Then it clicked. He had been the man behind the glass door whom the saleswoman had spoken with. The owner. Oh no, had he decided I owed more money for the vase? Would he call the police now? I couldn't go to the police. I couldn't.
I stood up too quickly. I managed two steps before the world tilted and fell away.
BOOK ONE
Acadia
“Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed.
You will never be lovelier than you are now.
We will never be here again.”
Homer, The Iliad
CHAPTER ONE
Calder – Ten-Years-Old
It was a Tuesday, the day she showed up. I remember because we were watering the bean crops, and the bean crops only got watered the third day of every week. I heard the white jeep before I saw it, and when I looked up, it was coming around the bend in the road, kicking up dust behind it as it drove toward where we were in the fields. I strained my eyes and could see Hector Bias in the driver's seat and a blonde head in the passenger seat next to him. I put my hand up on my head like a visor and squinted into the bright desert sun, trying to see inside the vehicle better, but the glare of the window glass stopped me from getting a good view and the distance was too great to make out much.
"Hector's back!" I called out.
"Shh, Calder," my mom scolded. "Hector will be happy to see you working hard." But a smile crossed her face as she looked at the jeep getting closer, and then turned back to her work. I rolled my eyes and stuck my tongue out at her back, but bent back down next to her and continued giving those beans the inch of water they liked in order to grow big and tall and strong enough to feed all one hundred and twenty of us.
I didn't see her after that. She lived up at the main lodge with Hector. She was his blessed one—the bride who would stand by his side when we, his people, were welcomed by the gods to the Fields of Elysium, the most glorious paradise within the heavens.
We all wanted to see her though. Everyone was curious about the woman who it had been foretold, along with Hector, would lead us to the hereafter when those great floods came and the end of the world was upon us. I guessed she was kind of like our ticket in.
The news that he had found her on one of his pilgrimages had come back to us through Mother Miriam, his first mistress. But Hector himself had lived away from us for a long time, almost two years, only coming back to visit twice a month or so, as he directed his bride's education and made sure she was ready for her position within our family. She had a mighty big job ahead of her.
And so the day we had been told we would finally be introduced was a pretty big deal. We all quickly shed our dirty linen work clothes, drawstring pants for the boys and men, and long skirts for the girls and women, with loose shirts. Of course, it got so hot in Arizona in the summer I usually took my shirt off and tied a piece of whatever material we had handy around my neck, so I could wipe the sweat off my face as I worked. The handmade material was mostly itchy, but it was better than letting salty sweat drip into my eyes. A few of the other boys did the same thing now and acted like it was their idea, which was fine by me. It wasn't like it was the grandest invention in the world.
After I was dressed in a clean pair of pants and a clean shirt, I ran out the front door of our small, two-room wood cabin as my mom yelled behind me, "Be on time, Calder!"
"I will!" I yelled back, clearing my throat as I made my way between the other cabins. I knew my voice had a hoarse, scratchy quality to it and sometimes yelling hurt my throat. My mom had told me, when I was about three years old, I had cried and cried for a long time, and it had messed up my throat a little bit or something like that. She said she couldn't remember what had set off the marathon crying fit, but one day, it was like I just decided I wasn't going to be unhappy anymore and that was that. She said it wasn't in my nature to carry sadness. I guessed it was true, because I sure didn't feel sad anymore.
I knocked on Xander's back door and his sixteen-year-old sister, Sasha, opened it, her long brown hair flowing loosely down her back. I swept my eyes over her and then looked up into her face. "Hey, Sash," I said, raising my eyebrows, standing up as tall as I could to try to bring myself to her height.
Sasha rolled her eyes and looked over her shoulder. "Xander," she called. "Your little friend is here."
"Little?" I demanded, insulted. "I'll have you know, I grew three inches this summer. My dad marked it on the wall."
Sasha bit her lip, looking as if she was trying not to laugh. That's when Xander breezed by her, grabbing my arm, so I was forced to take off running behind him.
"What the heck?" I huffed as we raced through the dirt paths, narrowly missing old Mother Willa with her herbs piled high in the wagon she pulled behind her.
She yelled something at us, but she was always a little hard to understand on account of the fact she was missing so many teeth. I guessed there just wasn't an herb for that.
Xander came to a stop, and when I caught up to him, I punched him in the shoulder. He laughed, dodging my next punch. "Whoa, you're gonna want to be nice to me." He looked around, then leaned in close and whispered, "Look what I swiped." He opened his hand to show me four, perfect sugar cubes.
"Ranger station?" I asked, looking around, too, and then reaching out as Xander set two in my palm. I tossed them both back and crunched them in my teeth, closing my eyes and moaning as the sweetness filled my mouth and burst across my tongue.
Xander pulled me off the walking path and stopped, turned, and glared at me. I looked at him questioningly, my mouth too full of sugar to talk. "What?" I mumbled, shrugging my shoulders.