Seeking Eden Read online

  “This way,” Luz said, pushing him.

  They led him into another big building, pushing him through doors covered in a patchwork of glass and metal and wood. Once inside, Tobin could only gasp. It was easily as large as the warehouse store, but this was filled with people.

  Everywhere he looked there were people. Men and women. Old and young. Laughing, frowning, talking, kissing, hugging, smiling and shouting. More people than he’

  d ever imagined could exist.

  −10-

  “The gatherers!”

  “They’re back!”

  The cries sprang up all around the vast room, from one person to another. Luz pushed Tobin again, toward the back of the room and another set of doors. Tobin stumbled in that direction, too preoccupied to resist. He heard a buzz of excited mumbling spread out from all around him, and he realized that people were pointing at him. Talking about him.

  “We’re taking you to the Beit Din,” Luz told him. “You can tell your story there.”

  Tobin didn’t really care about the Beit Din, or telling a story, or anything else. He was too enthralled with the sights before him. He’d never imagined anything like this. He was overwhelmed.

  Just outside the doors they passed a smaller area marked off by a serious of soft chairs and couches set up in small groups around a large fireplace. Lots of people sat on the chairs. Some played chess, a game he recognized. Others talked or worked on mending, something he was also greatly familiar with.

  Luz pushed Tobin in front of one of the couches set up along the wall next to the door they were heading toward. A young woman sat on the couch, holding something wrapped in a blanket. She was talking to it, cooing and smiling, and as Tobin watched she bent to kiss it.

  Just as Tobin passed her, he saw inside the blanket. A baby. Everything stopped for him in that moment. Luz’s insistent shoves did no more than shake him, for Tobin’s feet had become like stones attached to the floor. It was a baby.

  The baby giggled and kicked its tiny feet in the blanket. The mother stared at Tobin curiously, watching him as he reached out to brush his finger along the baby’s impossibly tiny, downy head. It was soft.

  “His name is Daniel,” the mother said.

  Then they were dragging him away, but they couldn’t take the feeling of the baby’s head away from his hand. A baby. He’d never dreamed…

  “Welcome back!” Spoke an older man with a long beard, dressed all in black. “Ari, tell me what you’ve gathered for us this time!”

  Ari outlined Tobin’s story, leaving out the part where Tobin refused to go along to show them where to find the store. Tobin stayed quiet, still wrapped in the dream of the child. The Beit Din, two men and an enormous woman, all in black, listened carefully.

  “This is cause for celebration! We’re honored to have you as our guest, Tobin Winter. You’ve brought us joyous news,” the man with the beard said. He clapped Tobin on the shoulder, making Tobin wince as pain flared from his many wounds. The man’s eyes met something in the crowd, and he smiled. “Adonai has surely listened to our pleas.”

  An enormous woman standing next to the bearded man let out a low, scoffing laugh. “You were right, Ephraim.”

  “Come,” said the man she’d called Reb, holding out his hand to Tobin, “let’s make sure you’re taken care of.”

  -*-

  Leah had started crying and been unable to stop; they’d taken her away “to rest.” Everyone knew what that meant. She wouldn’t be back for a long time, perhaps ever. Elanna knew she needed to put this away from her head and stop thinking about her own child, but she couldn’t.

  What she hated was that nobody would talk about Leah’s child, nor Leah herself. There was plenty of talk, all right, but all of it centered around the man the gatherers had brought back with them. She couldn’t walk down the hall without hearing the whispering. Who was he? What was he like? And most of all, was what he said true? Was there a place filled with new clothes, food and batteries still in their packs?

  “I don’t know,” Elanna snapped at last to the impatiently wriggling Chedva. “I haven’t talked to him. You know the Beit Din’s taken him away until they can make sure he’s all right. Not sick.”

  “Tamar says he’s from uptown,” Chedva said conspiratorially, inching closer.

  Elanna sighed, but she couldn’t escape. It was her shift to work in the kitchen, something even hopemothers couldn’t get out of. Two thousand people ate a lot of food and used a lot of dishes. She continued scraping plates and scrubbing platters. Maybe Chedva would be called away to do something else. Eventually.

  No such luck. The kitchen bustled, as it always did, with several of the ovens always going and the stovetops covered with bubbling and steaming pots. Meals were served three times a day in the main dining hall, but not everyone could fit in there at once. Each meal period had three sittings, and everyone rotated their sitting time from week to week. It made seating easier, but meant the kitchen never closed.

  Chedva had switched with another girl solely for the purpose of working with Elanna. She was a good partner, too, keeping up despite all her chatter. Dish duty was Elanna’s least favorite of all, except perhaps for privy duty. Having a swift moving partner was a blessing, and almost worth the chatter. Almost.

  “Tamar says the gatherers found him there!”

  “Don’t be silly, Chedva,” Elanna broke in, unable to stand any more. “He’s not from uptown.”

  “How do you know?” Chedva asked, scrubbing furiously until her plump cheeks turned pink.

  “He was wearing clothes,” Elanna said.

  “Oh. Yeah. Maybe he’s a Bridger.”

  Elanna sighed, scrubbing. “I don’t think so. They hardly ever leave the bridge by themselves.”

  “Well, wherever he’s from, I think he’s awfully cute,” Chedva said dreamily.

  Elanna turned to look at her, amused. “Do you?”

  “Oh, definitely,” Chedva said a trifle defensively. “He looks so…exotic.”

  “Maybe you’d like him better if he were from uptown,” Elanna said and laughed. She blew a puff of suds at the other girl. “You know, that savage attraction.”

  “Wouldn’t it be wonderful,” Chedva said earnestly, “if what they say is true?”

  Elanna thought of a new coat and not having to worry about whether the gatherers would bring enough food to last another winter. Not worrying if they’d be able to get another season’s growth out of the roof top gardens. Having bright lights again, at least for awhile. Maybe even some pretty things, like scented soap and soft sponges.

  “Yes,” Elanna said. “It would.”

  -*-

  “I told you Ha-Shem would send someone to help us.” Ephraim tried and failed to keep the smug tone from his voice. It was a failing, he knew it. Miriam had often told him so. But just now he had reason to be smug.

  “So you said. But who’s to say this outsider is what he claims to be?” Solomon asked.

  Livna raised both brows. “So far as I can see, he hasn’t claimed to be anything.”

  Ephraim passed a hand over the items laid out on his desk, all of them taken from the man Tobin Winter’s backpack. Everything new, fresh, unused. Unlike anything they’d seen in years. “This doesn’t lie, does it? And he says there’s more. An entire building greater than the size of the Main Hall, stocked with everything we could need for years.”

  “He also says he doesn’t want to stay here. That he wants to move on. To California.” Livna snorted laughter, shaking her head. “Of all the stories...”

  “First, he needs to show us where to go to get to the supplies. That’s all. After that, he can go wherever he likes,” Ephraim said.

  “He says he’ll draw us a map,” Livna said.

  Ephraim shook his head. “Not good enough. I’d like to believe his good intentions in sending us toward the warehouse, but our gatherers haven’t been beyond the city limits since before my father’s time. Without the trucks, we�