The End of Eden

XIV

Three hands me wads of salvia leaves after, which I chew on, delighting in the high it brings me. We slip to the ground to lay on our backs and stare up at the sky together, the cold grass and cool night air pricking my barely covered skin. The man on the moon stares down at us as the roses around us bloom and wither over and over again.

Sleep sits beside Vessel on the bench that Three and I vacated, their faces looking down upon us, each mask almost a perfect mirror of each other, though Vessels does not blink, where Sleeps does. Sleep looks so much more bigger sitting beside Vessel, who is no small man himself. I know they are speaking, but I can't understand what they are saying, and the stars have me mesmerized.

Eventually, Three stands to his feet, and another replaces him on the ground beside me. It's Two now, laying beside me, staring at the sky, and I see Four leaning against the arbor where vining roses keep blooming above him, his arms crossed, on ankle propped over the other mama he watches me. Two's hand finds mine in the grass, and he wraps his fingers between mine. We don't talk amongst ourselves; instead we enjoy the silent night air, the sound of rustling leaves in the wind and chirping bugs and the soft voice of Vessel speaking with Sleep.

Every vessel is here with me in the rose garden; Four standing watch over me, Three plucking roses from the bushes and inhaling their intoxicating scent, Two laying in the grass beside me with his hand entwined with mine, and One conversing quietly with Sleep. I close my eyes to the hypnotizing sky, the murmuring of Sleep and Vessel becoming louder, but I still can't pick out what they are saying. I can feel myself lull into a daze...

And...

I feel... at peace. Happy and content. And it feels good. I love it, this feeling of exaltation within me, and I am desperate to protect it at all costs, now that I have it.

I feel a presence beside me, and I let my eyes lazily slide open, unsure of how much time has passed since I let my eyes close. Three stands above me, a circlet of delicate white roses in his hands. He twisted the stems together to make a flower crown made of white roses. I sit up, my head spinning dizzyingly.

"A flower crown for the flower girl," he says, gently setting the twined flowers onto my head. I giggle and fall backward, letting the thorns stab past my hair and into my scalp. I don't care at all. I feel like a goddess being worshiped.

I am happy for the first time in a very, very, long time.

Later, after I doze off in the rose garden, my hand still clasping Two's, I wake to find I am carried away from the gardens, my head already pounding from a headache, my eyes heavy with sleepiness. But I am not carried to my room.

Instead, the distance that Four carries me is much shorter, and come morning, I find myself pressed in between two vessels, my head on one of their shoulders, the other's warm body curved along my backside. I keep my eyes squeezed shut and wonder why in the world I let Three hand me salvia when I know I wake up feeling like death.

Death squished between two men today though, and in an unfamiliar bed, though the sheets are still soft against all of my bare skin. After rubbing my legs against the sheets, I doze back off again, and sometime after that, I'm roused from my sleep by quiet voices.

"I think Three is making breakfast. Want some?" It's Two who asks it quietly, and it's he who was pressed behind me, lifting the blankets off of us, then tucking me back in. I still shiver, the cold air pricking my skin. But I can feel Four's hand rub up my back and pull me closer to him.

"Absolutely. Pancakes, bacon, and coffee by the smell of it," Four says quietly, his voice rumbling low in my ear with my head pressed to his chest. And now that he mentioned it, I do smell it. The sweet scent of maple and pancakes, the savory and salty bacon, and robust coffee. "I'll be right behind you."