Elites of Eden, Page 3

  “You monster,” she says in a low voice that only those nearest can hear. That’s okay, they’ll spread the gossip lightning-­fast. Pearl throws a protective arm around me. “How could you do that to her?”

  One of the Sisters comes up to us, asking what happened, and Pearl murmurs something into her ear that makes her blush, then stares at Hawk as if he’s a criminal. Hawk looks utterly flabbergasted. “I didn’t . . . ,” he begins, but of course he has no idea what he didn’t do.

  The Sister spreads her arms, the green folds of her robe opening like a macaw’s wing, making a wall between us tender, innocent girls and the crude man who offended me.

  “Please, Sister,” I say weakly, “I’d like to go to the Temple if I may. He made me feel . . . unclean.”

  As we turn to go, I see Brother Birch lay a commanding hand on Hawk’s shoulder and lead him away in the opposite direction. Lynx and Copper join us, and amid the sympathetic clucking of the Sister we are led to the Temple.

  “I must return to the festival to chaperone the others,” she says, and shakes her head sadly. “To think that this could happen in the Oaks, in the very shadow of the Temple! Young men are not what they used to be.”

  I stifle a mocking snort. What could that crabby old virgin know about young men?

  “Will you young ladies be comfortable in the Temple alone? I’m afraid all of the Temple servants are at the festival tonight. Except for the door attendant, of course.”

  Which is exactly what we’d counted on. “I feel very safe here,” I say piously. “As if I’m in the bosom of the Earth.” How we all keep a straight face is beyond me.

  She hems and haws for a bit, until I remind her that the snowfall will begin at any moment. Then, finally, she leaves us alone.

  Pearl looks at me with unabashed admiration. “Worked like a charm!” she says, snapping her fingers. “Did you see the look on Hawk’s face. Poor Hawk.” She pulls a face of mock sympathy. “Do you think he’ll be expelled?”

  “Nah,” Lynx says, watching me narrowly, “just labeled as a sex offender.”

  I laugh along with them, but when I remember the hurt confusion on Hawk’s face I quickly say, “Let’s find the door and get out of here. We want to go before the snow falls and we leave footprints.”

  The main section of the Temple, where worshipers congregate for the short daily masses and the long weekly one, is under a dome of opaque blue that in the sunlight looks like the arch of heaven, but now, just after dusk, resembles an ice cave. Everyday worshipers, those who haven’t devoted themselves to honoring the Earth, like to have a roof over their heads.

  The most sacred spaces in the Temple, though, are open to the sky, roofless courtyards and open starlit rooms. The priests say the Earth can only be properly honored outdoors. When a couple gets married, when a child is born, when an elder passes on to the infinity that awaits after death, they go to the Skyhall. We move there now. It is a room without a roof, open to the sky and the wind and, soon, the snow. Beyond that are several rooms the general public never sees: the inner sanctum of the high priest Brother Birch, and the Chambers of Mysteries, the labyrinth that holds the deepest secrets of our religion.

  We creep into the Skyhall, clustered close, nervous despite our bold fronts. There are rows of benches, polished by the backsides of generations of worshipers. At the far end is the door to the outside. There’s an alcove where a door attendant sits, unseen and silent. Probably asleep, I think. He won’t notice when we sneak into the private chambers. If he happens to look out and see us gone, he’ll think we just went back to the party.

  “What will happen if they catch us?” Copper asks.

  “We’ll tell them Yarrow went mad after her violation and decided to forsake men forever and become a Sister,” Pearl quips. I look at the door that leads to the forbidden rooms. My stomach seems to flip-flop. What on Earth ever made me think I could do this? I want to leave, go back to the Snow Festival and listen to Hawk call me beautiful, even though I don’t care about him. I want everything to be easy and normal and safe.

  Then Pearl asks, “Scared?” in that superior way of hers, and something strengthens inside me. I lift my chin, clench my jaw, and say, “Let’s go.” I surge forward, leading the way.

  * * *

  COPPER, LYNX, AND Pearl pour in after me stifling giggles. “I can’t believe we’re in here,” Copper says as she looks around. “We could get in so much trouble.” She makes the Sign of the Seed.

  I don’t see anything too mystically impressive yet. We’re not in a room, but rather in a long, narrow, curving passageway lit by torches burning some chemical with a vague, strange smell. I’ve only seen an open flame a few times in my life. There’s no wood or coal in Eden. Almost all of our materials are man-made, and not flammable. The torch fire dances hypnotically, casting long shadows down the walls.

  We have no idea of the layout of this place—only Temple priests and priestesses are allowed in—so we split up to search for a door to the outside. Pearl heads in one direction, and Lynx immediately follows her. I turn to go the other way, and Copper hesitates, then follows Lynx.

  I hate to be alone. Without people around I feel empty, flat. Sometimes frightened, though I’d never admit that. It’s okay, I tell myself. They’re close. I’m not really alone.

  Above me, I can just see the first faint stars in the dimming sky. We need a door, and there are plenty of doors along the outer edge, but when I check them they turn out to be the simple cells of the Temple priests, holding nothing more than a bed, a table, a light.

  Finally I come to a door on the inner wall. It has no handle, but when I touch it, it opens on well-oiled hinges. It is a hexagonal room, empty, with a door in each of its six walls. More doors! I choose one, and come to an identical room, also with six doors. I’ve gone through several of these before I realize with panic that I haven’t been keeping track of my turns. I try to retrace my steps but I’m utterly disoriented. If it was daytime maybe I could guess my direction from the sun, but the faint stars of dusk shining through the open roof offer no clue. I’m lost in this honeycomb labyrinth. Every room is the same: empty, with six doors.

  Until, finally, I come to a room that is different.

  It is exactly like the others, except for one thing. In the middle, on a pedestal, is a glass bowl full of dirt.

  I’ve found one of the Chambers of Mysteries.

  No one except the few priests and priestesses initiated into the Mysteries is supposed to see this. Of course, like any unknown, people talk all the time about what the Chambers might hold. The mummified body of Aaron Al-Baz, the creator of Eden and savior of humanity. The coding for the EcoPanopticon, the vast computer program that keeps Eden running.

  But what I find is at once more simple and more profound. No one on Eden has seen dirt—real, actual dirt—in more than two hundred years. After we destroyed the Earth and almost all living things, we had to retreat to this artificial sanctuary. The surface of the Earth is too poisoned to sustain life. The dirt is toxic. No seed would ever grow. Yet here, in this bare room, is a bowl of rich, black soil.

  Is it real? I should leave. This isn’t right. But I can’t help it. I creep up slowly and bend my head, inhaling deeply. Oh, great Earth—the smell! It is deep and rich and unfathomable. It smells alive. I want to touch it, but I don’t quite dare. Finally, I have to. I press one fingertip into the surface, leaving the faintest depression. Then I rub my fingers together, feeling the grit, watching it fall. I can’t let one grain escape. It is, I’m sure, the only real dirt in Eden.

  The smell lingers on my finger, and I rub it beneath my nose. It is remarkable, but . . . I don’t feel as amazed as I should. Any other resident of Eden would have fallen to their knees to see such a sight. It would give them spiritual uplift, hope that one day our descendants might roam a wild and clean Earth again.

  I feel none of th
ose things. Instead, I feel disappointed. It’s just so small. I feel a wild surge of irrational anger, an urge to smash the bowl to pieces, scatter the dirt on the floor. That can’t be all that remains, I rage inwardly. The Earth is huge! There are forests, deer, grasses. This is a mockery of dirt. A travesty, a deception . . .

  My hand reaches out, and I touch the lip of the bowl, pinch it between my fingers. I wouldn’t, not ever. Whatever crazy thoughts are coming into my head, this relic is far too precious.

  Then I hear a shriek from behind me, and someone grabs me by the shoulders, spinning me around. I can’t let go of the bowl in time! In slow motion I see the bowl spin off the pillar. Pearl’s ringlets tickle my neck as she giggles and squeals at having found me. “We found it!” she crows in my ear as the bowl sails through the air, smashes, the dirt scattering. She’s so proud of herself that she doesn’t realize what just happened. I shove her out the door.

  “We have to go! Now!” I shout, giving her commands for the first time ever.

  “What’s that?” she asks, craning her neck over my shoulder.

  “An art exhibit,” I lie, and close the door behind us, panting. My eyes are wild, I know, and I try, and utterly fail, to look nonchalant. I’ll be excommunicated. I’ll be executed. “You’ve found the exit? Then let’s go.” Finally I force a grin that must look maniacal. “I’m ready for a snow party!”

  Pearl leads us back to the corridor and out to the Skyhall, where we meet up with Lynx and Copper. A moment later we step out into Eden, just as the first snowflakes float down around us.

  “YOU DID IT!” I cry as we run away from the outdoor stage where the outer circles had their Snow Queen contest. It has been snowing for hours now, and we’re slipping and stumbling tipsily. The air is artificially chilled and the snow is rising in drifts, coating the world in white.

  “Did you have any doubt?” Pearl asks, arching her perfect pale golden eyebrows.

  Well, yeah. She was going up against every beauty in the outer circles. Some of the competition was as gorgeous as she is. Not that I’d ever tell Pearl that. What really clinched it for her was the story she told. She registered under a false name and gave a long monologue about her poverty-stricken family skipping breakfast for weeks so she could buy the material for the dress, which her mother painstakingly sewed between her three jobs. Her tale of smiling bravely through poverty was so exquisitely touching that even I had tears in my eyes as I watched from the sidelines. Her acting was amazing. (And of course, we have elocution classes at Oaks.)

  Now we have our arms flung around each other, all rivalries forgotten (for the moment) as we giddily escape. Right now the photographers are looking for the lovely “Ruby” who just won everyone’s heart, but they’ll soon find out that not only has she vanished—she doesn’t exist. Pearl is flushed with victory. As we swing into the nearest autoloop station she hands her entertainment circle pass to the nearest beggar.

  “See,” she says smugly, “the contest helped the poor after all.” We laugh at the idea of the dirty, bedraggled man getting free admittance to some of the hottest clubs in Eden. Pearl decides to keep the other half of the prize—a credit-filled card—to fund our night of adventure. Because, of course, the night has only just begun.

  I suggest we go to Arctica, a club whose theme matches this frigid night. It’s popular with Oaks kids, and some of the other good schools, too. Which is apparently what makes it vastly unpopular with Pearl tonight.

  “I have a better idea,” she says. “Why go somewhere we always go and see the same old dull faces? Tonight, we’re going to Tidal!”

  I haven’t even heard of it.

  She rolls her eyes elaborately. “You’ll see. And you’ll thank me for it the rest of your life.”

  She takes us to one of the tallest buildings in the inner circles. I never paid much attention to it, though, because it is full of office buildings. Just more people scrabbling for money. Of course, these are already wealthy people scrabbling for a great deal of money, but still. Oaks students come from families with so much money that we never even really think about how people make it. Money is a given in our circle. Power and influence are what we and our families crave.

  The tall building seems totally dark at ground level. “There’s not a club here,” I begin . . . then I see the line going down the street. A line full of people that somehow make me feel inadequate. They are beautiful. Well, so are we. But they have something else, a confidence even greater than ours. I’m not sure what it is. Maybe it is like we are all fearsome warriors, but my friends and I are still fighting a battle, whereas the people on line have already achieved victory.

  They are all young, only a few years older than us. But they are adults. Those two or three years make a world of difference. I see that even Pearl has to take a moment to pull herself together. Once she does, though, she strides with every appearance of utter confidence past the waiting people to the front of the line. She gives the bouncer a slow smile and is about to glide past him. He stops her with a beefy arm.

  “Over eighteen only.”

  Pearl gives a low laugh. “Don’t we look over eighteen?” She narrows her eyes, flirting.

  “No,” he says shortly, and immediately turns to the glamorous women in line. They give us devastating looks and sweep past into the dark atrium.

  Pearl is fuming, her face contorted in unfamiliar ugliness. I think it has been a long time since anyone thwarted her.

  “No,” she says suddenly as we walk slowly away. I can hear some of the fabulous women in line laughing at us. “We’re going to Tidal tonight if it kills us. Come on.” That’s the Pearl I know and love! We walk along the imperceptible curve of the Circle until we come to the edge of the building. Then she ducks into the alleyway in between.

  “There has to be a way in,” she says as she breathlessly tries service doors, and finally finds an unlocked one. We sneak up a few flights, then find the elevators to the roof. But we’re still not quite at the party. The elevator doors open on a high platform with a long ice-blue spiraling water slide that will take us to the wild party below us on the rooftop.

  “No way!” Copper says, crossing her arms. “I’m not ruining this outfit in water this early in the night.” Pearl looks like she agrees, though I think it might be fun. Without worrying about the delicate feathers on my outfit, I climb up onto the slide and launch myself down to the party.

  It feels amazing, and somehow familiar—slithering down at breakneck speed. Inside the claustrophobic tube are bands of light that race past me as I fly, making me feel like I’m being sucked into a vortex. With each turn, more colors are added to the lights until I’m in a rainbow, sliding across the sky awash in a thousand colors. It’s utterly thrilling! At the last moment everything goes black, and it’s like I’m flying through outer space. I’m not sure where I’ll land, but fortunately it’s not in the big pool in the middle of the roof, but on a soft cushion. Staff members are waiting to help me to my feet. I’m hardly wet at all, which makes me wonder if they somehow managed to make synthetic water which, against the laws of physics, isn’t as wet as other water.

  Pearl follows, and the others, and we stand together in a world of blue and white. Tidal is ocean themed, and partiers dance and laugh and flirt all around a turquoise pool that heaves with realistic foam-capped waves. The snow makes it even more magical, drifting down in fluffy gusts.

  Pearl catches my gaze and holds it. She’s blazingly beautiful, triumphant. Falling snow settles on her long lashes, fluttering when she blinks, falling to melt on her flushed cheeks. She flashes me a grin of mischievous joy, grabs my hand, and pulls me into the melee.

  We dance, our arms above our heads like trees tossing their branches in the breeze. We sing, our arms intertwined, latched around each other’s waists like coiling vines. We drink until our eyes are glassy bright, until everything is hilarious. We crash into each ot
her, almost hysterical with the sheer joy of being alive and young. I can’t even remember that anyone else exists. The other people at the club are just a background for our happiness.

  Someone gives Pearl a little golden pill, and she snaps it in half with her fingernail. One piece goes under her own tongue, and she holds the other half out to me on her fingertip. I hold her gaze as I take her finger in my mouth and slowly suck the pill down. For a second all of Eden seems to be still. Then she laughs and pulls me back onto the dance floor.

  And then the pill kicks in, and things get a little crazy.

  I don’t know whose idea it is, but suddenly Pearl has her twinkling shoes off, peels her dress over her head, and is leaping into the crashing waves of the decorative pool wearing only her filmy slip. Her ridiculously expensive dress is crumpled on the floor, but she doesn’t care. She’s frolicking like a sea nymph, rising and falling effortlessly with the swell of the waves. Her long silver hair comes free from its pins and flows around her shoulders like molten metal. Around the pool, people stop and stare. I don’t know if they admire her or think she’s crazy. Probably both. All I know is that she dares to do things no one else would, and doesn’t care a bit what the world thinks.

  I’m always considering what people will think. Not that I let Pearl or anyone else know that.

  “Come in!” she calls to me. The snow is swirling around her bobbing head, merging with the water the moment it hits the surface. “The water is warm!” She swims from one side of the pool to the other with languid, effortless strokes.

  She draws me to her like a magnet. I want to be just like her. I need her approval.

  I pull off my long boots, strip off my raven feather shirt, and leap into the waves. I have a vision of swimming to her side, dancing in the churning foam, diving under side by side with her like long-extinct dolphins.

  Instead, I sink like a stone.

  I can swim. I know I can swim! I remember going to the pool at my parents’ social club when I was a little girl. And the river in the Fifth Circle park with prop pebbles on the banks, and mechanical fish swimming lazily in the ever-circling current. Those memories are hazy and long ago, as if someone told me about them in detail but I wasn’t paying very close attention. But I also remember being in water in other times, too, floating on my back in a weightless, peaceful world without sensation, a voice speaking soothingly from somewhere very close, telling me to relax, open up, everything is fine . . .