As Adam slumped, stunned by the blow, Cain reached for a rock as big as his fist. Before he had raised it overhead, I was in motion, rushing toward him with the club swung back over my shoulder.
Alerted by the sound of my running footsteps, Cain moved fast, releasing Adam’s other wrist to catch the blow against his forearm. I heard the wood crack hard against bone, but he didn’t flinch; instead, with the same arm I had struck, he latched onto the club and whipped it around, knocking me off-balance. I went sprawling to the ground, the wind knocked out of me, the club torn from my grip.
Without a word, he threw it away over his shoulder. Again, he raised the rock over his father’s head.
I reached for the flint dagger.
*****
Then, something visibly changed in my son.
Kneeling atop his father, he held the rock high, ready to plunge it downward...and he hesitated. For the first time since he’d charged out of the woods, his expression altered, shifting from a grimace of rage to one of horror. His eyes still swam with feverish intensity, but it was overlaid now with conflicted awareness.
Slowly, I got to my feet. I thought of bolting over to try to fight the rock away from him but stayed where I was, watching the play of emotions on his face.
The rock shook in his hand, and his eyes welled with tears. Sucking in a great breath between clenched teeth, he snapped up his other hand to grip the rock.
For an instant, he seemed to overcome the indecisiveness and pulled the rock back as if about to strike. Heart racing, I reached beneath my goatskin and slid the dagger from under the sheep’s gut harness, ready to charge.
Then, with a cry that sounded like a mix of fury and anguish, Cain cast the rock aside. Weeping and trembling, he slumped against his father’s chest.
I slid the dagger back under the cord and went to him.
“I’m sorry,” he sobbed as I knelt beside him. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all right,” I said softly, stroking his hair. “It’s all right.”
Cain looked up then, but not at me. “I couldn’t do it,” he said, wincing at the sky. “I tried, but I couldn’t do it.”
“What couldn’t you do?” I said, but still his eyes avoided me.
“Please forgive me,” he said, his body heaving with violent sobs. “I couldn’t sacrifice them!”
It was then that I realized he wasn’t talking to me at all.
“I couldn’t pay the price!” he said. “I’m so sorry!”
He was talking to someone else.
“Forgive me!” he cried, and then he buried his face in Adam’s chest.
He was talking to someone I couldn’t see.
*****
That night, when Cain confessed to killing his brother, I felt relieved. I was horrified, saddened, disappointed, and enraged...but also relieved.
For one thing, I finally knew what had happened to Abel. It was terrible, and I knew it would resonate for all the days of my life, but at least I knew. There was some closure.
Also, I had never wanted to believe that Adam was capable of killing his own son. It was equally awful that our other son had done it, but I was relieved that my husband was not to blame. In spite of his flaws, in spite of all the little things he had done to hurt me through the years, I had never truly stopped loving him.
Never forget, what I did in the Garden, I did for him. For us, but especially for him. I was told that eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge would lift us up, would make us like God. I wanted that for Adam, I loved him so much. It was the promise of a better life, the promise of getting closer to his beloved God. It was supposed to be a gift.
It was love that made me do what I did. It was love that bound me to him still.
Love...and fear. I’m not proud of it, but it’s true. Fear of being alone. In those days, when there were only three people in the whole world, being alone was even more of a major concern than it is now.
So, you see, it’s actually a huge understatement to say it was a relief to learn that Adam wasn’t a murderer. Because leaving him wouldn’t have been an option in that underpopulated and hostile world...and I knew that I wouldn’t have been able to forgive and continue to love him the way I could forgive and love my own son.
Which, believe it or not, wasn’t so hard to do once I found out that Cain and I had more in common than flesh and blood. We had a shared experience.
We had both been tricked.
*****
That night, the three of us sat around a fire at our old campsite in Nod. Though I’d wrapped Cain in the fur we’d used for a pillow the night before, and it wasn’t a chilly night, he couldn’t stop shivering.
He wept as he told us how he and Abel had made sacrifices at the secret altar...and a voice had spoken to them. It was a voice they’d heard before, a voice they’d assumed was the Voice of God.
And it had told them, as it had many times before, that Abel’s sacrifice was better than Cain’s.
Adam and I frowned at this. The Voice of God hadn’t spoken to either of us since our exile from Eden. We were both surprised to hear our son claiming to have heard it...though our interpretations of the news veered in opposite directions.
“God didn’t like your sacrifice?” said Adam, sounding disappointed.
“It was always the same,” said Cain, clutching the fur tightly around him. “Mine was never good enough.”
“Now wait a minute,” I said. “How do you know it was God talking to you?”
Cain sniffed, gazing into the fire with bloodshot eyes. “Who else would it be?” he said with a shrug.
“No wonder you were upset,” Adam said sympathetically, putting a hand on his son’s shoulder. “I know what it’s like to have God unhappy with me.”
“You told us our sacrifices would convince God to take us to Eden,” said Cain. “I didn’t want to be responsible for keeping us out because my sacrifices weren’t good enough.”
“You should have told me,” said Adam. “I could have helped you work on improving your sacrifices.”
As I listened to Adam’s inane encouragement of the misguided thinking he had instilled in his son, I rubbed my temples, feeling a headache coming on. “So what happened next?” I said.
Cain released a long, shuddering sigh. “I got mad,” he said, rocking back and forth. “I didn’t want to ruin everything. Maybe I thought if Abel’s sacrifices weren’t around to compare to, mine would finally be good enough for God.”
“So you killed him,” I said evenly.
Adam gave me a disapproving look. “Don’t put words in his mouth,” he said.
Cain nodded. “Yes,” he said, his voice breaking. “I killed him.”
As Cain sobbed, Adam patted his back. “Now, now,” he said softly. “I’m sure it was an accident.”
This time, it was my turn to glare disapprovingly. “Let him tell it, Adam,” I said.
“I came up behind him,” said Cain, barely able to get the words out, “and put my hands...around his throat...and squeezed.”
“But you didn’t mean to kill him,” said Adam.
Cain buried his face in his hands. “I meant to,” he said, wrenching out each word with great effort. “I wanted him...dead.”
As Cain completely broke down, heaving with sobs, Adam got to his feet. “You’re not thinking straight,” he said. “I’m sure you didn’t mean to kill your brother.”
“I couldn’t...stop myself,” said Cain.
“You’ve been through a lot,” said Adam. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Cain.
“Why don’t you get some sleep?” said Adam. “You’ll remember better in the morning.”
“Adam,” I said. “He’s already told us what happened. There’s a more important question now than whether it was an accident.”
“What question is that?” said Adam, looking annoyed.
“Someone else drove him to this,” I said. “The question is, w
ho?”
“He said God talked to him,” said Adam, gesturing at the sky. “But I’m sure God didn’t intend for this to happen any more than Cain did. It must have been an accident.”
“You’re missing the point!” I said, exasperated. “What if it was someone else doing the talking?”
“It doesn’t matter!” said Adam. “It was an accident!”
Suddenly, Cain raised his head and looked his father in the eye. “No accident,” he said, his voice hoarse from crying. “You were supposed to be next.”
Adam stared back at him, dumbfounded.
“Is that why you attacked us, Cain?” I said, reaching over to fold my son’s hand between both of my own.
“The voice told me that...because I murdered Abel...I was banned from my home soil. It said I was marked...so everyone would know...what I had done.” With shaking fingers, he parted the hair on his forehead, as if to expose the mark he’d been given.
But I saw no mark.
“I couldn’t bear the thought...of you seeing me like this,” said Cain, “so I left. Came here. But when you followed me...the voice spoke to me again.
“I was told...to sacrifice you both...to make up for killing Abel,” said Cain. “But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it.”
With that, my son slumped against me, weeping into my shoulder. If not for what I had just heard, I could almost have believed he was five winters old again, crying over a skinned knee.
For a long moment, Adam stared down at us, glowing red in the flickering firelight. Though I couldn’t read his mind, I could tell he was thinking hard, trying to process what Cain had said...trying to reconcile it, probably, with what he wanted to believe.
Then, he threw up his hands and turned away. “I’m going for a walk,” he said, marching off down the riverbank. “I need to think.”
I thought we would have been better served by working on the problem together, but I let him go without comment. Maybe he’d work something out by going off by himself; at least it was better than getting drunk, which I was sure he would have done if we had been back home.
“I miss him,” said Cain, his voice a defeated whimper. “I miss my brother so much.”
“We all do,” I said, softly kissing his head.
“I didn’t realize,” said Cain. “When I did it...I didn’t know it would be like this. Gone forever.”
“Some things, you can’t take back,” I told him.
“And you were almost gone, too,” he said. “I almost...if I’d done what God told me...”
“But you didn’t,” I said, rocking him in my arms. “We’re still here for you.”
He looked up at me then, terror in his eyes. “But what will He do to me now? For disobeying Him? How will He punish me?”
“Don’t worry about that now,” I said, pressing his head back down to my shoulder. “It’s all right.”
Cain was so distraught, I kept my thoughts to myself on the subject of the voice that had pushed him to murder. I had a strong suspicion about who had been behind that voice, but it would have done no good just then to mention it.
And the truth was, despite my suspicion, I thought the voice could just as well have been God’s. After the way he’d treated Adam and me, kicking us out of Eden over a single mistake that was the result of trickery, I couldn’t dismiss the possibility that he was manipulating us. Maybe it was all just another way of punishing us for what we’d done, as if the punishment we’d already received wasn’t enough.
Either way, whoever had whispered into my boy’s ear, I couldn’t place the blame solely on Cain. I couldn’t find it in my heart to condemn him, knowing he’d been tricked just as surely as I.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“I forgive you,” I said, and I meant it with all my heart...not just because we had both been tricked into making mistakes...or because I loved him or because he was the only son I had left.
I forgave him because I had once been in his place, and forgiveness was what I wished God could have given me the one time I did something wrong.
*****
Cain cried himself to sleep in my arms. I stayed awake for a long time after that, silently shedding tears of my own as I caressed his troubled brow...tears for him, tears for Abel, tears for myself.
But eventually, exhaustion overcame me and I, too, fell asleep.
As I slept, I dreamed again that I was in Eden...but this time, I was alone. No Abel, no Adam, no Cain, no angels. Not even the Voice was there, I think. No one but me.
And my old enemy.
It was daytime, but the sky was dark with storm clouds. Screaming creatures leaped through the vegetation in all directions, fur soaked with rain. Lightning spiked the tall trees, and fierce winds whipped fruit from the branches. It pelted me as a I ran, trying desperately to escape, heart pounding like the thunder crashing around me.
And no matter how hard I ran, no matter how loud the racket all around me, I could not get away from the single, terrible sound that drove me onward, mad with panic.
The whisper of my enemy’s body gliding over the ground. Persistent, revolting, familiar...terrifying.
Crackling over leaves and twigs. Rustling over soft grass. Slithering.
Hissing.
I reached the borders of Eden, but as I tried to charge across, I struck an invisible wall. Dazed from the impact, I hurtled backward, plunging into the streaming greenery. I hit the ground hard, stars dancing before my eyes, the taste of blood in my mouth.
And I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed by the fall, unable even to lift a finger.
Unable to scream as I heard the sound of my enemy draw near and felt the weight of him ripple over my belly and saw his glistening muzzle slide from between my breasts and rear up overhead, the mouth open, fangs gleaming...
But before he could do one thing more, I awoke from my dream.
I was in a state of complete panic, and I know I would have been screaming at the top of my lungs, shrieking in that terrible moment before I realized I was free of the nightmare...
I would have been shrieking if I hadn’t had a gag stuffed in my mouth.
*****
As soon as I realized something was wrong, I shot to full alertness, instantly casting off all traces of the nightmare except a few lingering images and a feeling of terror. It mixed with the shock and confusion I felt upon awakening to find myself restrained, swiftly escalating my panic.
In my nightmare, I had been paralyzed. I discovered I was similarly immobilized in the waking world.
Something that tasted like leather had been forced between my teeth and secured tightly by a strap tied around my head. With the gag in place, I could make noises in my throat but couldn’t move my jaws, tongue, or lips to enunciate words.
When I tried to reach up and remove the gag, I quickly realized that my hands were also bound. I couldn’t even lift them up to the gag together, because they were strapped behind my back.
In the next instant, when I tried to move my feet, I realized that they, too, were tied...and the bonds restraining them were tightening. Twisting on the ground, I stared wide-eyed down the length of my body, wondering in a single frantic moment if I would see Cain, if he had overcome his inhibitions and decided to follow the voice’s orders after all and sacrifice his parents.
The fact that it wasn’t Cain didn’t make me relax a bit.
When he noticed me looking, Adam smiled in the gray pre-dawn light. “Good morning, Eve,” he said in a hushed voice. “Sorry about this, but it’s necessary.”
Angry and frightened, I jolted my bound feet from his grip, hoisting up my knees in preparation for a two-legged kick. Unfortunately, Adam was able to grab my ankles fast and spin me around onto my stomach, preventing the blow.
“It’s just I know you wouldn’t come with me any other way,” said Adam, cinching the cords tighter around my ankles, then my wrists. “Not where we’re going.”
It didn’t take a genius
to guess what he meant by that. Grunting, I writhed in the dirt, trying to flop myself from my stomach onto my side so at least I could try again to kick him.
Adam, with his superior strength, hauled me up off the ground like a bundle of straw and slung me over his shoulder. “You should thank me,” he said. “I found out who really killed Abel.”
Adam turned and carried me off along the riverbank. I knew the direction we’d be traveling before we started to move.
Upriver.
“And it wasn’t Cain,” said Adam. “You’ll see.”
Lifting my head from Adam’s back, I saw Cain behind us, sprawled alongside the dead fire at our campsite. The club he’d used to attack us lay on the ground near his head.
From a distance, it was impossible to tell if he was dead or alive.
“Cain was just upset and confused over losing his brother,” said Adam. “He blamed himself for not saving him, and in Cain’s mind, that turned into blaming himself for killing him.”
Helpless, I slumped against Adam’s back. I wondered if he had come up with this latest brainstorm himself, or if he’d had help.
As we walked onward, I got my answer.
It was the same sound I’d run from in my nightmare. The sound I remembered so well from years ago.
Something sliding through the tall grass and weeds above the muddy bank. Unseen but whispering like a thought in the back of my mind, like a fragment of a dream come to life. Diaphanous. Beautiful. Malevolent.
Never leaving my side.
Once or twice, I might have seen the sun glinting off polished scales through the grass and weeds. A flash of color. The faint ripple of disturbed grass as something moved through it.
And I knew...if not the details, at least the players in what was to come.
I felt terrified and exhilarated at the same time. The enemy, the true enemy who had engineered Abel’s demise, had revealed himself. He was playing for bigger stakes now, moving us to where he wanted us to be.
The First Detect-Eve Page 3
