Revealing Eden (30 page)

She recalled his surreptitious visits along with the soft, rustling sounds, which she decided must have been the stroke of his brush. How many mornings had he stood in the room, studying her? And how had seen her in the dim light? Perhaps, isolated in his hut, he had grown sensitive to subtle shades of light, as well as to the layers of life. Eden longed to hug the sweet boy.

She jumped up, full of glee, and replaced Rebecca’s portrait with her own. Much better, she thought, stepping back to examine it. But how could she continue this unusual dialogue of objects with Logan?

Eden never had owned much, but how useless it all seemed now. Finally, she needed so little. The backpack and
the ruined party dress, which lay in a corner of the room covered by spider webs, were all she possessed here. She dusted off the dress and laid it out on the bed, considering it, when she heard the chirpy prattle of the two sisters in the main room. Her father’s wheezing cough filled the air, as he seemed to gasp for air.

Hold tight, Shen’s message had said. Eden only hoped her father could.

Carmen skipped into her room, offering the morning
chicha
and a fresh white orchid. Etelvina trailed behind, a petulant look on her face. They slung harsh words under their breath at each other. Amazed, Eden understood the tables had turned. She was no longer a monster but more like an older sister whose attention they sought.

“
Gracias
, Carmen,” Eden said and, hoping to diffuse the sibling rivalry, also thanked her sister.

Etelvina seized Eden’s old dress, her eyes dancing with curiosity. Carmen took the other end, trying to claim it. Eden watched the stiff techno fabric fold into odd shapes as the girls tussled over it.

Maria’s entrance immediately calmed her daughters who settled on the floor. Their mother handed Eden a brittle, ash-colored leaf with five points. In a pleading voice she spoke of the powerful healing it would bring Eden’s father.
“Es más fuerte para tu padre.”

After Bramford’s miraculous healing, Eden was anxious to try anything. “Where is it?”

Maria pointed towards the mountaintop.
“La Puerta del Cielo.”

“Heaven’s Gate.” Eden recalled her earlier suggestion
that Bramford venture there to find the potent healing plant.

She emphasized the danger. “
Es peligroso
. You,
El Tigre
go. Doctor okay.”

If only Eden could reassure her that help was on the way. But she couldn’t risk word leaking to Bramford. He might steal away Eden’s father and Logan, too.

Maria knelt down, pretending to dig in the ground. She pulled out an imaginary object and glanced up at Eden with questioning eyes.

“A plant root?” Eden guessed.

“Sí.”
Maria pointed at the leaf in Eden’s hand, explaining that it wasn’t as strong.
“Menos fuerte.”

“You mean the root has more medicine?”

Maria nodded.

It had never occurred to Eden that various parts of a plant contained different remedies—it was just a plant. At home, she always had dialed in her symptoms to the oxy-drip, never wondering what drugs she received. How cut off from the natural world she had been. No wonder she often had felt like a lab rat, dependent and vulnerable, trapped in the tunnels.

The sisters’ squabble over the dress heated up again. Now Eden imagined a comical monkey in the bunched-up fabric, and the perfect idea struck her. She drew her finger along it while making a cutting sound. Carmen’s eyes lit with understanding—Eden needed the bamboo cutter. The young girl sprang from the room with Etelvina in tow.

Once more, their mother appealed to Eden. “You,
El Tigre
go.”

“He doesn’t need me to go with him, Maria.”

She was strangely insistent, as she explained that he didn’t understand.
“El Tigre no comprende.”

Dark, silent eyes bore into Eden. She had the feeling her friend was referring to something other than the plant. Well, Bramford didn’t understand, did he? Not a thing about Eden, anyway.

“Okay, I’ll go with him,” she said. “If he comes back, that is.”
Unless Shen gets here first
.

Her gaze strayed to the window. Bramford had left on his foolhardy quest two days ago. For all Eden knew he might be dead.

“No te preocupes,”
Maria said.

“I’m not worried.”

She faked a smile but knew Maria wasn’t fooled. Eden hardly thought of anything but him.

She welcomed the distraction of the girls’ return. They watched as she spread her old dress on the floor and proceeded to cut it. Inspired by the bandit-like tanager, she decided to fashion a mask for each girl.

At last, Eden saw how to catalog the chaos and at the same time, enhance it with reverie.

For Carmen, she made an umbrella cockatoo,
Cacatua alba
, its striking crest extended in surprise.
Saimiri oerstedii
, the cute squirrel monkey with jutting ears suited little Etelvina. She cut tiny holes at the sides of the masks into which Maria braided long strips of palm fronds. She tied them onto her daughters’ heads. Wide-eyed, they peeked out from the slits. Carmen squawked and preened like the showy bird while Etelvina scampered on all fours, imitating the chirping, squirrel-sized primate.

Eden beamed, wishing this were just one of many future family projects.

Then it came to her. She also would make a mask for Logan. A nocturnal creature like him: the tube-lipped nectar bat,
Anoura fistulata
, so necessary for pollination in the rainforest, and yet as feared and misunderstood as the poor, isolated boy.

She asked Maria to braid one more strip.
“Uno más por favor.”

“¿Para ti?”
For you?

Eden shook her head. “Logan.”

A hush fell over the room. Her companions traded knowing glances. To Eden’s surprise, they glanced at her portrait, which she thought they hadn’t noticed. Now she knew they had been afraid to mention it.

What deep, dark secret could cause the girls’ irrepressible spirits to wilt? Even Maria’s shoulders sagged. It had to be some superstitious Huaorani belief, perhaps because of his mixed race.

Eden carried on as if nothing had happened. She quietly shaped Logan’s mask with oversized pointed ears and wide wings. When she showed it to the girls, they ran away. Maria followed them without another word.

When it came time for Eden to leave the jungle, she would miss them more than she ever imagined. And what would happen to Logan when Shen arrived? She doubted that Bramford would give up his son. But how could Eden leave Logan here to suffer his cruel father?

Wait and see, Eden told herself.

She tied his mask onto the window mesh so that it hung
like an upside-down bat. On impulse she waved towards the gated hut.

Just then, a host of orange-billed sparrows burst through the compound. A barred hawk,
Leucopternis princeps
, chased after them, its white bar flashing like a racing stripe. The hungry predator nipped the tail feathers of the smallest straggler. Eden gasped as the baby bird tumbled downward into the hawk’s beak.

Evolution, she mused. Only the fittest survived. Eden would have to be fit, possibly even fitter than Bramford, if she wanted to save Logan.

E
ARLY THE next morning Eden heard the telltale rustling sounds in her room and sprang to her feet. This time, she caught Logan by the arm before he could flee. The boy made curious yelping sounds as he struggled to get free.

“Logan, please, don’t be afraid,” Eden said.

He continued to look away from her. She wondered if he even understood her. Or was he simply shy?

The pearly glow of dawn barely illuminated him. He wore the bat mask, which had done the trick and wooed him back. She tentatively touched the tip of one wing.

“Do you like it?” she asked, keeping her voice light. “It’s not nearly as nice as the portrait you painted—which I love. I’m glad I have the chance to thank you for it. You’re very talented, Logan.”

Finally, he made a garbled response, though it sounded positive. Did he have a speech defect, perhaps the result of growing up in isolation? Was that the big secret?

“My name is Eden,” she said softly. “You have no idea how happy I am to meet you.”

He seemed to relax so she released her hold. She stepped back to take a better look at him, as a ray of sunlight glanced through the window. She almost laughed. No wonder she
had imagined a spider monkey—he wore black clothing from head to toe. How hot he must have been in the tropical climate. For Earth’s sake, he even had on gloves. Even stranger, Eden saw whitish, kinky hair that puffed over the bat ears. She had expected biracial features, but certainly not Rebecca’s recessive coloring.

“You can trust me,” she added.

Logan turned and stared at her through the slits in the mask like a frightened animal peering from its hole. Despite the overhang of fabric that shadowed his eyes, Eden detected a pale color. Clearly, he also had inherited it from his mother, despite the low genetic odds. Was that what Bramford had meant?
But what were the odds?

Anxious to see the boy’s face, Eden reached for the mask. “May I take it off?”

Since Logan didn’t react, she gently lifted it away. But she wasn’t prepared for the sight of him. How could she ever imagine pinkish eyes or the lack of any pigment in his skin?

Eden stared at him, her thoughts slow and searching. Then, as the shock began wearing off, she grasped the truth.

Holy Earth. Logan was a Cotton!
An albino child
.

A small scream escaped her lips. Immediately, Eden regretted it. Logan’s sad little face puckered. He snatched the mask from her hand with a pitiful cry. Too stunned to react, she watched him crawl through the window and run back to his hut. Of course, it was gated and opened onto the forest so that no one would see him.

Like a sleepwalker, Eden pushed to the main room. The bewildering image of the young Cotton’s face loomed in her mind, along with a noisy zoo of questions. How could
Bramford have produced such a child? The albinism gene had all but been wiped out, at least according to the Uni-Gov’s proclamation. True, they found the occasional albino—and murdered the poor thing. Eden shuddered at the ghastly fate Logan had escaped.

She shook the hammock where her father lay sleeping.

“Wake up,” she said in a trembling voice. “Logan is a Cotton! I just saw him.”

“What?” her father muttered.

He had the humble look of the dying, the eyes soft and accepting. Eden steadied herself against a wooden pole and repeated the news.

“Hmmm. Yes, I see.”

Why didn’t he seem surprised?

“See what?” she said.

“The mother was a carrier of the albinism gene,” her father said with a thoughtful air. “Well, that is news.”

“But, Father?” Eden dropped onto a stool, her mind spinning out of control. “It takes two carriers to produce an albino. So how—” She stopped short, stunned by the implication. “Is it possible? Bramford is also a genetic carrier?”

He struggled to reach the crutch. “Yes, it’s extraordinary. I must see the child at once.”

Eden blocked his path. That explained why he only had remarked on the mother’s condition. He already knew about Bramford.

“Tell me the truth, Father.”

He released the crutch with a weary sigh. “Bramford swore me to secrecy. But now, with the evidence in plain view, anyone can guess the truth. You said it yourself.”

Eden felt the earth tilt, and everything she took for granted with it. Ronson Bramford’s DNA contained traits considered even more dreaded and inferior than having white skin. One of his ancestors had been an albino, a fatal secret that Bramford had gone to great lengths to conceal.

In fact, she doubted if he had ever felt superior to her at all. For Earth’s sake, the proud and mighty Coal must have been as self-conscious as she, if not more so. Both of them had hidden their true identities.

How alike they were, after all. And yet how little Eden had understood him.

“Are you all right, Daught?” her father said, his voice shaky.

Even now, as his energy drained away, he only showed concern for her. For once the dreaded nickname comforted Eden.