Eden

54

The crowd is quietly listening to me and the speech-making man now. Mostly listening, anyway. I hear some asking who I am, and others saying a newcomer, they think. Someone laughs and says it seems too soon for me to get involved in a trail, if all I've done is walk down to the bridge, and nothing more. People repeat that, and other people laugh, and slowly that seems to change the mood. A few people still seem angry that their fun is being interrupted, but most seem to just want to be entertained, one way or another, and right now I'm entertaining enough that they'll watch me instead of an execution. Some are even smiling.

"You don't know what you're getting into," someone says to me, from the crowd.

"I know," I say to her.

People laugh, and now the mood is definitely different. The crowd aren't angry and demanding blood any more. They're just watching, amused.

"She's dangerous," someone else in the crowd says. Someone near me, who might actually be trying to be helpful. "She killed someone."

"I know," I say again. This has occurred to me as well.

"She might kill you," that same person says.

I nod slowly. "Yes, I know that too."

That gets a few more smiles.

We all stand there, looking at each other.

"Well?" the speech-making man says, after a moment. "What have you decided to do?"

"Um," I say to him. "Can I go and talk to her?"

"Of course. Please do."

I look at Lexi. "Can you help me with this?" I say to her. Her, and the water-seller, both. I touch the shoulder-straps of the water-barrel, so they know what I mean. Lexi nods, and the water-seller just starts helping. She grips the wooden frame around the water barrel, and I feel her lift at it a little. She lifts, but then she stops, and pushes at Lexi's hands roughly, shifting them to the proper places to take the weight of the now half-empty barrel. Then she lifts again, and now Lexi does too, a little, and they take the barrel-backpack off my back, and lower it to the ground.

"Thank you," I say, mostly to the water-seller. "I'll be back."

She shrugs, as if she doesn't really care, one way or the other.