Unfaithful (20 page)

Now that the leaves were uncovered and the tree stood before my eyes in its true form, I glimpsed the round shapes that grew from its branches like golden flowers.

“Is that . . .” My voice trailed off. I was awestruck.

“The fruit.” Evan looked at me. “The one Eve ate despite being forbidden to do so.” A shadow of sadness clouded his face, taking me by surprise. “The same one I’m forced to eat in order to survive,” he added, trying to hide his bitterness.

Fascinated, I moved closer to the amber fruit. It was streaked with red, the color of pomegranates. I reached out but Evan’s shoulders instantly stiffened and his face tensed. The message was clear: I wasn’t allowed to touch them. I suppressed the urge though the yearning to give in to the temptation writhed under my skin.

An intricate network of veins ran along the branches, extending into the fruit as if they were one and the same. Though I knew it was impossible, it almost seemed to be pulsing, beckoning to me like a beating heart. The longing to touch the fruit washed over me and suddenly, holding it in my hands became the only thing that mattered. It smelled so good . . . It dawned on me that it wasn’t the butterflies. The scent was emanating from the tree itself. The power it held over me was fascinating and frightening in equal parts.

“Gemma.” Evan snapped me out of my trance, concern in his voice.

“It seems alive.” As if hypnotized, I moved closer, feeling I could lose myself in this desire.

“Don’t touch it.” His tone was cautious and he was clearly trying to hide his nervousness.

I shook my head to dispel the urge clouding my mind and tried to focus on something else. “How is it you’re ‘forced’ to eat it? What do you mean?” I asked.

“It might seem paradoxical to you, but it’s one of the punishments my race has to endure.”

“I wouldn’t call it a punishment.” I smiled. “I mean, it can’t be so terrible. It looks scrumptious.” I couldn’t take my eyes off the fruit, as if it were absorbing my essence. It was almost like it could control me.

“It is. We only feed off its juice: ambrosia. Its taste is soft to the palate, creamy, rich, and intense on the tongue, an explosion of flavors that makes everything else taste bland. Its juice strengthens us and nourishes our souls and our powers. But without it—” His gaze grew hard, his tone grave. “No Subterranean would live for long. And death is a long, painful process. First it drains you of your powers.” His eyes were unfocused, trained on some distant spot as if reliving a memory. “Then your strength, until you disappear entirely.”

“That doesn’t sound fun.” I bit my lip.

“It isn’t. Other souls, pure ones without the curse in their blood, are immortal and don’t need anything to preserve their immortality. But for us it’s a constant struggle for survival. Eve’s transgression left us with a high price to pay, a burden for anyone who has the blood of the Subterraneans running through their veins. That’s why we receive her mark, so none of us forget it.”

“It’s not so terrible,” I repeated in an attempt to cheer him up. My throat was dry and I was consumed with the desire to taste the flavor of ambrosia.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said severely. “In the beginning it is. It’s beyond terrible, in fact.” His gaze turned inward, lost in the distant memory. “We’re put to the test from the start.” A veil of painful memories descended over his eyes.

“Try to describe it,” I said.

“You already know what happens when a mortal’s life ends: a Subterranean comes to save them and bring their soul here so it won’t get lost and no one else can claim it. But there’s no one waiting for my kind. We’re left alone, adrift, helpless. Forgotten. Hidden.” His gaze darkened as he struggled against the bitter memory.

“‘That which has been hidden from me will be hidden from the world,’” I murmured, thinking of the story Evan had told me—the punishment God had given Eve for hiding the children she hadn’t yet bathed in the river. Water represented purification and, fearful of God and His power, she hadn’t wanted to show him the children who hadn’t been purified yet.

The same water I swam in
. A shiver ran through me.

“No one comes to help a Subterranean when his mortal life ends, but a Witch is there to try to tempt and kill him. If he manages to survive that first trial, his soul wanders aimlessly, ignorant of the fact that he needs to eat of the tree to survive, for months, until his strength begins to diminish. And while his soul is growing weaker, the Witch is waiting for a second chance. She watches the Angel from afar, ready to steal his soul in exchange for promises which at that point the Angel can’t refuse.”

“But why do Witches long so intensely for your souls? What sense does it make?”

“We’re not their real objective.
You
are.” I shivered as he fixed me with a piercing gaze. “Imagine if they managed to get rid of us. Imagine if they killed all of us. There wouldn’t be anyone left to help mortals travel here and their souls would be lost to evil. They would belong to it. It would be the end,” he murmured, staring into space. “The end of everything.”

Another shiver, colder and sharper. “You were right. It is terrible,” I whispered, my voice trembling.

Evan smiled. “But that will never happen. They kill a lot of us, but they’ll never manage to exterminate us all.”

“Why bother killing you if you disappear anyway for lack of nourishment?”

“Killing a new Subterranean right away lowers the risk that he’ll be found and helped to grow stronger. But that’s just one of the reasons. Witches are capricious creatures and the Children of Eve are tempting prey.”

“How do you find out what it is you need to survive?” I asked, more and more curious.

“Chance. Pure chance. If you’re lucky, you run across another Subterranean to guide you before it’s too late. No one else cares about us. It’s only when an Angel eats the supreme fruit for the first time that he’s officially recognized by the members of the Brotherhood and begins to receive orders in his mind. It’s a sort of natural selection process. Learning to break down the barriers between the two worlds is too complex an operation for someone to do on their own. That’s why your souls need us. Moving from one dimension to the other is a delicate undertaking. You need to know how to breach certain barriers without disturbing the balance.”

“From the way you describe it, becoming a Subterranean must have been a painful experience for you.”

“You can’t imagine how painful.” His voice was a murmur of sadness.

“But if it’s all a question of descent, shouldn’t your parents have been like you?” I asked.

“That’s what I thought too, but evidently not. There’s no handbook that explains the secrets that connect us to each other, and no Subterranean realizes what he is until his mortal existence comes to an end. My parents were mortal; I saw them grow old and die. I expected them to join me, but it didn’t happen. It’s like the gene is active only in some of us. Actually, I only saw their lifeless bodies. I was even deprived of my chance to say a final farewell because when it happened I was on a mission and didn’t get back until they’d passed away.”

“How terrible! But why didn’t you ignore the orders? It meant so much to you.”

“I’ve never broken the rules,” he replied, his expression solemn.

“For me you did.” Evan locked his gaze on mine, a tender smile hiding behind his eyes. “You said you had to come across another Subterranean to survive. Who was it that found you? Who saved you?”

Evan smiled as he sat down on a large branch that reached almost all the way down to the grassy ground and invited me to join him. Casting me a sidelong glance through his long eyelashes, he said, “It doesn’t always happen like that. At least it didn’t for me. In fact, it
should
have, but let’s say my case was the exception that proves the rule.”

I stared at him uneasily, waiting for him to go on.

“I didn’t know who I was any more, what I’d become. It was like I’d been returned to the primordial human condition. I was famished but my instinct wasn’t strong enough to help me find food. I went weeks without eating and had no strength left. Ginevra’s the one I owe everything to. She’s the one who found me. She saved my soul and that’s why I’ll always be in her debt.”

“Ginevra? You were saved by a Witch?! I thought Witches were out to kill you! Wasn’t she supposed to?”

He smiled at all the questions I’d bombarded him with. “Fortunately she’d already met Simon, though at that point she hadn’t betrayed her Sisters yet. Simon and Ginevra would meet secretly and she was making a huge effort to keep the others from finding out about their relationship. She had to learn to control her thoughts so she wouldn’t be discovered because all Witches have telepathic powers, including her Sisters. They communicate with each other through their minds. You have no idea how powerful the bond among them is—it’s almost impossible to break.”

“But she broke hers for Simon,” I contradicted, searching for answers.

“That’s true, but it wasn’t easy for her, and there’s no saying it’s permanent. She managed because there’s only one thing stronger than the power of evil and the bond that unites Witches: love. True, pure love . . . like ours,” he whispered, squeezing my hand. “When Ginevra found me, I was close to death, on the point of vanishing entirely. Ginevra’s relationship with Simon had made her more compassionate.” For a moment I had the impression he was lost in that memory which almost didn’t belong to him. “When she discovered that her Sisters were keeping their eye on me, preparing to attack me, it was a difficult decision for her but in the end she took me to Simon, who immediately had me eat of the tree. It took weeks for me to recover. Since then, we’ve all been together. We’ve become inseparable, a family. Although,” he said, smiling to himself, “living with Ginevra can be pretty weird sometimes. All that pomp and luxury!”

“Yeah, right, sheer torture!” I said, nudging him with my shoulder.

“We don’t need all that, actually, but for her it’s fundamental. Just because she broke the bond with her Sisters doesn’t mean she’s less of a Witch. She uses her powers now to satisfy her whims. She can manipulate any material object simply by controlling it with her mind. Her power,” he said, pointing at his temple, “is all right here, in her head. Ginevra can have anything she wants.”

“Is this where I say I feel sorry for you? Forgive me, but I can’t.”

Evan laughed. “No, you don’t have to. I never said I dislike it—I just said we don’t need all that. Not that it’s not nice.”

“Nice?” I teased him again.
Nice
seemed like an understatement.

“All right, I can’t complain. I must admit I got used to it pretty quick,” he added, chuckling. “Living with a Witch has its advantages in the end. I know she seems tough, but she’s actually really thoughtful toward us.”

“And what can you tell me about Drake?” I asked.

“He showed up a lot later on.”

“And your trio became a quartet.”

He looked me straight in the eye and his expression softened. “But only now, since you’ve arrived, can we consider our family complete.” Hearing those words filled me with warmth. It was nice to feel like an integral part of their family. “You are,” Evan said, replying to my thoughts. “We all think so, you know. You’re one of us. You always were for them, from the moment they realized how much you meant to me. Especially Ginevra. I didn’t expect her to bond with you so strongly. You’d be amazed to know how much. She probably sees in you the reflection of the Sisters she had to abandon.”

The bittersweet thought made me frown. I felt deeply connected to Ginevra too, as if we were sisters, and for the first time I realized everyone could see our bond.

Evan jumped off the branch, startling me.

“Is it time to go?” I asked, almost regretfully. A primitive instinct made me breathe in the fragrant air, to engrave its scent in my mind. Not far from the tree the river I’d first seen at the base of the waterfall flowed slowly, filling me with nostalgia.

Evan stopped and faced me while I was still sitting on the branch. He rested his hands on my knees and I took them in mine. His voice filled my head, soft and velvety.
“I want to make you my promise here,”
he told me, his lips perfectly still and his eyes locked on mine.

“What promise?” I asked, my voice coming out in a squeak.

“This tree is sacred. I can’t imagine a better witness,” he went on without answering my question.

“Evan, what—”

“Don’t worry. I just want you to know what I feel for you.”

“I already know what you feel for me, and I feel the same.”

“No, let me finish,” he insisted, his eyes probing mine as he took my hand and turned it over gently, as if afraid to break it. He stroked my palm and raised it to his chest. “You can’t feel my heart.”

I looked at him, confused.

“But I can. I feel it pulsing inside me whenever you look my way, whenever you breathe.” His tone was so intense and tender I couldn’t say anything. His expression tuned serious, his eyes filling with awareness. “I know that what I do scares you. I’m not perfect, Gemma, even if you think I am. But when I’m with you I feel like I am because I don’t need anything else.” His eyes burned into mine, filling me with emotions I’d never felt before. “I would be nothing if I lost you. I’ve known that since I realized the love I feel for you. You can’t know you’re incomplete until you find your other half. Alone I’m worthless. I’m just a broken soul, an unfinished painting, a starless sky. And what’s the sky without its stars?”

“Evan—”

“It’s a giant black hole. Like I would be without you,” he said, cutting me off. “I don’t want to tell you I love you—the word is so overused it’s lost its meaning in your century and I’m afraid you wouldn’t understand the magnitude of the feeling I’m trying to describe to you. No, it wouldn’t express enough. What you need to believe is that I’m a part of you as much as you are of me. You’re here inside me. Always remember that,” he whispered, squeezing my hand on his chest.

I smiled at his tenderness and leaned against him. “And you’re inside me,” I agreed.