Margaret Atwood - The Year of the Flood

“Thank you,” said Nuala gratefully. She gave him her only-you-understand-me look and hurried away towards the fire escape.

“Toby, my dear. Do you think you could see it in your heart to take over Burt’s duties?” Adam One asked, once Nuala had gone. “The Garden Botanics, the Edible Weeds. We’d make you an Eve, of course. I’ve meant to do that for some time, but Pilar has so appreciated your help as her assistant, and I believe you’ve been happy in that role. I didn’t want to steal you away from her.”

Toby thought. “I’d be honoured,” she said at last. “But I can’t accept. To be a full-fledged Eve… it would be hypocritical.” She’d never managed to repeat the moment of illumination she’d felt on her first day with the Gardeners, though she’d tried often enough. She’d gone on the Retreats, she’d done an Isolation Week, she’d performed the Vigils, she’d taken the required mushrooms and elixirs, but no special revelations had come to her. Visions, yes, but none with meaning. Or none with any meaning she could decipher.

“Hypocritical?” said Adam One, wrinkling his forehead. “In what way?”

Toby chose her words carefully: she didn’t wish to hurt his feelings. “I’m not sure I believe in all of it.” An understatement: she believed in very little.

“In some religions, faith precedes action,” said Adam One. “In ours, action precedes faith. You’ve been acting as if you believe, dear Toby. As if – those two words are very important to us. Continue to live according to them, and belief will follow in time.”

“That’s not much to go on,” said Toby. “Surely an Eve ought to be…”

Adam One sighed. “We should not expect too much from faith,” he said. “Human understanding is fallible, and we see through a glass, darkly. Any religion is a shadow of God. But the shadows of God are not God.”

“I wouldn’t want to be a poor example,” said Toby. “Children can spot faking – they’ll see I’m just going through the motions. That might be harmful to what you’re trying to accomplish.”

“Your doubts reassure me,” said Adam One. “They show how trustworthy you are. For every No there is also a Yes! Will you do one thing for me?”

“What thing?” said Toby cautiously. She didn’t want the responsibilities of Evehood – she didn’t want to close down her choices. She wanted to feel free to quit if she needed to. I’ve just been timeserving, she thought. Taking advantage of their goodwill. Such a fraud.

“Just ask for guidance,” said Adam One. “Do an overnight Vigil. Pray for the strength to face your doubts and fears. I feel confident that a positive answer will be provided to you. You have gifts that should not be wasted. We would all welcome you as an Eve among us, I can assure you.”

“All right,” said Toby. “I can do that.” For every Yes, she thought, there is also a No.

Pilar was the keeper of the Vigil materials and the other Gardener out-of-body voyaging substances. Toby hadn’t spoken with her for several days because of her illness – a stomach virus, it was said. But in their conversation Adam One hadn’t mentioned anything about this illness, so maybe Pilar was well again. Those bugs never lasted more than a week.

Toby sought out Pilar’s tiny cubicle at the back of the building. Pilar was lying propped up on her futon; a beeswax candle flickered in a tin can on the floor beside her. The air was close, and smelled of vomit. But the bowl beside Pilar was empty, and clean.

“Dear Toby,” said Pilar. “Come and sit beside me.” Her little face was more like a walnut than ever, though her skin was pale, or as pale as brown skin could get. Greyish. Muddy.

“Are you feeling better?” said Toby, taking Pilar’s sinewy claw in both of her own hands.

“Oh yes. Much better,” said Pilar, smiling sweetly. Her voice was not strong.

“What was it?”

“I ate something that disagreed with me,” said Pilar. “Now, what can I do for you?”

“I wanted to make sure you were all right,” said Toby, who’d just discovered that this was true. Pilar looked so wan, so depleted. She recognized fear in herself: what if Pilar – who’d seemed eternal, who’d surely always been there, or if not always, at least for a very long time, like a boulder or an ancient stump – what if she were suddenly to vanish?

“That’s very kind of you,” said Pilar. She squeezed Toby’s hand.

“And Adam One asked me to become an Eve.”

“I suppose you said no?” said Pilar, smiling.

“That’s right,” said Toby. Pilar could usually guess what she was thinking. “But he wants me to do an overnight Vigil. To pray for guidance.”

“That would be best,” said Pilar. “You know where I keep the Vigil things. It’s the brown bottle,” she said as Toby lifted the rubber-band-and-string curtain in front of the storage shelves. “The brown one, to the right. Five drops only, and two from the purple one.”

“Have I done this mix before?” asked Toby.

“Not this exact one. You’ll get an answer of some kind, on this. It never fails. Nature never does betray us. You do know that?”

Toby knew no such thing. She measured the drops into one of Pilar’s chipped teacups, then replaced the bottles. “Are you sure you’re better?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” said Pilar, “for the moment. And the moment is the only time we can be fine in. Now, you go along, Toby dear, and have a lovely Vigil. It’s a gibbous moon tonight. Enjoy it!” Sometimes, when doling out the head trips, Pilar sounded like the supervisor of a kiddie carnival ride.

For the site of her Vigil, Toby chose the tomato section of the Edencliff Rooftop Garden. She posted the site on the Vigil sign-in slate, as required: those on Vigils sometimes went wandering away, and in tracing them it was helpful to know where they were supposed to have been.

Adam One had recently taken to placing gatekeepers on every floor, beside the landings. So I can’t get down the Garden stairs without someone seeing me, thought Toby. Unless I fall off the roof.

She waited till dusk, then took the drops with a mix of Elderflower and Raspberry to disguise the taste: Pilar’s Vigil potions always tasted like mulch. Then she sat down in meditation position, near a large tomato plant, which in the moonlight looked like a contorted leafy dancer or a grotesque insect.

Soon the plant began to glow and twirl its vines, and the tomatoes on it started to beat like hearts. There were crickets nearby, speaking in tongues: quarkit quarkit, ibbit ibbit, arkit arkit…

Neural gymnastics, thought Toby. She closed her eyes.

Why can’t I believe? she asked the darkness.

Behind her eyelids she saw an animal. It was a golden colour, with gentle green eyes and canine teeth, and curly wool instead of fur. It opened its mouth, but it did not speak. Instead, it yawned.

It gazed at her. She gazed at it. “You are the effect of a carefully calibrated blend of plant toxins,” she told it. Then she fell asleep.

The next morning Adam One came to see how Toby’s Vigil had gone. “Did you get an answer?” he asked her.

“I saw an animal,” said Toby.

Adam One was delighted. “What a successful outcome! Which animal? What did it say to you?” But before Toby could answer, he looked over her shoulder. “We have a messenger,” he said.

In her hazy post-Vigil state, Toby thought he meant some kind of mushroom angel or plant spirit, but it was only Zeb, breathing hard from his climb up the fire escape. He was still wearing his pleeblander disguise: black fleather vest, grimy jeans, battered solarbike boots. He looked hungover.

“Were you up all night?” said Toby.