The Violet Awakening (The Elementum Trinity Book 2) (4 page)

“Oh, wow… Uh… Thank you,” I said, holding the jar of mushy greenish-yellow stuff up to the light for examination.

Lily and Al had neglected to mention that the other Elementums would be giving us gifts. It was uncomfortable enough accepting presents from total strangers, but even more so when we didn’t know what half of the things were.

“It’s dandelion jelly,” a woman I remembered as Karen said, seemingly unoffended by my lack of knowledge on homemade canned goods.

At least the majority of the gifts were hand-made. It wasn’t like accepting a beautiful necklace from someone you’d just met. They’d put the gathering together so quickly, it was pretty obvious that most had grabbed something random out of their cupboards. Still, I would have been perfectly happy with handshakes and the odd hug.

“You can make jelly from dandelions?” I questioned, spinning the top off the jar to take a whiff. It actually smelled pretty good, not at all like a lawn.

Karen chuckled and waved her hand at me, as if she were brushing off a silly joke. I wish I’d been joking. I knew very little about preparing even the simplest of foods, let alone ones made from weeds.

“Has everyone given their gifts?” Lily asked, hair nearly glowing in the dimming sunlight.

“Wait!” a squeaky voice called from somewhere in the crowd.

I recognized the girl, coppery hair bouncing as she led her young generation toward us. She’d given me a dandelion on the day before, when I’d first set foot in the Eden. My heart ached as I thought of Jenny.

“We made these for you,” the girl said, as she and another young girl held out rings of little white flowers.

“They’re lovely,” I smiled, kneeling down so she could place the band on my head. A snicker escaped as Lakin did the same, returning upright with a lopsided crown of foliage.

“You’re a princess, now,” the girl cheered as she threw her arms around me in a hug.

“Thank you,” I chuckled.

“Do I get to be a princess, too?” Lakin asked with excitement. I’d never seen him interact with kids before. It was kind of adorable.

Laughs rang out from the crowd as the girl nodded with certainty.

“Thank you, Amelia,” Lily said sweetly, as the girl led her generation back to their parents. “Roland, if you would?”

The old man stepped forward, braids swinging elegantly behind him. In front of us, branches and logs had been stacked into a massive pile, nearly as tall as Lakin. I felt a tinge of anticipation as I finally realized what the wood was for. The closest I’d ever come to seeing a bonfire in real life was when Eddie had accidentally turned the gas up too high on his grill.

Roland took hold of one of the many torches that lined the field. One by one, others met him, igniting flames in their palms. Soon, everyone was gathered around the wood pile in a circle, hands blazing in a scene that could have easily been mistaken for a cult ritual.

“Angie? Lakin? Will you join us?” Roland asked politely, reaching out his torch.

I began stretching my arm toward the flame, when Al’s voice resonated in my mind.

‘Better not…’
His words of caution reminded me of the incident in the bathroom, and I quickly withdrew my hand.

“I’ll just watch, thanks,” I said quietly, slightly disappointed by my inability to participate.

“Lakin, then?” Roland prodded.

“I… I can’t,” Lakin admitted shamefully, looking down to his feet.

“Sure you can,” the old man said, grinning as he took Lakin’s hand into his own and held it above the flame.

Lakin struggled for a moment, trying to pull away so as not to be burned, but when Roland finally let go, a ball of flickering fire rested comfortably in his palm. His wide eyes flashed in the light as he beamed at me with all the excitement of a child seeing the ocean for the first time.

I smiled, wrapping my arm around Lakin’s in support.

“With this flame, may we be united,” Roland called, lowering his torch to the pile of wood.

A portion of the others repeated his words, and sent their flames flying into the woodpile, but there was a visible divide. The older generations spoke with passion and faith, but from Al’s generation down, I noticed a lot of silence and eye-rolling. Many of them, Cora and Nixon included, simply closed their palms, never joining their flames with the others. Perhaps the Eden was not as perfect as it seemed.

‘The old ways are dying out,’
Al’s voice called in my head, as my eyes locked with his from across the fire.

‘Why? After all this time?’
I thought.

‘Because of you.’

‘What?!’

‘If your generation hadn’t been lost, none of us would have ever integrated ourselves with The Destructive Ones. When we did, we noticed a lot of… inconsistencies with what we were raised to believe. Some have decided to deviate from the old ways, because they’re unproductive; Folklore, handed down from the generations to keep us divided from the outside world.’

‘What do you believe?’
I asked.

‘I believe that things have changed, and will continue to change. And I don’t think we’ll ever make a difference if we don’t change along with them. But many of us respect our elders and traditions enough to go with it.’

I felt an inexplicable sadness grow inside of me. It was as if I’d just learned that the encompassing peace of the Eden was only a ruse, projected by many of the inhabitants to play along with tradition until tradition finally died with age or lost memories. And it was partially my fault.

“Do you guys want to go for a walk?” Gabe’s voice shook me out of my own head. I hadn’t even noticed that he and Reagan had been standing behind us.

“Where to?” Lakin asked skeptically. I couldn’t blame him for being unsure of Gabe’s intentions, but I trusted him. I didn’t know why I trusted him… but I did.

“We just want to give you a tour of the Eden,” Reagan said innocently, voice as airy as the wind.

“Okay,” I said, more than happy to get away from the crowd for a while.

“Angie, I don’t know,” Lakin whispered, grabbing hold of my arm as I moved to follow after them.

“Come on, what’s the worst that could happen, really?” I said, tilting my head to the side.

“Wouldn’t it be rude to leave, though? They’re doing all of this for us,” he said.

I looked around the fire; everyone had begun to dance and sing and chat, again, seemingly unaware that we were even there.

“I think it’ll be all right,” I chuckled.

“We won’t be gone long,” Reagan said, gesturing toward the rest of the Eden. “If you haven’t noticed, this place isn’t very big.”

Lakin thought for a moment, lowering his eyebrows with uncertainty. “I’m going to stay. And I think you should stay, too.”

“Suit yourself,” I said stubbornly, taking off after the eccentric couple.

“So, what do you think?” Gabe asked, after we were out of earshot of the gathering.

“Of what?” I asked, kicking a small stone from the dark path.

“This place? The people? Is it better than The Facility?” he questioned.

“Anywhere is better than The Facility,” I said.

“You’ve never been to Singapore,” Reagan muttered. Gabe laughed, as though it were some sort of inside joke between the two of them.

“Well, I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation with Al,” he said casually.

“What conversation?”

“A few minutes ago… About our traditions,” Reagan said, knowing exactly what Gabe was referring to.

“You… you were listening to that?” I breathed. My heart raced, not because I felt caught, but because I was suddenly very angry that my thoughts were no longer safe from the ears of strangers. I was comfortable enough with Al that his voice never felt intrusive inside my head, but I didn’t know these people, and I definitely didn’t want them poking around my brain. “So, is this an ambush, or something?”

“Not at all,” Reagan said sincerely.

“Which side are you on, then?” I asked. “Are you guys all ‘pitchforks and torches’ to the old ways?”

“Not even close,” Gabe said. Based on my first—and second—impression of him, I never would have thought that he could be so serious. “Come on.”

I followed them around the back of a house near the end of the Eden. I assumed it was theirs, but didn’t ask. As the soft grass squished beneath my feet, my jaw dropped at the sight; a massive garden sprawled out in front of us, leading all the way to where the wall of water met the ground. Torches lined the edges, casting flickering shadows against leaves and flowers. I recognized many of the plants from the greenhouse at The Facility, others from Emmy’s Botany books that I had skimmed through on occasion, but some looked so exotic that they couldn’t have possibly been from earth.

“This is amazing,” I whispered, surprised that the Eden could have been any more beautiful than what I’d already seen.

“Thanks!”

I jumped, nearly falling over, as an old woman popped her head up from amongst the greenery.

“Mother,” Gabe shouted, just as startled as I was. “What are you doing out here?”

“Gardening,” the woman said, staring blankly as if the answer had been obvious.

“It’s nighttime. You should be home,” he said, carefully stepping through plants to usher his mother out of the garden.

“But it’s so boring there, Gabriel,” the woman said, perfectly mimicking the discontent of a child who had just told to clean their room. “And Jackie keeps asking when Cookie is coming to visit. And I told her, I said, ‘Jackie, baked goods aren’t going to visit you, but I’ll make some snickerdoodles, if you like,’ and then she started crying.”

As they grew nearer, I sensed a definite oddness about Gabe’s mother. She was all decked out in a flappy gardening hat, cooking apron, hiking boots, and oven mitts. I was certainly no expert on gardening, but something told me that it wasn’t exactly normal gear for picking weeds.

“I’m going to walk her home,” Gabe said quietly. “I’ll be right back.”

“I’m telling you right now, Gabriel. If Jackie’s painted the living room pink, again, I’m moving in with you and Rhiannon.”

“Reagan, mom. Her name’s Reagan.”

I wouldn’t have pictured Gabe as the sweet, kind type, but the manner in which he interacted with his mother reminded me so much of Lily, it became a little less unbelievable that they were siblings.

“Grace isn’t all there,” Reagan explained, leaning against the garden-fence after Gabe and his mother had disappeared from view. “She lost everything when she recycled.”

“But she remembers him?”

“They know who we are because we tell them. They don’t remember giving birth to us, or raising us. They don’t remember any of it. Some of them accept it better than others when we tell them, though. Some of them just get worse.” I could sense the hurt deep in her chest as she spoke.

“So she didn’t handle it too well?”

“Actually, she’s one of the better ones. She’s one of the few recycled who lives on her own. Most of them end up in joint houses, where we take shifts watching after them.”

“What about Jackie?” I asked, recalling the woman’s ramblings.

“Jackie is her cat.”

“I see…” I said, suddenly very concerned that someone who thought their cat had painted the living room pink was considered to be one of the ‘better ones.’ “What about your parents?”

Reagan sighed, pursing her lips as she looked out over the garden. “All of our parents were lost when they recycled. It’s the first generation we know of to have that happen. It’s one of the things that’s fueling the rebellion against the old ways. We can’t ignore that things are changing.”

“You agree, then? You think all the traditions should be ditched?”

“No,” Reagan said defensively. “Gabe and I do think there should be some… modifications. But we think they should be integrated in with the old ways. That’s why we planted this garden.”

“What does a garden have to do with anything?”

“We all have our roles, here. That’s how it’s always been. But fewer and fewer people were taking interest in farming, and they were relying more on food from town. They were making pointless trips into public, because they don’t think we should ‘barricade’ ourselves within the Eden. But it’s not about sheltering ourselves. It’s about living in harmony with nature. Nature doesn’t come in a tin can or a plastic bottle,” she sighed sadly. “A lot of people have forgotten what our purpose is, Angie. They think we’re meant to take out The Destructive Ones.”

“Aren’t we?”

“No,” she breathed, gazing at me with pain in her eyes as if she couldn’t believe the words that had come out of my mouth. “Our responsibility is to the Earth, and to all living things on it.”

“But The Destructive Ones aren’t from here. And they’re destroying the planet. So, wouldn’t it make sense to—”

“We don’t harm other living things if we don’t have to, Angie. You asked which side Gabe and I were on… maybe you should figure out which side you’re on.” Reagan stared at me hard, as if challenging me. She didn’t seem angry or offended, but disappointed… like she’d had some idea of what kind of person I would be, only to find out that I wasn’t at all like she’d hoped. Something inside me felt terrible for letting down a person I barely knew.