don't look like that, little girl," said Roger, bending toward me. "It
hurts me terribly to—to think you are not happy."
He put a hand over mine, and at that moment Alice Warrington
turned from a rosebush she and Peter were pretending to examine,
and saw me. She raised her eyebrows, and that gave me the idea. I
put my free hand over Roger's and tried to put my soul into my
eyes.
"Don't move," I said. "Hold the position for a moment, Roger, and
look desperately unhappy."
"I am," he said. "Seeing you again brings it all back. Are they
looking? Shall I kiss your hand?"
I looked over. Alice and Peter were still staring.
"Bend over," I said quickly, "and put your cheek against it. It's more
significant and rather hopeless. I'll explain later."
He did extremely well. He bent over passionately until his head was
almost in my lap, and I could see how carefully his hair was brushed
over a thin place at the crown. Thank goodness, Bill keeps his hair
anyhow!
"How's this?" he said in a muffled voice.
"That's plenty." I'd made up my mind, and I meant to go through
with it. But I felt like a fool. There's something about broad daylight
that makes even real sentiment look idiotic.
He sat up and looked into my eyes.
"There are times," he said, raising his voice, "when I feel I can't
stand it. I'm desperately—desperately unhappy, Clara."
"We must make the best of things," I said, and let my eyes wander
toward Alice and Peter. They had turned and were retreating swiftly
through the garden.
"Now," said Roger, sitting back and smoothing his hair, "what's it all
about?"
So I told him and explained my plan. Even now, when I never want
to see him again, I must admit that Roger is a sport. He never
turned a hair.
"Of course I'll do it. It isn't as hard as you imagine. Our meeting like
this revives the old fire. I'm mad about you, recklessly mad, and
you're crazy about me. All right so far. But a thing like that won't
throw much of a crimp into Carrie. Probably she expects it."
"To-night," I explained, "we'll be together, but silent and moody.
When we smile at their nonsense it is to be a forced smile. We're
intent on ourselves. Do you see? And you might go to Carrie after
dinner and tell her you think you'll go. You can't stand being near
me. It's too painful. I'll talk to one of the men too."
He looked rather uncomfortable.
"Oh, I wouldn't do that, Clara. They wouldn't understand."
"Not about you," I retorted coldly. "I'll merely indicate that Bill and I
aren't hitting it off, and that a woman has a right to be happy. Then,
when things happen, they'll remember what I said."
He turned round his wicker chair so that he faced me.
"When things happen?" he said. "What things?"
"When we elope to-morrow night," I replied.
I'm not defending myself. Goodness knows I've gone through all
that. I am merely explaining. And I think Roger deserves part of the
blame, but of course the woman always suffers. If he had only been
frank with me at the time it need never have happened. Besides,
I've been back to that bridge again and again, and with ordinary
intelligence and a hammer he could have repaired it. It is well
enough for him to say he didn't have a hammer. He should have had
a hammer.
At the mention of an elopement Roger changed colour, but I did not
remember that until afterward. He came up to scratch rather
handsomely, when he was able to speak, but he insisted that I write
the whole thing to Bill.
"I can tell him afterward," I protested.
"That won't help me if he has beaten me up first. You write him to
the office, so he'll get it Monday morning when he gets back from
the game. If anything should slip up you're protected, don't you see?
Tell him it's a joke and why we're doing it. I—I hope Bill has kept his
sense of humor."
Well, it looked simple enough. We were to act perfectly silly and
moonstruck all the rest of that day and Sunday until we had them all
thoroughly worried. Then on Sunday night we were to steal Wallie's
car and run away in it. The through train stops at a station about
four miles away, at eleven-fourteen at night, and we were to start
that way and then turn around and go to mother's.
We planned it thoroughly, I must say. Roger said he'd get one of the
fellows to cash a check for all the money he had about him. They'd
be sure to think of that when Carrie got my note. And I made a draft
of the note then and there on the back of an old envelope from
Roger's pocket. We made it as vague as possible.
"Dear Carrie," it ran, "by the time you receive this I shall be on my
way to happiness. Try to forgive me. I couldn't stand things another
moment. We only live one life and we all make mistakes. Read Ellen
Key and don't try to follow me. I'm old enough to know my own
mind, and all you have been saying this last few days has convinced
me that when a chance for happiness comes one is a fool not to
take it. Had it not been for you I should never have had my eyes
opened to what I've been missing all this time. I have wasted my
best years, but at last I am being true to myself. Clara."
"Now," I said, rather viciously I dare say, "let her read that and
throw a fit. She'll never again be able to accuse me of making things
dull for her."
Roger read it over.
"We'd better write Bill's letter," he said, "and get it off. We—it
wouldn't do to have Bill worried, you know."
So we went into the house and wrote Bill's letter. We explained
everything—how stupid they'd all found our party and that this was
only a form of revenge.
"Suppose," Roger said as I sealed it, "suppose they get excited and
send for the police?"
That stumped us. It was one thing to give them a bad night, and
telephone them in the morning that it was a joke and that I'd gone
direct from Carrie's to mother's, which was the arrangement. But
Carrie was a great one for getting in detectives. You remember, the
time her sister was married, that Carrie had a detective in the house
for a week before the wedding watching the presents, and how at
the last minute the sister wanted to marry the detective, who was a
good-looking boy, and they had a dreadful time getting her to the
church.
We both thought intently for quite a time.
"We must cut the telephone wire, Roger," I said at length.
Roger was not eager about cutting the telephone. He said he would
probably be shocked to death, although if he could find a pair of
rubber overshoes he'd take the risk.
"It ought to be done the very last thing," he said. "No use rousing
their suspicions early."
We played up hard all afternoon. Roger kissed the lump of sugar he
put in my tea, and went and sulked on the parapet when Peter
Arundel came and sat beside me. Carrie joined him there, and I
could see her talking earnestly to him while Roger looked out over
the landscape with eyes that were positively sombre.
"Having a good time?" said Peter Arundel to me.
"Heavenly, Peter," I replied, looking at Roger. "I didn't believe I could
be so happy."
"Go to it," said Peter. "What's a day or two out of a lifetime."
I turned round and faced him, my hands gripped hard in my lap.
"That's it," I said tensely. "That's the thought that's killing me. One
can only be happy for a day or two."
"Oh, I wouldn't go so far as that," said Peter. "You have a pretty fair
time, you know, Clara. Old Bill's a good sort."
"Oh, Bill!" I said.
"I went to college with Bill. Maybe Bill hasn't any frills, but he's a real
man." He glared at Roger's drooping shoulders. "He's no tailor's
dummy anyhow."
I ignored this.
"Peter," I said in a thin voice, "have you ever read Ellen Key?"
"Not on your life!" said Peter.
I quoted a bit I happened to remember.
"'Nothing is wiser than the modern woman's desire to see life with
her own eyes, not only with those of a husband.'" I sighed.
"If I were Bill," said Peter, "I'd burn that book."
"'Nothing,'" I continued, "'is more true than that souls which are
parted by a lack of perfect frankness never belonged to one
another.'"
"Look here," said Peter, and got up; "I think you've lost your mind,
Clara—you and Roger Waite both. Look at him mooning over there.
I'd like to turn the garden hose on him."
I looked at Roger—a long gaze that made Peter writhe.
"'Love's double heartbeat'——" I began. But Peter stalked away,
muttering.
Carrie had left Roger, so I put down my cup and followed him to the
parapet of the terrace.
"Darling!" he said. And then, finding Peter was not with me: "How's
it going?"
"Cracking! They're all worried already."
"We've hardly started. Slip your arm through mine, Clara, and I'll
hold your hand. Dear little hand!" he said. "When I think that instead
of that ring——" Here he choked and kissed my hand. Then I saw
that Harry Delaney was just below the wall.
Carrie's voice broke in on our philandering.
"If," she said coldly, "you two people can be pried apart with a
crowbar for a sufficient length of time, we will motor to Bubbling
Spring. There's just time before dinner."
"I don't think I'll go, Carrie," I said languidly. "I have a headache and
Roger has just offered to read to me. Do you remember how you
used to cure my headaches, Roger?"
"I'd rather not talk about those days, Clara," said Roger in a shaky
voice.
"I wish you two people could see and hear yourselves!" Carrie cried
furiously, and turned on her heel.
"I guess that will hold her for a while," Roger purred. "Clara, you're
an angel and an inspiration. I haven't had such a good time since I
had scarlet fever."
Dinner, which should have been gay, was simply noisy. They were all
worried, and it is indicative of how Carrie had forgotten her pose and
herself that she wore her diamond necklace. Roger had been placed
at the other end of the table from me, but he slipped in and
changed the cards. There were half a dozen dinner guests, but
Roger and I ate little or nothing.
"Act as though the thought of food sickens you," I commanded.
"But I'm starving!"
"I'll have my maid take a tray into the garden later."
In spite of me he broke over at the entrée, which was extremely
good. But everyone saw that we were not eating. The woman on
Roger's right, a visitor, took advantage of a lull in the noise to accuse
Roger of being in love. Ida giggled, but Roger turned to his
neighbour.
"I am in love," he said mournfully; "hopelessly, idiotically, madly,
recklessly in love."
"With any particular person?"
"With you," said Roger, who had never seen her before.
She quite fluttered.
"But I am married!"
"Unfortunate, but not fatal," said Roger distinctly, while everyone
listened. "These days one must be true to one's self."
We were awfully pleased with ourselves that evening. I said my head
still ached and I could not dance. Roger and I sat out-of-doors most
of the time, and at eleven o'clock Powell, my maid, brought out a
tray of what was left from dinner and the dance supper. She took it
by order to a small shaded porch off the billiard room, and we found
her there with it.
"Thank you, Powell," I said. But Roger followed her into the house.
When he returned he was grinning.
"Might as well do it right while we're about it," he observed. "To-
morrow morning Powell will go to Carrie and tell her you sat up all
night by the window, and she's afraid you are going to be ill."
In the dusk we shook hands over the tray.
Well, a lot of things happened, such as our overhearing the men in
the billiard room debating about getting poor old Bill on the long
distance.
"It isn't a flirtation," said Wilbur Bayne. "I've seen Clara flirting many
a time. But this is different. They're reckless, positively reckless.
When a man as fond of his stomach as Roger lets a whole meal go
by, he's pretty far gone."
Roger bent over, with a part of a squab in his hand.
"Have they bitten!" he said. "They've not only swallowed hook, line
and sinker but they're walking up the bank to put themselves in the
basket!"
Well, the next morning it was clear that the girls had decided on a
course and were following it. Although it had been arranged that
everyone was to sleep late, breakfast trays appeared in the rooms at
nine-thirty, with notes asking us to go to church. When I said I had
not slept, and did not care to go, no one went, and when Roger
appeared at eleven the girls surrounded me like a cordon of police.
Roger was doing splendidly. He came up across the tennis court,
covered with dust, and said he had not slept and had been walking
since six o'clock. The men eyed him with positive ferocity.
I'll not go into the details of that day, except to relate a conversation
Ida Elliott and I had after luncheon. She came into my room and
closed the door behind her softly, as if I were ill.
"Well," she said, "I did think, Clara, that if you didn't have any sense,
you would have some consideration for Carrie."
I had been addressing the envelope to Bill, and so I shoved a sheet
of paper over it.
"I'm not going to try to read what you are writing," she said rudely.
"What do you mean about Carrie?"
"She's almost ill, that's all. How could anyone have had any idea that
Roger and you——" She fairly choked.
"Roger and I are only glad to be together again," I said defiantly.
Then I changed to a wistful tone. Just hearing it made me sorry for
myself. "We are old friends; Carrie knew that. It is cruel of you all to
—to spoil the little bit of happiness I can get out of life."
"What about Bill?"
"Bill?" I said vaguely. "Oh—Bill! Well, Bill would never stand in the
way of my being true to myself. He would want me to be happy."
I put my handkerchief suddenly to my eyes, and she gave me a
scathing glance.
"I'm going to telephone Bill," she said. "You're not sane, Clara. And
when you come back to your senses it may be too late."
She flounced out, and I knew she would call Bill if she could. From
the window I could see that Harry Delaney had Roger by the arm
and was walking him up and down. It was necessary, if the fun was
to go on, to disconnect the telephone. I ran down to the library and
dropped the instrument on the floor twice, but when I put it to my
ear to see if it was still working I found it was, for Central was
saying: "For the love of heaven, something nearly busted my
eardrum!"
Ida had not come down yet, and the telephone was on a table in the
corner, beside a vase of flowers. When I saw the flowers I knew I
was saved. I turned the vase over and let the water soak into the
green cord that covers the wires. I knew it would short-circuit the
telephone, for once one of the maids at home, washing the floor,
had wet the cord, and we were cut off for an entire day.
During the afternoon I gave Harry Delaney the letter to Bill. Harry
was going to the little town that was the post office to get
something for Carrie.
"You won't forget to mail it, will you, Harry?" I asked in a pathetic
voice.
He read the address and looked at me.
"What are you writing to Bill for, Clara? He'll be home in the
morning."
I looked confused. Then I became frank.
"I'm writing him something I don't particularly care to tell him."
He fairly groaned and thrust the thing into his pocket.
"For refined cruelty and absolute selfishness," he said, "commend
me to the woman with nothing to do but to get into mischief."
"Will you promise to mail it?"
"Oh, I'll mail it all right," he said; "but I give you until six o'clock this
evening to think it over. I'm not going to the station until then."
"To think over what?" I asked, my eyes opened innocently wide. But
he flung away in a fury.
It was rather fun that afternoon. If my party had been dreary on
Sunday it was nothing to Carrie's. They'd clearly all agreed to stay
round and keep Roger and me apart. Everybody sulked, and the
men got the Sunday newspapers and buried themselves in them.
Once I caught Roger dropping into a doze. He had refused the paper
and had been playing up well, sitting back in his chair with his cap
over his eyes and gazing at me until everybody wiggled.
"Roger," I called, when I saw his eyes closing, "are you game for a
long walk?"
Roger tried to look eager.
"Sure," he said.
"Haven't you a particle of humanity?" Carrie demanded. She knew
some of them would have to go along, and nobody wanted to walk.
It was boiling. "He has been up since dawn and he's walked miles."
Roger ignored her.
"To the ends of the world—with you, Clara," he said, and got up.
In the end they all went. It was a tragic-looking party. We walked for
miles and miles, and Carrie was carrying her right shoe when we got
back. It was too late to dress for dinner, and everyone was worn out.
So we went in as we were.
"I'm terribly sorry it's nearly over," I babbled as the soup was coming
in. "It has been the most wonderful success, hasn't it? Ida, won't
you have us all next week? Maybe we can send the husbands to the
yacht races."
"Sorry," said Ida coldly; "I've something else on."
Worried as they were, nobody expected us to run away. How to let
them know what had happened, and put a climax to their
discomfiture, was the question. I solved it at last by telling Powell to
come in at midnight with the sleeping medicine Carrie had given her
for me. I knew, when she found I was not there, she would wait and
at last raise the alarm. What I did not know was that she would
come in half an hour early, and cut off our lead by thirty minutes.
The evening dragged like the afternoon, and so thoroughly was the
spice out of everything for them all, that when I went upstairs at
ten-thirty Ida Elliott was singing Jim's praises to Wilbur Bayne, and
Carrie had got out the children's photographs and was passing them
round.
As I went out through the door Roger opened for me, he bowed
over my hand and kissed it.
"Oh, cut it out!" I heard Peter growl, and there was a chorus from
the others.
I had to stop in the hall outside and laugh. It was the last time I
laughed for a good many hours.
By eleven I was ready. Everyone was upstairs, and Carrie had found
out about the telephone by trying to call up her mother to inquire
about the children. I had packed a small suitcase and at Roger's
whistle I was to drop it out the window to him. Things began to go
wrong with that, for just as I was ready to drop it someone rapped
at my door. I swung it too far out, and it caught Roger full in the
chest and carried him over backward. I had just time to see him
disappear in the shrubbery with a sort of dull thud when Alice
Warrington knocked again.
She came in and sat on the bed.
"I don't want to be nasty, Clara," she said, "but you know how fond I
am of you, and I don't want you to misunderstand Roger. It's his
way to make violent love to people and then get out. Of course you
know he's being very attentive to Maisie Brown. She's jealous of you
now. Somebody told her Roger used to be crazy about you. If she
hears of this——"
"Clara!" said Roger's voice under the window.
Alice rose, with the most outraged face I've ever seen.
"He is positively shameless," she said. "As for you, Clara, I can't tell
you how I feel."
"Clara!" said Roger. "I must speak to you. Just one word."
Alice swept out of the room and banged the door. I went to the
window.
"Something seems to have broken in the dratted thing," he said. "It
smells like eau de Cologne. I'm covered with it."
As it developed later it was eau de Cologne. I have never got a whiff
of it since that I don't turn fairly sick. And all of that awful night
Roger fairly reeked with it.
Well, by midnight everything was quiet, and I got downstairs and
into the drive without alarming anyone. Roger was waiting, and for
some reason or other—possibly the knock—he seemed less
enthusiastic.
"I hope Harry remembered the letter to Bill," he said. "Whether this
thing is a joke or not depends on the other person's sense of humor.
What in heaven's name made you put scent in your bag?"
He had his car waiting at the foot of the drive, and just as I got in
we heard it thunder.
"How far is it to your mother's?"
"Twelve miles."
"It's going to rain."
"Rain or not, I'm not going back, Roger," I said. "Imagine Bill's
getting that letter for nothing."
He got into the car and it began to rain at once. Everyone knows
about that storm now. We had gone about four miles when the sky
fairly opened. The water beat in under the top and washed about
our feet. We drove up to the hubs in water, and the lights, instead of
showing us the way, only lit up a wall of water ahead. It was like
riding into Niagara Falls. We were pretty sick, I can tell you.
"Why didn't you look at the sky?" I yelled at Roger, above the
beating of the storm. "Bill can always tell when it's going to storm."
"Oh, damn Bill!" said Roger, and the car slid off the road and into a
gully. Roger just sat still and clutched the wheel.
"Aren't you going to do something?" I snapped. "I'm not going to sit
here all night and be drowned."
"Is there anything you could suggest?"
"Can't you get out and push it?"
"I cannot."
But after five minutes or so he did crawl out, and by tying my
suitcase straps round one of the wheels he got the car back into the
road. I daresay I was a trifle pettish by that time.
"I wish you wouldn't drip on me," I said.
"I beg your pardon," he replied, and moved as far from me as he
could.
We went on in silence. At last:
"There's one comfort about getting that soaking," he said: "it's
washed that damned perfume off."
There's one thing about Bill, he keeps his temper. And he doesn't
raise the roof when he gets his clothes wet. He rather likes getting
into difficulties, to show how well he can get out of them. But Roger
is like a cat. He always hated to get his feet wet.
"If you had kept the car in the centre of the road you wouldn't have
had to get out," I said shortly.
"Oh, well, if you're going back to first causes," he retorted, "if you'd
never suggested this idiotic thing I wouldn't be laying up a case of
lumbago at this minute."
"Lumbago is middle-aged, isn't it?"
"We're neither of us as young as we were a few years ago."
That was inexcusable. Roger is at least six years older than I am.
Besides, even if it were true, there was no necessity for him to say
it. But there was no time to quarrel, for at that moment we were
going across a bridge over a small stream. It was a river now. The
first thing I knew was that the car shook and rocked and there was a
dull groaning underneath. The next minute we had gone slowly
down about four feet and the creek was flowing over us.
We said nothing at first. The lights went off almost immediately, as
the engine drowned, and there we sat in the flood, and the first
thing I knew I was crying.
"The bridge is broken," said Roger, above the rush of the stream.
"I didn't think you were washing the car," I whimpered. "We'll be
drowned, that's all."
The worst of the storm was over, but as far as I was concerned it
might just as well have been pouring. When Roger got his matches
and tried to light one it only made a sick streak of phosphorescence
on the side of the box. To make things worse, Roger turned round,
and where the road crossed the brow of the hill behind us there was
the glow of automobile lamps. He swore under his breath.
"They're coming, Clara," he said. "That fool of a maid didn't wait
until midnight."
The thought of being found like that, waist-deep in water, drove me
to frenzy. I knew how they'd laugh, how they'd keep on laughing for
years. They'd call us the Water Babies probably, or something
equally hateful. I just couldn't stand the thought.
I got up.
"Let them think we're drowned—anything," I said desperately. "I will
not be found like this."
Roger looked about like a hunted animal.
"There's—there's a house near here on the hill," he said. Afterward I
remembered how he hesitated over it. "We could get up there, I'm
pretty sure."
He looked back.
"They seem to have stopped," he said. "Perhaps the other bridge
has gone."
He lifted me out and set me on the bank. He was not particularly
gentle about it, and I was all he could carry. That's one thing about
Bill—he's as strong as an ox and as gentle as a young gazelle.
Well, we scurried up the bank, the water pouring off us, and I lost a
shoe. Roger wouldn't wait until I found it, but dragged me along,
panting. Suddenly I knew that I hated him with a deadly hatred. The
thought of how nearly I had married him made me shiver.
"I wish you'd let go of me," I said.
"Why? You can't climb alone in the silly clothes you wear."
"Perhaps not, but I don't like you to touch me."
"Oh, if you feel like that——" He let me go, and I almost fell. "You
know, Clara, I am trying hard to restrain myself, but—this is all your
doing."
"I suppose I broke the bridge down," I said bitterly, "and brought on
the rain, and all the rest of it."
"Now I recognise the Clara I used to know," he had the audacity to
say, "always begging the question and shifting the responsibility. For
heaven's sake don't stop to quarrel! They've probably found the car
by this time."
We got to the house and I fell exhausted on the steps. To my
surprise Roger got out a bunch of keys and fitted one to the lock.
"I know these people," he said. "I—I sometimes come out in the fall
for a bit of shooting. Place is closed now."
The interior looked dark and smelled musty. I didn't want to go in,
but it was raining again and there was nothing else to do.
"Better overcome your repugnance and give me your hand," he said.
"If we turn on a light they'll spot us."
Oh, it is all very well to say, looking back, that we should have sat in
the car until we were found, and have carried it all off as a part of
the joke. I couldn't, that's flat. I couldn't have laughed if I'd been
paid to.
We bumped into a square hall and I sat down. It was very quiet all
at once, and the only thing to be heard was the water dripping from
us to the hardwood floor.
"If that's a velvet chair you're on it will be ruined," said Roger's voice
out of the darkness.
"I hope it is. Where is the telephone?"
"There is a telephone closet under the stairs."
"You know a lot about this house. Whose is it?"
"It's the Brown place. You know it."
"Maisie Brown's!"
"Yes." He was quite sullen.
"And you have a key like one of the family! Roger, you are engaged
to her!"
"I was," he said. "The chances are when this gets out I won't be."
I don't know why now, but it struck me as funny. I sat and laughed
like a goose, and the more I laughed the harder Roger breathed.
"You've got to see me through this, Clara," he said at last. "You can't
telephone Carrie—you've fixed all that. But you can get your mother.
Tell her the circumstances and have her send a car for you. I'll stay
here to-night. And if you take my advice you'll meet Bill at the train
to-morrow morning and beat Carrie to it. She'll be in town with a line
of conversation by daybreak."
He found some dry matches and led me to the telephone.
Something in the way I dripped, or because I padded across the
floor in one stocking foot, made him a trifle more human.
"I'll close the curtains and light the log fire," he said. "Things are bad
enough without your taking pneumonia."
The moment I took the receiver off the hook I knew the wires were
down somewhere. I sat for a moment, then I opened the door.
Roger was on his knees lighting the fire. He looked very thin, with
his clothes stuck to him, and the hair that he wore brushed over the
bare place had been washed down, and he looked almost bald.
"Roger," I said, with the calmness of despair, "the wires are down!"
"Hush," said Roger suddenly. "And close that door."
It seemed rather foolish to me at the time. Since they had followed
us, they'd know perfectly well that if Roger was there I was.
In walked Maisie Brown and about a dozen other people!
I can still hear the noise they made coming in, and then a silence,
broken by Maisie's voice.
"Why, Roger!" she said.
"Awfully surprising to see you here—I mean, I expect you are
surprised to see me here," said Roger's voice, rather thin and
stringy. "The fact is, I was going by, and—it was raining hard, and I
——"
"Then that was your car in the creek?"
"Well, yes," Roger admitted, after a hesitation. He was evidently
weighing every word, afraid of committing himself to anything
dangerous.
"I thought you were at Carrie Smith's."
"I was on my way home."
Everybody laughed. It was about a dozen miles to Roger's road
home from Carrie's.
"Come on, now, there's a mystery. Own up," said a man's voice.
"Where's the beautiful lady? Drowned?"
Luckily no one waited for an answer. They demanded how he had
got in, and when he said he had a key they laughed again. Some
one told Maisie she might as well confess. If Roger had a key to the
house it required explanation.
If ever I heard cold suspicion in a girl's voice, it was in Maisie's when
she answered:
"Oh, we're engaged all right, if that's what you mean," she said. "But
I think Roger and I——"
They didn't give her a chance to finish, the idiots! They gave three
cheers, and then, as nearly as I could make out, they formed a ring
and danced round them. They'd been to a picnic somewhere, and as
the bridges were down they were there for the night.
Do you think they went to bed?
Not a bit of it. They found some canned things in a pantry, and fixed
some hot drinks and drank to Maisie and Roger. And I sat in the
telephone closet and tried not to sneeze.
I sat there for two hours.
About two o'clock I heard Maisie say she would have to telephone
home, and if a totally innocent person can suffer the way I did I
don't know how a guilty one could live. But Roger leaped in front of
her.
"I'll do it, honey," he said. "I—I was just thinking of telephoning."
They were close to the door.
"Don't call me honey," Maisie said in a tense voice. "I know about
Carrie Smith's party and who was there. After the way Clara has
schemed all these years to get you back, to have you fall into a trap
like that! It's sickening!"
She put her hand on the knob of the door.
"Listen, darling," Roger implored. "I—I don't care a hang for anyone
but you. I'm perfectly wretched. I——"
He pulled her hand off the knob of the door and I heard him kiss it.
"Let me call your mother," he said. "She'll know you are all right
when I'm here."
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