Finding Eden

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                The creek running out of paradise burbled and tumbled between grassy hillocks with rabbits bounding through the dusty azure flowers.  It gleamed in the warm, spring sunlight glancing down out of a sky with that pure blue so intense it was almost painful to look upon, setting the scene for the freckled girl in pigtails running along the bank, startling the rabbits, and setting early dragonflies and speckled finches fluttering away from her passage towards the valley’s mouth.

                Aspens fluttered baby leaves in the breeze at her as she passed.  Near the end of her valley home, the creek turned sharply aside, and the mountains cut into the rising sun to cast a shadow that elicited a shiver, but Zala kept running.  She’d never run this far before.  All she knew outside the valley were stories from her great-grandmother, and the bare facts she was taught in school.

                A faint trail guided her footfalls, which puzzled her, since no one came this way.  There was no reason to leave the valley’s sanctuary, but the trail remained, thin but defined.  Speeding along the gentle slope, she rounded a pile of boulders waving mossy tendrils in the breeze.

                “I’d not go that way, were I you.”

                The man’s gravelly voice from behind her was so unexpected that Zala leapt a meter into the air, tried to twist around, tripped over an exposed root running across the trail, and crashed to the ground, barely managing to cushion her fall with her arms.  She looked up from her prone position to see a pair of full-grain leather hiking boots approaching, and a calloused hand reached down.  She stared at it.

                “I only bite on Wednesdays.”  The man waggled his fingers.  Flushing, Zala took his hand, and he hauled her to her feet with a strength that set her staggering.  “Sorry I startled you.”

                Zala shook out her stinging arms and tried to wipe mud and dirt off her legs.  “There’s not supposed to be anyone out here.”

                “I know.  That’s why I warned you.”  The man wore drab, camouflaged pants, long-sleeves, and he cradled a rifle in the crook of one elbow, but beneath the weathering of his face he looked a young man.

                “And who are you?” Zala asked.

                “Warden.”

                “Zala.”  She brushed her palms on her thighs and eyed the trail that continued from that point.  “Why shouldn’t I go that way?”

                Warden took the stiff, wide-brimmed hat from his head and scratched the curly black hair beneath it.  He looked her up and down, and Zala tried to stand to the full extent of her fourteen years.  “You’re not ready.”

                She bristled, though Warden did not sound condescending.  “Because I’m not old enough?”

                “Because you’re not ready.”  Warden replaced his hat and took a drink from a canteen.  Zala watched with a certain fascination as he wiped away the water that dripped into his beard with a bandana.

                Zala folded her arms.  “You gonna stop me?”

                With a sigh, Warden leaned back against the mossy boulder and tilted his hat forward until it concealed almost his entire face.  “No.”

                That…was not the answer Zala was expecting.  She looked at the trail continuing out of the valley, at Warden, who appeared to be napping, and back the way she came.  Her feet itched, and she wanted to know what she’d find if she continued.  She scuffed her feet on the ground, took a few steps forward, and Warden didn’t react.  Slumping, Zala turned and ran back the way she’d come.

                Zala padded up to a mossy pile of boulders approaching the valley’s mouth.  “Warden?”  No answer.  “Warden, I brought you something.”  No answer.  Sighing, Zala parked the miniature hovercart beside the boulder and plopped herself down beside it.  “I’ll eat your portion if you don’t answer.”

                No sound heralded Warden’s approach: he appeared from the forest like an emerging dryad, his hat upon his curls, rifle on his shoulder, and fresh lines etched into his face.  “You think I don’t eat?”

                “I think you don’t eat the height of culinary achievement.”  Zala held out a delicate pastry on a porcelain plate.  “Lunch?”

                Warden moved to stand next to her, and pretended not to look at her as he took the proffered plate and no words of thanks.

                Zala brushed crumbs from her shirt.  “So.  What’s beyond the valley?”

                “The rest of the world.  As you know.”

                “That’s not what I meant.”  Zala folded her arms.  “What’s it like?”

                “You think I’ve been out there?” Warden asked.

                “Yes.”  Silence grew, and Zala thought it was a challenging silence.

                Warden pulled out a pocketknife and began whittling a stick.

                Zala stomped.  “I’m just curious!”

                To her surprise, Warden stopped whittling and sighed.  “I know.  She always said it was inevitable.”  He gestured at the pastry, the hovercart, and the whole picnic Zala brought for him.  “Outside, this would be remarkable.”

                “She?”  Zala frowned.  “Your wife?”

                Warden laughed at her.  “Elysia.”

                “The founder?  I’m so confused.”  The exquisite lunch seemed like too much trouble to eat, and she thought coming here was a bad idea.  It was only making her more frustrated.  “Why is everything you say mysterious?”

                Real humor twinkled in Warden’s eyes.  “It’s amusing.”  Zala almost kicked him, and he held up his hands.  “Peace.”

                “At least tell me when I’m ready?” Zala pled.

                Warden met her eyes, and she held his intense gaze until she had to look away.  “When that time comes, I won’t have to.”

                When next Zala sought Warden, she assumed no artifice.  Still wearing the tailored blouse and polished heels from the ceremony, she stumbled through the wintry forest, barely able to find the trail as her extremities grew numb.  Her mind felt like static and as sharp as a lightning bolt.  “Warden!” she shouted.  “Warden!  I need to speak with you!”

                He stepped from behind a snowbank as if summoned, his hair and beard, longer than usual, streaked with grey beneath the encrusting frost.  His hands caught Zala’s shoulders and diverted her momentum, spinning her around and wrapping her in a heated jacket in a single motion.  Water from her eyes – not tears – froze on her cheeks.

                As usual, he said nothing.  Zala struggled for words.  “They selected me to be Elysia’s successor!” she burst out at him.  She observed Warden’s unmoved face, his steady gaze, and didn’t need his response.

                “I know.”

                “But…I just found out,” Zala protested.  “How could you know out here?”

                Warden shrugged.  “I told them to do it.”

                Zala stared at him.  “You…what?  I don’t understand.”

                “I know.”  Warden patted her shoulder.  “If you accept, you will.  You will understand all of it.”

                “I’d have to give it up, though.”  Zala stared past Warden, at the end of the valley and whatever visions lay beyond it.  “I might never leave this cage.”

                Warden looked at her, and he seemed to struggle to keep from bowing his head.  “Yes.  That is why they selected you.  Scarcity, culture, purpose.  Three elements needed for individual fulfillment.  And the reason making a utopia is so difficult.  If you address two, how do you address the third?”  There was such sadness, or perhaps it was weariness, that Zala drew back from him.  “What will you do?”

                “I – I want to know.”  Zala’s deep breath shuddered, but she took it.  “I guess that means I’ll do it.”

                She did not know all of what that decision meant, but she knew enough to turn away from the valley’s end.  As she turned, she saw Warden bow his head, and she thought she glimpsed tears welling in his hazel eyes, but she did not look back again.

                The creek still burbled its way out of paradise as it had so long ago when Zala first followed it.  This time, Zala did not run, her hair was grey wisping away to white, and she had to steady her steps with a hiking stick.  Even so, she went alone along that faint trail that she now knew was for Warden.  A robin hopped out of her path, and a faint drizzle slowly glazed the dirt with slick mud.

                “Warden?”  Her voice, which had led the valley’s people for decades, seemed small in the forest.  Even so, she was not surprised when he appeared, standing on the trail ahead of her.  He was bald, now, and his curly beard was white where it was not flecked with mud, but the greatest change was the teenager standing by his side with curious eyes and a familiar rifle clutched in his hands.

                Zala met Warden’s eyes.  “I’m ready, Warden.  I want to know what’s out there.”

                He gave her a sad smile and inclined his head.  “Elysia always said it was a fool’s errand, creating a utopia.”

                “I know.  I know it all, now.  Like the real name of this place: New Eden.”  Zala sighed.  “I don’t think it was a fool’s errand, though.  A fifth generation has begun, and I am the first to leave?  It seems she succeeded.”

                Warden’s smile was rueful.  “Perhaps.  Or perhaps all she built was a fabulously gilded cage, as you once named it.”

                “When I’ve seen the rest of the world, perhaps I’ll know.  If it was worth it, I mean.”  Zala gazed out at the trail disappearing into the distance, winding its way out of the valley.  “If I live long enough, I’ll return.”

                Warden nodded.  “May you find the adventures you crave.”  He stepped aside, and Zala took her first step along that trail, the furthest she had ever gone.

                She took two more steps before she looked back at Warden.  “There’s one thing I still don’t know.  Something I never learned as Elysia’s successor.”  Warden’s eyes twinkled.  “What’s your real name?”

                He smiled at the question and swept her a bow.  “I’m named Vankil.  The warden of New Eden.”

                “I thought so.”  She turned back to her path and felt a thrill of excitement in her breast, as fresh as the new spring and brighter than anything she’d felt in years.  “Farewell, Vankil.  If I can, I shall return.”

                She couldn’t see the warden’s weary expression, but she heard him.  “I’ll be waiting,” he said.  Zala smiled, and left paradise behind her.

Thank you for reading Lloyd Earickson’s short story, Finding Eden, an IGC Publishing original story. If you enjoyed the story, please consider leaving a comment or review in the discussion below the story. Be sure to follow IGCPublishing.com for updates, more information, and other freely available stories.

If you want to know more about the writing process for this story and how it came to be, please read the author’s note and release post.

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