He studied the pictures for several minutes, skimming through all the pages before he looked up and smiled. “Got it.” Axel jumped up. He reached out to me. I slipped my hand into his, and he pulled me to my feet. “We’ll practice until you’re an expert.”
“You don’t have to do that. This is really a waste of time.” I shook my head. “Wait, how could you have gotten all of it?”
“I know I don’t have to, but I want to. As far as remembering… I have very few things I have to commit to memory. Those things I do, keep me alive. You develop a strong memory when your life depends on it.”
I’d always known he caught on quick, just never understood why. It made perfect sense. “Okay, but you’re not allowed to laugh at me.” We faced each other, and he bowed, I curtsied.
“I would never laugh at you. With you, perhaps, but never at you. Step forward and press your right palm to mine.”
I stepped forward and did as instructed.
“Now we circle counter-clockwise, switch hands, and move clockwise.” We moved together in unison, staring into each other’s eyes. “Why are you doing this again?”
“My father has someone coming to the party. I am to entertain. I think he believes him my future husband, but I’m not getting married. Father is wasting his time.”
“Other hand and circle back.” We switched palms and circled back the other way. Axel quirked a brow. “Why would you not marry?”
“Because it wouldn’t be with the man I love.”
Axel froze, stopping our dance. He didn’t look at me, but I could see the fear on his face. He lifted his face and caught my gaze, his expression now blank. “And who do you love?”
I dropped my chin, unable to look him in the eyes and answer his question without him seeing the truth. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
“I love you.”
When I looked up, he’d suddenly become very fascinated with the toes of his boots. “You can’t love me.”
“Don’t tell me who I can love. There’s nobody else I want.” Pain wracked my body, starting in the pit of my belly, reaching out with icy tentacles to my fingers and toes. Oh, how his words made me ache. “Please don’t tell me what I can and cannot feel. Not you.”
His expression grew grim. “You’ll condemn yourself to a lonely life, Olivia. You can’t love me.”
“Tell my heart and head that.”
“No, you just told me not to.” Axel walked away, leaving me standing in the garden, my heart breaking. That was when I knew I wasn’t the only one who’d fallen. Axel would sacrifice everything to ensure I was happy, his life, this small bit of time we shared. Everything. All of it to see me happy.
Only a man in love would walk away if he thought it would save the woman he loved from suffering. Even after our argument—if you could call it that—he still came when he could, but we never discussed the subject again. It didn’t stop the way I felt.
10
When my time with Axel came to an end, so would my opportunity to make a difference. I decided the day of our argument, I would not waste it. I did not understand what one choice would do to my country, and the decision I made started the rock of progress rolling down the hill. Before long, it became a landslide.
In an overgrown field behind an old factory just outside the estate grounds, my experiment began. It looked like a perfect place, and I thought it would be unobserved. The spot I’d picked had long ago been buried in the middle of a forest. There it sat, under an area banned to air traffic because of the close proximity to my family’s estate.
Even though I’d been careful, somehow word had gotten out.
At first, only a few clones from the kitchens accompanied me. By midmorning of my first day, lower-ranking citizens from the city nearby showed up. They didn’t ask but pitched in like they’d always worked there, clearing, tilling, and digging irrigation ditches and a well. By noon, I had over three hundred people in the field with me.
We divided into teams of twenty. I’d flip open the book I’d brought with me on farming and share the pictures and graphs displaying what I wanted to accomplish. The people of Aeropia had not farmed outside for over one hundred and fifty years. By choosing to grow crops in indoor conservatories, the general population became dependant on those who could afford them. As I looked in their eyes, it became clear. They wanted the independence that came with growing their own food, to once again be self-reliant.
Fifty years before, we’d had famine revolts. The leaders of the uprising were captured and executed by my grandfather as examples of what resulted from going against the government. It wasn’t until the daughter of their leader stepped out and initiated change that the citizens of Aeropia dared such a thing again. What we were doing was treason. If caught, we could forfeit our lives. Yet as the sun rose high in the sky, the crowd around me doubled, then tripled. Without a doubt, I’d made the right choice.
Within a few hours, my tiny plot grew into a five-acre field. Some of the workers I recognized as homeless citizens I’d seen squatting on street corners, begging for food and money. My father had always passed them by without looking in their direction, deaf to their cries for help. My mother scolded me once for stopping to give a man loose coins from my pocket. “Feed them and they will keep coming back, expecting more.”
But my mother had been wrong. Spade after spade of turned earth strengthened my resolve to show her. I continued to dig in the soil with a shovel I’d scavenged from a dilapidated garden shed outside the kitchen, working with the same tools my helpers had, determined to keep going and prove my worth to them.
I would work for a few minutes and rest when I could no longer continue. My heart didn’t take me quite as far as I’d have liked it to, but I didn’t feel like I could do enough. The people had been harnessed with hunger and shackled to fear. They craved freedom.
Men and women would stop to talk to me as they came and went. I learned a lot about what they did for a living, their families and hobbies. In those few hours, they became much more than citizens of Aeropia, but people I knew and might call friends.
One old man brought a cup of water, a young woman, a hat to cover my head while I sat, trying to catch my breath. They were good, hard-working people who would respect a leader who cared for them. They were not rebels, and they worked alongside the clones without the same prejudice I had seen the higher-ranking members of our society carry.
They weren’t waiting for a chance to overthrow the government, but were starving, trying to make a better life for themselves and their families. I had opened the doors for them, and they’d stepped through, seizing the opportunity presented.
Trees and brush had disappeared by afternoon, and by sunset, when I’d started home, the ground had been completely cleared and tilled, ready for planting. If the project had exceeded my expectations—the citizens had blown them away. They proved they didn’t expect handouts, just a leader who believed in them and freedom.
As I walked down the street, shadows seemed to chase me, and I no longer felt clever. I’d never been outside the estate on my own, and thinking back, I realize I made a good target for my father’s enemies. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have continued if I had not been so innocent of the world, only that I would have been more careful.
When an arm wrapped around my neck and dragged me back. I hadn’t the energy or strength to fight. A hand clamped over my mouth, and my blouse was ripped open. A filthy, callused palm found my breast and squeezed. “Where’s your daddy and mum, girlie?”
I screamed, but any sound I’d made remained muffled by the fleshy gag.
“Pretty little thing like you out walking the streets at night is just looking for trouble.” His breath smelled of rot and whiskey, the stench of a man a slave to the cup. “Is that what you want—trouble? Maybe a good fucking?” The man groping at my breast wore the uniform of my father’s personal guards. Drunk and on duty. Their loyalty was beyond question, or so he’d t
old me.
Bong!
My attacker’s grip went slack, and he slumped to the ground, taking me with him. I rolled off his chest, my heart pounding so hard I could barely keep up with it. When I looked up, two men stood about five feet away. One had a blinking light flashing on his face, the other did not. The clone held a shovel, the source of the sound I’d heard moments before.
I later learned they’d followed me, to see me safely home. They were my first encounter with the underground, a group of radicals who worked to free the clones. They had discovered my farm, come to lend a hand, and this night, they’d saved me from rape and most likely death.
“Go straight home. Do not leave the field again without an escort.”
I nodded and scrambled to my feet, clutching my chest, gasping for breath. “Thank you.”
The old man smiled. “You’re welcome. Take care, Ms. Braun. Regardless of what you think, you are always watched.”
“I will.”
“Go. Go before someone sees this. We’ll take care of your assailant, make sure he can’t report your whereabouts.”
“What would you do with him? Kill him?”
“No. I have no taste for killing,” the old man said. “We’ll drop him in the United Regions and let them figure out what to do with him. General Axis will have him charged with desertion when they don’t find him at his post in the morning. He will be too frightened to return.”
The clone didn’t speak, but stood there, watching me in a manner that made me squirm. Most never made eye contact, especially with me. To do so could cause their deaths, but this one had no fear.
“What you are doing is a good thing, but you have enemies who would not like to see you succeed.”
My breath came back to me. I gave them one more nod and turned to walk away.
“Remember, there are enemies everywhere. Use caution. Trust no one.”
I walked for two miles, darting behind vegetation anytime lights approached. When I reached a section of the wall I’d used to get out, I grabbed the vines and climbed, making my way up the stone barrier that circled the estate.
I wasn’t certain I could climb down once I got up. My arms and back ached, and muscles I’d never used cried out for mercy. It took me at least an hour to scale the fifteen-foot barrier, and by the time I got to the top, I could barely move, let alone breathe.
A security light swept over where I lay, spotlighting the dark areas. I flattened my body and held my breath, unable to do anything else. If my parents caught me sneaking in, my hair a mess, covered in mud and dirt, they’d have questions I couldn’t answer. The beam continued on, and I wondered if anyone really operated it, or if perhaps it had been put there to look like someone did, or maybe it was watched by a man as loyal as the one who’d attacked me.
If this was the case, I could reduce my risk of exposure and sneak out at night to work under moonlight. A lot of illegal activities had happened by the light of the moon in history. It wasn’t a novel idea by any means, but a plausible one that might be worked to our advantage. And if what the underground members said to me was true, I couldn’t take chances in broad daylight.
When the beam passed a second time, I swung over the wall and started down, jumping when I reached a spot five feet from the ground. Feet firmly on soil, I slumped against the rough surface to sit, taking time to catch my breath.
By all means I should’ve been caught, but I wasn’t. My good fortune prompted me to investigate the estate security in the future, including the tower. If it was as neglected as I suspected, it could provide me all the means I needed to get away with my treasonous behavior. And so from that small bit of information I’d gleaned, I began to moonlight.
After a couple of weeks, I no longer needed to visit the fields and chose to leave the plot in the freemen and women’s hands, nervous that those who watched would eventually turn on me. Instead, I concentrated on the old groves on the back corner of my family’s estate and once again worked during the day, when Axel was about. We gathered wild seeds and cuttings from the conservatory to grow our crops. Here, outside eyes had no access to me.
Cook continued to keep her promise, providing the help I needed and freeing him up to be with me. As the summer bloomed, so did our crops and my bond with Axel. Nobody saw us in the forgotten orchard, away from the world, behind walls hiding us from the public eye.
“A is for apple.”
“And B is for beautiful,” Axel replied.
I watched him out of the corner of my eye as I thinned immature fruits off the tree. “You shouldn’t tease. I’m being serious, trying to teach you the alphabet. If you’re going to read and write, you need to know it.”
“I already do.” Axel tossed a dandelion head at me that he’d plucked off the ground moments before. “I’m not teasing. You’re beautiful.”
“Stop. I’m not. I haven’t a clue where your notion of beauty comes from, but it’s obviously distorted. I’m gangly, flat-chested, pale, and sick.”
“You are delicate, with unblemished skin and hair that is golden like sunbeams.”
Snort.
“What?”
“Sunbeams. Really?”
Axel grinned. “Really.”
I tossed a walnut-sized apple back at him. “Tell someone who doesn’t know any better. I’m not one to believe false flattery.”
“I assure you, it’s not false, nor is it flattery. You are a beautiful girl. Why don’t you believe it?”
“Because I’m a realist.”
“And what is the definition of realist?” He grabbed my hands and turned me to face him. “Is it someone who is blind to who they really are? A girl with a heart so big it has been worn out caring for others? Or maybe someone who ate clone feed to make a point.”
“You heard about that?” I studied him skeptically.
“We all have. You’re too hard on yourself. Why can’t you believe you are beautiful?” He let go of one of my hands and tugged me toward a tree. “Come with me.” Axel looked around until he found a fuzzy brown caterpillar. He stuck his finger out and let it climb on. “This creature is pretty.”
“Not really.” I rolled my eyes. Brown wiry fuzz covered its body, reminding me of a dying cactus. Little black legs worked under it as it crept along his flesh. I shivered. No, there was nothing remotely lovely about the bug.
Axel released it back to the branch and the meal he’d interrupted, pulling me toward a field where several butterflies danced on the breeze over swaying flowers. “These butterflies are beautiful.”
“Yes.” I watched a pretty blue one skim on the wind before me. “And your point?”
“That little guy is one of them. Beauty is something you can’t judge at first glance. It’s when you look deeper, at what’s inside and out, you truly see it.”
“Okay, I think we’ve read enough of the romance novels. Perhaps we should move on to something less—”
Axel grabbed me and pulled me against his chest, wrapping his arms around my waist and resting his chin on my head. “The romance novels have nothing to do with it. You are stunning—extraordinary.”
“You really think so?”
“Yeah, I do.” He released me and stepped back. “And a pain in the ass.”
I tossed another apple at him.
It was in those times, I was happiest, laughing at stories Axel relayed of things he’d seen while traveling with General Axis, or talks of butterflies and plants. By the end of summer and a week before my birthday, I was so in love with Axel, I knew I’d be lost without him when we returned to winter quarters for another season.
Deep into an area that once used to be South America, we migrated for the winter. With the climate shift, the Northern climate was too unpleasant to linger, and my father suffered from arthritis provoked from the cold. There we would remain until the rainy season, and then once again fly home for another season.
Things would change one day, and Axel would be gone. No longer traveling with General Axis
as we changed homes like clothing. Or perhaps I would be the one who no longer traveled, having been foisted off on a man I didn’t want.
Nothing could chase away the chill. Even worse, I wasn’t certain I’d see him again after this summer. There was so much that conspired against us.
Someday he would be gone forever, and there was nothing I could do about it. My friend, the man I loved, would be taken away, and I’d have to face a perpetual winter in my heart. I should not have let myself feel. I could not help it.
I loved him.
11
“I am a butterfly. A beautiful woman.” I studied my image in the mirror, skimming my fingers down my cheek, neck, and lower to my breasts. Small. Not as large as I’d like. The lack thereof added to my childlike appearance. I could still see the person hidden inside, one many failed to notice—me—the passionate woman trapped in a little girl’s body.
As I studied her, I noticed the sadness in my eyes. In their depths, I saw the woman who had been through more than other young ladies her age. Other than that, the reflection appeared to belong to a child. I’d never been so aware I looked like one. I bit my lip and leaned in. Axel thought I was beautiful, but he’d never called me a woman.
“Who am I kidding? I’m not a butterfly. I’m not even that hairy caterpillar.” At least he saw the bug for what it was. I growled in frustration and turned around, grabbing my sketchbook and flipping it open to the image Axel had created. I studied the girl in the picture and then the one in the mirror. I wanted him to see me as a woman, yet in the orchard he had called me a girl, over and over. It bothered me more than it should have. Vanity had never been my thing.
I tossed the book on the bed, lifted my hair off my neck, and turned my head side to side. Perhaps I’d wear my tresses up next time I saw him. And maybe a little makeup, earrings, or something to show off my long neck. I smiled, knotted the hair at my nape, and stuck out my chest.
The Book of Eva: Clone, Book One Page 11
