Her eyes snapped open. She couldn’t let anyone find Lilleth’s body. If they found out, they would banish her. And if she were banished—
She placed a shaking, stained hand on her lower abdomen and tried to sense the baby within her as the thunder returned. She stood and shivered with sin.
“God, forgive me.”
PART THREE:
COLLAPSE
Be ashamed, O tillers of the soil;
wail, O vinedressers,
for the wheat and the barley,
because the harvest of the field has perished.
The vine dries up;
the fig tree languishes.
Pomegranate, palm, and apple,
all the trees of the field are dried up,
and gladness dries up
from the children of man.
—JOEL 1:11–12 ESV
14
It didn’t take long for Sarah to realize her plan was a poor one. Mud was everywhere, and with every shovelful flung, half as much water rushed in. What was she going to do—float Lilleth’s corpse in it like a hunk of wood? She pictured her sister’s pale face bloated with moisture and decay. Twin balloons pressing the eyes until they disappeared behind fetid flesh.
Sarah felt as if the world was trying to drown her, and maybe it was. Nothing had happened as Cain said it would. She had lost so many she loved. First Abel, then Cain, now Lilleth.
If only vomiting could rid me of the guilt I feel.
She stared at the puddle and gripped the shovel like a two-handed axe. How could she plan on burying Lilleth without speaking a word to another? She loved her sister. Maybe she hadn’t realized how much before this day. Perhaps she truly had been blinded by jealousy, but now she knew.
I’m sorry I ever wanted you gone.
She refilled the hole, hurried into the house, whipped off her hood, flung water-clumped hair from her eyes, and breathed deeply. The shovel clanged on the floor as she dropped to her knees and held her face, letting the emotions rush, if only to be rid of them. She slapped her hand on the floor and said through gritted teeth, “Stop it. You can’t do this alone. Think of who you can trust.”
Mason. Her second eldest son, mute from birth. He could carry the body and dispose of it quickly and discreetly. He would never speak of it, because for him speech was physically impossible. With the storm, Lilleth’s body would be rushed far away, and surely no one would walk outside in such a tempest and stumble upon them in the dark.
But the blood …
Listen to yourself. You can’t even bring yourself to honor your sister’s death. You are just like Cain.
She looked at the knees of her dress, stained by Lilleth’s rusty veins. “Do what you must, and nothing more.” She repeated those words until it became a mantra. She mopped up much of the blood, crawled out of the soiled clothing, and redressed. She donned her rain tunic, threw the ruined dress and undergarments on the fire, and watched them burn. Then she draped a curtain over Lilleth’s body, which lay in the closet, and rushed into the storm to find Mason.
He lived on the far side of the quarry a quarter mile south, and though it seemed a journey away in such a storm, she couldn’t risk involving her other children. The mud was like quicksand, and the hills and ditches ran with enough water to swipe her feet away. Once she fell on her palms. Once more on her side.
The rain dropped like darts and she closed her eyes to protect them. But when she found the quarry, it was not by sight. As she stepped forward and her foot failed to meet ground, it took the time of her body pitching forward and her arms flailing to realize she had stepped off the ledge of the quarry.
She tumbled like a bag of broken bones and came to a quick stop, saved by a ledge. Her head spun and it took her a moment to realize she was no longer moving. She rose to her knees and cradled her rib cage. Her breath came in short spurts in the fight against the pain that pushed out the air with the force of a hammer. Soon she felt panicked for oxygen. She exhaled, finding it easier than inhaling, then frantically urged it back in again. When she could breathe easier, relief washed her. But as her hand brushed her abdomen, a new thought hit her.
My baby, what if I hurt my baby? Her fingers tingled.
“Dear God,” she prayed as she started crying again with the memory of all that had transpired in the past two days. “I don’t know if you exist in such hell, and I know I deserve nothing.” She swallowed and tried to stand, lightly pressing her stomach. “But please keep my baby alive. You can throw me off the highest mountain. You can drown me in the deepest sea. Just don’t let my baby die.”
She felt a peace deeper than words could express. The ledge she stood on jerked and broke away. As her feet pedaled the air, the surreal sensation of flight stirred her abdomen. Then she hit.
Thick blackness exploded in her ears and muffled the bubbles bursting from her mouth as she screamed and gasped at liquid. Seeing a bolt of lightning dimly, she twisted toward it, breached the surface, and coughed. Thunder roared and water slapped her ears as she struggled to stay afloat. Her toes, no matter how far they stretched, found only water.
Flooded, she thought. How is the quarry flooded? Water stuck its fingers up her nose and she coughed and felt her sinuses burn against the intrusion. How had the storm deposited so much water so quickly?
The river. It ran next to the quarry. The storm must have bloated it until the water broke its boundaries and filled the quarry. She could try to swim across and find a way out, but she felt so heavy and her fingers clenched her tunic spasmodically. With effort and pain, she shook free from the tunic and began to tread across the water, remembering what she had been taught as a child. Spread the arms and kick the legs, breathe deeply and consistently. But with broken ribs and God knows what else, she was soon clutching at the sides of the quarry. Swimming took energy she didn’t have and demanded muscles she couldn’t utilize. As did climbing out of the quarry. So she clung to the wall and crawled to the right, feeling for the stairwell.
I am going to die. Like an insect in a trap.
She imagined the Almighty watching her from the top of the quarry, smiling at how easily she had been ensnared. She imagined the look of satisfaction in his eyes, an approving nod as the frigid water slammed her against the wall. Her hands could no longer grasp the stone, and she grunted with the effort of trying to move her arms. It took her a moment to realize she was floating once more, free. Water tickled the bottom of her ears, and then her cheeks, as her eyesight clouded and she felt as if she were being encased in ice.
How long have I been in the water? I feel like a small child falling into heavy slumber. But I’m not falling asleep, I’m dying. There’s a little child inside me who has never inhaled the air my body is screaming for. And that child does not have the strength to carry on without me.
As Sarah sank beneath the water, her hands rested on her abdomen.
I wonder if the child inside me can feel pain. God, please give my child a painless death. Grant me at least that.
The warmth of her womb had been replaced by shivering skin, and her ribs ached less with each moment. With closed eyes, she saw the Almighty standing on the ledge above, his head nodding. Up and down. Up and—
15
Cain awoke shivering on the ground. He was naked and stones dug into his back. He sat up, brushed them off, and felt the impressions they made in his skin. The sky was dark, though clear and dotted with pricks of light sharp enough to draw blood.
How much time had passed since he gave up consciousness?
He rubbed his hand over his scalp and strained to clear his mind. The silver boy had taken control and pushed Cain’s soul into a black empty space. There had been no way out, though it seemed he searched for an eternity. And it had been cold. So very cold.
He palmed his shoulders in an attempt to warm them. The surrounding wasteland gave him the sensation of absolute exposure. There were no trees, no hills, nothing but endless flatland covered in small, sharp rocks. And he h
ad the strange sensation that every noise was an intrusion, as if hidden hands stopped hidden ears to keep the place secret.
“Hello?”
Silence loomed like a shadow, and a cold wind pinched Cain’s skin. He looked down and wondered what had happened to his clothes. Then he studied the stars and began walking the direction he thought was east.
Where had the silver boy gone? He didn’t feel the itch in his mind, and he didn’t hear its voice, but neither did he think the creature dead. It had understood Cain’s plans with precision, and yet seemed to have devices of its own. Whatever it planned, he doubted it harbored hopes for his good health.
He breathed into his hands, creating clouds in the air. His skin rose like a reptile’s, his fingernails ached, and he no longer felt his feet, which concerned him as he gazed at the stone-cut ravines on his skin that were filling with fresh blood.
Everything had gone well. He had killed Abel, successfully disposed of the body, escaped from the City, and gained the Man’s protection.
So why was he naked in the freezing wilderness?
The silver boy had been and remained an anomaly in the landscape of Cain’s new life. Cain had felt safe with its fingers around his, and yet here he walked in this wasteland. The solitude began to feel like an anvil on which he had been laid in order to await the hammer strike. To be fashioned into a tool, he thought and grit his teeth. That is why it has brought me here.
What was the silver boy’s relationship to Cain? Why had it come to him? And what was the reason for the unmistakable familiarity between them?
A cough lit a fire in his chest, and he grabbed at the skin of his breast to ease the pain. In the years of their nomadic existence after his parents had been expelled from the Garden, his family wandered far across foreign terrain. Though the times had strained them, the pressure and pain had also strengthened them. Could it be the silver boy is trying to strengthen me? If it wanted me dead, it would have no reason to wait.
No. It wants to consume me. He envisioned the stone in his hand as it crushed Abel’s skull. The only way to gain power is by taking it from another. Like the Serpent in the Garden.
The Almighty’s warning returned. “Sin is crouching at the door. It desires to devour you, but you must rule over it.”
The silver boy had claimed it would break him. Maybe this was its way.
He sat and sifted through all that had happened. He had killed Abel, disposed of the body, and first heard the voice then, though he had felt the itch in his mind long before. How long? He couldn’t remember. Several weeks? Maybe more? Then the voice appeared as the silver boy and urged him away, and he left Sarah and—
Sarah. I wonder if she is thinking of me as I think of her. And how she is coping with the changes I have set into motion.
He lifted a handful of pebbles and let them fall one by one. The world would know soon enough that Abel was dead. Would the people question their God? Would Calebna, the High Priest, lose his faith in the face of his father’s murder?
And what of Cain’s own children? Lukian, the twin brother of his dead firstborn, would likely seize any opportunity to free the people from bondage. Cain could still see the look on his son’s face as he planted questions like seeds.
“Son, do you believe we have true freedom?”
“We have the power to craft our lives.”
“In the Garden we were given dominion over the world.”
Lukian nodded.
“So why did we flee for over a century?”
“The Fall.”
“The Fall was the decision of one man and one woman. What about my freedom, what about yours? Do we not have the choice to regain our dominion? Another question. Where are we?”
“The City of the Almighty.”
Cain nodded, and a smirk crept up the corner of Lukian’s mouth.
The stones of the wilderness dug into Cain’s thighs and buttocks as he closed his eyes. He had broken the Almighty’s chains with a stone-smashed skull, and yet what had he gained? Marks across his skin and blood on his feet. And now he waited for death to come in silver skin.
He tensed his muscles. He would not be controlled. He would not be dominated. If the silver boy demanded all of him, he would embrace death.
But what if he retained a splinter of that control?
I escaped slavery before. I could do it again.
Cain closed his eyes and rested, letting his mind dip into endless silver waters until something jerked him back. He was sitting on the ground with his legs crossed and his arms in his lap. His fingertips were blue, and his body was numb. His mind told his hands to clench, but they moved as if listening to the commands of another.
He was tired, and he felt detached as he lay and watched his skin blacken and his limbs shake. Little feet approached, and as the gravel crunched by his ear, a small shadow blocked the stars to the south.
I am dying, Cain thought. Eventually, I will pass into the world beyond. Unless …
That familiar voice whispered in his ear, “Let me in. I will give you what you need if you would only give me what I want.”
Cain was repelled by the sound of the voice and the scent of its breath. It was an acrid, yellow stink that crept across the side of his face.
“You know what this means.” Its voice dripped with desire. “You must understand. Not all, but more.”
Cain nodded and whispered, “Come.” And he thought to himself, I promised I would come back for you. And I decided I would never lie again—not to you. And he thought of how her red hair shone in the sun and danced in the wind and felt between his fingers.
The silver boy’s nails dug into Cain’s shoulders, and its breath passed over his lips and down his throat. It swam down his limbs and crackled through his head, and though he knew what it was doing was shameful and should never be, he knew that it was, for the shadows of its emotions hovered at the outskirts of his mind.
Cain’s skin grayed, and he wanted to observe it closer, but already the silver boy urged him in a new direction. He stood and realized then what he must do. For a time he would suffer the thing to live in him, but when the moment presented itself—and it must—he would crush its head underfoot.
But for now, I will walk with the Devil.
16
Seth knew his father was wrong. Still, as he made a mental list of all that could not be true, he ran as fast as his stiff legs would allow. As he had lain on the floor of Mother’s home and listened to Adam’s words, he remembered. And not just the single set of visions that threw him into seizures. He remembered everything.
He looked back through blurred eyes and saw only rain. He had left as soon as he could, and maybe, just maybe, it would save her life. I cannot accept a world in which belief is only a misty haze simulating substance. I cannot abandon hope.
“I’m running.” He gasped for breath. “I’m trying.”
He hobbled up the hill and nearly fell in the mud. His lungs burned as he crested and staggered to the double doors of the Temple. Shaking with weakness, he reached, grabbed hold of one of the gold rings, and leaned back, but the door did not move. Panic invigorated his limbs, and he tugged until it opened, and he slipped inside.
He looked around, seeing the Temple’s insides grayed with shadow for the first time. Lampstands stood like mute sentinels, their flames extinguished, their figures gleaming in the light that stole through the cracked doorway. The tapestries and paintings depicting the glory of the Almighty were drab and colorless on the walls, and as he made his way forward, the darkness deepened.
Seth fumbled along the wall to find the door to the Throne Room, and as his fingers slid from stone to metal, footsteps pattered in from the rain. He glanced behind him and saw a shadowed figure silhouetted by the shaft of light pressed between the doors. He squeezed the handle, jerked the door open, and slipped inside. But as the door shut behind him, his feet melted.
The room was lit by two candles that burned on either side of the throne. The f
lames were weak after many hours, but still bright enough to illuminate the throne and what little was in the room. He shook his head and steadied himself against the wall. Then he crumpled to his knees and flattened himself against the floor. “Almighty?”
There was no response.
The door opened and feet shuffled beside him. He found it unusual how in this moment everything was magnified, from the sound of his wife’s footfalls, to the subtle intake of breath as she took in their surroundings, and the sting of the dust turned up by her tunic as she fell to the floor beside him.
“Almighty?” His nose ran from the chill of the chasm. If his dreams were only dreams, looking upon the glory of the Almighty could strike him dead.
But he had looked already, hadn’t he?
He held his breath. Perhaps a second look would be fatal.
He glanced to the left. To the right.
Where were the colors? Only Calebna had been in the Throne Room, but the stories he told were those of Fear and Reverence. Not the petty kinds of the incarnate world, but the purified oils of the Almighty, refined in the flames of eternal Holiness—gifts from beyond the edge of the world.
Could Calebna have lied all this time?
He could bear the unknown no longer. At the very least, what greater death could there be than to die in the presence of one’s Lord? He raised his head slowly, painfully, until he could view the throne out of the corner of his eye. Sweat poured from his skin as thoughts swirled through his mind. He could see the angled stone, the flickering shadows from impatient flames, and …
A robe.
“No,” he whispered as he let fear and rage burn his face. The fabric lay torn and wrinkled across the throne, and he didn’t need to look again to see the Almighty’s crown bent and dirtied with black stains.
Cain: The Story of the First Murder and the Birth of an Unstoppable Evil Page 7
