"No. No, that's not true, Bobby. You're perfect, just the way you are."

"I am?"

"Yes. And you're my brother too. And my best friend."

"I am?"

"You are. And I'm going to stay for a while so that I can be your friend because I think you're perfect just the way you are."

He grinned his wide, crooked-tooth smile, too overwhelmed with joy to speak, I think.

"And that will be our secret, okay?"

He nodded. "Okay."

Maybe if I had an easy way out, I would have still tried to escape that night, but I don't think so. I think I found my brother that night by the lake and suddenly I was more than just a lost girl who needed to be adopted by strangers to find a home.

In my own way, I already had a home. It was with Bobby, my brother, at least until I knew he would be okay.

We talked another half hour, mostly about things he was familiar with. Alligators and broken-down trucks and moonshine and trees and fish and eggs and bacon and the G.I. Joe that Wyatt had bought for him. He loved Wyatt.

"We should go back to the house," I finally said.

"Okay." He started up the path without waiting for me, eager to be of good use.

Kathryn was sitting on the porch when we returned, and for a moment I was sure that we were both in terrible trouble. But Bobby didn't seem worried. He walked right up to the porch and reported the good news without delay.

"I'm going to show Eden how to fish," he announced. "She's going to stay with me."

Kathryn stood from her rocking chair, smiling. "Why, that's wonderful, Bobby. I'm glad to hear that." She looked at me. "It's so good to have you back with us. Come here, darling."

I walked up the steps and she took me into her arms.

"I want you to know that it's okay, Eden," she whispered, kissing my cheek. "You'll find your way here. It's what G.o.d has planned for us all. I love you, sweetheart. You are so precious to me." Another soft kiss.

She stepped back and brushed a strand of hair off my forehead. "Now you two get some sleep. We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow."

10.

I was awakened the next morning by the creaking of my door, my thoughts still caught in a dream that had haunted me throughout the night. In the dream I was Alice, and I was in a special hospital made for people who had psychological problems. There I'd met a girl named Christy who thought she was trapped. I told her she could just walk out, but she didn't believe me.

What a silly girl, I kept thinking. Just walk out, silly.

And that's when I woke up to the creaking, half expecting to look over and see Christy at the door. Instead, I saw a woman standing in the doorway, smiling at me.

It took me a moment to remember that she was Kathryn, my birth mother. I was in her house.

It crashed into my mind all at once, like a data download. That and the events from last night by the dark lake.

Kathryn walked in wearing a black dress that looked new, then closed the door behind her. "Good morning, Eden. Did you sleep well?" She crossed to the window and pulled back the curtain. "Hmm?"

"Yes."

"Good." She turned back to me. "Because today's a very special day." She sat down on the bed next to me. "This is the beginning of a new life for all of us. The old will pa.s.s away, behold, all things will become new."

She said it with such a.s.surance and beauty that I thought she might be right. Maybe there was some greater good that would come out of my being brought back to her.

Or maybe I was just too nave to see the impossibility of that. I was still too confused to know which. But I did feel better than I had the night before.

"It's time to get up," she said. "I'll help you make the bed and then I have something I want to share with you. Something very close to my heart. Okay?"

"Okay," I said.

Together we made the bed per her instructions, folding the corners just so, smoothing the bedspread with the palms of our hands, and setting the pillow squarely at the top of the bed.

She inspected the room with a satisfied smile, then asked me to kneel down on one side as she crossed to the other side.

"Kneel down here?" I asked, standing across from her.

She removed her shoes and settled down to her knees, with her elbows on the bed. "Yes, right there, Eden. Just like me."

I knelt down and rested my elbows on the bed.

"Fold your hands."

I folded them, thinking she was going to lead me in a prayer.

"That's my precious girl. Now I'm going to tell you about the old to help you understand why we need the new. Behold, the old wineskins will be made new. That's what we're going to do today, sweetheart. And you need to know why. Do you understand?"

"I think so."

"Good."

She shifted her gaze and stared at the wall behind me.

"My father's name was Byron Miller. We were wealthy. He was a religious man and served as a deacon in the church. But on the inside he was rotten to the core. He liked to gamble and run shady deals and when his sin caught up to him it was more than he could bear, so he killed himself. With his death, the blessing of G.o.d was vanquished from our lives. We went from being rich to dirt poor overnight."

A far-off look had edged into her eyes and her smile fell away. She spoke in a near monotone, and I could feel the pain and bitterness in her voice.

"My mother's name was Sarah, and she couldn't manage the guilt and shame of her loss so she turned to drinking. It destroyed her and she couldn't take care of me properly, so child services took me away from her. I ended up in an orphanage, just like you. I was eleven when they took me. It was like living in h.e.l.l for me. I was a slave in Egypt and I hated it. So when I turned fourteen, I ran away."

She paused, eyes faintly misted by tears as she thought back to her childhood.

"I'm sorry," I said.

She forced a smile. "It's all right, sweetheart. All of that is going to be made whole now. Always remember that above all, one law can never fail: you reap what you sow. Some call it karma. But there's more. You also reap the sins of your father, until all the generational sins of your bloodline have been atoned for. That's how it works. My father brought a curse into our home and left me to suffer for his sin."

She took a deep breath.

"I had a beautiful daughter who I named Eden and she was taken away from me. That was you, darling. When I got out of the inst.i.tution, I nearly lost my mind looking for you, but you were nowhere I could find. I was at the end of myself when Zeke found me. I met Wyatt, your father. More than anything I wanted another baby, so I conceived and gave birth to a baby girl named Sarah, after my mother. But Sarah was stillborn."

Her mouth had fallen, pulled down by a frown that drew deep lines in a weathered face that looked older than she'd appeared only a few minutes earlier. The weight of her burden was too much for her to bear alone, I thought. And that thought surprised me, because I didn't normally arrive at those kinds of conclusions. I felt sorry for her; she was a deeply trouble soul.

"I'm sorry."

She continued as if confessing a terrible shame-maybe that's why she wanted us to kneel.

"I had failed twice, first with you and then with Sarah. I knew that I had to have a pure child that I could raise in righteousness to break the generational curse and make right what my father had made wrong. So I tried again, and when Bobby was born dumb, I knew that my womb was cursed forever. That's when Zeke helped me see that trying to have another child wasn't what G.o.d had for me. That's why Bobby was born twisted. My place wasn't to have another child; it was to rightfully reclaim the daughter who the devil stole from me. My firstborn, the pure one."

Her eyes settled back on me and she smiled. "I had to find my Eden. You're the one who will take away all of my sin and make right all of what has been made wrong. The years that the locusts have eaten, G.o.d will now restore sevenfold. You and I are one, what happens to you, happens to me. What G.o.d has made one, let no man tear asunder. Through your righteousness will come great blessing."

My righteousness?

"You don't have to understand all of it, sweetheart. I'll help you stay pure. You're a precious angel. You are my Garden of Eden, my lily of the valley, the lamb without blemish. If anyone ever tries to hurt you again, it will be over my dead body." She paused. "Today, old things will pa.s.s away and all will be made new. Wyatt told me that you can't remember anything before six months ago. Is that true?"

"Yes."

"So you see. Even that's confirmation. Old things have been put away; even your mind has been made new. You are perfect. No one else on earth could be who you're called to be. You really are my spotless lamb."

It sounded terribly strange to me. But I also saw how the tenderness returned to her eyes and face, and being a person with only six months of life to recall, I wasn't in a place to find immediate fault with anything she said, however strange it sounded.

"Today is the day of your first baptism," she said. "I'll need to bathe you and scrub your hands and feet, and wash your hair, prepare you for baptism."

"I bathed last night," I said.

"That was before you went out by the lake and defiled yourself. Even if you hadn't, we will always have to take great care to make sure you're perfectly clean before we offer you in baptism. Remember, you will reap what you sow. There will be some rules. We follow only the path of our crucified Savior. In doing so, we live in resurrection, cleansed of all sin. He will turn our filthy rags into robes of righteousness."

She watched me with adoring eyes that made me feel a bit mixed up inside.

"Doesn't that sound good to you, Eden?"

When I didn't respond, she pressed gently.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?"

"It sounds a little scary," I said.

"Of course it's a little scary at first. Don't you think Jesus was scared when he went to the cross? We all feel fear, that's okay. As long as we are willing to wash it all away in obedience. Then we're made whole. All of this will become clear as you walk the path G.o.d has made for you, sweetheart."

She pushed herself off her knees and stood, then crossed to the closet, withdrew a black bathrobe, and laid it neatly on the end of the bed.

"Undress and put this on, then come to the bathroom. I've already drawn the water."

11.

IT TOOK Kathryn over an hour and two hot baths to clean me to her satisfaction. I felt awkward at first, as I had the night before. But then I began to think of it as being cared for, like people who went to a spa, although I had never been. When I thought in those terms, I found that I wasn't bothered.

All the dead skin had to come off, she explained. Did I know that the body shed billions of flakes of skin every day? She claimed that 90 percent of all house dust came from the skin of those who lived in that house. She also said that the flesh was like an old, leather wineskin-something people used to carry wine in a long time ago. All of that old skin had to come off before I could be made new through my baptism.

So she scrubbed my feet and hands, and knees and all of my skin with different kinds of brushes, depending on how tough the skin was, because she didn't want to harm me. Some of it hurt a little, but she said that all true cleansing came with at least a little pain or there was no gain.

She had me brush my teeth twice and she washed my hair three times, so that not one hint of oil remained. Cleaned my ears out with Q-tips and rubbing alcohol. Filed and trimmed the dead skin at the base of my nails-my cuticles, only she p.r.o.nounced it like 'cut' icles. We had to 'cut' away the 'icles', she said.

When she was all done, she brought me a pair of white underwear, another black robe, this one newly washed, and some brand-new rain boots that she said had been purified. Then she asked me to sit on my bed and wait while she made sure everything was ready.

"Where are Bobby and Wyatt?" I asked. I hadn't seen them since waking.

"They're getting ready. They can't see the bride before she comes to her wedding, now can they?"

"What wedding?"

"That's you, sweetheart. I'm married to Wyatt, but G.o.d is your groom. Now you just wait right here until I come for you. Please don't touch anything; it'll defile your skin. All right?"

I didn't really have much of a choice in the matter.

"Okay."

She smiled warmly, and left, closing the door behind her.

Her comment about G.o.d being my groom was confusing, naturally, and once again I wondered if my staying might be a terrible mistake. But then I thought about Bobby. And I reminded myself that nothing bad had actually happened.

I was only playing a game, getting in costume and putting on a stage play. What harm was there in that, if it made everyone happy?

Kathryn came for me ten minutes later, put a blindfold on me because she wanted it to be a surprise, and led me out of the house, down the porch steps and across the yard, then through a door to what I a.s.sumed was one of the outbuildings I'd seen earlier.

I couldn't mistake the excitement in her voice as she stood before me and asked if I was ready.

"I guess."

Carefully, so as not to disturb my combed hair, she untied the blindfold, and withdrew it from my head.

I blinked in the dim light and looked around. We were in an old, small, wooden shed with exposed beams overhead and clean straw on the ground. Two metal candle stands each held a dozen white candles, which lit the room.