Chapter 3

“Here you are Jerome. As you requested.” Marcy gave her a cheeky grin as he left the items on the table and she snapped her fingers at him.

“He’s a keeper Carmen!”

Marcy turned to me, waggling his eyebrows. “Hear that Carmen? I’m a keeper.”

I rolled my eyes, as Jerome looked over the herbs to make sure we brought the right amount. “Okay guys this looks good. I think we’re okay for help until we start baking some of the cakes tonight.”

“I will personally help in that regard.” Marcy suggested and Jerome was quick to throw him a deadpan look.

“I actually want someone who isn’t going to eat everything they make.”

“That’s just asking too much of me Jerome.”

“You guys can take a break for now if you want. It’s around lunchtime anyway. Here I’ve packed you some food to take with you.” She said, grabbing the basket that sat on the table behind her.

-/-

– [ ] “You know what? I really, really love chicken.” Marcy said as he stuffed his third sandwich back his throat.

“You don’t say?” Pame said sarcastically and he merely grinned back, his mouth full of chicken.

“Look, the apple tree, help me grab them Carmen?” I got up and dusted down my dress. Another thing about Eden is that it was always Summer. Here, the seasons don’t change. It was always warm and sunny so that nature was always blossoming.

“What, you don’t want my help?” Pame asked rhetorically as she lay, sprawled out under the sun.

“You’re too short to reach the apples anyway, pipsqueak.” He teased and she shot up suddenly, a look of betrayal on her face.

“Marcy, I will eat all of your chicken.”

He gasped dramatically. “I can’t believe you’d make a threat like that.”

She lay back down, huffing. “I didn’t plan on getting up anyway.”

I laughed from where I was, leaning to grab an apple that had gotten caught in one of the branches. “Here, I got it.” Marcy said, as he moved behind me.

“We need to talk.” He said quietly, but moved to grab the apple as if he hadn’t said anything.

“Okay?” I said, confusion shining through my eyes. He looked behind me skeptically to where Pame was just out of hearing range.

“I can’t right here.”

I couldn’t think of anything he wouldn’t be able to tell me in front of Pame, as there was nobody else around. He sensed my confusion and I saw the plead in his eyes.

“Can I talk to you tomorrow night? At the celebration?”

I grimaced. “That’s not really a good time Marcy.”

He closed his eyes in frustration. “I’m running out of time here Carmen.”

I looked up at him, trying to gauge his emotions but I could only pick up on the desperation and fear that leaked through his eyes.

“Marcy?” I said tenderly. “Is everything okay?”

He looked away once more, before his eyes singled in on mine and I could sense that he was battling with himself on whether he could tell me or not.

I looked to where Pame was still sprawled under the sun. She couldn’t see us from where she lay so I grabbed Marcy and pulled him deeper into the forest, out of her earshot.

“What’s going on?”

He breathed deeply, his fists clenching as he met my eyes, his own hardening as he spit it out. “I can’t marry you Carmen.”

I wasn’t shocked. I mean, I completely expected to be shocked, but I really wasn’t. I wasn’t upset either. I loved Marcy with all my heart, but solely on a platonic level.

I stopped for a second, looked down at the ground and said.

“Okay. Are you okay though? Don’t tell me that telling me was stressing you out this much Marcy. You know that I only ever loved you as a friend. I’d much rather try to fall in love the right way and -“

“That’s the thing Carmen. I’ve fallen in love with someone else.” His eyes wide, mine filled with joy for him until I took in his panicked and defeated look.

“Just not someone from Eden.”

-/-

“Carmen, watch where your mixing. You’re spilling the batter.” Pamela said as she watched me skeptically. I was still in a daze from earlier this morning.

“Just not someone from Eden.” That meant that he had fallen in love with someone from the outside world. I remembered the strangled look on his face as he kept speaking to me.

“She’s gone Carmen. I went to meet her a few days ago and her friends said that she just disappeared. But I know, we’d planned an entire future together. She wouldn’t just.. I can’t believe that she’d just leave and abandon that. I have to find her, I have to figure out what happened.”

“You’ve been leaving Eden that much ?” I asked, and he raised a hand to his head.

“I know. It was stupid. But I couldn’t help it. It happened before I had realized. It’s selfish and horrible but I can’t stay here Carmen. The things I’ve seen out there. The places I’ve heard about. We’re trapped in here Carmen, like animals. They say that it’s to protect us but who’s it to protect really? What happens when war spreads again and this forest burns in a fire? The city will be lost and our people will die in seconds. This city does not mean safety, it teaches us to rely on something unnatural to keep us alive. When that’s stripped from us, we die.”

“Marcy….” I trailed off, unsure of what to say. Both Marcy and Pamela seemed so adamant on running away from the city of Eden, from the walls that had kept us safe as war raged outside. I longed to see the magical world that lay past it, but could I abandon what kept me safe for so long?

My mother had left.

And she had never come back.

My father’s face flashed in my mind, as he was told by the elders that she would not return. I watched, helplessly as grief tore through his body and crawled up his veins, infusing with his very soul. I saw a proud man crumble and turn against the world that lay outside.

“We’re not free in here Carmen.” Marcy said and I could not choose which side to go to as war raged in my mind.

“When?” I managed to croak out and his eyebrows raised.

“When what?”

“When are you leaving?”

His shoulders dropped, his eyes widening in surprise.

“Tomorrow night.”

“Change it plans buddy. So are Pame and I.”

He eyes lit up in surprise but I beat his complaints.

“We had already planned to sneak out. I wanted to see the outside world just once. Maybe we could even help you find your missing love?”

“Absolutely not. I’m not dragging both you and Pamela into my mess. I don’t know where I’ll end up or what kind of trouble I’ll get myself into. Nevermind the fact that we’d all be cast out of Eden. I can’t Carmen, I can’t have that kind of guilt on my shoulders. I’ll help you two sneak out but before the night is over you must come back unnoticed.”

I grimaced, sensing that he wasn’t about to budge on the subject.

“Marcy, you’ll never be allowed back in?”

He looked away, solemnly.

“I have to find her Carmen.”

So it was settled. Tomorrow night, Pame Marcy and I would sneak out of the lost city of Eden into the world that many had condemned and scorned.

I only wanted to see it once, to experience it once. A bird could only see if it’s trapped from outside it’s cage.