The Soul Garden Read online

  The Soul Garden (Twisted Souls #1)

  By Cege Smith

  Copyright 2011 Cege Smith

  Kindle Edition

  Visit Cege's website and blog at http://www.cegesmith.com

  Book cover design by LFD Designs for Authors

  Kindle, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  There was Before and then there was Now. Do not grieve the loss of Before. It was a wicked time when people turned away from the Light, and for their sins they were punished. Rejoice in the Light and Rejoice in the Now for it is your salvation.—A History of the Territory of Malm, Authorized Version

  BISHOP

  It was a memory that would haunt him forever. When he was a younger man, Bishop would sit near the fountain and stare into its crystal-clear waters trying to discover its secrets. The fountain was an elaborate three-tiered masterpiece designed from plans found in a book that had survived from Before. It loomed over its small circular courtyard. From the top, water sprouted out of a small tube and then cascaded down the tiers to join the water that rested in the shallow pool at the base of the massive sculpture.

  It was the ripples that fascinated him; the way they would crest and move from side to side. When souls were present in the fountain, it looked like they danced and frolicked just under the surface. Bishop couldn't actually see them, no matter how hard he tried. The souls remained invisible to him. The Residents of Malm believed it was a magical thing given to them by the Creator. Bishop wasn't so sure.

  That night was the eve of a Soul Distribution Day, and so the fountain was inhabited by several souls who had been Called from wherever they were kept when they weren't in the fountain. Bishop had sneaked out to the fountain to watch the souls at play. After watching for what seemed liked several hours, Bishop had been gripped by an irrational desire to jump into the fountain to play with them.

  If he joined them, he wouldn't have to be alone any longer. It was like they knew that he felt like an outsider; not being able to recall his parents or childhood. The only thing he knew was the garden. They told him that the only thing he had to do was crawl into the shimmering water and float with them and he would never be alone again. He could hear them whispering to him. They wanted to play. They wanted to share their secrets with him. They wanted him to be one of them.

  His foot had just brushed the surface of the water when Bishop heard yelling behind him. Suddenly, two acolytes were at his side, dragging him back from the fountain's edge.

  Years later, Bishop could recall the sinking feeling of despair as he fell backwards, as if in slow motion. The three of them landed in a heap several feet away from the fountain's base. His voice, howling in frustration and rage, penetrated his ears. He struggled against the acolytes; he wanted to be with the souls in fountain. He wanted to play. He wanted to be free.

  And that's when he saw it.

  The water surged up from the surface of the pool and formed a vaguely human shape. Bishop stopped struggling and watched with his mouth agape as the figure grew even taller. Then it stretched towards them. One of the acolytes screamed and untangled himself from Bishop. He was on his feet in seconds. The figure loomed above them and the standing acolyte turned and ran. With fountain's spell all but gone, Bishop was paralyzed. He shrunk back as a thin tendril broke off from the main body and stretched out to hover inches away from his face.

  It wasn't playfulness Bishop heard from the voices hiding in the water then. The voices were angry. They wanted something, something that Bishop had been on the cusp of giving them; something that was being taken away.

  The acolyte next to him whispered words fervently and swiped a symbol in the air. Just when Bishop thought the tendril was going to wrap itself around him and pull him back in, it slapped at the acolyte and then flipped high in the air. Then the whole figure slipped back into the fountain and water sloshed over the fountain's edge as it disappeared back into the water's depths.

  Bishop still felt a seething energy wafting from the water. Whatever spell the acolyte cast had saved them. He slowly got to his feet and looked at the man who rose with him.

  The acolyte was barely more than a boy, but his sandy brown hair and intense green eyes were familiar. Then Bishop realized that it was Samuel, a perimeter boy who was being groomed within the Office of Souls to take on the role of Lead Acolyte to the Head Master. That also meant there was no shoving under the rug what had just happened. He was in trouble.

  The Head Master's punishment had been a week confined to his room. Bishop had been grateful that the punishment hadn't been losing his own soul. But on his pillow the morning after the incident, he found an ominous message waiting for him. You are to tend to the garden, Bishop. The Office of Souls tends to the fountain. Keep your distance.

  And so Bishop did, for many years. But he never forgot that menacing, hungry tendril of water that had hovered right in front of his face. He still sometimes woke up in the middle of the night drenched in a cold sweat after dreaming about it. He ignored the voices that sometimes scampered on the edge of his consciousness as he pruned the shrubs that bordered the fountain's courtyard. He tried to forget.

  Then came Soul Implantation Day 3675, the day that all hell broke loose.

  MALCOM

  Malcom and Eve woke up early the morning of Soul Implantation Day 3675. They didn't get up right away, but instead laid in bed whispering and grinning at each other like fools.

  "I can hardly believe that today is the day," Malcom said, reaching over to caress his wife's cheek. Every time he looked at her he felt like the luckiest guy in the world. He truly felt like he had it all. He had a good job, a comfortable home, and a gorgeous wife. Plus, Eve was as smart as she was beautiful, and when he looked at little Cameron, he thought that he could see Eve in the shape of his daughter's face as well as her nose and chin. He hoped as Cameron got older that she took after Eve instead of him. He didn't think he could love two people more.

  "Today is the real start of our family," Eve agreed in a low voice. "It'll all be worth it after today, right?"

  Malcom knew she was worried. He was worried too, but he wasn't going to tell her that. Today they were taking Cameron to the Soul Garden for her soul implant, and when they came home they would have the baby they always wanted.

  "Everything is going to be great," he said, stroking her cheek again. "Cameron is going to be the smartest, brightest, warmest little girl this world has ever seen."

  Eve smiled and giggled. It was music to Malcom's ears. Then they heard the baby's cry. Eve's face fell. "I didn't mean to wake her. It's a big day for her. I was hoping she'd sleep longer," she said with a pained expression.

  Although she had tried to couch it, Malcom knew his wife's words were less about concern for their daughter and more about minimizing the amount of time that Eve actually had to spend with her. Caring for Cameron, in Cameron's current state, had been difficult for Eve. Malcom was able to go off to work every day, and often his work required long hours and frequent travel out to other territorial cities. Since both of their parents were dead, Eve had been left alone to care for their daughter.

  "It's okay," he reassured his wife. "Deep down, I bet she understands what's going to happen today, and she's probably just as excited as we are. Tell you what. How about you whip us up some breakfast, and I'll get Cameron ready?"

  Eve reached over and
gave him a tight squeeze. As she pulled away, he could see grateful tears in her eyes. "Thank you. I love you," she said.

  "I love you too. You and Cameron are my girls," he said as he gave her a peck on the forehead.

  Eve nodded and then rolled over. She got out of bed and went into the bathroom.

  Malcom swung his leg over the edge of the bed and sighed. Cameron was fussing in her bassinet in the corner. Malcom walked over to the edge and gamely put a smile on his face. He knew that doing this would help even his tone of voice. "How are you this morning, Cameron?"

  Every infant born in Malm was born soulless. Eve had been inconsolable for weeks after Cameron was born, because had they naively believed that as soon as Cameron had been born they would be able to get her soul implanted right away. It was only then the Office of Souls advised them that there was a waiting list for souls. They also learned that for Cameron's safety as well as other Residents’, they were required to keep her sequestered at home until her soul implantation. No one had told them what it would be like to care for a soulless baby. It had taken six months for the name Cameron Lowden to be called over the public soul announcements as a Chosen.

  Malcom wondered whether he would be as reluctant to be around Cameron as his wife if he had been the one to stay home with her. He looked down into the bassinet at Cameron's small face. As usual for a soulless one, her skin was a dark mottled grey and her hair was a dingy brown that looked dull and filthy no matter how many times they washed it. Over time, he had adjusted to seeing her sickly pallor day after day, but it was her eyes that still made his stomach do tiny flip-flops every time he looked into them. Her honey brown irises were perfectly matched to his own, but hers were rimmed in red.

  There was also the matter of temperament. Soulless ones just didn't act the way that everyone else acted, and there wasn't a guidebook to follow that told them what Cameron needed. She never smiled. She rarely made noise. The only thing that Malcom ever knew for sure when interacting with his daughter was when she was hungry—the most basic survival instinct. Otherwise, he wasn't sure if Cameron had any feelings at all.

  He thought it was luck when he and Eve had even been selected in the procreation lottery. They had submitted their names on a whim after drinking too much wine on their fifth anniversary. Only one hundred couples in the territory of Malm were selected every year to procreate, and it was made out to be a big honor. Children were a rarity in Malm.

  Malcom had found the whole process to be invasive; there was nothing natural about it. But the procreation rules were a necessary precaution to regulate the population because souls were in short supply. The Office of Souls said it wouldn't be safe for the Residents if there was an overflow of soulless.

  While the procreation process had been clinical and callous, Malcom and Eve had been treated like royalty by their friends. Malcom knew many of their close friends were envious, at least until the day that Cameron had actually arrived. And then there had been a noticeable drop-off in the number house visits and phone calls, until they had stopped altogether. It seemed no one knew how to behave around a soulless baby, including her parents.

  But all of that changed today. "Today is the day you are going to get a soul, Cameron," Malcom cooed as he picked her up. She weighed next to nothing. Next to his bare skin she felt like an ice cube because soulless children didn't generate any warmth—another detail that was missing in the Official Handbook of Procreation Procedure. Cameron squalled and then opened her big red-rimmed eyes wide at him, and her mouth made small sucking noises. She was hungry.

  Malcom rocked her as he walked to the kitchen. He quickly warmed a bottle and Cameron latched on it as if she hadn't eaten in a week. In the first days after Cameron's birth Eve had reluctantly tried to breastfeed her, but wasn't able to get past the chilly little body latching onto her breast and leaving bruises from the force of the sucking. After watching several painful rounds and seeing Eve's fair skin turning black and blue, Malcom finally told her to stop. He had seen the relief in Eve's eyes, and struggled to not get upset at the unfairness of it all. This was nothing like the family that he had envisioned in his mind.

  Eve breezed into the kitchen, pulling her long blond hair back into a ponytail. She glanced at Malcom and Cameron before reaching into the cupboard for a pan. Even though Cameron was doing nothing but eating, Malcom felt the tenseness coming off Eve in waves.

  "Everything okay in here?" she asked as she pulled eggs from the refrigerator.

  "It's great," Malcom said, looking back down at his daughter. The infant's gaze was hypnotic as she sucked fiercely on the bottle. "I was just getting ready to go over the rules again for Cameron, to make sure she doesn’t mess anything up." Although Malcom's tone was lighthearted, he felt the niggling doubt in the back of his mind.

  Even turned to him with a panicked look on her face. "You don't think she can mess it up, right? I mean, she is just a baby, so they'd have to understand that we can't control that."

  "I'm kidding, Eve, relax," Malcom said. He wondered who he should be more worried about, Cameron or Eve.

  Cameron finished her bottle, and Malcom lifted her up onto his shoulder to burp her. He winced as chills ran down his spine from Cameron's cold cheek as it touched the sensitive area of his neck where it met the collarbone. He started to pat her back. An irrational thought flitted through his mind that she would latch onto his neck to continue her meal. He pushed the thought away.

  "She's not going to get a bad one, right Malcom?" Eve asked.

  He could see that breakfast had been forgotten as tears gathered in her eyes. "That's just a myth, Eve. A stupid story they used to tell us when we were young to keep us in line."

  "What about Molly Jenkins?" Eve persisted.

  "Molly Jenkins was an innocent little girl who got stuck with an abusive couple who should never have been able to procreate," Malcom said firmly. He turned away so that Eve couldn't see the doubt in his eyes.

  Many years ago, a little girl named Molly Jenkins killed her parents in their sleep. Even after it came out that she had been abused, there had been whispers that her parents were not the first people who had died around Molly. The punishment for murder was soul extraction, but it had taken the Office of Souls months to decide if the usual punishment would apply given Molly's age.

  But in the end, the Head Master decided that there could be no exception. Molly Jenkins became the youngest soul extraction in Malm's history, and then the rumors had started to fly that Molly had never stood a chance because her soul was flawed from the start. The rumors said that a man who had been convicted of serial murder had his soul extracted just days prior to Molly's implantation day.

  Whether they liked it or not, souls were in short supply in Malm. If a soul was identified as "flawed," it supposedly went through a rehabilitation process before it went back into the pool of available souls. Malcom shuddered to think that a soul that had belonged to someone evil could end up in his daughter. But he didn't have any say in the matter. The Office of Souls controlled the souls that were called to the fountain. The only thing that he and Eve could do was make sure Cameron's natural aura was more attractive than the others due a soul so that she drew the attention of the best soul.

  He didn't believe for one second that whatever the Office of Souls did to those "flawed" souls made them any better. Evil stayed evil. There were still people in the Malm who lied, stole, cheated, and killed. But the risk of a bad soul was a risk his family had to take. A child without a soul would forever be a societal outcast, and that wasn't what he wanted for Cameron

  He hugged his daughter closer to him despite the chill and smiled at Eve. "Everything's going to be great. Just you wait and see."

  SAMUEL

  Samuel had been with the Light in the Office of Souls almost a hundred years, and served in the role of Lead Acolyte to the Head Master for half that. But if asked, a Resident would probably have said he was in his mid-twenties. He had been told that time moved differently
in service of the Light, and he had no reason not to believe it. Since his boyhood, he had known his life's purpose; to serve the Office of Souls and the Head Master with unwavering loyalty. He had never deviated from that mission, and he didn't ask questions even when he was asked to do things that made no sense.

  Samuel was accustomed to a very strict routine at the Office of Souls, especially on Soul Distribution Day. Soul implantation was a very delicate procedure, and in the last several years, Samuel had noticed that the Head Master was becoming more fatigued after each ceremony. Although he worried, he said nothing. It wasn't his place.

  So when he entered the Head Master's office to start the morning's preparations on Soul Implantation Day 3675, he was surprised to find him already at his desk. Usually the Head Master rested until an hour before the ceremony's commencement to conserve his strength. He was hunched over a large book, and he had papers with strange markings spread out all over his desk.

  "There you are, Samuel." The Head Master gestured for the acolyte to sit down in the chair across from him, although he didn't look up from his book. "Sit. I'd like to review the implantation procedures with you."

  Samuel sat down and frowned. "Did I do something wrong during the last implantation procedure?" Samuel had attended the Head Master at hundreds of ceremonies over the years and as far as he knew, he had never been guilty of even one mistake.

  The Head Master sighed and closed the book. "Samuel, you are my most loyal acolyte. I trust no one as much as I trust you." He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Suddenly, he looked ancient to Samuel, and the thought sent a shot of fear through him.

  The Soul Garden was protected by the will of the Head Master, and everyone was protected from the fountain by the power of the Head Master. Samuel knew that at some point those two things could be jeopardized by the humanity of the Head Master, but everyone, including Samuel, operated under the belief that he would live forever.