The water-seller seems surprised. "Of course," she says. "Unless you want extra work pulling more up."
She says it a little suspiciously, I notice, almost like she's saying it as a test. As if she's making sure I'm still actually going to stay around and help her now that I've had a drink. Which I am. So I grin, trying to be reassuring, and tip the bucket water into the barrel, and then I lower the bucket off the bridge again.
The water-seller watches me, but relaxes a little, and seems relieved.
I lower the bucket up again, and Lexi goes off and sits down a little distance away, in the shade the parapet of the bridge is casting. She sits, and watches me, as I lower the bucket and then start pulling it up again.
"Your friend isn't going to help you?" the water-seller says, looking at Lexi.
I shrug. "I'm fine."
"She should. She drank too."
"It doesn't matter," I say.
"She should help," the water-seller says, like it's some kind of social obligation or rule or something, and she says it firmly enough that I wonder if it is. Perhaps this place has some kind of overdeveloped sense of fairness. I'm not sure, and I'm busy pulling, so I don't bother asking.
"Probably," I say instead. "But she isn't, so never mind. I don't care."
The water-seller gives Lexi a disapproving look all the same.
I pull up another bucket. Further down the bridge from us, another water-seller comes over, and begins lowering a bucket to refill her own water-barrel. I watch, while pulling on my rope, lifting our bucket up, and I think as I do.
"Could I ask something?" I say to the water-seller.
"You can ask."
I consider what to say. It seems a good idea to talk to her, and ask her questions, since she's just standing there. I don't want to sound silly, but I also want to know.
"Where are we?" I say in the end. Because just asking seems best. "What is this place?"
The water-seller seems surprised. She looks at me for a moment, puzzled, and then says, "You don't know?"
I shake my head. "Where are we?" I say again.
The water-seller smiles.
"What?" I say. "What's so funny?"
"This is Eden," the water-seller says.
YOU ARE READING
Eden
FantasyAshlin dies, and then wakes up, very surprised that she has. She remembers dying, remembers it precisely, and is completely certain that she did. She is equally certain that she hadn’t expected there to be anything else afterwards. But yet, here som...
