I couldn't help it then. I started laughing out loud. I didn't think I'd ever seen a spectacle quite like that one before.
When I finally opened my eyes and got control of my laughter, I looked up and Eden was sitting there in nothing but her wet undergarments, staring at me with wide eyes and her lips parted in that same O shape they had been in when she had seen me talking to Hannah Jacobson.
I went serious, now in control of the initial lust that had swept over me at the sight of her. As I stared at her, a strange feeling gripped me, almost like a sort of déjà vu, as if this moment was a memory—not one that was in my mind, but in my blood, in the very fiber of who I was. It felt like some sort of recollection, or maybe a vision. Or perhaps a misty, long-forgotten dream coming true.
"Hi, Morning Glory," I finally managed.
She just stared at me for several beats before she sat up straighter and said, "Hi, Butterscotch."
I cleared my throat, as Eden seemed to remember she was half-naked and covered herself with her arms. "Will you . . . will you," she pointed to her clothes discarded on the grass next to the spring, "bring me those?"
I went over and gathered them up and waded through the spring, only up to my chest and handed her clothes to her as I pulled myself up on the rock. She put them on quickly as I looked away. When I looked back, she was doing the last of the buttons up the front of her shirt, and I saw her hands were shaking.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
Her eyes darted to mine and her cheeks turned a beautiful shade of pink. "I . . . I hate snakes," she said, her lips quivering now. "Like, really, really hate them."
I stared at her for a couple seconds. "Sure didn't seem like it to me. I don't think it seemed like it to that snake either." I grinned at her.
She let out a big breath and smiled timidly back at me.
I had been half right. Her eyes were the color of a deep blue morning glory. Only up close I saw gold flecks along the outer rim. They were the color of a blue morning glory, bathed in sparkling, early morning sunlight.
She looked down at her lap and said quietly, "It's just I haven't been here in a while, and I was really looking forward to it. It's all I wanted. Just to swim across the spring and sit on this very rock, the only one in the sun. And then I saw that snake, and I . . . I never get what I want." Her eyes flew to mine again. "And I know that's selfish. I shouldn't just think of myself. I just . . . it made me so angry . . ." she trailed off.
"I understand," I said, taking her hand in mine. Something raced across the inside of my skin when our hands touched and I pulled away quickly.
Our eyes met again, and Eden blurted out, "I've kept every single morning glory. All forty-six of them."
I grinned. "I've eaten every single butterscotch candy. All . . . well, I lost count, but all of them." I grinned bigger and so did she.
She turned toward me more fully. "How do you get them in my room?" she asked, her eyes wide.
I laid back on the large rock and laced my fingers behind my head. I was soaking wet, but the sun was shining, and I'd be dry soon enough.
I squinted up at Eden above me, closing one eye against the sun. She had turned and was looking down at me, waiting for my answer.
"My sister delivers things. I send them with her when she has a delivery up at the main lodge."
Eden nodded her head vigorously. "Yes. The little girl who . . ." She paused and I tensed, waiting for her to make note of Maya's mental state.
"Sews so beautifully."
I relaxed and smiled, nodding. "Yes, that's her."
Eden smiled and tilted her head. "Well, now I'm going to have to deliver two butterscotch candies. I didn't know you had an employee." She smiled at me and I chuckled. God, she was so pretty. She dazzled me with her pale blonde hair and those big, dark blue eyes that seemed to have a whole world behind them—a world I suddenly wanted to know, to explore.
"How old are you, Eden?" I asked. "Hector never mentioned . . ."
"I'm sixteen."
I was surprised. She looked younger and I had always assumed she was. To me, her age was directly linked to the foretelling of those great floods. I nodded, doing the math and suddenly feeling more anxious than I had before. I moved that aside.
"Can I see it?" I finally asked.
"It?" she said, a look of confusion on her face.
"The mark."
"Oh, yes, the mark." She hesitated for a brief second, but then turned around and moved her hair away from her left shoulder and brought her blouse down to bare it.
I moved closer and squinted my eyes to see what looked like a smallish birthmark near her shoulder blade that was supposed to be an eclipse.
"And the moon shall move in front of the sun, as the waters rise and cover the earth," I whispered, quoting from Hector's Holy Book.
I felt Eden shiver slightly as I traced the mark on her back. I guessed it did look like an eclipse, as much as any birthmark could.
Eden pulled her shirt back up and turned toward me again.
She suddenly looked shy and I wondered what she was thinking. I watched her, waiting to see if she'd tell me.
She smiled a small smile. "In the church I went to before I came here, I think there was a story about the first man and woman in a place I imagine to look like this one." She waved her arm around at the towering rocks and the spring right in front of us, glistening in the sunlight. Her smile widened. "There was even a snake!" She laughed and I couldn't help smiling, too.