Eve: A Novel (27 page)

Anita clenched her jaw and couldn’t speak, so Gerald attempted, but a cascade of tears flowed with his words.

“We have received a summons, a request and invitation to another time and place, and we have accepted. We didn’t know how to tell you. I guess it seemed that if we kept talking, we would not have to say good-bye. I know that is silly, but it’s how I . . . we feel.”

“You’re leaving?” Lilly felt a rush of emotions. “When?”

“Soon,” Anita said sadly. “In a couple of hours. It was very sudden, but we both agree it warranted a quick response. I’m so sorry, Lilly. If there were another way . . .”

“No, it’s okay, really. I just didn’t expect it. You two have become . . . special to me, and I . . .” Lilly didn’t know how to find the words to say how much the couple mattered to her.

“We love you too,” said Gerald.

“And, Lilly,” continued Anita. “I have learned over a lifetime to trust God with everything that becomes precious to me, as you, dear one, have become to us. This is only the beginning of our story. If we didn’t have that sense, we would not be leaving.”

Lilly was quiet and then said, “I need to go and get something I would like to give you. Please don’t go without saying good-bye, okay?”

“Of course. At any rate, we also heard the Caretaker was coming for a visit later this afternoon, and we decided that if he wants either of us, he will have to put a little more effort into it.”

“I don’t understand! Who is this Caretaker person?”

“I’ll explain that to you later, Lilly,” said John. “But right now Gerald and Anita need to prepare for their next journey. Let’s all meet back here in an hour or so to say our farewells.”

“Letty, would you take me to my room?” asked Lilly, and without a word the Guardian pushed her out and down the hall.

“Thank you.” Lilly sighed. “I didn’t know what to say about all that I am feeling. It’s like . . . I mean, it’s as if I’ve finally found a family, and just as quickly they all get taken away.”

“Nothing stays the same, dear one. Trust is not a once-in-a-lifetime decision, but a choice made within each moment as the river runs. We are thankful for the gifts that surround us, and then we let them go, trusting that nothing will be lost, even if we lose it for a time.”

“I am really trying to understand, I am. You probably think I’m just a mess.”

“I think you’re a teenager.” Letty laughed. “The words often go together.”

That made Lilly laugh and she felt better.

When everyone gathered again in the living area to say their good-byes, Lilly handed her journal to Anita, who looked surprised.

“Your journal? Lilly, what is this?”

“It is my gift to you, the one
thing
that is most important to me,
and I want you and Gerald to have it. You two mean more to me than anything I have, even something that is most precious.”

Anita and Gerald were both stunned. John looked on like a beaming father.

“Thank you,” said Gerald. “Truly, one of the greatest gifts we have ever received.”

“John made me this book, and it’s actually a recorder, like the ones down in the Vault. I’ve recorded everything I’ve witnessed, the good and the not so good, because I want you to have that too. I’ve done my part, and now I think it’s time for some Scholars to figure out what it all means.”

John showed Lilly how to add the Scholars’ hand-signatures so they too could access its contents. “I assume,” he told them, “that you will find another Vault in the place where you are going. There you can store and play it back for study.”

“We will see you soon enough, Lilly. It’s just a matter of time.” Without more fanfare everyone exchanged hugs with forehead touches, and then the Scholars left without looking back, for reasons that Lilly understood.

She parked her chair a few feet from the filament window and tentatively stood. John moved close but didn’t assist as she made a few weak, tottering steps to look down onto the beaches below. “I did it,” she proudly exclaimed, and John clapped in agreement.

Gingerly and carefully, she made her way back and sat, exhausted but elated. “John, will you wheel me to the Castle Patio so I can feel the wind and sun?”

For a second he hesitated before he spoke: “I would like that very much.” They soon made their way up the ramp and were about to go through the door and out into the sunshine, when Han-el unexpectedly appeared in front of them.

The Guardian smiled. “John,” the Singer sang, “I will be attending.”

John lowered his head for a moment and thought before nodding. “Thank you!”

“Attending what?” Lilly asked, a sick feeling creeping into her stomach.

Without answering, John pushed her past the Angel and into the open sun. Instead of feeling warmth, Lilly’s heart was gripped by a chill. She took a sharp, surprised breath. Looking out over the water was a stranger in a three-piece suit, his head topped by a black bowler hat that accentuated his pasty and anemic skin. The man’s eyes were hollowed and dark. In contrast to the blacks and whites he wore was an accessory completely out of place: a bow tie of bright scarlet.

“You’re the Caretaker?” she uttered, still trying to curb her fear.

The stranger didn’t turn but answered, his voice smooth and cold. “I have been looking for a friend, a particular one for a long, long time. A Collector. I think you know him, do you not? Is he close by?”

“I’m right here, Caretaker. As if you didn’t know,” John stated flatly.

One could almost say he smiled, this solemn man, but if that is what his expression was, it didn’t last for more than a fleeting moment.

There was something eerie about both his demeanor and authority, and Lilly edged her chair away. She instinctively didn’t want to be near him, not so much because he might be an imminent threat, but more because he stirred up profound trepidation and uncertainty in her heart. It was hard for her to imagine this man close to anyone, especially John the Collector.

“He might be your friend,” she whispered. “But he gives me the creeps!”

“A matter of one’s perspective, I suppose,” John laughed.

“He makes me think of a mortician,” she noted. “Except for that bow tie.”

“The tie?” He laughed again. “That has never made any sense to me.”

Now John spoke directly to the stranger. “So you have come for me?” The question caught Lilly by surprise.

“Wait—you knew he would be here? Why didn’t you say no when I asked to come up here?” she sputtered.

“Lilly, not once have I told you what to do or not, so why should I start now?” And leaning down, he kissed her on the forehead.

The Caretaker turned and for the first time acknowledged the Collector and nodded to Han-el.

“Hello, old friend,” he said to John. “You have been a wily one, difficult to trace.”

“I had help.” He tipped his head toward Han-el, who stood with arms folded.

“True, but now your passport is full. It’s time for you to go.”

“John,” Lilly hissed, “what is he talking about? Go where?” She was afraid to hear the answer.

“Go where?”
John asked the visitor on her behalf. “Another island in between worlds somewhere, or in between dimensions?”

“No, not this time, John. Today, you go home.”

As if things were not strange enough, at these words John burst into tears.

“Home? You’ve come to take me home?” he sobbed, his legs giving way. He slumped to the ground next to Lilly’s chair. She put an arm protectively around him, but she was devastated. Twice in one day, it now seemed, she would be losing someone.

“I know why you came up here.” She breathed the words through gritted teeth. “John, you’re going to die, aren’t you?”

John, gathering himself, stood. But he was smiling through his tears. “May I have a moment to say good-bye?”

“I will wait only long enough for that before I dance you home.”

Ignoring the Caretaker, John knelt to speak to Lilly, face-to-face. “Lilly, I didn’t know for sure. I had my suspicions but was uncertain. I am sorry it is so sudden.”

“I hate this!”

“I know and understand,” he reassured her. “Lilly, listen to me. Because of Adonai, what looks to you like death will be for me more living.”

“I don’t understand!”

“You will, dear Lilly, you will.”

“But aren’t you sad? I’m so sad, I think I am going to fall apart.”

“It is always sad to leave one place and time and enter another, especially when you leave something, someone who is precious. When you get to be my age, you know when a new beginning is close—it’s a premonition maybe? Letting go is also a returning.”

“
John, you have helped put my heart back together. Do you know that you are the first man I’ve ever trusted, ever loved?”

“My honor and my privilege,” he whispered. “Lilly, God is such a magnificent artist that no one is ever healed alone. One day you will see how much healing you’ve brought me.”

“Me?”

“Lilly, I am not asking you to trust me for a lifetime, just for now, today and in this moment. Will you trust me?”

It took her minutes to catch her breath as he wiped away her tears. Finally, she said, “Yes! I will trust you, in this moment.”

“Then tell me good-bye.”

And she did. She hugged him and kissed his cheeks and cried and cried some more. And then she whispered, “Good-bye, John. I will see you soon.”

“You will!” he declared, and taking a deep breath, stood.

“Wait! I have one last question.”

John laughed, clean and clear. “Of course you do, what is it?”

“In Eden there are so many names for God. What do you call Him?”

“That is an easy one. My favorite name for God is Cousin!”

“Cousin?”

“Yes! I have always loved to tell anyone who asked that God is my cousin!” John beamed, as if he were growing younger. “Adonai, Jeshua, Jesus, the second Adam—my cousin, you will see!”

As he turned to face the Caretaker, Han-el appeared walking next to him and took him by the hand.

“I love you too, Lilly Fields!” John yelled back at her, his childlike joy radiant.

And reaching up above the rail, the Caretaker opened what appeared to be a door materializing in the air. He took John’s other hand and with a single agile step the three disappeared right through it. Lilly sat, her mouth open, as the portal shimmered and then evaporated like an image on the water disturbed by a splashing stone.

“Such a show-off,” stated Letty, standing next to her. “Come on, Lilly, we still have work to do! Good thing I don’t need stairs and ramps. Let’s get out of here!”

W
hen
the mist cleared away, Lilly found herself sitting beside Letty in front of the Vault’s door.

“Told you!” said Letty. “So much faster than walking with John.”

Lilly laughed in spite of all the emptiness she felt. “What are we doing here?”

“You have an appointment,” the Guardian announced with a wry little smile.

“I’m meeting someone in the Vault?”

“Nope, better than that.” She paused dramatically and then swept her hand across the surface of the door. “Through here!”

“The door?” Lilly took a closer look. Beside her, Letty hummed happily. The door was still inscribed with the images she had seen: Adam on his knees scooping dirt, Eve reaching out toward him, the infinity snake swallowing its own tail, the One Mountain topped by an all-seeing eye. It seemed almost a lifetime ago since she had been here, though it had only been a few days.

“I
thought the Scholars said that if I go through the door, no one will be able to get me back.”

“That’s why I’m here!” Letty clapped her hands together. “I know all about such doors, and I can get you in and out. One of my specialties.”

“Of course it is. So what do I do?”

“You take my hand and touch wherever you would like to go,” instructed Letty.

“I want to see Eve.”

“As I thought you might.” Letty’s smile was as bright as Lilly had ever seen it. Without another word, the girl stood up from her chair, reached out, and grabbed the Angel’s tiny wrinkled hand, soft as baby skin, then touched the rendering of Eve. A jolting blast went through her, and everything shifted.

When Lilly opened her eyes, she was standing on a mesa overlooking a series of valleys that fell away into the distance. She could make out jagged lines of green haphazardly following creeks and rivers through an otherwise barren wilderness. An arid wind gusted, blowing her skirts around her and carrying the scents of farmed soil and livestock.

To the west, smoke drew Lilly’s attention.

“They fight over grazing land,” Letty explained.

The hand holding hers felt different, and when Lilly glanced down, it was not Letty’s. Turning, she was shocked. Gone was the teeny woman, and in her stead stood an imposing, magnificent blue light-being, shimmering between opaque substance and transparent energy-wave. It instantly reminded Lilly of the blue sentinels standing at the fringes of Adam’s birthday celebration.

The vibrations of Letty’s being resounded from her center, cascading
out and stirring up the frequencies of everything in the area. This, then, was the source of the humming.

“Wow!” Lilly gasped. “Letty? Is that you?”

“What! You thought that tiny old thing was how I looked in real life?” The sense of humor was definitely Letty’s, but the voice was younger and full of vitality. “There are many more places you can go without creating waves if you are not impressive.” Letty’s laughter danced around the girl like a happy child.

“I don’t know,” Lilly answered with a chuckle, “I was always pretty impressed by that grumpy little thing.”

The air was warm and dry, the sun pleasant on Lilly’s skin.

“We are headed that way,” Letty directed, pointing behind Lilly. She turned and looked. A short distance away, a stone escarpment rose a thousand feet and blocked her view of the sky. Nestled into its base, near a waterfall, were dozens of tents that billowed and danced in the breeze. Intermittent gusts tugged on their ropes as if teasing them to fly free. Even from a distance, the flapping of the hides was distinct and sharp.