Some strange instinct told me to run after her and take her hand. I suddenly realized I was still holding Maya's and my grip had tightened so much she was glaring at me. I loosened it and smiled apologetically at her and then looked back at the girl who now stood next to Hector at the podium.
"My beloveds," Hector said, beaming at us and raising his arms again. "Today is a magnificent day. Today is a day filled with the glory of the gods." He looked around at each of us again. "Today is the day you all meet Eden." He put his hands on the small shoulders of the girl next to him and moved behind her.
I frowned in confusion and looked up and back at my dad and then over at my mom's faces and they both had matching looks of pure pleasantness. I mimicked their small, accepting smiles and turned back around to where Hector and the little girl, the blessed one, Eden, stood. Evidently, I was the only one in my family thinking this was an interesting turn of events.
Hector continued, "I know you're probably surprised to see your mother is so small, so young. As was I when I first laid my eyes upon her and saw she had the mark." He turned Eden, who was looking around the Temple with wide eyes, and directed her to a chair in the center of the council’s seating arrangement. She sat down primly, her hands clasped in her lap—perhaps shaking slightly, although it was hard to see from where I was standing—her lace dress pooling on the floor.
When Hector turned back to us and began speaking again, I moved my eyes away from Eden with effort. Hector moved back behind his podium, looking thoughtful. "The ways of the gods are not always clear to us—are not always predictable, or easily understood. And yet, the gods always know best, do they not?"
"Yes, Father," we said in unison.
Hector nodded and leaned forward casually, resting his forearms on the podium and lacing his fingers together. "Yes, the gods always know best, and the gods always provide. And so the day I saw Eden and recognized the mark on her shoulder that foretold the identity of the blessed one—my perfect balance and harmony—I went back to the home where I was staying and prayed to the gods. How could this be? How could the blessed one, my bride, my wife, the one to lead us into Elysium, how could she be nothing more than a child? My beloveds, I had the same questions I'm sure you have as well."
Hector raised his arms slightly and banged them back down on the podium, startling us. Raising his voice he continued, "That night I prayed to the gods. Please guide me! Don't let me let my people down! My beloveds, they're the reason for my very existence!" He dropped his head slightly, looking wracked with emotion. When he brought his head back up, his eyes were shining.
"I cried and prayed all night long. And finally . . . finally in the early hours of dawn, the gods spoke to me in a whisper." Hector looked around the room and I held my breath, waiting to hear what the gods had said to him. It had to be good.
"‘She is the one,’ they said. ‘Her name is Eden, and she is the one.’"
He paused and looked around again and then turned and held out one arm to Eden, as if presenting her one more time before turning back to us.
"And so she has come to live with us, a child who before was an orphan, alone in the world. And when she reaches her eighteenth year, she will become my beloved, my one and only bride. And as the foretelling has said, we will live together as man and wife for two months and six days before the mighty flood comes and destroys the earth and all the people and animals, and we, the blessed people of the gods, will be escorted to the glorious fields of Elysium where there is no more pain, no more struggles, and never, never any tears."
I felt a chill run through me, just as it always did when Hector spoke of the great flood and our journey to Elysium. Only now, we had a timeframe and now, we knew that the great flood was years and years away—for Eden couldn't be older than eight . . . probably closer to seven. She was so small. I felt my shoulders relax.
"Eden will sit in her place of honor during every Temple meeting, and she will be looked upon with honor and love. Please welcome her with the adoration she deserves."
We all dropped down to our knees and bowed our heads, my mother taking Maya onto her lap, as Maya couldn’t bend her leg. We kneeled like this for several minutes until Hector said, "Rise," and we did. I looked back up at Eden and she was looking around, a more curious look on her face now as she took us all in.
I wondered what it had been like where she came from. I wondered if she had lived in a house, or maybe an apartment. I wondered if she had eaten sugar cubes and drunk Coca-Cola. I wished I could talk to her and ask her all sorts of questions. But, of course, that wasn't possible.
I realized Hector had started speaking again as my mind had drifted away to sugar cubes and Coca-Cola. "As if Eden's presence isn't enough of a surprise, I have one more for you on this glorious day." He paused. "On my travels, I also came across Teresa. Teresa, beloved, will you come up here, please?"
A skinny woman with brown hair and hollow cheeks stood up and started making her way to the front where Hector stood, larger than life itself. Teresa joined him and looked around at the crowd embarrassed-like, finally bowing her head and staring at the floor.
"Before she came here, Teresa led a wicked life," Hector said, shaking his head with what looked to be unbearable sadness. "I found her in an alleyway, offering to do depraved sexual acts for money." Teresa seemed to shrink in front of us even further as several people made disapproving sounds and others gasped and shook their heads. "She had been prostituting herself for drugs since she was sixteen years old. She's thirty-six now."