The End of Eden

XXXIX

It takes almost a full week before I wander out to the fields again, a determination growing inside me.

Every morning, I wake up nauseous with almost no energy, because every night, Sleep is with me, whether in my dreams, or in my waking moments. He only avoids me when I'm tucked in safely next to Four, but he hovers at the end of my mind with every other vessel.

By the time I walk out into the gardens again, I find the gatherers plucking pears from the branches, and collecting any that have fallen to the ground. As they always do, they whisper good morning to me, and I greet them all warmly in return, smiling sweetly at all of them, even Annabelle, who I know disdains my arrival.

"Please, we don't need your help," says Christine, who is leading this group of gatherers. I shake my head gently.

"I want to help," I intone, and then I look around at all of them. "I have been called to offer my aid by Sleep himself. I will listen to his command."

Eyebrows arch up, but the gatherers around me cannot, do not, would never question Sleep, his will, or the ones that commune with him. So they reluctantly let me help, and every time I do walk into the fields, I find Annabelle and stick to her side like I did when I first arrived in Eden, though I am not the same person I was when I arrived.

"Can't you work beside anyone else?" Annabella hisses under her breath at me every time I walk up to her.

"Sleep has his eye on you," I reply one time, and the next time she asks, I say, "Sleep has asked me to walk beside you."

And I can feel his ever present eyes on me, on us, always watching me, always there beside me though no one else acknowledges his presence beside me. Not even Annabelle, though he watches her.

"Do you like her more than me now?" I ask of Sleep as we walk side by side down the hills of Eden to the part of the fields that have our autumn harvest growing in it. There's a chill in the air, and the leaves have started falling to the earth.

Sleep remains silent for some time. "No, my love," he says simply.

I do not believe him.

He has found me wanting, and his desires have shifted to Annabelle, who will surely be his next bride.

I stop short, just behind the patches of gardens, as envy stabs its way down from my head, over my neck and arms and settles heavy in my stomach.

I cannot let it happen.

What will become of me if I fall out of Sleep's favor? Out of the vessels' favor?

My legs start up my walk again, fresh determination overcoming me.

There are early squash ready to be harvested, and I find Annabelle with a short knife cutting the fruit from their spiny vines, her skin dotted pink from her work.

"Good morning," I say, settling beside her. She doesn't so much as speak to me, her eyes lowering to focus only on the vines she is cutting away. "Do you have an extra knife?"

"No," Annabelle answers, setting a plump yellow squash into a basket already half filled. "I do not need your help."

"Sleep has-" I start, but Annabelle turns towards me, her knife in hand as she does.

"I don't care," she growls through clenched teeth. The knife flashes in her hand, the sun glinting off of it as she stabs it into the brush, and in an instant, I know.

"Well that's too bad," I say, shrugging. I reach into the vines, and pull out a fruit, offering the vine to her for cutting. She stares at it, the knife so tight in her hand, her knuckles turn white.

So slowly, she turns towards me, the knife raised up so she can cut the vine that I am holding for her, the length of it spanning across my stomach. The edge of the blade sets on the green of the plant, the white gauze of my tunic just below, the small swell of my growing belly just beyond.

The blade sinks into the flesh of the vine, and I snatch her wrist, and before her hand can drop the blade, I have it digging across my skin, through the tunic, opening up my skin, separating it into a bloody slit. The vine is dropped.

I don't feel any of the pain I should be feeling as the knife cuts deeper across my abdomen. Annabelle can't even drop the knife as my hands have closed around hers, and I squeeze so hard I can feel her bones shifting below mine.

Down, down the blade slides, into me for the briefest of moments before her face contorts into shock, into horror, as I open my mouth and shriek, knocking the blade away.

The blade is dropped, landing on Annabelle's lap before it falls to the ground, my blood staining the fallen leaves, the vines, my tunic and her white dress. Her face drains of color, pallor overcoming her, as she stares at the blood spreading across my stomach, my hands bloody as I try to staunch the flow from the cut.

There's many voices, many hands touching me, touching us, to combine into a cacophony that I cannot untangle.

I can only see Annabelle's stricken face, and the blank expression and the many unblinking eyes of Sleep beyond.