by S. M. Reine
Ariane had little concept of wars and such great suffering, but she understood heartache. She saw it in every line of Metaraon’s body.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll help you.”
Elise backed out of the memory to realize that Adam was watching with her. He stood at her side, white with shock, one hand extended as if on the verge of dismissing the memory.
Her stomach was knotted with sympathy for her mother, a foreign emotion. It couldn’t have belonged to Elise. It must have been one of Eve’s creeping urges.
“Did you see?” she asked, swallowing down those uncomfortable feelings.
Adam waved. The memory vanished.
“Metaraon was lying to her. I clearly didn’t kill you, Eve,” He said slowly. “How could I have? You’re with me right now.”
Elise grabbed His hand again. “Am I Eve? Check my mind.”
Adam hesitated.
“Don’t you want to know the truth?” she pressed.
In response, He peeled open her mind and stepped inside.
Elise’s life unfolded in front of them piece by piece, in jittering fragments and long breaths. She watched herself birthed from her mother’s body into the hands of an angel, then, a few days later, the first time her father held her. Isaac had said, “She’s awfully small.” He had been disappointed in her from the very beginning.
Adam led her to the memories of her early training. On her seventh birthday, she had received a pair of twin falchions and promptly killed a demon with them. “Good,” Isaac had said at that. “Very good.” It was a rare moment of approval, and utterly meaningless to Adam. He moved on.
He skipped through much of her adolescence, but paused to watch the first time that she had been dragged into the garden. He watched in bemusement as Elise spoke with the last Eve that had lived there, and coerced the cherubim into helping her escape.
The rest of it He skimmed through, as if He couldn’t bear to see it.
When her memories faded, He said, “You really aren’t her.” He sounded so heartbroken that she almost pitied Him. “But I saw pieces of her within you.”
“That’s the garden,” Elise said. “This entire place is a prison designed to contain you. We’re in Araboth. Not Eden—Araboth. And the only way you can be freed from it is to kill Metaraon.”
Adam didn’t acknowledge her counsel. He packed together James and Ariane’s memories and shoved them away.
Time resumed its normal pace.
He kneeled at Metaraon’s side. The angel was still bleeding profusely, and didn’t seem to realize that time had been interrupted at all. “Don’t listen to her,” Metaraon said, hands clutched to his wound. Silvery blood slicked his fingers.
“How could you bear to serve me for so long with so much hatred in your soul?” Adam asked, stroking Metaraon’s forehead. “All I have ever done is love you.”
“What?”
Clenching His hand on the back of Metaraon’s head, Adam ripped the angel’s head off.
Ariane screamed.
Adam calmly turned to Elise, offering her the head as Ariane dissolved into sobs. Elise took it from Him like it was a bouquet of flowers on a first date. Her mother’s cries slid off of her like rain sliding down glass. “It’s done,” He said. “Just as you asked of me.”
“Thanks,” she said.
Gazing into Metaraon’s slack face, grief stirred inside of Elise.
Though all of the memories had been shoved away, she could see herself kissing Metaraon among the roses as clearly as though she was living the moment for the first time. She remembered cracking open the eggs of her children with his help, and the time that he had first emerged into her arms, a newborn angel.
Even though Metaraon had been the one to doom Elise to such a wretched life, she still shared in Eve and Ariane’s grief.
But only for a moment.
Adam rounded on James and Ariane. In the presence of His power, they were helpless to run—and it was only worse as His anger built. He was almost too powerful for even Elise to approach.
He seized Ariane by the chin, and Elise realized that He was about to kill her, too.
“Stop!” she shouted, dropping Metaraon’s head. “What are you doing?”
“I will kill both of them for this conspiracy,” Adam said, shaking Ariane. “This one first. She’s carrying the fruit of a union between herself and Metaraon.”
“Let her go,” she said.
“Why? Why should I let their traitorous offspring survive?”
“Because if you do,” Elise said, steeling herself, “I’ll go through the door with you.”
“No,” James said softly.
Adam didn’t seem to have heard. “You will?” There was such hope in His voice.
Elise forced herself to nod. “All you’ve got to do is send Ariane and her baby safely back to Earth.”
“And him?” Adam nodded to James.
Her upper lip curled as she mulled the idea.
James had been complicit the entire time. There was a vengeful side to Elise’s soul that thought he deserved the same fate as Metaraon. He certainly didn’t deserve to leave the garden unharmed, as Ariane would.
Adam would do anything Elise asked.
“I don’t care,” Elise said. “Forget about him.”
Through the bond, she could tell that James felt like she had just driven a knife into his gut.
Adam dropped Ariane, and she collapsed at His feet.
Elise kneeled by her mother. Ariane’s eyes streamed with tears as she gazed up at her daughter. “It’s the right thing to do,” Ariane said.
“It’s not for you,” Elise said. “But you said you wanted a chance to do it right this time, so…make sure to do it right. Don’t fuck this up.” She pressed a hand to her mom’s stomach. “Take good care of her.”
A reply hung on Ariane’s lips. Elise never heard it.
Adam waved a hand and Ariane vanished instantly. The grass was flat where she had been lying.
Elise’s breath caught in her throat. “Did you—?”
“She’s safely on Earth,” Adam said.
He held a hand out to her.
“Elise,” James said, “whatever you do—”
She silenced him by curling her fingers around Adam’s.
A door appeared on the edge of Mnemosyne, white with four panels and a gold handle. It was so ordinary. The sight of it made Elise’s heart pound in her throat.
The garden filled with light as she approached the door with Adam at her side. Elise could feel how the radiance burned James’s skin, his eyes. “Come, beloved,” He said. His voice made James’s ears throb.
The door swung open, revealing gray light on the other side.
Elise took a final look at James.
He had been the one to surrender her to God. He had been in on it the entire time, and had never once given her a hint of a warning. He had even allowed her to be taken. It shouldn’t have felt like her heart was breaking to leave him.
Her toes brushed the threshold. Adam waited for her to move.
“Don’t,” James said. She could see him form the word, even if she couldn’t hear him through the pulse of energy radiating from the door.
She took the final step.
XIV
Elise fragmented.
Once she became whole again, she found herself standing on a grassy plane. There was ocean on the horizon, firmament above, and earth below. There was so much open air that she felt like she might tumble into the sky and lose herself among the starry shards. Her feet seemed to barely connect with the ground below her.
Elise had walked through the door with Adam, and the world had reset.
She was in the beginning.
Even though there was nobody with her in the emptiness of a new world, Elise knew that she wasn’t alone. There was another person nearby—inside of her, in fact. It was another woman, and Elise knew her mind, body, and soul better than Betty’s, better than her mother’s, better eve
n than James’s.
It was Eve.
She was no longer a wisp of a personality teasing at the darkest corners of Elise’s mind. Eve had become a fully formed consciousness, just as strong as hers, and just as demanding of attention.
That wasn’t the only thing that had changed. Elise inspected her body. It was lean and strong, but not as muscular as it used to be. Eve’s body.
Memories slithered over her. Eve’s mind was like a cool ocean spray, a sweet spring breeze, blooming flowers.
When Elise saw shoots stirring among the grass, she wasn’t certain if plants were really sprouting from the ground as she watched, or if it was just Eve’s memory. Either way, the flowers grew, and vines followed; the first saplings appeared shortly thereafter.
As the world dawned anew, so did her memories.
Elise’s vision blurred, and she saw through Eve’s eyes.
The stars blinked, and a woman appeared.
Her body was unlike any of the beasts within the garden. She walked upright with a back straight and strong, rather than galloping on four hooves. Her forelegs had hands with opposable digits. Instead of two columns of mammaries, she had a pair of large breasts. Her waist was small, her hips were wide, and her legs were long. The fur that should have been on her entire body instead flowed from her crown in crimson curls, just a few shades darker than her bare, olive flesh.
Her wings were much like those of the birds soaring above, but they didn’t have her arms, and the feathers covered the entirety of their small bodies; whatever she was, it was neither hawk nor sparrow. Without hooves, she couldn’t have been a horse, either. Considering her long limbs, she was also not a serpent.
No, she was something new. Something wonderful and unique.
She decided to call herself Eve.
Eve wiggled her toes in the grass. It felt good—the first of many wonderful sensations to come.
Her feet found traction, and it was easy to step forward, moving the earth underneath her with every step.
She quickened her pace. A step became a skip, the skip became a sprint, and then she was flying, arms wide and face tilted into the breeze. Her wings folded to let the wind slide past her body.
Then she swept her wings wide, and the wind carried her high, drifting among the stars.
Elise blinked. Her vision cleared of Eve’s memory, and she came back to herself standing far below the starry sky.
She twisted to look at her back.
Wings. Elise had wings.
Reflexively, she stretched them out, spanning the feathers like fingers. They were dove-white, accented by silver, and glowed with an inner light. Elise traced a hand down the spur of bone at the top of the wing, which was as thick as her upper arm.
With Eve’s growing presence in her heart, and her wings on Elise’s back, it would be easy to forget that she was actually a demon.
She folded her wings back and turned to face the first sliver of dawn appearing on the horizon.
Eve’s spirit wasn’t the only thing keeping her company in this place. Elise could feel something else familiar tugging at her, like a hook at her navel trying to draw her onward. She wasn’t sure where to go in an empty world, but something wanted to be found.
Go find them, whispered a voice. They’re here.
“What’s here?” Elise asked.
Her vision blurred again before the voice could reply.
The first dawn.
Eve soared toward the sun, arms spread, and tried to catch the light. But it wasn’t possible. Like the stars, the sun was much too distant to reach.
It was a wonder to fly in this daylight—the warmth on her skin felt like a miracle. She may have never left the sky if she hadn’t spotted another life below. It was a pinprick interrupting the otherwise smooth grass.
Eve dropped beside it.
This was not an animal. It had no hooves, and no feathers.
It was a tree—the First Tree, in fact.
She fell to her knees so that her eyes were level with its uppermost branches, and she let out a coo of pleasure at the fragile branches stretching toward the cerulean sky. They grew as she watched. Its bark was little more than a papery membrane, barely containing swirls of light.
She cupped its trunk in one hand. It was smooth. The brush of her skin against the fine bark made a cinnamon perfume fill the air. Eve felt a jolt of energy at touching the Tree—a sense of familiarity, like she had seen it a hundred times before.
This was why she was here. She was sure of it.
Elise jerked her hand back from the Tree. She didn’t remember kneeling next to the sapling, or cradling it in her hands, but Eve’s memories had been steering her.
She backed away, brushing her hands off on her hips.
The garden continued to grow around her at super-speed. A vine crept across the ground, tickling her toes and wrapping around her ankle. As she watched, its leaves unfurled to accept the warmth of the dawning sun.
The sense of something tugging at her grew stronger.
Find them.
The voice spoke clearly, as if from directly behind her, but nothing was there when Elise turned.
They’re here.
Elise’s vision began to blur again with the approach of a new memory. She clenched her fists tightly.
“I didn’t walk through that door for a history lesson,” she whispered, hoping that Eve would hear her.
A low, feminine chuckle rolled through Elise.
You need to see.
“No,” Elise said.
But Eve wasn’t interested in Elise’s plans.
The plants were good company. They sang to Eve when the sun rose in the morning, flooding the sky with golden light, and she lifted her voice to join theirs. On the nights that she didn’t let herself fall asleep drifting on a breeze, the leaves and vines cradled her body so that she could sleep.
She was never short of conversation in this wild world. The roses were gossips; when the stars were out of earshot during daylight, the flowers whispered sordid stories of their activities to Eve. The deer would tell her of the shifting seasons as they nibbled the grass emerging between her toes. And Eve never grew tired of entertaining the First Tree with song. It quickly grew under her care, becoming tall and strong.
Eventually, though, Eve realized she was lonely.
Were there others like her?
She asked the dandelion seeds to search before blowing them into the wind. Vines crept over the earth in search of tracks. The birds wheeled and cried and told her that they had found nothing.
Yet there was another. He found her one morning while she sang to the Tree.
The man approached from the west. He had broad shoulders, refined abdominal muscles, less body fat, and a beard. He also didn’t have any wings.
Eve’s heart raced at the sight.
They needed a way to communicate, and so they did. These were the first words ever spoken: “I’m not alone.” The man seemed to be delighted and relieved by this revelation. Eve was, too.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I call myself Adam,” said the man.
With those four words, Eve had loved Him instantly—and so did Elise.
While she was still absorbed in Eve’s memories, the world around her had continued to grow. The grassy plane had become a wild tangle of flora as the sprawling jungle began to consume the entire plane. She glimpsed fawns darting between the branches, the white tips of hare tails, a flitting sparrow.
The garden was coming to life all over again.
She realized that she was standing next to the young Tree again, just as she sometimes had in Adam’s memories. The sight of it filled her heart with fear, but the emotion quickly faded. Eve’s feelings easily overpowered hers.
Can you sing? whispered the feminine voice to Elise.
She couldn’t remember.
“Yes,” she said, “I think I can.”
The surrounding jungle parted, and a man approached.
Adam came upon her tentatively in the same way that He had approached Eve for the first time.
This wasn’t the young man from Eve’s memories. This was a centuries-old god, barely contained by flesh that looked human. Fear washed over her anew at the sight of Him.
He gave her the same look of wonder that He had given Eve, at first, as if making a marvelous discovery.
“I’m not alone,” He said. The words were spoken with such delight.
He didn’t remember anything—not the first time that He had met Eve, the wars that had followed, or all of the women that He had been with in the years since. He wouldn’t even remember that He had been imprisoned and had killed Metaraon for it.
Adam was an innocent again.
More than that, He believed Himself to be mortal.
Elise realized that she was supposed to speak. The words fell from her lips. “Who are you?” she asked.
“I call myself Adam,” He said.
“And I’m Eve,” she said.
I’m Eve. It resonated through her mind, echoing like the lingering chimes of prophecy.
They walked together for a long time. Showing Adam everything that Eve had already experienced was a joy, because she got to rediscover everything as if she had never done it before. He enjoyed the company of beasts and plants. He sang in harmony with her. They fit together in a way that Eve had fit with nothing else.
She was no longer lonely.
But it didn’t escape her notice that she and Adam were very unlike in one distinctive way, which had nothing to do with the absent wings.
For all those many years she had dwelt in the wilderness, Eve hadn’t changed in any significant way. Her hair grew longer, only for her to cut it short again. Her feathers fell out and were replaced. But her skin was as pure as the first day that she had awakened near the stars.
Adam aged.
It was a subtle thing. From day to day, there was no noteworthy difference. But a year passed, and when Eve considered the way Adam used to look, it was obvious that changes were occurring on a deeper level.
