Escape from Eden Read Free Page A

voice. “Agatha is the kitchen director and she needs you. Although I don’t want to call her your boss, your contribution as a member of the Flock is to feed the congregation. And she’s asked for you to assist in a task. I’m assuming it’s not a dire situation for you to visit Doc Gladstone?”
    “Splinter,” was all I said.
    “A splinter can wait.”
    I nodded and thanked him before I hurried toward the kitchen. I felt his eyes on me as I skittered away. A trickle of sweat slipped down my spine. It was unusual for Agatha to call me to the kitchen at that time of day, right after I’d left breakfast service, but it was more unusual for Thaddeus to come find me. Did she know about my knife? Our knives were our tools, expensive tools from what I understood. I’d have to work off losing the knife.
    You didn’t lose it. Gabriel stole it.
    And like a fool—a tingly, girly fool—I let him.
    When I opened the door to the kitchen, it was dark inside, the shades drawn over the windows. Agatha stood next to the opened door of the special provisions pantry, normally a locked closet at the back of the kitchen on the other side of the prep tables. A dim light from one of the workstations spilled over Agatha’s lanky frame. The furrows along her forehead deepened. I couldn’t see what she was unloading, but it made a tiny clinking noise, like glass.
    “You requested to see me?”
    Agatha jumped and pressed the palm of her hand to her chest. “Mia!” she said in a high-pitched voice. “You startled me.”
    “I’m sorry.” I stepped into the kitchen and shut the door behind me. “Thaddeus said you needed me here?” I stressed his name, so she would understand how weird I thought it was.
    She didn’t notice. “I do.” She stuffed something back into the pantry, the muscles beneath her sleeves flexing as she moved. “I’m baking today and need help,” she said as she fished a key from her apron pocket and locked the pantry door. She slipped the keychain, a curly yellow cord, around her wrist.
    “But we baked the bread this morning,” I said.
    “Not bread.” Agatha grinned tightly, her hair pulled back in a severe bun. Her cheekbones were honed under her eternally sunburned skin. “We’re making cookies.”
    “Cookies?” I asked.
    She began removing the large canisters of flour and sugar from the shelves. “Yes, dear. Cookies.”
    We only made cookies—or any sweets for that matter—for holidays, like Christmas and Easter, when the Reverend allowed the Flock to celebrate. But other celebrations were rare in Edenton, about as rare as cold weather.
    I didn’t ask any more questions and got to work, as was expected of me. Agatha asked me to measure and mix the dry ingredients. She remained on the other side of the kitchen diligently weighing and measuring the wet ingredients, then incorporating mine. We worked in silence for a few hours, hundreds of cookies going in and coming out of the ovens. Agatha kept the other staff away from our work area, even as the smell of peanut butter cookies baking filled the entire cafeteria, prompting a few questions and many longing stares.
    As I worked, though, my eyes kept going to where Gabriel had appeared the night before. He’d slipped out of the darkness and come toward me with such determination that my heart still stammered thinking about the look in his eyes. I’d never seen anyone look at me like that. Even Octavio didn’t look at me like that.
    But it was all a tactic, wasn’t it? A ploy to get my knife.
    My eyes flicked to the empty slot in my magnetic knife rack on the wall.
    From where I stood in the back of the kitchen, I caught glimpses of the dining hall through the staff serving lunch. Because all the girls my age worked in the kitchen, my cottage mates were on the front lines of service. They stole glances back at me as I scooped cookie dough onto baking sheets. Agatha had lectured me earlier about not tasting the dough. It was disrespectful to