If only I had known that fruit so many years ago would, in return, sink its teeth into us. “I’ll shave you soon,” she whispered. “I know you hate how it itches when it gets like this.” She buried her head in his neck, wishing his arms would slide around her. Wishing he would awaken. Wishing he would hold her … as he did now.
She jerked her head back to look. His arms were locked around her waist, and his voice was soft as he said, “When did you get so thin?”
The sound frightened her. She tried to jerk away, but failed. Her mind spun. Adam was holding her. Adam had spoken. She searched those eyes that had been dim since Abel’s death, but that were as bright and alive as she remembered them being when she woke from the breath of God and the bone of his side. “Adam?”
His brow furrowed as he squeezed her. “Where are we? Is this …?”
“Adam!” She buried her face in his neck.
“All is fine, is it not?”
“No.” The word barely found form.
“Are you hurt?” His voice grew harsh. “Who hurt you?”
Eve shook her head. “You don’t understand.”
And she laughed and kissed him in the shade of the trees.
49
The vines whipped Cain’s arms as he struggled through, snapping thorns as he went. He was no stranger to violence, but the desire to cut himself had never entered his mind.
So why do I want to slice my wrists and drink?
Because Sarah is right, I am a monster, a slave to rage. And if I don’t kill myself, I might kill the only one I yet love. What angers me most is I chose this. But what else was there to receive me?
He struck one of the bobbing globes as its lids opened at him. It recoiled and squinted, and he stifled the urge to break it from its stem. He clenched his fists and screamed, pushing until he felt the air stab his throat.
Then he heard it. Sustained laughter bubbling out of the void, followed by quiet footsteps and cold fingers slipped between his. The Abomination stared up at him in the familiar illusion of that little silver boy.
“You see?” it hissed. “You’re nothing alone. You will always need me, if only to stem the flood of madness. You can never be free.”
He tore his hand out of its grip.
“Go on, suck the blood from your wounds. Give in. Why not?”
“You changed me.”
“I gave you what you wanted. You’re nothing but a prostitute selling yourself for the ultimate drug. You wanted a deathless body? It’s yours. Transcendent power? It’s yours. But in return, you will always be mine.”
Cain wanted nothing more than to crush its skull as he had Abel’s. But he couldn’t. Not yet. “You speak as though freedom is a fantasy, yet in the same breath claim I chose you.”
“Life gives you one choice—who will you worship?”
“I never chose you.”
“No, you chose yourself, and even God didn’t make that mistake.” The Abomination paused. “There are issues craving resolution. It is dangerous to let them rally. They’re already beginning to question your divinity.”
“You speak of my father.”
“Humans are emboldened by small victories. Let me have this time. I’ll reward you.”
Cain sensed the pale hunger in its voice and refused its violent grab for control. “Crawl back into your hole,” he said, “before I force you.”
It was an empty boast.
Gorban tore at the wrapping on his leg until it loosed. He unwound the fabric, and as he peeled the last bloody fibers away, all that remained underneath was white skin and black hair.
“My leg.”
“What’s wrong with it?” Kiile asked.
“It’s healed.”
Kiile laughed. “Did you eat bad fruit and muddle your mind?”
“I did eat some of the fruit.” Gorban stood and, when he felt no pain, jumped. “And I have no more pain.”
“Impossible.” Kiile grabbed Gorban’s shoulder to survey the pale flesh of his thigh. His eyes widened as he craned his neck to look at both sides. “You weren’t even able to walk yesterday.”
“I can now.”
Kiile walked off, but kept glancing at Gorban’s leg.
Gorban laughed and stomped the ground. “Do you see this?”
Mason nodded and smiled broad enough to show his teeth.
Jacob jogged through the trees and skidded to a stop. Sweat matted his hair and eagerness sprinted across his face. “Come quick. Adam’s in the center of the orchard with Eve.” He turned and ran, and Gorban, Mason, Kiile, and Machael hurried after.
Voices were raised in exclamation. Shadows danced, and as they rounded a row of trees, they saw the group gathered in an oblong circle.
Peth called to him and he joined, but as she smiled and pointed toward Adam, she noticed his unbandaged leg. “What happened?”
“It’s healed,” Gorban said.
“How?”
“I think I know.” Gorban called for his grandmother. The people parted.
Adam and Eve were entangled in each other’s arms, and upon seeing him, Eve said, “You are healed as well?”
“You fed him the fruit,” Gorban said.
“He woke immediately.” Eve was beaming.
Gorban bowed. “Welcome back, Grandfather.”
Adam said, “It is good to be back.”
Cain burst through to where his family stood in a diamond formation amidst the orchard, and said, “Now you see.” They turned and hushed. “The fruit of the Garden does more than feed and sustain. It heals, though within limitations.” He waved to indicate all they could see. “But this is child’s play compared to the true secret of the Garden.”
Adam was there, truly there, for the first time since the murder, and Cain could see the disdain in his father’s gaze, that familiar expression of disappointment. Adam’s face had paled upon seeing him, and Cain was struck in that moment of how disconnected they had become. Adam had not yet seen the changes in Cain, and surely seeing him evoked both fear and disgust.
Cain feigned applause. “Congratulations, Father. You’ve finally stepped out of your dreams.”
“It seems I’ve done so only to step into your perverse fantasies,” Adam said, looking directly into Cain’s eyes.
Cain hadn’t expected that voice to still carry its sting, and he set his jaw against it and lowered his voice until it seemed the two of them spoke privately. “The days I spent in your shadow have long since passed.”
“Have they now?”
Cain plucked a small yellow fruit and began eating it. “Do you remember Eden?”
“I remember many things.”
“Have I missed anything?” Cain swept his arm toward the vines, trees, and thorns, and tossed the finished fruit as Eve walked up beside Adam and hugged his arm.
“Nothing could compare to that paradise,” Adam said.
“And yet you threw it away.”
“Always passing blame,” Eve said. “Will you never learn?”
“This Garden is a gift. You would do well to accept it,” Cain said.
“Who do you think you are?” Adam said.
“I’m who you never could be. You were the sickness. I’m the solution.”
“You’re twice the sinner I ever was.”
Cain laughed. “You’re every bit the same as me. The only difference is you are powerless and I am not.”
“And what do you think wielding that power will gain you?” Adam said.
“Not me. It will gain you. It will gain Mother. It will gain anyone who is willing to embrace the God inside.” He pulled out the perfectly round, flesh-colored fruit of the new Tree of Life, so benign in appearance, and their eyes followed as he dangled it in front of them by the stem. He spoke for all to hear. “In the heart of the Garden lies a reversal of the curse. A true Tree of Life. All you need to do is taste and see.” He nodded at Adam. “Began and ended through fruit. It seems fitting, doesn’t it?”
There was dangerous s
ilence. Cain felt the echoes of decisions and truth, and realized this point was another nexus. The world and all beyond hushed in anticipation of their every move, though somehow he knew this nexus more potent, more treacherous than any before. He closed his eyes and let each moment fall on his ears like terrible Music.
“I would rather die than become a curse like you,” Adam said.
“My curse is everlasting life.”
“I taught you to love. I taught you to serve the Almighty and steward the earth.”
Cain’s sight dimmed at his father’s stupidity, and he felt the blood hot in his cheeks. “Who then taught me hate?”
“Abel listened to me. He was a good son.”
“Who holds you in the crucible? Who has given sanity back to you from denial’s greedy grasp?”
“Every chance I gave, you threw away. How can I applaud stupidity?” Adam kept going on as if the argument had nothing to do with the present situation. And perhaps it didn’t.
Cain paused. “I’ve done more than sin.”
“I would have questioned your humanity if you hadn’t done some good. But ever since childhood you have done shameful things.”
“And ever since I could remember, Abel absorbed every ounce of your adoration.”
Eve’s eyes seemed to flash at that.
“Everyone saw it,” Cain said. “The moment Abel was born—before I had my very first thought—you loved him more, didn’t you? Tell me how that is not the darkest of evils. Abandoning an innocent child merely because you were preoccupied with the beauty of another. How could you?”
“I offered you every chance to prove yourself.”
Cain laughed, long and cold. “What sign did you search for? Was it something in my infant babble? Perhaps the way I gripped my toes?”
“Don’t mock me, child.”
“I will mock who I wish.” And to press the point home, he struck his father’s face.
Eve caught Adam, who wiped blood from his mouth. Adam’s voice shook. “All your fury could not match him. I knew the moment he was born that he was perfect. But you … you troubled me.”
“What was it you so hated in me?”
Adam pressed his lips together.
“Why not be forthcoming?”
Adam turned away.
Cain’s voice grew until he was nearly screaming. “When you looked on my dark skin and eyes, on your sharpness of features reflected, what did you fear? That I would be like you? That I would choose Sin over God, like you did?”
Adam’s voice was low. “I was right to fear what you would become.”
Cain paused as new thoughts settled, and he realized that for the first time he was seeing his father clearly. His voice quieted. “You still feel the shame of that moment all those years ago. You still see your mistakes crystalized in my features, forever preserved in flesh and bone too similar to yours. That’s why you hated me, isn’t it? That’s why you still hate me.”
Adam’s shoulders rolled with every breath, and his hands clenched and released.
Cain hadn’t realized until that moment how much he had hoped Adam did love him, however little. Perhaps that was why Cain felt such enormous importance in this moment. Because everything, from the Abomination to the Garden, led back to that day over a century ago, when the twins were born and the father chose his favorite.
The family gazed in stunned silence. Mason’s eyes were bright and cold as he stared at Cain. Lukian looked bitter and distant, and Gorban’s neck was red with shame for his father, perhaps his grandfather, maybe both.
The Abomination chewed at the base of Cain’s skull, its angry calls for power weaving into an unintelligible storm of vowels and consonants. It wanted to speak. To spread the fear it thought so pertinent to their survival, and Cain was wearied by the pale thirst and the crumbling of hopes he had gathered through countless years. He had never so bluntly pointed to his father’s faults, and somehow by doing so and finding them firm, he felt the throb of wounds run deeper still.
“Give me emptiness,” he whispered, and the Abomination thrust him into the void.
50
Mason had been waiting for the moment the silver would return, and as he stood listening to the echoes of Cain and Adam’s bitter exchange, Cain’s eyes melted to polished marbles, and Mason knew the monster was back.
“Enough foolishness,” Cain said.
Mason’s throat dried, and he shivered. This was not Father. Whatever had happened in the wilderness, Sarah was right. He had not returned alone.
“As promised, I will let you live in peace, but you must stay.”
Eve touched Adam’s arm, but he shrugged her away.
Cain, or something inside him, smiled. “So far my patience has proven deep, but it is not bottomless. The Garden watches. It thirsts for violence, and nothing but my promise holds it from drinking your blood with its thorny roots.”
Cain floated in the void hearing voices like far-off underwater mumblings. The Abomination was in control of his body, and he wondered if he should attempt reclaiming power.
No, I must take this time to search the Waters of Time; for it is only when the Abomination is distracted that I may be safe from intrusion. And it must never know what I find.
He remembered the black force that had thrown him out of the stream upon his first encounter. He knew what the black force had been even then, and though the Abomination hadn’t spoken of it, he knew he had been on the verge of discovering something it wished to keep hidden.
The Abomination realized then that I know of the prophetic streams, but it cannot watch tirelessly.
I must hurry.
He closed his eyes and felt the layers arise. He reached and sifted through them, slowly descending until he realized something was drawing him toward the bottom of the layers. Upon arriving, he stood poised at the edge of that endless darkness, but something stayed him.
What would happen if I jumped? Could I find my way back? The darkness seemed to call with a voice of cold finality, but he perceived it was not yet time. He would return to that darkness all too soon—that truth resonated like a wet finger circling the edge of a glass—but he couldn’t sense why, so he shifted back and ascended, grappling one arm over the other to pull himself toward the light. He arrived at the other brink and stood at the edge as he had before, prepared to jump into the stream. The Water churned and boiled.
As he stood, he remembered Sarah’s shining eyes and the sound of her weeping; Mason’s glare and Lukian’s anger; the silver eyes of the Abomination and its arrogant nose; and Abel’s blood pooling under darkness and grass.
I fear what lies in the streams of Time.
But where else might you turn? You have stalled too long already. Go. Go!
He stepped off the edge and the Water rushed up and closed its hands about him, twisting and throwing him in circles, burying his face in cold wetness. He struggled until he breached the surface. A storm raged and lightning struck. Where the jagged light stabbed the surface, the stream exploded, and as he struggled against the current, it splashed on all sides. He cried out as a flash slapped the Water in front of him, but there was no pain.
Of course. My body is walking in the Garden. I am here, and yet I am not here. Through the lens of the void, I have become an observer of the Waters of Time.
He recognized visions in the Water. As a bolt of light illuminated a suspended droplet, he caught a glimpse of a baby raised high. Though the droplet sped by, the vision was so vivid that, in an instant, ages filtered through his mind. He saw the baby wriggle and heard it squeal as it was lowered into familiar hands. A woman with red hair leaned in, crinkled her nose, and pressed it against the baby’s cheek.
This is my unborn child, Cain thought. I see the resemblance even now. The jawline, the shape of the lips—ah, but it has Sarah’s nose. Yes, I see the child is older and his hair is like glowing coals. And … what is this?
The boy, whose name he did not know, turned and glared, but the peculi
arity remained. Dirty-white projections, like the horns of a goat, pressed out the top of his head.
The vision continued in sputtering clips. Lightning struck, and as the droplets sped by, he saw the boy grown to a man. The horns curved back upon themselves, and darkened and shimmered as if moistened by the blood of the innocent.
Cain turned away. “I will not watch this.” He plunged ahead, not bothering to look at the other images that demanded attention. They screamed and howled, but he swam on. The storm intensified, the lightning struck with greater frequency, and he wondered if he could find the source of the storm. He knew, as a man knows his existence, that the stream defined the world, or maybe that the world defined it—either an equal truth—and that if a possibility lay not in the stream, it could not exist, and so the stream projected the limits of will itself.
But what is this storm?
He swam on but again became caught in the visions. They grew more violent, and as the droplets sped by, murder multiplied. Men with horns just like his yet-to-be-born son beat and tortured each other with cruel instruments.
“No,” he said. “This is not the world I bought with slavery. This is not the world I wanted. Show me the way I glimpsed in the eye of my imagination. The way of progress, the way of transcendence.”
But true prophetic vision was altogether different and more terrifying than imagination. He could no longer bend logic to reach the conclusion of his design. The fury of Time’s brutal movement shocked his eyes wide, and as another bolt struck the surface, a vision of one of his other descendants struck his cheek. The man was ugly, and one of his horns was crooked.
Lamech. The name of the son I lost to the Jinn. Though this Lamech is one of my distant grandchildren.
Another man struck Lamech, and he struck back. Lamech tossed the man to the ground, then kicked and stomped his chest and head. Cain turned and bit his tongue. He wanted to burn the images from his mind, but they grew and festered like open wounds.
Cain rushed on and witnessed countless infants murdered and unspeakable things done to women—and through it all those beast men with horns, and flames and disintegrating towers growing ever higher.
Cain: The Story of the First Murder and the Birth of an Unstoppable Evil Page 23
