Seeking Eden Read online

  “I just thought…you must be a great fighter…or a good hider,” she said in a low voice as she walked. “And when you said you found the storehouse with all that stuff in it…I thought you just must be very clever. And brave. I…I just never thought much about it, Tobin. I didn’t think of how long it took you to get here or anything.”

  “Because Reb Ephraim and the council told you what you needed to know, right?”

  “They always do,” Elanna said, finally standing still. “Don’t they?”

  “There’s a world out there you’ve never heard about. It’s huge. There’s more to the world than just New York City, or the Tribe. More beyond even than the Park and the Savages, Elanna. California might have fallen off the edge of the world like you were taught, I don’t know. But if it did, it was an edge much, much farther away than you could imagine. There are other people living in this world, maybe even more than two thousand. There are places you’ve never heard of. Places I’ve never heard of. The stories that Reb Ephraim’s told you all…some of them just aren’t true. Do you believe me?

  She crossed over to him and sat. “I believe you. I don’t know why, but I do.”

  A brief puff of breeze brought the fresh scent of her to him, and Tobin’s heart double thumped. Suddenly, he didn’

  t care any more about her past. Pulling her toward him, he pressed his mouth against hers. All that mattered was the future.

  −17-

  She couldn’t stop smiling. She’d been kissed what? A thousand times maybe? More than that? But none of those kisses had ever stayed on her lips like Tobin’s had. She wanted to laugh out loud, and she didn’t really know why.

  Something had passed between them among the rubble and the weeds. She didn’t quite know what it was, but it had turned her entire world upside down. She didn’t know if her stomach churned from excitement or terror. Maybe both.

  “I’m leaving tonight,” he said.

  Her stomach twisted again, but this time she recognized the feeling as disappointment. She didn’t want him to go. She couldn’t bear for him to go. Not now, when his kisses had held the promise of something for which she’d yearned but never dared dream.

  “Do…do you have to?” The words came out sounding weak and silly, and she hated them. Her heart had leaped at his words, her dream of finding a place to go where she could live as a woman renewed. Yet now, when the chance arose before her, she feared taking it.

  “After what I told you, do you have to ask?”

  She thought of the years of lies. The stories. The things she had always, in some deep corner of her mind, suspected were not true but had never questioned.

  “The Tribe is my family,” she said helplessly. She turned back to him, feeling the tears hot in her eyes but not willing to brush them away. Ashamed not because what she said was true, but because she’d already thought of running away but had never found the courage. She had a reason, though. “My babies are here, Toby.”

  He looked startled. “Nobody’s ever called me that before.”

  “If you don’t like it --”

  “I do.”

  She thought, hoped, that he might kiss her again, but instead he merely smoothed the hair away from her forehead.

  “I have to go,” he said. “I don’t expect you to go with me.”

  That set her teeth on edge, and her mouth turned down in a frown so tight it hurt. “You don’t?”

  “I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

  He shook his head. Nervously he rubbed his hands together, cracking the knuckles until she thought she might scream.

  She wouldn’t ask him why. She wouldn’t let the words come out of her mouth. She’d bite her tongue until it squirted blood before she’d open herself up to hurt again.

  “Why not?” she asked anyway, powerless to stop the question.

  “This is my journey, my quest.” Tobin bent and put his face in his hands, rubbing his cheeks and then running his hands through his dark hair again and again until it stood wildly on end. “My danger. I don’t know what’s out there, Elanna. I don’t know if I’ll find anything at all, much less what I’m looking for. I can’t ask you to give up the life you have here just to follow a stranger.”

  “I didn’t think,” Elanna replied stiffly, “that we were strangers anymore.”

  He sighed, and when he looked up at her she was alarmed to see that red rimmed his eyes. He looked haggard. The scruff of a beard she hadn’t paid attention to before stood out on his cheeks.

  “You have so much here,” he said. “You don’t even know. Everyone’s talking about how much better it will be when the gatherers bring back the goods from the warehouse, and that’s probably true. But the Tribe is living pretty good. You have things here I’ve never even seen. Candy. Food. Clothes. Lanterns.” He laughed hollowly. “Indoor plumbing, for god’s sake. Compared to how I lived in Maine…in some ways this is like a paradise.”

  “Then why leave?”

  “Because it’s only like a paradise.” Tobin touched her hair again, her cheek. “I can’t stay here and be silent about the truth I know. It’s fine to want to stay somewhere, but to be told lies to prevent you from even wanting to leave, or being afraid of leaving, I can’t stomach that.”

  “You said you wanted children,” Elanna said, hating the desperation in her voice. “I can give you children, Toby!”

  He held her face in his hands. “But you can’t give me you.”

  Hopemothers did not marry, nor did they keep themselves only for one man. It was a truth she’d railed against but couldn’t imagine differently. She put her hands on her belly, where she kept the secret she’d be unable to keep much longer.

  “Then take me with you,” she said quietly. “I’ll go.”

  He smiled at her condescendingly, and she frowned again. “I need to travel quickly. I need to go a long way.”

  “And what? You’re afraid I’ll hold you back?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Then what?” she demanded.

  “Elanna.” Tobin sighed. “You have no idea what it’s like beyond the city. You’ll have to walk a lot. Scrounge for food. There won’t be any privileges like you’re used to. You have to be tough.”

  She shoved herself away from him and stood. Her fists clenched so she wouldn’t give in to the urge to throttle him. She bit her lip for a moment until she was certain she could talk without screaming.

  “I’ve given birth thirteen times. I’ve labored for three days in a row, without pain relief, with nothing but a piece of leather to chew on to stop myself from passing out, Tobin. I’ve had babies torn out of me because they couldn’t get out on their own. I think I’m pretty tough.”

  His face grew white at her speech, and he swallowed heavily. “Think of what you’d be leaving behind.”

  She thought about it. Babies she carried in her womb and nurtured, only to have them taken from her before they could even call her mama. Men who touched her body but didn’t even think about her heart. Privileges and honors that did nothing to combat a life of loneliness. And despair so deep, so keen that she had once thought about taking her own life. She thought too of the secret she carried in her womb, the one even Reb Ephraim didn’t know about.

  “Isn’t that my choice to make?

  ”

  -18-

  Chedva caught up with them just inside the main doors. “It’s almost time for the banquet! They’re serving veal.”

  “Veal?” Tobin asked. Where did they keep the cows?

  “A real treat,” Elanna said. “The Reb and the Beit Din must really be pulling out all the stops for you.”

  “For me?”

  “The banquet is to honor you, silly,” Chedva said. “There’ll be veal, and challah, and matzoh ball soup….” She clapped a hand to her mouth and hiccupped.

  “You look a little green,” Tobin told her. “Do you feel all right?”

  Chedva grinned and wiggled, though her normally rosy cheeks were still