Haunting Eden - Part 4
by Lynn M
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“Lois, honey, I’m so glad you decided to come on out.” Martha smiled warmly as she spooned sweet potatoes into her largest casserole dish. “How’d your folks take it?”
Lois grinned as she placed the neatly cut rolls onto a cookie sheet. “Well, I never did manage to speak to Daddy, so I don’t imagine he’s too disappointed. Mom thought I was crazy to pass up the chance to take a cruise with her and Lucy. ‘Wouldn’t you rather be sunbathing than freezing your tookis off in the middle of some cornfield?’ I think her exact words were.”
“I guess she’s got a point,” Martha said. “You’d be opening Christmas presents sitting next to a swimming pool in the Bahamas right about now if you’d gone along with them.”
“Somehow, it just isn’t right, though,” Lois remarked. “I’ve never been big on the whole Christmas thing, but even I know that a palm tree covered with lights and candy canes is just faking it.”
Martha laughed. “Or how about a Santa wearing red velvet shorts and Birkenstock sandals? I always have a good laugh when I see those Christmas parades in Los Angeles. The elves are all wearing bikinis.”
Both women giggled, and Martha felt a flush of victory in making Lois laugh.
When she’d turned down their offer to come out to the farm for Thanksgiving, Martha had been ready to pack their bags and head straight to Metropolis, her concerned-mother engine shifting into high gear. Only Jonathan’s calm insistence that they give Lois some space had convinced Martha to stay put.
His advice had proven to be spot on. A week after Thanksgiving Lois had called, uncharacteristically shy in asking if the offer they’d extended for Thanksgiving might be exchanged as a rain check to cover Christmas. Martha had been overjoyed at the prospect. Indeed, it had been only Lois’s impending visit that had prompted her to participate in Christmas at all. With Clark gone, she’d given serious thought to locking herself in the house until well after the January sales had emptied the shelves of anything holiday related.
But Lois had come, giving her reason to deck the halls. Martha had had to refrain from crying when she saw how thin Lois had become. Her welcoming embrace had nearly caused Martha physical pain as she’d felt the younger woman’s shoulder blades beneath her hands. With fierce determination, Martha had vowed to do her part in beefing Lois up, feeding both mind and body in the few short days they had together. Clark would never forgive her for letting his fiancé waste away to nothing.
Lois had finished with the rolls and was staring out the window over the kitchen sink while she rinsed the loose flour from her hands. “This is the way it’s supposed to be. Just like this,” she said softly.
Martha moved to stand next to the younger woman, looking out over the empty fields that wore a thick blanket of sugar snow. The skies were velvety gray, and Martha imagined they’d get another couple inches before the next morning. Down the long drive, a bright red bow tied to their mailbox fluttered in the light wind, a shocking contrast against the muted monochromatic landscape.
“It is pretty,” Martha agreed.
“Now I understand why he likes Christmas so much. He tried to explain it to me. Tried to help me feel it,” Lois said, and Martha didn’t need to ask who she meant by he. “I just didn’t get it until now.”
“He did love Christmas.” Martha turned her attention back to the sweet potatoes, concentrating on placing marshmallows in perfectly formed circles around the dish. “When he was little, he’d make a calendar right after Halloween and start marking off the days. I think he would have started the countdown after Fourth of July if I’d have let him.”
Lois moved to the kitchen table and took a seat. She reached for the glass of wine she’d been nursing all afternoon and took a long swallow, then pulled the small pile of cloth napkins in front of her.
Martha slid the sweet potatoes into the oven. “Pete and Lana should be here in about half an hour. I’ll wait a few more minutes to put those rolls in.”
To keep the three of them from staring at each other dismally across the Christmas turkey, Martha had invited Clark’s old school friends, Pete Ross and Lana Lang, to join them for dinner. She’d hoped that hearing about some of Clark’s escapades as a kid might be the antidote to the empty hole no amount of eggnog or Christmas caroling could fill.
“Do they know?” Lois asked carefully as she folded napkins. “About where he is?”
“Yeah. They both knew about his abilities and put two and two together pretty quick when Clark became Superman,” Martha explained. She went into the pantry and fetched two jars of canned snap beans. “When he left, they were a big comfort. Lana came around almost every day those first few weeks to check up on me. And Pete’s been a huge help to Jonathan. In fact, he’s the one who fetched the Christmas tree this year. Usually Clark would do that for us. I don’t know what we would have done if they hadn’t been around to keep us going.”
Lois was quiet for a long time, the only sound the soft rustle of fabric as she folded. “I’m glad they know. I hate the thought of having to fake it all through dinner.”
Martha frowned slightly as she struggled with the jar’s vacuum-sealed lid. “Well, not everyone loves Christmas. And I’m sure they’ll understand if you’re a bit on the quiet side, all things considered.”
“Not that,” Lois explained. “I’m glad they know where he’s gone and I don’t have to pretend that he’s just off on some assignment. Or that he just called a while ago to wish us a Merry Christmas when the truth is I haven’t heard from him in months. Might never hear from him again.”
The bitterness in her voice was almost palpable. But before Martha could offer any sympathy, Lois continued. “It’s why I couldn’t spend Christmas with my mother and Lucy. I don’t think I could have stood a whole week of smiling like a tweaked out fiancée. I’m just not that good at faking it.”
Martha’s heart broke for this woman who appeared so tough and in control but who was falling apart on the inside. How unfair it was that she had not only given up her future husband, but she had no one in her own family within whom she could confide. No shoulder she could cry on without a whole lot of explanation.
“Lois, you never have to pretend with us. You can feel and act any way you want to. Really, not even a single smile if that’s the mood you’re in. And our door is always open for you.”
“I know, and thanks,” Lois said with an appreciative smile. “Honestly, Martha, the only time I feel better is when I’m here, with you and Jonathan. I think that’s the hardest part, the pretending and all of the lies. Well, next to the fact that I can’t see him or talk to him and I miss him like crazy,” she amended with a shrug. “Nobody understands, and I can’t even explain it so that they could understand. I feel like one of those war brides, from World War II or Vietnam. Except my husband was the only one who was shipped overseas, and he’s undercover so no one even knows about it. He’s doing this great, noble thing, but I can’t brag about it or even tell anyone.”
Martha stopped her work abruptly, so fully in tune with Lois’s frustration that she wanted to weep. “I know. I mean, my son went off to fight a war, but instead of putting a bright shiny flag in the window and having everyone in town tell me how proud I must be, I have to bite my tongue when they ask me what he’s been up to these days.”
Lois picked absently at the fringe on one of the napkins. “I suppose that’s the way Clark felt his entire life.”
“It was hard for him for a long time,” Martha admitted. “But then he met you. And I think when you figured out his secret, he’d never felt so relieved about anything in his whole life. That is, once he got over being terrified that you were so mad you’d never forgive him.”
“Poor guy.” Lois said regretfully. “I did give him a pretty hard time there for a while. But he deserved it, you know.”
“Hey, you don’t have to convince me,” Martha rushed to assure her. She glanced at her watch and slipped the rolls into the oven, turning her attention back to Lois. “I thought he should have told you as soon as he realized he loved you, which was about ten minutes after he’d met you.”
Lois laughed, but it wasn’t the carefree joy of earlier, and she quickly sobered. “Know what I feel the most sorry for? How I treated him all those times he would run off, before I knew who he was.”
“Why’s that, honey?”
“Because I never gave him the benefit of the doubt. He’d throw out some lame excuse, like he had overdue library books or dry cleaning he just had to pick up that very second. And instead of just believing him, I was always suspicious. I accused him of not being serious about our relationship.” Lois shook her head ruefully. “I even gave him an ultimatum once. I told him if he took a phone call I’d never forgive him. Turns out it was a phone call for Superman.”
“Well, how could you have known?” Martha said sympathetically. “I mean, it does seem awfully strange, this guy who just up and runs off at the drop of a hat for apparently no good reason.”
“Yeah, I know,” Lois agreed. “But after I found out and all that strange stuff he’d done over the past two years started to make sense, I just realized how ready I was to assume the worst. And now that I’m the target of the same thing, I guess I just feel even worse about the fact that I was that way toward someone I love so much.”
Troubled by Lois’s confession, Martha abandoned the green beans and went to sit down at the table. “Is someone giving you a hard time about Clark?”
Lois sighed. “No, at least not to my face. I mean, I’m just so tired of people looking at me like I’m this poor sap who Clark ditched. Like he ran off with another woman or something and I’m too stupid to get it.”
“Oh, honey,” Martha exclaimed, horrified. She’d never given much thought to what people would be saying about Clark’s extended absence. “Is that what people think?”
“Like I said, they’d never say it to my face. But I’ve heard the whispers. I don’t know what’s worse. That they think of me as a complete nitwit or that they think of him as this lowlife loser who just up and left me. I can’t even defend him.”
A spark of red hot fury raced through Martha’s body. “Why those...creeps. I’d like to give them something to talk about. I ought to smack every last one of them.”
Lois smiled. “Believe me, I’ve thought of doing that more than a couple of times. I just want to scream at everyone, tell them how much we’ve all sacrificed. Especially Clark. But instead I have to keep making up excuses. Not that they believe them anymore, anyway.”
“Well, you just keep your head up. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of,” Martha started, then the timer on the oven let out a demanding beep. She stood and returned to the oven, and with an angry jerk, she opened the door and yanked out the tray of dinner rolls. “Look, perfectly golden brown. Done!”
She smacked the cookie sheet on the top of the stove, frowning when she heard a stifled laugh.
“I’m sorry,” Lois said with a choked giggle. “I just got this image of you storming into the Planet waving an oven mitt in everyone’s face.”
Martha followed the line of Lois’s gaze and realized that she did indeed have her oven-mitted hand balled into an over-sized fist. She looked like the Pillsbury dough boy gearing up for a heavy-weight bought. The anger seeped out of her, and she started to laugh as well.
“Martha,” Jonathan’s voice was followed by his head, poked around the swinging door. He glanced from Lois to Martha, his eyebrows lowering in bemusement. “You girls OK in here?”
Martha nodded. “We’re fine, Jonathan. Just some girl talk.”
“Pete and Lana are here.”
He gave her a slow wink, then retreated out of the kitchen. Her mind drifted over the countless Christmases she’d spent with Jonathan. She didn’t know what she’d do without him standing by her side.
Feeling much calmer, Martha plucked the rolls off the cookie sheet and into the waiting basket. Grabbing it in one hand and the casserole of steaming sweet potatoes in the other, she headed for the dining room.
“Lois, you got those napkins?” Martha asked, then stopped cold when she caught the fearful expression on Lois’s face, such a shock considering only seconds before they’d shared a hearty laugh. “What is it, honey?”
“Before...earlier, you said did.” When Martha gave her a quizzical look, she clarified, “You said Clark really did love Christmas. Past tense.”
The older woman paused a minute, running back over the earlier conversation. Had she really done that? Spoken of Clark in the past tense? As if he were no longer a going concern?
With a gasp, she realized that she had. And to her even greater horror, it came to her that for some time, since those weeks before Thanksgiving when she’d stopped feeling him speaking to her heart, she’d begun to think of him that way. As if he were a part of the past, a part that she was no longer so certain would be a part of the future even as much as she wanted it to be so.
It wouldn’t do, of course. She had to stop doing that. Immediately.
“I’m sorry. It must be the season...the stress getting to me,” she explained as much to herself as to Lois. “This time of year is always hard. I didn’t mean anything by it. Just a silly slip, that’s all. Clark still loves Christmas. Of course he does.”
“Martha, he’s gonna come back, isn’t he?”
She studied Lois a long minute. She was ready to lie, to say the thing that Lois wanted to hear and that she herself wanted most desperately to believe.
But she and Lois had found so much comfort in each other that Martha couldn’t do it. Lois shared her grief, and together they shared the burden of the truth. It wouldn’t do for Martha to pretend, not with Lois.
“I don’t know, honey,” she said with a slight catch in her voice. “I just don’t know.”
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Clark paced the confines of his cell, covering the distance from wall to wall in less than five strides. He knew every single square inch of the stainless steel enclosure by heart. Knew that there were no cracks to pry at nor moments when the door would be unguarded. Had learned the hard way that any form of rebellion would be swiftly and severely extinguished. Unlike on Earth, in this place, his body could be bruised and his blood flowed freely.
Pulling the chain out from beneath his uniform, he worried the platinum ring between his fingers as he paced. It had become an unconscious habit whenever he was alone, which was most of the time. Indeed, the edges of the band had become rounded, even the metal no match for the relentless friction of his fingers. If he remained alive, he had no doubt that, eventually, the ring would disappear altogether, absorbed into the pores of his skin.
He’d struggled to keep track of the number of days he’d been there, a feat made nearly impossible since he hadn’t been afforded a glimpse of the world outside since his arrival. There were no windows in the two rooms he frequented. He knew not if it was day or night, his body’s circadian rhythms long ago knocked asunder. Only the regular appearance of meals gave him any indication of passing time. By his calculations, he’d been held prisoner close to four months, give or take a week. Or two.
Long ago he’d given up any real hope of escaping. There was simply no way to devise any plan, much less execute one. He was under guard twenty four hours a day, held by Nagas guards with weapons. He had no idea how big the complex was, thus he couldn’t fathom how to get out of the place even if he were to somehow manage to break free.
Beyond the immediate hurdles, too there was the barren wasteland that was New Krypton. Once outside the complex, his prison simply changed from stainless steel and locked doors to endless stretches of red-rock mountains, red desert, and the heat of the relentless, red sun. He had no idea where he was nor how he would get back to Kail’asa without dying of thirst.
His only hope now rested on Zara and Ching. He had to believe that they were searching for him. That they would come with the Veda Rishi army and bring him out of this hell. He only had to keep a hold of his sanity until they arrived. They had to arrive.
So while he waited, he paced.
The endless circles served more than to relieve his boredom and frustration. They kept him awake.
He fought sleep, and only when he could no longer hold his eyes open did he succumb. Worse than the sterile cell and the near isolation from any other living being were the dreams that played before his eyes. Dreams so vivid he could feel the cool breezes and the heat of skin, smell the scents that danced through the air and hear the screams that ripped through his very soul.
The longer he was there, the more he slept, the more that he feared his ability to separate reality from the unconscious nightmares that awaited him behind his closed eyes would dwindle. If not for the ring that reminded him, always, of the truth, he wondered if he’d have given up long ago. As it was, the tiny silver circle linked him not only to Lois but to his very sanity.
The cell door began to hum, and immediately he shoved the ring and its chain back underneath his uniform. Dinner time. Or perhaps lunch or even breakfast. All of his meals consisted of the same tasteless stew studded with chunks of what might have once been vegetables. He ate it because it filled his belly, and more than once he’d been shown the alternative should he care to decline their offering.
Receding to the furthest corner of his cell and assuming a military stance, his legs spread slightly and his hands clasped behind his back, Clark watched as the door evaporated. After his first half a dozen attempts at escape during the delivery of his meals, the Nagas had determined it was best for him to be chained while he ate. But on occasion, depending on the soldier on duty and if he presented a docile enough demeanor, he escaped such humiliation. It had become a challenge...his only challenge, actually...to see how many times in a row he could avoid being restrained. And, too, he’d never given up hope that his guards would grow lax, the door remaining open a second longer than usual but just long enough.
He’d found that every third meal presented his best hope, a young Nagas named Barro who’d revealed his name after a time, albeit with a scowl of anger after he’d done so. By Clark’s calculations, this was the third meal of that particular day.
But instead of dark-skinned Barro, a man with a thick thatch of blond hair backed into the room before turning to face Clark, silver tray in his hands. He bowed slightly, and Clark blinked. The Nagas never showed him such deference. They were as likely as not to backhand him should they be in such a mood.
The door hissed back into existence behind the man, and he gave it a fleeting look of regret. Staying as close to the wall as possible, and therefore as far away from Clark as he could manage, the man edged to the tiny metal table and placed the tray upon it. Checking it several times, either to make sure that the tray was secure or to avoid direct eye contact with the looming prisoner who had remained motionless in the far corner, Clark wasn’t sure. Finally, the man lifted a face to reveal pale blue eyes full of a mixture of something between fascination and pure terror.
Clark knew the look well. It was the same exact one he’d received regularly that first year he’d donned his Superman persona. On nearly every rescue he’d performed, before the citizens of the world had grown used to a flying, super-strengthed, alien in their midst. Fascination, but always mixed with fear.
“Where’s Barro?” Clark asked in Kryptonian, his voice cracking slightly from disuse.
The man startled, as if shocked that the prisoner had actually spoken directly to him. His skin paled visibly, until it nearly matched the white uniform the man wore. Instead of answering Clark’s question, he shook his head slightly and motioned to the stool and the bowl of sludge he’d brought.
Clark was starting to wonder if everyone in the entire place was mute or if they spoke some odd dialect that made his own carefully learned Kryptonian completely unintelligible to them. He’d only come in contact with around a dozen people, but even so, not a single one had spoken directly to him.
Those first few weeks, he’d been tended by some sort of physician who’d checked the wound on his thigh every day, dabbing various ointments on it and changing the bandage wrapped tightly around it. The man had never spoken, nor would he respond to any of Clark’s frantic questions or pleas to send a message to the Imperial Palace. Clark had given some thought to fighting against the treatment until his questions were answered, but reason had prevailed over frustration and desperation. He’d be helpless if the deep cut festered. Besides, it had caused him a lot of pain, and the ointments had brought welcome relief.
As his leg had healed, the physician’s visits had dwindled until he no longer came at all. Until this strange little man had entered his cell, Clark had had contact only with the surly Nagas guards, and they never spoke to him except to grunt or shout their displeasure when he piqued their ire.
The man had taken steps back toward the door, and once again he gestured to the table, indicating that Clark should sit and eat. But he made no move to leave the cell like the guards usually did after this particular chore. Clark’s curiosity got the best of him. By the white uniform and this man’s small stature, it was clear he was no Nagas. He seemed far too meek to be any kind of real threat, and Clark let himself relax slightly.
With a nod of agreement, Clark took a seat on the metal stool at the table and began to eat. He shifted uncomfortably, keenly aware that the pale blue eyes remained fixated on him. Clark knew that he was constantly under surveillance, glass walls concealing people who charted his every move, but never so obviously had he been observed. Studied.
“You are Lord Kal-El.”
The statement echoed off the metal walls, and Clark’s spoon stopped in mid-air. Not only was this man’s English perfect, but he’d actually used Clark’s name, or at least his Kryptonian name. A name he hadn’t heard since his first commander had shouted a warning to him through the chaos of battle and he’d turned to see a Kryptonian spear flying towards him.
Clark gave a single nod, but rather than launch into two thousand questions of his own, he resorted to the old journalistic stand-by that never failed to get a source singing like a canary. He remained silent and waited.
“Is it true you were raised on the planet called Earth?” the man asked, taking an almost imperceptible step toward the table.
Again, Clark gave a nod, but not as quickly. Surely these people knew where he was from? All of New Krypton knew that. What was this man’s game?
“What was it like? This Earth?”
Clark’s eyes narrowed as he contemplated this question with a mixture of surprise and suspicion. He was a prisoner of war. Why wasn’t this man pushing him for information about troops and planned attacks? For nearly four months he’d expected such an interrogation, yet the first person who’d spoken to him at all asked him not about the movements and position of the Veda Rishi but rather about Earth?
“Green. Wet,” he said at last, with a good deal of wistfulness in his voice as he remembered the vast turquoise oceans and deep emerald forests so different than the red rock that was New Krypton. He missed the rain. Never in his life would he have imagined he’d ever miss rain so much. With a shrug of his shoulders meant to dispel his sudden melancholy, he amended his answer. “At least a good deal of it. Beautiful.”
“Fascinating,” the man whispered. As if all of his hesitancy had disappeared, he approached the table quickly, the earlier terror in his expression replaced by pure curiosity. “Then why did you leave such a beautiful place? To come here?”
But Clark had had enough. “I’m not going to answer any more questions until you’ve answered some of mine. Tell me who you are.”
The man paled again, swallowing hard. “Tor...Lieutenant Toren.”
Despite his military title, Clark was still willing to bet this man had little to do in Nor’s army. This man was no guard, yet he seemed above the station of servant. The fact that he had been allowed in Clark’s cell at all meant he held some power, and therefore, he must know something.
He pressed on. “Why am I here?”
“Because Lord Nor commands it,” Lieutenant Toren answered, neatly avoiding any telling details.
“Lord Nor wants me dead,” Clark observed with a snort. This information was not news. He’d suspected all along that Nor was behind his capture, but it didn’t explain why he was being held prisoner. Did Nor plan to use him as some kind of bait against Zara? Hold him for ransom? “What’s his game? Why hasn’t he killed me?”
But rather than answer his question, Lieutenant Toren studied Clark thoughtfully. “Who is Lois? What is her position – ”
A flash of fury tore through Clark’s chest, and he leapt to his feet, knocking over both the stool and the table. The bowl crashed to the ground, brown stew splattered on the pristine walls and floor. “How do you know about her?! What the hell are you people doing to me?”
At this burst of outrage, Lieutenant Toren retreated back to the door like a frightened rabbit, his face a grimace of fear. He rapped on it urgently, and it vaporized to release him. Before it closed, he turned back to face Clark with a sad frown. “It would cause you less pain if you would cease to resist.”
The door reappeared with a hiss and Clark stared at it a minute. His fingers fluttered to the collar of his uniform and dipped beneath it, seeking the cool metal chain and the drug hanging at its end. Twirling the circle between his thumb and forefinger, he let it soothe his pounding heart to a normal rhythm.
He could handle anything they did to him. But the idea that they even knew of Lois’s existence sent a fear unlike any other tearing through his veins.
Once again, he began to pace.
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To be continued...
