He wondered what the Man would do, but Cain would not turn back. He could not.
The Man’s voice was soft and smooth. “I know what it is you have done. You have killed Abel. I hear his blood crying out to me from the ground. If you would have but spoken truthfully …” He shook his head and blinked watering eyes. “So, now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth up to receive his blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive”—his mouth contorted with emotion—“and a wanderer on the earth.”
Cain’s body shook, and as he thought of the Man’s words, he sensed the tyrant loom. “If I had but spoken truth, you say? I will speak it now. You curse me to the life of a fugitive, and if I don’t die from starvation, whoever finds me will kill me. This banishment is no less than murder itself, and yet it is for murder I am sentenced.” He raised his torch. “By doing this, you commit the very act for which I am being punished. Where is your justice? Where is your mercy? Where is your love and forgiveness?”
The Man’s eyes flickered, and he lifted a hand. “If anyone kills you, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. I tell you that unless you will it, no man may sever a hair from your head.”
Cain straightened. He blinked and rested the butt of the torch against his thigh. “I was right about you. You are just as weak as I expected. You know what I do and yet still give in.”
The Man held his gaze.
“Why?” Cain asked. “I could understand and hate your punishment, but this I cannot. I killed him. Why?”
“Indeed, why?” The Man reached forward and pressed a finger into the center of Cain’s forehead. A burning sensation rippled across his skin, and black ridges like painted vertebra appeared across his arms and legs and glowed faint silver in the torchlight.
The Man looked at him with concern, and his voice came in a rushed whisper. “You do not have much time. Leave, and do not look back. I tried to warn you, but you have placed yourself in its jaws. Only remember my mercy. Remember that there is always a way back to me.”
The Man turned and departed, his staff clacking on the stone long after he disappeared into the dark labyrinth of the Temple.
Cain stared at the marks on his skin, considering the significance. Water and flame dripped from him. It felt surreal. The conversation, the curse, all of it seemed like a distant dream he saw in the reflection of the puddle at his feet. He looked at his arms and breathed the smell of dust and burning wood. I’m alive, he thought.
“You are more than alive,” whispered the voice. “You have been set apart.”
Little fingers grasped his hand. In the light of the torch, he saw the silver boy looking up at him, but he was no longer afraid. Its voice was thin and harsh, like wind hissing between stone, like harsh Music. “Come. He is calling us.”
12
Eve watched as Lilleth slept on the floor beneath a blanket, and Seth snored softly. The fire had settled to white coals, and though the smell of smoke and ash warmed Eve’s chest, the disquiet of the storm left her restless.
She stood and thought about finding Ayla. Instead, she walked the hall and peered at the streams, birthed by the rain, flowing down the hill in serpentine patterns. The deluge had intensified, and though she knew it was midday, it seemed like the darkest night.
What kind of storm is this?
After two years of safety, the Jinn seemed an imagined horror, but this brought the memories back.
How quickly truth is forgotten.
She shivered and glided to the lounge where the air had warmed to something moist and sticky. She avoided the flooring she knew would creak, and took a seat between Seth and Lilleth. Their breathing was heavy, and she regarded them.
After Cain and Abel were born in that long-abandoned cave, movement through the wilderness had been difficult. She and Adam stopped often to feed and care for them, and she could still feel their tender skin against her fingers as she clothed them in leaves and woven fibers. What a beautiful burden to be those children’s only means of survival. She recalled her children’s squeals and smelled the leafy beds they had nestled under fallen trees and inside caves.
But then she thought of the darkness. And with the darkness came the Fog. And with the Fog …
Eve cleared her throat and clasped her hands in her lap. She examined Seth, her youngest son. He was an honest man with a personality conveyed through a wide grin. But if Seth was a caricature of expression, her daughter Lilleth’s face was muted emotion. Neither beautiful nor ugly, the dependent Lilleth relied on Abel for support and direction, but having Lilleth rest on every word Eve had spoken today aroused old desires.
Is it a sin to desire her dependence?
Lilleth’s breath caught in her chest, and her eyelids trembled, but soon her breathing slipped back into a steady rhythm. Eve noted how her hands cupped her chin, and her knees curled to her elbows. Even in sleep, she held herself like a youth. Did Abel find that attractive?
Eve closed her eyes and thanked the Almighty for everything he had given them.
Almighty God, I desire you with every portion of my body. My bones cry for your presence. I cannot have enough. Though your peace and power overwhelm me, I thirst for you. I know I have not experienced all of you. I know I do not live you. Please, tell me how I can do more.
She tipped her head, spread her palms, and reached for his presence. She pushed, yet found nothing. She called for his Spirit, but felt only emptiness. Surprise and fear raked her stomach. Something was different. She had never felt such distance, not since returning to the Almighty two years ago.
Where are you?
She reached and nearly felt something like sticky fingertips skipping across her skin. She gasped, Lilleth stirred from her dreams, and as Eve bent and sucked at the air, her daughter said, “Mother?”
Seth still slept, but his sweat-covered forehead gleamed in the firelight, and he moaned.
Lilleth called his name, but he did not wake, so Eve hurried to her feet and shook him. He gasped and his eyes flashed wide. He clutched Eve’s arm, then swallowed and loosened his grip.
“I was dreaming,” he said.
“So was I,” Lilleth said. “What did you dream?”
He frowned and gave her a look as if not wanting to say.
A noise at the doorway drew their attention. Adam entered the archway with water dripping from his bent shoulders and stared past them as if not realizing they were there.
“Father?” Lilleth asked as her drowsiness sped toward excitement. She struggled to her feet. “Where is he? Did you find him?”
Adam stood stonelike, but his gaze shifted to Lilleth, then to Eve, and finally to Seth, who raised himself on his elbows. Adam’s jaw stretched open, clenched, then relaxed. Eve expected Abel to enter behind him, but Adam stood unmoving, and nothing moved behind him but the rain in the wind.
Thunder pealed and Lilleth clasped the clothing by her throat. The thought struck Eve that this was a cruel joke. Adam was remaining silent to teach Lilleth how absurd it was to distrust the Almighty. She could hear his voice even now. “Lilleth, all is well, of course. How could you expect anything else? Is the Almighty our God, or is he a liar? There, do you not see? You must trust in his protection, for he will never abandon us. If he cares for the sparrow, how much more will he care for a songbird like you?”
Fear rose in Eve’s chest, and then anger. “Why do you wait? Tell us where he is.”
Adam shook his head. “No.” His voice was quiet, but carried a peculiar emotion.
“What does that mean?” Lilleth searched their expressions.
“He is gone,” Adam said.
Lilleth spilled the cold tea she hadn’t finished and quickly tried to mop it up with one of the cushions she had used as a pillow. “Who is gone?”
“Abel.” He nodded and said, as if to convince himself, “Abel is gone.”
Lilleth squeezed the pillow until her knuckles whitened.
“Where is he?”
Eve thought water dripped down Adam’s cheek. But his face shuddered. “Abel is gone, and we could not find him though we searched the world.” His voice fell to a whisper. “Cain killed him. The Temple is dark. Everything was a lie.”
Eve reached out to steady herself. “What?” She could not believe those words any more than she could disbelieve her own existence, but the sound of his moans darkened her sight. She turned toward Lilleth, whose eyes were like black stones.
Adam rested his back against the wall and slid to his seat as he cradled his face and wept. “He killed my son. My Abel.”
Saliva was thick in Eve’s mouth, and an ache intensified in her throat. “No. He’s not dead. God could heal him.”
Lilleth edged past Adam and into the storm. Seth rose and hobbled out after her, whether to follow or walk elsewhere, Eve did not know.
Adam’s cries continued, and Eve sank to the ground, incapacitated by shock. She wept into her hands until she could weep no longer. Eventually footsteps came, then words, but she could not bring herself to answer. The footsteps pounded past and out into the storm, and Adam and Eve were together, alone.
13
Sarah stirred the bubbling broth over the fire. The chunks of vegetables slowed the spoon, and eggplants and potatoes bobbed through the steam. Her empty stomach reached for food, but the scent was repelling and she crinkled her upturned nose at it and angled away to get a fresh breath. She laid a hand on her belly, which seemed to protrude ever so slightly, though the change would have been imperceptible to all but one looking for it. A hint of a smile came, but then faltered.
You should be happy.
Shall I be happy in loneliness?
A child grows within you.
The fruit of forced intercourse.
It is so much more than that. It is a human child, your child.
But will it survive?
You will give birth.
Will it know its father? Should it?
She stood and her lower back ached as she walked the hallways and let her fingertips ride the walls. The sensations blocked out any thought of her children, or any regret in her past, and for a moment, she was content to merely be.
Her hands rested at her sides and she found herself once again staring outside. “It’s a dream,” she whispered. She pushed a hard breath out as she glided back to the food she no longer desired. She took the pot off the fire and placed it on a wooden rack, and the bubbling liquid settled to a steaming reflection. She breathed the herbs, stifled an involuntary gag.
Control yourself. There’s no reason for such weakness.
But Cain is gone. I am pregnant and alone. Abel is dead.
She threw her bowl of food. It shattered across the floor, joining the rest of the shards and slivers scattered about her home.
I feel dead.
But there is life within you.
She rubbed her belly and imagined the baby warming to her touch, reaching out with tiny hands to grab her fingers. Her stomach groaned and she gazed at the soup once more. She needed to eat for the child’s sake.
She lifted a spoonful and let it fall in her mouth. A chunk of vegetable swished in the broth behind her teeth before she chewed and swallowed with much effort. It was nauseating, but she dipped for another mouthful.
Something shuffled behind her. It was a human noise amidst the thunder and rain. She turned and tensed at the familiar brown eyes and simple, soft face. She dropped the spoon into the pot. “Lilleth?”
“Don’t speak.” Lilleth’s usual lilting soprano had been replaced with a strident alto.
Sarah swallowed and awkwardly faced her younger sister. She thought of Abel’s blood on Cain. The scent of death. Adam’s visit.
A feeling of responsibility gripped her abdomen. A moment passed when she strained for a way to deny any involvement, but she couldn’t.
Lilleth knows. Why else would she come? Why else would her voice bite with such venom?
Lilleth gestured toward the pot on the rack. “I made stew for Abel yesterday, but he was late in returning. The stew grew cold so I had to place it back on the fire and stoke the flames.” Her voice grew as she approached. “I added more and more wood until a new day began and the logs spilled into ash. I felt it then, but my mind told me it couldn’t be true. I thought maybe Mother was right. Maybe I was just being fearful.” Lilleth’s eyes searched Sarah’s, as if pining for a reason to disbelieve.
This is not my fault, Sarah thought. If only you knew how much I regret it. If only you knew how much I wish I could have stopped him.
Lilleth was shaking, and Sarah could no longer deny what Cain had done, but neither did she want to. She moaned, brought a hand to her mouth, and almost reached for Lilleth’s arm.
“So it is true,” Lilleth whispered. Her cheeks flushed. “I was a fool for wishing, but still I hoped …”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry, and yet I am alone. You’re sorry, but you’re still alive. And so is your husband.”
The way she exaggerated the word husband sounded an alarm within Sarah. Lilleth had always been delicate, but something in her eyes was cold and brittle.
Sarah lowered her head. “I am sorry.”
“Is that all you can say?”
“What more could I say?”
“You’ve not been speechless a day in our lives. But I want you to tell me what it’s like to kill with lust and smuggled glances. I want you to tell me what it’s like to want what you cannot have until the desire is so great you’d rather obliterate it than ache any longer.”
Sarah’s face grew hot. “I could never exalt in your pain.”
“He was the only one I ever loved. No one, nothing, could repair the hole you bore into me. Tell me, because I want to remember how far you fell.” Lilleth took a step closer and Sarah felt a pinch in her belly. She looked down and saw Lilleth’s hand gripping a knife pressed against her abdomen.
The floor tilted beneath her. Her breathing sped and her body tensed, but she couldn’t move. Oh, God, don’t let her kill my baby. “What do you want?”
Strands of wet hair clung to Lilleth’s cheeks. “I want to see you and Cain burn. I saw your eyes follow Abel. You always thought it unfair that I, not you, could be with such a man. You knew he was better than Cain like you knew your own superiority.”
Sarah edged back, felt the knife dig in.
“Don’t move. I’ll thrust this blade straight through you.”
“What do you want from me? Just tell me what you want.”
“I want to kill you.”
The startling admission stopped Sarah’s breath. Ways to refute Lilleth’s accusations raced through her head. But nothing would help. She knew it. Truth be told, she had influenced Cain. And part of her welcomed the guilt, the idea of death as atonement. But the child in her belly begged for breath. “You want to kill me?”
Lilleth’s face shone in the light as she brought the knife to Sarah’s neck and pressed it against the side of her throat. “I want you to die.”
Sarah’s mind scrambled for logic. She licked her lips and gasped as the knife pinched her throat and warm wetness trickled down her collarbone. She closed her eyes and tried to focus past the spinning. “You hate us.” Sarah’s voice shook. “You want me to die but you don’t want to kill me. I know you.”
“It’s all that I want, all I’ve ever wanted, though it took the pain to open my eyes.”
Sarah felt Lilleth’s body tense in preparation of plunging the knife into her throat. Her mind emptied and she reverted to animal fear. “Stop!”
“Shut your mouth.”
“He would hate you for it.”
“I said shut your mouth.”
The knife pressed harder and Sarah gasped. “Abel would hate you for it.” The knife shook against her throat. Sarah dared not move.
“I would rather you both died than live knowing you won,” Lilleth said.
Sarah shook her head, c
areful not to press into the blade. “I didn’t win, Sister. I didn’t win anything.”
Lilleth stared with shaking intensity. For the first time, Sarah saw her examine their surroundings, the broken furniture and shattered pottery. Lilleth’s expression softened, then shifted to something like fear. She whispered, “I hate you. I hate you. Look what you—” The words caught in her throat. She sobbed and stared at the floor; the shaking knife drew away.
Sarah chanced a breath, seeing the murderous intent in Lilleth’s eyes replaced by dullness. But then something happened that Sarah had not expected. Lilleth took the knife across her own throat and opened a thick gash from one edge to the other. The knife clanged on the ground as she backed away and stared.
“Sister,” Sarah screamed. “No!” She rushed forward, caught Lilleth as she fell, and laid her on the ground. She tried to press her hands against the wound, but blood gushed from it like water from a spring. It took her a moment to realize there were fists beating her sides. She looked down and saw Lilleth’s eyes boring into her and said, “I’m not going to let you die.”
Lilleth gurgled and beat her ribs. Sarah’s hands slipped on and off the wound, and Lilleth weakened as she lost blood. Sarah could not stop it alone.
“Help,” Sarah screamed, looking up toward the doorway. “Help me. God, where are you? Help me!”
Her voice was swallowed by the storm, which suddenly rumbled like distant, violent Music. Lilleth lay in a pool of her own blood. Her eyes were glazed, locked open like a dying fish gasping for one final breath. The bloodletting stopped, and Sarah brought her shaking hands slowly away.
“No,” she said. “Why? Why would you do that? You fool.” She shook Lilleth’s shoulders. “Wake up. Wake up.”
Sarah’s hands were stained with blood for the second time in two days. She stared at the dark pool that soaked her knees and ached for a way to fill her sister with it once more.
She thought of Cain, of the good years together that felt like so many lifetimes ago. The light of those years and the darkness of now so starkly contrasted that she could hardly believe the light existed. She closed her eyes, wiped the blood on her clothing, and imagined being in his arms again. She saw him tilling the earth and planting seeds. She saw him shoveling dirt from holes …
Cain: The Story of the First Murder and the Birth of an Unstoppable Evil Page 6
