Becoming Calder

Calder shrugged. "We all have our jobs. My dad says each one is equally important." He was quiet for a beat and then continued. "They all balance the community."

I nodded and Xander looked away before looking back at Calder more seriously. "We should get back," he said.

Calder nodded, his eyes lingering on me. His eyelashes were ridiculously thick, his eyes a deep, rich brown. He tilted his head and pursed his lips as if he was considering something.

"I have an idea."

"Oh no," Xander said. "No good can come from this."

Calder glanced at Xander. "You haven't heard my idea."

"I stand by my statement."

Calder rolled his eyes and focused on me again. "What would you say if I offered to teach you the subjects you're not being taught in exchange for some art paper and paints?"

"Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa," Xander said, putting his hands up as if to ward off Calder's very, very bad idea. "Even worse than I thought. That's just asking for trouble, Calder."

"Look who's talking," Calder inserted, not taking his eyes off me.

"Yes," I blurted out. I did want to learn. I was hungry for it. But the truth was, I wanted to spend time with Calder and I was willing to do anything I could do to make that happen. I had surprised myself with my outburst though. I rarely interacted with people other than Hailey and her boys, and occasionally Hector, so why was it I could speak my mind with Calder? Perhaps it was because I'd spent so long with him in my own mind.

Calder smiled at me. "Okay," he said softly, not taking his eyes from mine.

Xander stood up. "All right, well, you two have fun sitting in the cellar."

Calder finally looked up at him. "The cellar would be worth it to finally get to draw on a big, clean piece of paper." He talked about paper like it was a delicious meal he couldn't wait to devour.

I bit my lip, not quite as sure now. The cellar was a very large, cavernous space under the main lodge where Hector would bring all two hundred or so of us at least once a year for a drill to prepare us for when the great floods came. I shivered just at the thought of standing in the cellar with all those bodies pressed together, feeling sick, scared, and claustrophobic.

There was also a small room down there with a heavy, metal door used during the rare time someone did something that went against Hector or the gods. They would be jailed for the amount of time it took for them to repent and then brought back up and made to sit to the side of the podium where Hector gave his sermons. They had to kneel on a piece of metal with little bumps on it from the beginning of Temple until the end. It wouldn't pierce the skin, but the look on the faces of those who had been punished that way, let me know it sure felt like it had after kneeling on it for two hours.

I never knew exactly what the transgressions were, but I watched those people—three since I'd come to live in Acadia—and I silently sent them strength as I sat behind Hector. I swore my own knees ached as I walked back up the aisle, away from them.

I came back to the present and Calder was still staring at me, waiting for my answer.

"I just . . . maybe Xander's right. The cellar seems . . ." My voice faded away as Calder's face fell. "Okay," I inserted quickly and nodded, unwilling to disappoint him. "I agree. When?" I took a deep breath. "I mean, when should we meet?"

His face broke into a grin, his straight teeth flashing. His grin transformed his face, making it, impossibly, even more beautiful. Butterflies flapped their wings in my belly. I'd seen him use his grin with others, but to be the recipient of it myself was thrilling. "Tomorrow?" he asked.

I nodded, smiling, too, probably looking slightly giddy. "Okay, tomorrow." I wanted to see him tomorrow, and every tomorrow after that.

"Okay." He studied me for a minute and I wondered what he was thinking. "I'll see you then."

"’Bye, Eden," Xander said, and jumped from the rock into the water. Calder followed behind him. They waded across the water and then walked up the small bank. My eyes wandered down Calder's muscular backside, clearly defined in the wet linen pants clinging to him. I caught myself and looked away, but before I could muster up any shame, my eyes were moving back again. Just before they ducked through the rock opening, Calder looked back at me and smiled once more. I was glad he couldn't see my blush from where I sat.

**********

The next day when I showed up at the spring, Calder was already lying back on the grass with his hands behind his head. I couldn't help the giddiness I felt to see him waiting for me.

"Hi," I said as I approached him, and he sat up. I took the large, canvas bag I had brought off my shoulder and put it down on the grass in front of him. He immediately pulled the large pad of paper out and looked up at me with a look of sheer happiness. My heart started beating triple time in my chest at the look of delight on his handsome face. He continued to rummage through the bag, and as he pulled the items out, he placed them neatly on the grass in front of him. There were several paint containers, four brushes, and a set of charcoal pencils.

"It was all I could take without making it obvious," I explained when he kept looking down at the items.

He looked up at me. "This is way more than enough. Thank you, Eden." He looked as if he wanted to say more, but was at a loss. He rubbed his hands on his thighs and said, "So what lesson should we start with today?"

"Why don't you draw something first?"

He opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it and started again. "You sure?"

I laughed. "Yes."

Calder chuckled. "Okay. Hey, how about this? How about we do both at once? I'll draw and give a lesson at the same time. I can multitask like that. You feel free to ask any question you want."

I tilted my head. "Okay, if you're sure that won't distract you."

He shook his head. "No. Remember, I'm used to drawing under my desk while listening to a lecture."

I laughed. "All right then."

He scooted until his back was against a rock and he was mostly in the shade, and leaned forward to grab the charcoal pencils and the pad. Then he brought his knees up and leaned the pad of paper against them.

"First tell me what you know."

I know I love you and you're the most beautiful boy I've ever seen.

I looked down, ashamed I didn't know much. I cleared my throat. "I know how to read. And that's really all."

I looked up to find his pencil still and see him studying me. "No math? No science?"

I shook my head again, scooting back so I was leaning against a rock, too.

Calder started sketching again. "Okay. So we'll start with the basics then."

And so we sat there as he sketched, and he taught me the basics of mathematics, addition and subtraction. I caught on quickly. Somewhere in my memory, I knew I had begun learning this before. It was hazy and unclear like all of my memories before this place. If I closed my eyes, I remembered a smell—like cleaning products and chalk—and I remembered being happy in that place, a school probably. But that was all I could muster.

After an hour or so, Calder set his pad down. "You'll be up to speed in no time," he said.

"Why exactly are you doing this?" I gestured my hand toward the paper. "I mean, other than for the exchange? Hector wouldn't approve of it, and we could both be punished. Why are you taking this risk?"

Calder studied me for a few seconds and then looked away, out at the spring. He bit his full bottom lip and his brow creased. Finally, he looked back at me and said, "Xander talks to the workers at the ranger station at the entrance to the state park a few miles from here."

I was surprised. We were strongly encouraged not to engage with other members of the "big society" where wickedness, evil, and imbalance prevailed. Except for the council members who worked, and Hector who went on pilgrimages when the gods ordained it, no one else had any reason or desire to venture from Acadia. Aside from the main lodge, we were totally self-sufficient, reliant on no one other than ourselves.

"He does?"

Calder nodded. "He's formed friendships with a few of them. When we were kids, we used to steal from the station. Or rather, Xander did the stealing; I just did the partaking. Anyway, a couple years back, he got caught red-handed. Only, instead of turning him in, the woman who caught him asked him what he liked best of all the things he was taking. He told her, and now sometimes she brings candy and other things just out of kindness." He looked away again, thinking. "I don't think every single person out in the big society is wicked and evil, Eden. Maybe some are, maybe most. I don't know. But, the point is, I don't think Hector's completely right about that." He shrugged. "And if he's not right about that, maybe he's not right about a few other things, too—like the fact that you shouldn't have an education. I know the gods talk to him, but he's also human."

We sat there, looking at each other silently. The small waterfall next to us provided gentle splashing sounds, and somewhere far away, a dog barked.

"It's why I have to get a place on the council," he said quietly. "I have to see what's out there, Eden. No matter how much time we have before the floods, I just have to know."

My heart was beating fast, not just because of Calder's closeness, but because talk like this simply wasn't done, at least as far as I had ever known. Something stirred deep inside of me, seeming to come to life.

"You trust me," I said, knowing he wouldn't have told me what he did if that wasn't the case.

He nodded once. "I started trusting you a long time ago."

Warmth and a fierce feeling of pride filled my chest. Being trusted by Calder Raynes made me feel more special than I'd ever felt in my whole life. "My parents were kind," I said. "I remember so little of them, but that's one thing I know. They were kind."

"Will you tell me about them?" Calder asked, very gently.

I sighed, struggling to remember. "They were both blond." I took a piece of my own hair between my fingers and then let it fall. "Surprising, right?" I smiled and so did Calder. "And um, my mother, she smelled like flowers." I closed my eyes and inhaled as my mind conjured up her sweet, delicate scent. When I opened my eyes a minute later, Calder's head was tilted as he watched me, and his eyes looked darker somehow. I swallowed.

"What else?" he whispered.

"I think my dad did some kind of work with other people's money. And my mom, she didn't work, at least not that I recall. We lived in Cincinnati, I do know that." I shrugged. "I know they were good friends with Hector. I remember him being in our home. I remember my mother telling me we were coming to live with him. Here I'm assuming. But then . . . they were gone, and it was only Hector and me in a different house for a long time, years maybe. That's it. I've tried so hard to remember more from the time before, but it simply won't come. And I was young, I suppose."

"Do you know how your parents died?"

"It was a car accident. That's all I know."

Calder had his bottom lip between his teeth again in that way he had when he was thinking hard about something.

"What?" I asked.

He let his lip free, licking along it with his tongue before responding. "Nothing. I'm just sorry you lost your parents is all."

I had the feeling he had been about to say something else, but didn’t. I nodded anyway and said, "Thank you."

"So," he said, starting to get up. "Tomorrow? Same time? Same place?"

I stood, too, and nodded enthusiastically. "Yes. Um," I nodded toward the pad in his hands, "can I see your sketch?"

He looked down at it. "Oh. Yeah, sure." He turned it around and my breath caught.

He had sketched our—for suddenly that's what it was, ours—spring. He had only used charcoal pencil, but somehow it was lush and beautiful, the shadows and highlights hinting at the depth of color in the water, the rocks, the grass, and the sky. It was . . . breathtaking.

"Calder. You're . . . I've never seen anything that good. You've never had any lessons?"

He shook his head, watching me closely as if it mattered very much to him what I thought.

"You're just gifted, then. Very, very gifted." I felt awed by his talent and I was sure it must show in my expression.

He held it out to me. "It's for you."

I grinned, accepting it. "Thank you. Today, here with you, was a wonderful birthday gift." I began to carefully roll up the sketch so that I could carry it with me.

His expression took on surprise. "It's your birthday?"

I shook my head. "Tomorrow. I'll be seventeen. But this here," I hugged the rolled paper to my chest delicately, "is the best gift I could have ever asked for."

"No. No way. If I had known it was your birthday, I would have sketched one of you. A portrait." He smiled. "Tomorrow. On your actual day."

I smiled back. "Okay." I held up the canvas bag with all the supplies in it. "Should we hide this somewhere?"

Calder looked around and then took the bag from me and walked it over to a group of rocks to his right, placing it between two rocks sitting at an angle so it was like a mini-cave. He picked up a rock next to him and put it directly in front of the opening so it couldn't be seen.

We walked up the trail and when we got close to the top, he stopped and nodded at me to go before him so we wouldn't exit together.