Eden West (15 page)

“No one is a prisoner here,” I say.

“Oh yeah?” Tobias’s face darkens. “What do you call it when you lock a guy up in a dungeon for a week?”

“You are not locked up now,” I say.

“You really lock people in
dungeons
?” Lynna says to me.

“We have no dungeons,” I tell her. “Tobias was secluded for a few days because he became violent and injured Brother Will.”

“I got in a
fight
because you took all my
stuff
,” Tobias says, growing angry.

“
I
didn’t take anything. And neither did Will.”

He sets his jaw and clenches his fists, and for a moment, I fear he will become violent again, but an instant later he relaxes and opens his hands.

“Well, Enos did, or somebody. It doesn’t matter. Just living here is like being in prison. Nothing to do except work and pray. No phones, no TV, can’t even get online. And since they stole my iPod I’m suffering from, like, terminal music deprivation.”

“Wow,” says Lynna. “You guys should come over sometime. I got like a thousand songs off the Internet.” She says it as if it is nothing. As if we could just stroll blithely out of Nodd to inflict Worldly music upon our souls.

“Where do you live?” Tobias asks.

“Three miles that way.” She points north. “Four if you take the road. Seriously, you guys should come over.”

“I would in a second,” Tobias says. “But I’m out of here.”

“Out of where?”

“Out of
here
. Enos is meeting with me and my uncle later. I’m going to Denver with him.”

The thought of leaving Nodd for the chaos and evil of the World seems insane, but I am not surprised. “You will not be missed by all,” I say, thinking of Will.

Women’s voices are approaching from the hall.

“We must not be seen,” I say.

Tobias laughs. “Right, because we’ll all get tossed in the dungeon.” Tobias picks up his bucket. I see it is empty, but I get a whiff of a strong chemical odor. My mouth opens to ask him what was in it, but he is already walking away from us, toward Menshome. He rounds the corner of the hedge and is gone.

The women are getting close. In a moment they will see us. Without thinking, I grab Lynna’s hand. Ignoring the twinges from my ankle, I pull her awkwardly along the hedge that surrounds the Sacred Heart. I don’t know what will happen if we are seen together, and I do not wish to find out.

Lynna says, “You’re acting really weird, Jacob. If they see us I’ll just tell them I got lost and you found me.”

“You will not be believed,” I say. My body acts before my mind can stop it. I push through the iron gate and we enter the Sacred Heart. I realize I am still holding Lynna’s hand; I let go as if it is burning me.

Seconds later, the group of women passes by, chattering and oblivious. A moment later there is silence.

We are alone in the Sacred Heart.

“It’s pretty in here,” Lynna says, looking around.

I am rendered speechless by what I have done, bringing a Worldly girl into this most holy of places. The Tree is basking in the autumn sunlight, soaking up Heaven’s radiance in preparation for winter. I half expect to be struck down by a bolt of lightning from the clear blue sky.

“Is that a fish pond?” Lynna dances across the cobblestones past the Tree, hardly looking at it, and stops at the lip of the pond. A large bright-orange koi breaches the surface, sending out a radiance of ripples. “They’re beautiful!” She grins at me, and she is beautiful, too. “What are you staring at?”

“You,” I say, because it is true.

She looks quickly away, her cheeks coloring. I hope I have not embarrassed her. Her eyes move to the flower beds, then to the praying wall that surrounds the Tree, and finally to the Tree itself.

“What’s with the wall?” she asks.

“It is the praying wall. It protects the Tree.”

“The tree? That’s the special tree you were telling me about?”

I nod.

She narrows her eyes at the Tree, looking doubtful.

“This is the tree you guys worship?”

“We are not pagans,” I say. “We do not
worship
the Tree.”

“But it’s this special holy tree, right?”

“It is the Tree.”

Lynna shakes her head. “I got to admit, it’s the biggest crab I ever seen.”

“Crab?”

Before I can stop her, she hops over the low wall, reaches up, and plucks a fruit from a branchlet. I gape at her helplessly. I would be no less astonished if she had sprouted horns and a tail.

She holds up the fruit. “See? Crabapple. They’re too bitter to just eat, but you can make good jelly out of them.”

“Come out of there!” I am almost shouting.

“Why?”

I lower my voice. “You can’t be in there. Please!” It is all I can do not to clamber over the wall myself and drag her out.

She shrugs, tosses the fruit over her shoulder, and hops back over the wall.

“I don’t see what the big deal is. We got a crab apple at home.”

I am speechless. My heart is pounding, and I am dizzy. The Sacred Heart whirls around me. I think I may be sick.

“Are you okay?” she says.

I sink to the ground and lean back against the wall and squeeze my eyes closed. The Lord is testing me. It is the same test that Adam failed in the First Garden. This can’t be happening, not here before the Lord and Zerachiel and the Tree and all the Grace. A nose-tingling chemical odor hangs in the air. Is it the smell of brimstone?

I force my eyes to open. Lynna’s face hovers before me. I imagine her pushing a fruit into my mouth, forcing it down my throat, and I jab at her with my cane.

“Hey!” She jumps back. “Did you just try to hit me?”

“Do not touch me,” I hear myself say.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

I am not okay. Everything is wrong. My breath is coming shallow and fast, and I am sure something terrible is about to happen.

“Jacob?”

She is squatting before me. The faint crease between her eyebrows deepens as she stares intently into my face. I close my eyes and see flames; I see her dragging me with her into the pit of Hell. I see my own flesh blackened and flaking, and the hard, pitiless face of Zerachiel receding as I fall. I see the faces of my father, my mother, Father Grace —

“Jacob! Breathe!”

Her voice pierces the curtains of my vision and pulls me back. I take a shuddering breath; Lynna’s face swims into focus.

“I have damned us both,” I tell her. My voice sounds as if it is coming from miles away.

Her expression moves from confusion and concern toward anger.

“Why? Because I picked a crabapple?” She makes a sputtering sound with her lips. “Look above you! You think this tree — or God, or whatever — is going to miss one sour little nubbin?”

I tip my head back and look up at the uncountable fruits supported by the branches of the Tree. I know I should not listen to her, that she is only trying to lead me deeper into sin, but for a moment, I let myself hope that there is truth in what she says. It was such a small fruit, and one among so many . . .

“Besides,” she says, “it’s not like I’m going to tell anybody.”

“Zerachiel knows,” I say.

“Zerachiel’s another god, right? Like the tree?”

The utter foolishness of her question makes it impossible to answer. I shake my head helplessly.

She must sense my frustration. Her face softens and she says, “Sorry. I suppose from your point of view I’m some sort of ignorant savage.”

“You have read some of the Bible,” I say. “You are no Lamanite.”

“I’m no what?”

“Lamanite. Like the man who was sitting with you, with the black hat.”

“Who? George? George Yellowtail is an Apsáalooke Indian. He’s on the Fort Landreau tribal council.”

“‘Lamanite’ is our word for Indian,” I say.

She shakes her head. “I don’t get why you have to make up names for things that already have them.”

“It is what I have been taught,” I say. “Did it not make you uncomfortable to sit with him?”

Her mouth opens, but it is a moment before she can speak. She says, “Why would . . .? I mean . . .
wow
. I’ve known George ever since I can remember. Why would he make me uncomfortable?”

“Because he’s a Lamanite?”

We lock eyes, my heart beats twice, and she explodes with laughter. Another heartbeat, and I am laughing too, though I do not know why. It is as if I have been uncorked. For a few moments, I forget where we are. I am back on the ATV, racing along the fence, when the only real things in the world were the two of us and the wind.

She reaches out and touches my knee. It is like an electric shock, running up my thigh and exploding at the base of my spine. I see my own hand lift itself and move toward hers, and cover it. Her hand is alive between my palm and my knee. I can feel her pulse matching my own.

I do not want the moment to end, but after a few seconds, she withdraws her hand and says, suddenly serious, “Jacob, these things you’ve been taught — that Indians are called Lamanites, and this tree being sacred, and this Zerachiel guy with his ark — do you really believe all of it?”

“I do,” I say. But even as I speak, I detect shadowy doubts lurking in the corners of my mind. I push them back. “The Ark will come.”

She nods slowly. “I suppose it’s no crazier than what other people believe. I mean, Mormons and Muslims and, I guess, some Christian stuff too. That stuff about all those animals fitting into Noah’s Ark is pretty wild.”

“The Ark was three hundred cubits long.”

“How long is a cubit?” she asks.

I show her the distance from the tips of my fingers to my elbow. She thinks for a moment, then says, “Still, there would have to be a lot of animals. I mean, just a pair of elephants would take a lot of cubits, right?” She grins. I don’t smile back. Her grin falls away, and she says, “Maybe God used magic to shrink the elephants down to the size of mice.”

“The Lord does not use magic.”

“I was just kidding.”

“You should not kid about such things. And you should not use His name.”

“What, ‘God’? What do you call him?”

“He is the Lord.”

“Huh. And you really think this big boat is going to come and take you away?”

“The Day will come, and the Ark will come.”

Lynna gives me a long, measuring look. “Jacob, do you think
everybody
else is wrong? Everybody except a few dozen people in Montana?”

“I don’t know about everybody else. I just know what I know.”

She looks away. “I guess that’s all I know, too.” For a time neither of us speaks, then Lynna asks, “Is it true what that boy said?” Lynna asks.

I know she is talking about Tobias, but I say, “What boy?”

“Tobias. That he is a prisoner.”

“No,” I say. “He was in the Pit, and just for a few days.”

“What is the
Pit
? Is it really like a dungeon?”

“I don’t know what a dungeon is like. The Pit is just a room with a pallet, the Scriptures, and a chamber pot. There is little to do there but pray, which is its purpose.”

I hear the creak of iron against iron, the sound of the gate opening. There is no time to hide as Brother Andrew enters the Sacred Heart, pushing his two-wheeled barrow, moving slowly due to his arthritic knees. The barrow is loaded with tools and sacks of bulbs. For a moment, I dare hope that he will not notice us. Brother Andrew can hardly hear, his sense of smell has left him, and his eyes are clouded by cataracts. But my hope is dashed when his milky eyes fix upon us. He peers more closely, frowning as if he has discovered a pair of unfamiliar weeds lurking amongst his tulips.

I clear my throat. “G’bless, Brother,” I manage to say.

“Eh? What is that?” His eyes move from me to Lynna, then back to me. “Brother Jacob,” he says after a moment.

He sees more clearly than I have given him credit for.

“To be young and callow,” he says, shaking his head. “Such wondrous wicked days.” With that, he pushes his barrow past us to the flower bed on the far side of the Sacred Heart and busies himself with his planting.

Lynna is staring at him, openmouthed. She looks at me and whispers, “That’s the longest beard I’ve ever seen!”

“Brother Andrew is our eldest,” I whisper back. “We should go.”

“Are you going to get in trouble?” she asks as we move toward the gate.

“I do not know.”

“How old is Brother Andrew?”

“He has ninety-four years.”

“Maybe he’ll just forget he ever saw us in there.”

“His memory is not what it was,” I say, even though I know there is no hiding my transgression from the Lord, nor from myself. I have compounded my sins. The Lord struck me down in the woods and forced me to limp and crawl the miles back to the Village, yet still I transgress. Even now as we leave the Sacred Heart, I am imagining when once again the Worldly girl and I can be alone with each other.