“Where did this come from?” Mr. Jacob Genesee said to himself, as he used a garden shovel to examine a young tree by its roots. “I don’t want another tree in the backyard.”
His brick home was nestled in a small town next to a dairy farm. His shiny red Chevy sat in the driveway while trees and shrubs filled his backyard. A sliding glass door led into the back of the house. A flower trellis sat on the patio next to the glass door.
“Olivia, did you replant the tree shoot that I picked and threw into the trash yesterday?” he called to his 12-year-old daughter.
“No, Dad,” Olivia responded from the kitchen window. “I don’t go digging through the trash. I could get germs!”
“Well, honey, someone must have replanted it,” her mother Claire explained, while she examined the mysterious regrown baby tree. “This is as bad as having a weed that never dies!”
“So, what happened?” her father asked. “The ground opened, and it grew a new tree overnight?”
“Haha! Why does everyone have to be so mean?” Olivia questioned.
She opened the sliding glass door and walked from the kitchen. Then, she slouched in a garden chair and brushed her chestnut brown hair from her shoulders.
“Our little town of Humansville has so many problems,” she said. “Why did you throw the little tree in the trash? I just want Humansville to not be so messed up. Why is that too much to ask? I wish for it more than anything. I would’ve climbed those tree branches one day.”
“Fine, I’ll leave this little tree alone,” her father agreed.
“You need to be more realistic,” her mother chided.
“Practical,” her father said in a firm tone.
“Last time I checked, trees bring us oxygen to breathe,” Olivia said. “Maybe you can explain it to me. I’m only in the seventh grade.”
Her parents did not respond to her smart-aleck comments.
As she headed off to school, it started raining, one raindrop at a time, which fogged her glasses.
Later that day, when she returned home, she found a full-grown tree in her backyard with a huge trunk. Green leaves and red, juicy apples hung from the tree branches. A dripping wet player piano sat next to it and made haunting music.
“Is this a joke?” Olivia whispered in disbelief. “Mom . . . Dad . . . you can stop your tricks now! I know you thought I was upset about you pulling out the tree shoot, but really . . . this is a bit much. Where did you get this gigantic tree? What’s with the piano?”
Olivia plopped herself beneath the shady branches. “I guess there’s nobody home,” she said, as she dozed off for a nap.
When she woke up, her parents and her 10-year-old brother Nathan gawked at her beneath the awkward tree in the backyard. The player piano crooned melodies in the minor key.
“Young lady, what did you do this time?” her father asked her, as eerie music played from the piano.
“What?” she asked. She woke up from a deep sleep and slowly remembered the addition of the tree in her backyard. “What did I do? No, what did you do? You can’t blame me for this!”
“I definitely didn’t plant this!” Claire, her mother, said. She touched its trunk to make sure it was real. “This music is so strange. Does the piano play automatically?”
“This seems like a crazy joke. Did someone plant the tree when we weren’t looking?” her brother suggested and brushed his sandy blonde hair from his face.
“I’m hungry,” Olivia moaned. She grabbed a gorgeous, shiny apple from the tree and bit into it. As she was about to take another bite, her dog, Meatloaf, ran from the house, barked, and knocked the bright apple from her hands onto the ground.
Her family watched worms crawl from the once pristine fruit. Olivia spit out as much of the apple as she could from her mouth, and Meatloaf kicked the rotten apple under a bush.
“Aren’t the glistening apples beautiful?” her mother said, almost blinded to the danger of the rotten fruit.
“Olivia must have just picked a bad one,” her father said, as he followed her mother’s lead. “One bad apple can’t spoil the bunch!”
“I’m so curious,” her brother said. He handed the apples to his parents before he bit into one. “Mine doesn’t have worms. It’s really fresh and delicious.”
“I don’t know,” Olivia said and rubbed her head. “I have a stomachache from just one bite.”
“We might as well have apples for dinner tonight,” her father stated rashly.
“Better than the produce aisle at the grocery store,” her mother suggested.
“Almost organic,” her brother said. “We don’t use pesticides.”
Feeling sick from the apple, Olivia sat down in front of the player piano and attempted to find an off button on the instrument.
“There doesn’t seem to be a way to control this instrument. It just keeps playing and playing on its own,” Olivia said, as she watched her family enjoy the apples. “Oh, maybe I did just get a bad one.” She grabbed another apple and sunk her teeth into it.
After a full meal of apples, the family went to bed for the night, and the player piano performed its creepy music without interruption, fast melodies, and then slow ones. It even changed keys and time signatures.
“I have a bigger stomachache than I did before the second apple,” Olivia said, as she yawned to herself.
Despite her flulike symptoms, overnight, her body transformed into that of a weightlifter from the evil powers of the apples. By morning, she looked like a superhero.
“Wow!” Olivia said with amazement. She gazed at herself in the mirror. With bulging muscles, she stood taller in stature and stronger in form than ever before in her entire life. “I must have superpowers from the apples!” she called to her family. Then, she stomped into the driveway and lifted the family car into the air.
“I’m stronger than a quarterback!” Nathan declared, as he threw the football to the end of the neighborhood street.
Through the front window, Olivia watched her mother and father rearrange the dining room furniture in minutes. They zigzagged back and forth without much effort.
“We decided to try a new look,” Olivia’s mother explained as her children walked through the front door.
Then, Nathan accidentally slammed the door and broke its frame because of his superstrength.
“Be careful,” her father scolded. He glanced at the damage. “I’ll fix the cracks later.”
“Who cares about the broken door?” Olivia asked, while she flexed her muscles. “I look like a sports model. The apples did this for us!” She ran to the tree and grabbed a shiny apple without worms for breakfast. She felt its power.
The rest of the family ran to eat more apples as Meatloaf barked in warning.
“If I make applesauce, we can eat handfuls of fruit at once,” her mother suggested. “Our powers will increase exponentially.”
“We were meant to have this power,” her father insisted. “We deserve it.”
“Life is going to be so much easier,” Nathan decided. “No one will ever bully me again.”
After school, Olivia came home and flung a detention notice on the kitchen counter.
“So, I broke the bathroom window by slamming the door and knocked over the chemistry lab table,” Olivia said with a laugh. “I didn’t mean to break anything. I was just showing my power to everyone around me. Mom and Dad won’t care.”
Since no one else was home, Olivia walked into the backyard alone to eat some more apples and abruptly noticed a scantily dressed woman that crawled in the mysterious tree. She sang along with the player piano.
“Who are you? And what are you doing in my backyard?” Olivia yelled at the stranger.
“Maybe I’ll tell you,” said the stranger in the leaf-like body suit, her voice like the wind through the trees. “Or maybe I won’t. The truth is heavy. Some people can’t carry it.”
“The truth?” Olivia responded. “Because I deserve it.”
“Oh, really?” the woman said and sighed softly. “I thought you deserved power. You seemed to like the apples. The apples seem beautiful. But they’re cursed. They tempt people with power they’re not ready for. I’ve seen what it does—it ruins them. It ruined me.”
“I didn’t put this tree here,” Olivia argued. Her mouth watered, and her hands itched to grab an apple. “It invaded my space.”
“Well, in that case, then maybe I should tell you the truth. My name is Evelyn,” she said. “The tree has the power to bring life or death. Which one do you want for Humansville, Olivia? You are a smart girl.”
“Life,” Olivia responded in a whisper. “I want life.”
“Good, I’m glad to hear that,” Evelyn said. “Named after Eve, the first woman, I carry the Legend of the Tree of Good and Evil to whoever will listen. A version of the original Tree from the Garden of Eden appears from time to time to test people. Didn’t you wish for Humansville to be a better place to live? Well, you were asking for the Tree’s appearance when you did that!”
“I didn’t intentionally do anything,” Olivia explained. She wondered where her parents were at the moment and hoped her brother would be home at any minute.
“Until the town understands its faults, how will it ever be a more gracious place to live?” Evelyn asked. “Remember when Eve and her husband Adam ate its apples and were kicked out of the Garden of Eden? Just like them, you’ve clearly become obsessed with the power of the apples.”
Then, she blinked, and Evelyn was gone, but the player piano continued to play. “This is getting weirder by the minute,” Olivia said. “Where did she go?”
Olivia heard a voice echo from the tree: “You think I want to hurt you? No. I want to warn you. But no one ever listens until it’s too late. Belief isn’t enough. Lots of people believe. That doesn’t make them wise.”
Considering her options, Olivia decided not to take any chances.
“I have to get rid of these apples before they tempt anyone else,” Olivia said, as her hands shook with jitters. She gathered the apples from the Tree and hid them in her bedroom so no one else could eat them. She struggled to withstand the thought of gorging herself on the fruit. Then, she looked out her bedroom window at a tree branch. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” she said, when she noticed that the Tree had grown more fruit.
Before her family came home, she hurried into the backyard to destroy the new apples. Meatloaf barked and howled at the fruit, instead of being tempted by it.
“Man’s Best Friend,” Olivia said. She picked Meatloaf up and hugged him. Then, she stomped on the apples that had already fallen to the ground, even if she was longing to eat them. “You’re always protecting me,” she told her dog.
She hoped her willpower against the apples would be enough. A ray of light shone through the clouds, and the wind brushed against her face.
“What’s going on?” her father asked, as he stumbled into the backyard, several inches taller than his normal size. Her mother had the muscles of a heavyweight champion.
“Nothing. Not a thing,” Olivia said quietly. “Just cleaning up around here.”
“I’m going to make apple pies tonight,” her mother called from the kitchen. “Your brother requested pie with vanilla ice cream. He’s bringing over some friends.”
“We want apples!” a group of guys yelled. They ran through the front door with a fury.
Her brother threw his friends against the wall and caused a bookshelf with delicate pictures and keepsakes to crash to the floor.
“Wow!” Olivia exclaimed and rushed to her bedroom. “I have a lot of studying to do tonight. Big test tomorrow. I have to focus right now.”
She hurried into her room with Meatloaf, locked the door, and buried herself into the covers on her bed with her dog. She cried as she fought the temptation of the apples. Her head throbbed, and her heart raced.
“What am I going to do?” she said, as she sobbed. “My family did not ask for this tree.”
That night, from her bedroom window, Olivia noticed that Evelyn had reappeared, asleep on the tree branches under the moonlight.
Olivia wondered if she should wake Evelyn and demand a real explanation from her.
“How lucky can Olivia be? She is the only one in her family who has eyes to see me,” Evelyn chanted in a rhyme.
“Why does this have to happen to me?” Olivia mumbled. She pounded on the mattress on her bed with her fist.
The next day at school, Olivia attempted to stop eating the deceptive apples.
Despite her longing for the fruit, she ate a ham and cheese sandwich and pretzels for lunch in the cafeteria. By the time the bell rang for her next class, her hands shook, and she craved the apples more than ever.
“I feel like I’m hallucinating, and I can’t see straight,” she whispered to herself. “I have no choice. I might just have to eat one apple. One might be enough to help me through the day.”
She pulled a gorgeous apple from her backpack in study hall and ate it before she could think about it. She did not notice any worms on the fruit. “Oh, I feel better,” she told herself. Then, she accidentally destroyed everything in her path with her superstrength while she walked to her next class. She even made permanent footprints in the floor.
“Don’t go anywhere near her,” her classmate screamed. “She’s gone crazy. Her brother is the normal one. He’s so nice that he’s passing out delicious apples. I just ate one.”
Hours later at home, Olivia felt worse than ever, almost like she was dying, craving more apples. “I got my powers too easily,” she said to herself and threw herself on the couch. “I did not earn the responsibility that comes with them. I am a mess.”
“Apples!” she heard a grown man scream in the neighborhood. “More apples!”
“Oh, Mom passed out the apples to the neighbors!” Olivia said. “Clearly, too much applesauce.”
Even though the apples gave her superhuman strength, she knew the strength was destructive. She felt sick to her stomach and could not think of a remedy.
Wanting to avoid Evelyn, she went out to the front yard. She looked at the chaos in the neighborhood brought by the people who had eaten the apples: uprooted gardens and trees, broken roofs and windows, smashed cars into broken fences, and flattened garbage cans. As far as she could see, the entire place was in shambles.
“The Tree just keeps producing more bad apples,” she said, as she shook her head. “Everything is out of control.”
Walking into the backyard, Olivia saw Evelyn sprawled across the tree branches.
“You don’t realize how lucky you are, Olivia,” Evelyn said, her voice trembling. “To watch other people make choices while you’re stuck in the consequences of your own is horrible.”
“Please tell me what to do to stop the madness from the apples,” Olivia begged. She collapsed on the ground in front of the Tree and cried. “I need to save Humansville. Stop being so mean. Tell me what to do to get rid of the poisonous apples. Their power is dangerous.”
“This is such a dark night of the soul for you, isn’t it? Hmm, you might need this lesson,” Evelyn said as she taunted Olivia. “You’re just like everyone else. But maybe you could be different. If you don’t waste the test. If you don’t become like me . . .”
“Why?” Olivia said and wept. “You are the one who needs to be filled with love. I didn’t make a stupid tree grow in your backyard.”
“Every hard thing in life is used for learning,” Evelyn remarked. “It’s just another lesson. You must have needed to go through this trial. What are you learning from this test? It’s harder than a chemistry test, isn’t it?”
“I’m learning that you are cruel and heartless,” Olivia argued. “You won’t even let other people see you – only me.”
“I’m merely a messenger,” Evelyn proclaimed. “I will never be a true human being, and I really do hate humans for their free will. What a pity!”
With that, Olivia climbed up the Tree and threw Evelyn onto the ground. She wrestled with her until she had her pinned.
“You are the one who is about to learn something,” Olivia yelled. “I’m about to be a very good teacher.”
“Fine! I give up. I was jealous—because I failed. I was never given another chance. No one ever let me try again,” Evelyn said, as she gasped for air. “There is a second tree, the Tree of Life . . . in the Land of Eden, named after the original Garden of Eden.”
“And?” Olivia said, determined to get the whole story.
“The Garden was said to inhabit the first man and woman, Adam and Eve,” Evelyn continued. “The seeds of the fruit on the Tree of Life can create an elixir that reverses the curse from the apples on the Tree of Good and Evil.”
“Tell me more,” Olivia said, still holding Evelyn to the ground.
“There is a window that opens next to the Tree of Good and Evil at midnight on the seventh full day of the Tree’s appearance,” Evelyn admitted. “When the player piano plays a specific magical song, the piano announces that a window is opening and can transport a person to the Land of Eden.”
“How do I know that you’re telling the truth?” Olivia questioned Evelyn.
“You don’t have a choice,” Evelyn said. “If I help you through the window, I want you to help me become human.”
“I don’t know how to help you become human, but I will help you in any way that I can,” Olivia promised her. “This would require me to save Humansville from destroying itself.”
Then, rattling noises and large thuds came from the house.
“My family is home,” Olivia explained. She hoped they had not completely damaged the house with their superpowers. “I’ll be back at midnight on the seventh day.”
“I’ll be here,” Evelyn moaned. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Apples for dinner, Olivia,” her mother called. “We’re waiting for you!”
“I’m not really hungry,” Olivia whispered. She hurried into the house with scratches on her hands. “I already ate, but thanks.”
For the next few days, Olivia managed the danger of the apples with little success.
“Humansville is falling apart more each day!” she said to herself. She watched from a distance as the townspeople fought amongst themselves at school, in the grocery store, and in the library. She wished everyone would calm down.
Although she craved an apple badly, she felt clammy all over. She resisted eating the fruit, and her superstrength dissipated.
“I’m safer without those stupid superpowers,” Olivia said to herself.
Then, at midnight on the seventh day, she waited next to the Tree of Good and Evil in her backyard. She wore her new white sneakers to make a good impression. Right on cue, the player piano performed an altogether different melody, triumphant and grand, instead of melancholy.
“Time to go,” Olivia explained to Meatloaf as he whimpered. “You stay here, and I will be back as soon as I can.”
“Now is your chance,” Evelyn said and laughed with a smirk. “Make the most of it. The song won’t last but a few minutes.”
When the window between Humansville and the Land of Eden finally appeared, Olivia jumped through it without a second thought. She spun and twirled down a long tunnel, like on an amusement park ride.
“Don’t look back. Only move forward,” Olivia yelped and swallowed hard.
“Eden is the place where all the choices began,” Evelyn called to Olivia.
Olivia landed in the lush paradise of Eden. Its foliage looked like a magical garden, where someone would want to stay forever. Bright flowers and large trees filled the land with a sweet aroma. As she sat outstretched on the ground, she spotted a golden tree.
“This must be the Tree of Life,” she said. She ran to pick its fruit and filled her pockets full of as many golden seeds as she could from inside the Tree’s crop.
“It’s so beautiful,” Olivia stammered. She studied its branches in amazement as Evelyn watched her through the window.
“Hurry home,” Evelyn said to her. “Oh, but wait, how do you get back to Humansville once you’ve travelled to Eden? I forgot to mention that part. Yes, I forgot to mention a few things.”
“What do you mean you forgot to mention that part?” Olivia yelled. She tried to reach back through the window to Humansville. It was like she bumped her hand on a glass mirror. “You forgot to mention that it was a one-way window!”
“I tricked you into leaving your friends and family in Humansville,” Evelyn said. Her head stuck partially through the window as she gloated. “I must become human!”
“What?” Olivia cried. “What are you talking about?”
“Well, if you want to come back to Humansville, then you can beseech King Adam II, the new ruler of Eden,” Evelyn said. “Only Adam II can change me into a human being, and he has previously refused my request, saying that I am only a messenger and do not have the strength for free will.”
“I think he is right,” Olivia agreed. “You would not do the right thing if the right thing hit you in the head.”
“If you don’t speak to Adam II now, you will never return to Humansville, and there is no hope for anyone in the town—your family and friends will never recover from eating the apples. You have three days,” Evelyn said, as the window slowly vanished like vapor. “So, I wouldn’t waste any time, if I were you. Get on with things.”
Olivia sat alone next to the golden Tree of Life and looked across the luscious land of rolling green hills and fragrant flowers. Bees and butterflies flew through the sky. The sun shone without a cloud in the sky. A waterfall crashed into the river, and a rainbow surrounded the glistening Tree as fish jumped from it.
“Does anyone know the way to Adam II?” Olivia called aloud to houses on the hillside. She noticed a village with cottage homes. “I need some help.”
Then, she looked up to find a castle in the distance.
“Excuse me,” a hobbling passerby with a cane noted. “Adam II sits on a throne of supernatural fire in his palace. Anyone who approaches his throne with fire from a natural source immediately melts. Make sure not to do that!”
“Well, I wasn’t planning on giving him fire,” Olivia assured the old man. “I just need to take these seeds back to Humansville from the fruit of the Tree of Life to make an elixir. I only have three days.”
“Best be on your way,” the little man that resembled an elf cheered. “Good day to you!”
“Thank you! Wait! What’s your name?” Olivia asked him.
“Oh, I’m Elfin,” the man replied. He scratched his beard and inched along the road. “Tell Adam II that I said, ‘Good day!’”
Then, Olivia stood up and ran with all her might for miles. She travelled through a forest with dense brush and up a hillside by a lake. People were few and far between. She spent two nights in Eden alone and ate berries from the bushes. Unlike the cursed apples, the berries did not make her sick. She finally reached the castle of Adam II.
“I need to speak to Adam II,” she said and busted into the inner chambers of his palace. She rushed past one guard after another. “I don’t have a second to spare.”
“What is such an urgent matter?” one guard questioned. “Where do you come from, my lady? You look a bit disheveled. I will take you to the king.”
“Thank you,” Olivia responded. “This is a matter of life and death. I come from Humansville.”
She travelled down a long corridor and closely followed the king’s servant. Smoke seeped into the hallway as the guard opened the chamber door to the throne of Adam II.
“You may approach my throne,” Adam II announced in a booming voice. He pounded his scepter on the ground. He wore a shining crown with jewels and a long red robe with a sash.
“I need to travel back to Humansville and save my people from the poisonous apples from the Tree of Good and Evil in my backyard with an elixir from these golden seeds from the Tree of Life in Eden,” Olivia cried and bowed at the feet of Adam II in tears. “Evelyn, a messenger, tricked me into traveling from Humansville to Eden through a magic window without telling me that I could not return. She demanded my help to become human.”
After a moment of silence, Adam II stood up in her defense. Supernatural fire burned from beneath his throne, brighter than anything Olivia had ever seen. She shielded her eyes.
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,” Adam II decreed. “I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” Then, he waved his hand and re-opened the window between Humansville and Eden.
Olivia stood up straight and hoped he meant that he would have mercy and compassion on her and Humansville. She breathed deep and wished again for Humansville to be a better place to live.
“Evelyn, show yourself and return to Eden now,” Adam II insisted in a loud voice. He shook his head as she stepped through the window. “I originally sent you with the Tree to grant Olivia’s wish, causing a test for Humansville to better itself. You have had no compassion. You were not supposed to cause any havoc.”
“I’m sorry. I beg for mercy,” Evelyn fibbed. “I just wanted to be human. I begged for help. Once. Long ago. But everyone judged me instead. I thought if I could control your test, I could finally pass mine.”
In stillness, Olivia watched the conversation with remorse for every bad decision that she had ever made.
“Even though it was your first trip into the town of Humansville, you have failed so miserably that I forbid you to ever become human,” Adam II said. “Your free will would cost me too much. So, I now decree that you will never becoming human. As punishment, you will appear chained to the original Tree of Good and Evil in the Land of Eden for eternity. You will be a sign of the dangers of evil.”
Evelyn wept in regret. “I didn’t mean for it to go this far. I thought I could guide the humans . . . maybe prove I was worth something. I didn’t know how to help the right way,” she said. “I just wanted to belong somewhere.”
“I know you don’t believe that to be true,” Adam II replied, as he slammed his scepter on the ground. Waving the scepter, he pointed to the window to Humansville.
“Maybe . . . she’ll make it,” Evelyn said. “Maybe she’ll do what I couldn’t. That would be something beautiful. I know I don’t deserve mercy. But don’t we all want another chance? Isn’t that why she’s here?”
“Return home, Olivia,” the king exhorted. He gathered more golden apple seeds from the fire beneath his throne and handed them to her. “In addition to the seeds that you already carry, these seeds are also from the Tree of Life. Make an elixir from the seeds to save your dying family and friends. Please save one seed and plant another Tree of Life in Humansville as redemption. Make me proud!”
“Yes, sir,” Olivia agreed, as she bowed to him. Then, she jumped through the open window before he could change his mind. She swirled and whirled through a winding tunnel. After a few long moments, she stepped into her backyard with a thud. She once again faced a tree full of cursed apples and a mysterious player piano.
“The power from the apples is gross,” she said to herself, as she looked at the Tree.
Not much had changed, except that Evelyn was now stranded in Eden, instead of Olivia.
Then, her father meandered into the backyard, as if no time had passed at all.
“Hi, Dad,” she said and kissed him on the cheek. She wished he could once again fit into his regular pants, which were now ripping at the seams.
“Apple?” he asked, his eyes bloodshot, his breath sour.
From a distance, she watched her mother run back and forth in the kitchen. She was almost in a trance.
“Not right now,” Olivia said. With all her might, she resisted the frantic power that came with eating the apples.
“Why do I feel so sick?” Nathan questioned, after he threw up on the lawn. “The apples taste so delicious.”
“Really?” Olivia asked her brother. “I have to get something from the chemistry lab at school.”
“Don’t you want an apple?” Nathan asked her, as she ignored his question.
She sprinted into the front yard and down the sidewalk to her middle school as fast as she could.
“Open the doors!” Olivia called, as she searched for a side door into her school. “Oh, I could use superpowers at a time like this!”
Though the first two doors were locked, the door into the girl’s locker room was still open. She slipped through it and ran up the stairs to the chemistry lab. She turned on the burners, melted several of the golden seeds, and mixed in some honey from her teacher’s desk. She saved the rest of the seeds in her pocket for later, especially to plant one seed in her backyard.
After all the chemistry classes at school, making an elixir felt easy for her. She remembered all her lessons with her teacher.
Finishing the elixir, she took the first dose of it for herself. Immediately, the craving for the shiny apples left her.
“I never want to taste an apple from the Tree of Good and Evil again,” she said. “Ugh.”
Then, Olivia ran back home with several bottles of the potion. She took some lab equipment with her to make more elixir from her extra seeds at home.
Busting through the front door of her family home, Olivia insisted that her family drink the magic concoction.
“This will save your life,” Olivia told her mom. Then, she held her mother’s nose and poured drops down her mouth. Without further explanation, she did the same to her father and brother in their bewildered stupor.
After her family took the doses, they shrank and returned to their normal selves and sizes. Their superpowers had left them for good.
“What just happened? I feel like myself again,” her mother admitted. “Must have been the apples.”
“Yeah, I couldn’t fit into my pants,” her father agreed. “Sometimes, less is more.”
“My headache finally left,” her brother exclaimed. “I can think straight again.”
Crying in relief, Olivia rushed into her bedroom and set up the chemistry equipment to make more elixir. She got honey from her mother’s cabinet to sweeten the taste of the potion.
Traveling home by home in Humansville, Olivia rid the town of the cursed apples with Meatloaf at her side. She administered the elixir to the affected people, so they did not crave the evil fruit ever again.
After she freed the people in town, she poured the last bit of elixir onto the Tree in her backyard. She waited a moment in anticipation to see what would happen next.
Then, the ground split apart, opened its mouth in an earthquake, and swallowed that version of the Tree of Good and Evil.
“Wow, I didn’t expect that to happen!” she gasped, as the earth closed over the disappeared Tree. Meatloaf howled. “I hope Mom and Dad didn’t see that!”
“Olivia, what was that? The whole house shook!” her father called to her from inside the house. “I just felt a lot of shaking.”
“Yeah, it felt like an earthquake just took place,” her mother added. She ran to Olivia’s side. “Where did the Tree go?” she asked.
“Somewhere deep into the ground,” Olivia explained and shook her head.
“Stop fibbing,” her brother said. He stumbled into the backyard and noticed the Tree was gone. “Nope. Not even going to ask.”
Her family retreated back into the house, afraid to ask too many more questions.
As a reward for passing the test, the player piano remained in Olivia’s care. Without asking her parents’ permission, she rolled it through the sliding glass door on the patio into the living room. Then, she planted a single golden seed for a Tree of Life to grow in Humansville. She drenched it with the watering can.
Although the player piano now performed more hopeful melodies with hours of quiet every now and then, Olivia learned to play it herself as time went by. All the while, she watched a small tree shoot become the Tree of Life. After it became full size, blossoms bloomed, and it bore good fruit in her backyard. She wondered what test it might bring Humansville next. She realized that Humansville improving itself was never that simple.
Wanting to remember her adventure to Eden, she sat down at her desk to write in her journal. She didn’t want to forget anything she experienced. Olivia expected her next test would come in time.
As she looked out her bedroom window at the stars, she knew Evelyn was still out there, hoping for another chance. But for now, the Tree of Life had taken root where evil once bloomed in Humansville. And Olivia—she had passed the test.
Copyright 2023, 2025 Jennifer Waters
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