Eden

Thirty-Seven

I look around, at the city, and the river, and the bridge. "This is the garden of Eden?" I say, a bit taken aback. "Like, the place in stories? The actual garden...?"

I can't see a garden. I mean, there are fields back across the river, of course, which we walked past, and orchards too, but nothing like a botanical gardens, which for some reason is what I'm imagining.

"Over there," the water-seller says to me, and points through the huge gateway, and inside the city. "That's Eden. Those walls are the walls which were around it. The city was built inside the garden."

"Oh," I say, thinking. "Eden is real?"

The water-seller shrugs. "Yes."

"And they built a city on top of the garden?" Somehow that seems typical of people now, but apparently people weren't so different long ago.

The water-seller looks at me like this is obvious. "You don't know?" she says.

I shake my head. I don't explain, though. I'm still being a little careful.

The water-seller thinks. She looks back up the road, towards the building Lexi and I appeared inside. "Oh yes," she says. "I see."

"I only just got here," I say, since she's already worked that out.

The water-seller nods. "Obviously."

"I only just arrived," I say. "And no-one's really explained anything about all of this..."

"No-one does."

I nod. I didn't really expect her to say that people did usually, not really, and in an odd way I'm glad it's everyone who arrives like this, and not just me, and there hasn't been some strange mistake involving me.

"Do you know why we're here?" I ask. Just in case she does.

She shakes her head. "No-one knows."

"Oh," I say. "Oh well."

I keep pulling on the water bucket's rope. I think a little more. "Is there anything particular I need to know?" I say. "Since I've only just arrived, I mean. Like, anything especially dangerous I should watch out for, maybe?"

The water-seller thinks for a moment, and then looks downwards, towards the water. "Don't touch the river."

I'm surprised. "All right. Why not?"

"If you do, you'll become lost. You'll forget yourself. Forever."

As she says that, I'm pouring water from the bucket into her water barrel, and as I pour some is splashing on my hand. I stop, dismayed, and snatch my hand away.

The water-seller laughs, actually laughs, then pats my arm and says, "Not the water. The river."

I look at her. I don't understand. She's laughing, so I must not be in any actual danger, but I can't work out what she means. "I don't understand," I say.

"The water in the river will make you lost. So don't touch it. The water once it's taken out of the river, as soon as it's taken out, that's just water. It's harmless."

"Oh," I say. "Are you sure?"

She sticks her hand into the water barrel, and swirls it around, and then takes it out, and shakes it dry, and shrugs. "Still me."