| |
They journeyed in silence. Watson and Kailyn never so much as snapped a twig, carrying themselves through the woods with the stealth and poise of soldiers on alert, ready to fend off an attack at any moment. An hour passed before they relaxed somewhat.
“I’m starving,” Adam announced. “We need to find some fruit trees.”
The friends exchanged glances.
Finally, Watson spoke. “You will encounter no fruit trees traveling westward. Only those traveling east find fruit.”
“Well then, let’s go east just far enough to find a tree.” Adam turned around and immediately spotted two trees, both heavy with ripe, juicy peaches. “Hey, look. How did I miss these before?”
He started toward them.
He had a vague awareness of some kind of commotion behind him, but the friends’ protests barely registered. It was all a faint, muffled sound, as though unseen hands pressed over his ears. His mind was capable of only one single thought: peaches.
He snapped out of his stupor when he collided with Abigail, who had run ahead of him. She took hold of his hands with a firmness that seized his attention.
The sun lit up her curly blond hair. Every time Adam saw her he noticed something new in her beauty. This time it was the way she would flip her hair to the side when some curls fell down on her face. Now, however, her world-stopping smile was absent.
“Adam, please! If you go east, you won’t stop. The fruit always leads away from the cottage—never toward it.”
When Alexander claimed fruit was forbidden in the high country, Adam took it as an exaggeration. But now, looking at Abigail’s desperate face, realization settled on his mind like a dark cloud. It’s true!
“So eating really is against the law for you people? Why would the most natural function of life be illegal?”
“Not everything that’s natural is good,” Abigail said. “A lot of things about the natural world are broken. What do you feel after you eat fruit?”
Adam shrugged. “Nausea, like anyone else. But everyone knows that can be controlled with moderation. Sometimes I barely even feel it.”
“The reason you always feel sick after eating fruit is that we weren’t made for fruit.”
Abigail’s words did what Adam had thought impossible. They strained his willingness to go with her. The thought of depriving himself of one of life’s greatest pleasures seemed an intolerable prospect.
He had not realized until this moment how much he had come to love this world. He loved the freedom he enjoyed here. He loved the fruit. He loved the ideas of the prophets. He loved the salve they had put on his eyes and the promise of knowledge that came with it. And he sensed all of that was possible only in a half-real world.
Adam pulled his hands from Abigail’s. “Your ruler doesn’t ask much, does he? I’ve already sacrificed my home, my job, and a chance at some real wealth. And now I have to give up eating?”
“Sacrificed?” Kailyn said. “Is that how it feels?”
Watson shook his head. “Is it a sacrifice for a drowning man to let go of the anchor he is clinging to? It is true—you must leave everything behind. But the Ruler will never, ever ask you to make a sacrifice.”
“What does that even mean? Of course it’s a sacrifice if I have to give up everything of value.”
“When you give it up, you will find it had no value compared to what you receive in return. The only demand the Ruler ever makes is that you trade the worthless for the priceless.”
Adam looked again at the trees.
Abigail took his face in her hands. “No. Look at me. Looking at the fruit will only feed your Judas desires.”
“Judas desires?”
“Desires that betray you. Your cravings should be your servants, helping you obtain what is good. When a desire draws you toward what is harmful instead of what is good, it has betrayed you. And strengthening your Judas desires with your eyes is suicide.”
“It’s true,” Watson said. “There is a reason your desire for fruit is so strong. It is not just about pleasure. There is something deep within you that is attached to it. On the day you decide to forsake the orchard forever, that part of you that loves the fruit will resist. It will feel like someone is tearing your insides apart. You will hate the fruit and love the fruit, and that hatred and love will go to war. When the hatred destroys the love, only then will you have an appetite for real food.”
“Real food? Are you saying fruit isn’t real?”
Since Adam had arrived in this world, he had never heard of any food other than fruit. But at this moment, faint memories of his childhood, before the pond, wafted through his mind—memories of eating food that was not fruit. In fact, it wasn’t even sweet, yet somehow still pleasurable and satisfying. Happy, fulfilling times with his family around a dinner table sketched the back of his mind. He could recall nothing specific—only a general feeling that things had been ... as they should be. But why was it so hard to remember? Were these memories even real?
Adam gazed to the west. “What is the ... ‘real’ food like? Does it taste like fruit?”
“There are banquet halls throughout the high country,” Kailyn said. “That will be our first stop when we—”
“The high country? You expect me to travel all the way there before eating anything?”
“Don’t worry,” Watson said. “If you truly want real food, that appetite will strengthen the wind at your back and you can travel as far as you need to travel. But the only strength the fruit will give you is strength to resist the wind. The wind always blows toward life. Resisting it is the way of death. If you want to live, forsake the fruit and come to the high country where you can dine at the Ruler’s table by the cottage.”
“You talk a lot about appetite and desire. Why is that so important to you? I don’t look at life that way. I think if a man fulfills his duty, he’s a good man—whether he felt like doing it or not. If desire gets on board with duty, great. But character is measured by doing what you ought to do. If I do what’s right, what does it matter what I desire?”
“It’s true that one must fulfill duty. But your highest duty is to have pure desires. Suppose one man gives you a gift, but secretly wants to see you suffer. Another man gives you a gift desiring only your good. Which is the better man?”
“I guess I can see that. But how can I be held responsible for my desires? I can control my actions, but I can’t just flip a switch and change what I desire.”
“No, you cannot. Not with a switch. But you can with a taste. Or even with a gaze. A satisfying taste has expulsive power to drive out disordered appetites. We cannot choose our desires, but we can stimulate them—both good ones and bad ones. Sample the Ruler’s delicacies, and you will see.”
A war raged between Adam’s curiosity and his suspicion. He had been warned about becoming trapped. But with the clear vision he now possessed because of the eye salve, he was confident he would be impervious to deception and could expose myths as myths. He was equally confident he would detect any kind of trap or ambush—especially if they didn’t detect his skepticism.
He manufactured a smile. “I’m convinced. I want to find my home. I will go with you to the cottage.”