Eve: In the Beginning (20 page)

I watch him throw a couple more rocks. “Are you trying to attract another leopard?” I say.

He turns his head. His gaze is a deep pool of sorrow, and his jaw tightens. I realize now that he is more upset with the appearance of Lucifer than I thought.

“Maybe we should settle closer to the garden ... in case Elohim lets us back in.”

Adam shakes his head. He stands and reaches for me, pulling me with him. “We’ll never be allowed back in, Eve,” he says in a quiet voice.

I hate seeing his sadness. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I wish I would have never listened to Lucifer.”

“Do you really wish that?” Adam asks, surprising me.

I’m about to say “Of course,”
but then I stop. I know that isn’t true. As cold and as hungry as I’ve felt for the past few days, and as confused as I’ve been about the changing relationship between Adam and me, I have never felt such ... freedom. The wilderness is wild and harsh and can serve us only through destruction and death, yet ...

I look up at Adam, and his eyes seem to absorb me in their warmth, fear, and sorrow. This is the man whom I’ve been commanded to multiply and replenish the earth with, and I realize I want nothing more than to do just that, even though it means I’ll never step into our garden again. “Thank you for coming with me, Adam.”

He nods slightly, still watching me, and I wish he would say something or even kiss me again.

Instead, he turns back to scan the valley below. There’s no way to tell if Lucifer is still among the trees. If he is, he’s not showing himself.

I want to wrap my arms around Adam and lean into him, to feel his strength and his warmth, but I don’t move. I know that Adam is thinking beyond me, not of our kiss, and of how we are going to protect ourselves from beasts and unwanted intruders like our brother. Adam isn’t dizzy with emotion over one moment of affection.

When he speaks again, he does so without turning to look at me. “We need to move closer to the garden and build an altar where we can call upon Elohim for further instruction.”

“All right,” I say, although I think of the days and hardships it took to get to this place and the days it would take to return to the garden. Will it make Adam miss the garden even more if we are in sight of it? Will he wake up in the morning in view of the garden with regret in his heart?

I realize that Adam is watching me when he says, “Eve.”

I look up at him as he takes one of my hands. “I’m not sorry to be here with you.” He pulls me in his arms and buries his face in my neck as the breeze lifts and stirs my hair around us.

Closing my eyes, I breathe him in. He smells of wood and leaves and hard work. My Adam.

“We are settling near the garden only to communicate with Elohim.” His voice rumbles against my neck. “I hope it will keep Lucifer at a distance.”

I exhale. To have Lucifer never bother us again would be a blessing indeed, but somehow I sense that won’t be the case.

We spend the rest of the day weaving leaves together in strips and tying the branches together. Adam says that the trees are too sparse near the garden, although within the garden, the trees are abundant. So we are bringing the branches with us, to carry or drag across the vast distance.

I take a small break and gather more berries. Adam is grateful to take a break to eat too. He catches a couple of fish, and I eat as much as I can without complaint. Adam has hinted enough at eating other animals that I don’t consider eating fish so disastrous now.

By the time the sky turns violet, we’ve completed our work.

“We’ll set out in the morning,” Adam says.

I glance at the shelter we slept in the night before. I don’t look forward to spending another sleepless night wedged next to Adam, but the darkness sets in, and there is no other choice.

I crawl into the shelter, and a few moments later, Adam does as well. When his arms slide around me, I hold my breath. I can’t seem to get a mouthful of air when he is touching me. I hold as still as possible, willing sleep to come quickly.

“How are you, Eve?” Adam whispers.

“Very tired,” I say as he smoothes my hair. I hide the trembling that has started in my body.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I force myself to hold still when I really want to turn around in Adam’s arms and kiss him. I ask myself why I don’t turn, and I know the answer is because I am unsure. Or maybe ... afraid. It’s the unknown. Even with Elohim’s explanation of how a man and woman bind together, I tremble at the unknown.

Tonight is colder than last night, and my legs grow stiff and achy, but still I don’t move.

Adam’s touch on my hair has become softer, and I know he is close to sleeping. I wait until I hear the even exhale of his breath before I bend my legs slightly.

I stay like that for a long time before I notice that my tightened stomach isn’t relaxing. At first I think it’s because of the confusion of my thoughts when I’m so close to Adam, but now I realize there is pain — hard pain.

My breathing quickens as the pain drives deeper and sharper, and I can’t help but gasp. I move carefully away from Adam and slide out of the shelter. In the pale of the waning moon, I see what has brought on the pain.

I am bleeding as a woman bleeds, just as Elohim told me I would in preparation to multiply and replenish the earth.

I walk toward the river, forgetting Adam’s request to not walk anywhere alone. All I can think of is cleansing myself and stopping the pain. Walking eases the pain a fraction, but the pain is still sharp and hot. My head feels light, as though it’s no longer attached to my moving body, and my vision blurs. When I sink to my knees, I know that I am close to the river because I can hear it. But my attention is diverted when I hear something else as well — the growl of an animal.

Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

Genesis 2:24

Adam’s dream turned from walking through the lush green of the garden to stepping over the wall into a pool of black water. The cold dark wrapped around him, pulling him down, and he was surprised that he could breathe at all. The blackness increased, filling every part of his body and soul, until he realized what was wrong: Eve wasn’t with him.

For the first time since she was created, he was separated from her.

His eyes flew open, and the tendrils of the dream faded away until he couldn’t remember exactly what he’d dreamed about. But he did know that Eve was no longer in his arms, sleeping next to him, and it was still dark, a good wait until the first light of day. “Eve,” he called out, before crawling out of the shelter. She’d be close by, he was sure.

But as he straightened and stepped out of the shelter, scouring the landscape for any sign or sound of her, the darkness from his dream returned, seeping into him.

Then the sound of a scream ricocheted through him.

Adam ran toward the river, stumbling and nearly falling twice on scattered rocks. His heart thundered in his chest, propelling him to run faster than he’d ever run before. What he saw on the riverbank nearly made his heart stop.

Eve was crouched on the ground, her hands over her head, as a ferocious animal leapt toward her. The flash of fur in the moonlight told Adam that this was likely the leopard that Eve had encountered earlier.

He dove toward Eve and the beast as it landed on her, its teeth bared, a horrible growl coming from its throat. Adam grabbed at the leopard’s fur and pulled with all his strength, tugging the beast off Eve.

But the leopard was heavier and thicker than Adam expected. The beast twisted out of Adam’s reach, its claws digging into his arms.

Pain exploded through Adam, and he almost lost his breath and fell back, but he clutched at the leopard, knowing that if he let go, Eve would be its target. The beast’s growl turned high pitched as Adam fought to shove the leopard to the ground.

Using all of his force, Adam pinned the leopard down with his knees and elbows, his hands gripping the leopard’s throat to keep the teeth out of the way. But that didn’t stop the leopard’s claws from lashing out.

“Adam!” Eve screamed over and over somewhere in the back of his mind. Her cries made him more determined. There were only two paths: this beast would die, or he would. There was no time for a rock or a branch to help him, so Adam did the one thing that made sense. He moved his knees up, scraping them on the ground so that he’d have a better position to turn the leopard’s neck. Claws sank into his hands, causing heat to sear up his arms, but Adam kept turning until there was a sharp snap.

Just as he had done with the thickest tree branch, Adam had broken the beast’s neck.

The leopard stopped moving, and Adam collapsed, exhausted, his body swimming in pain. He would welcome the dark pool of nothingness now.

Eve’s voice whispered to him as he sank into a new blackness.

It wasn’t until the sunlight burned against his eyelids that he awakened. Adam’s first thought was:
I’m alive.

His second thought was about Eve. He lifted his neck and realized she was nestled against him, her arm flung over his chest. She had streaks of dried blood along her arms and face.

“Eve,” he said, his voice coming out as a hoarse whisper. He cleared his aching throat and said her name again.

She stirred and lifted her head, her blue-green eyes opening wide. “You’re awake,” she whispered in a shaky voice.

Adam sensed the fear coming from each syllable she spoke.

“Oh, Adam,” she said, sitting up, then leaning over him and kissing his face over and over.

Adam didn’t move because moving brought the heat of pain. With Eve’s kisses, relief moved on top of the pain. She was alive. They both were, but he had ended another life in order to protect their lives. Not far from where he lay in the dirt, the leopard’s bent body splayed in the dirt.

Adam pushed himself to a sitting position, his body flashing hot and cold as he did so. Pain screamed through his arms and hands.

“Be careful,” Eve said, drawing back.

He looked down at his marred skin. Eve had washed the gashes, but they stung, and the skin had swollen around the long claw marks.

“I tried to stop the bleeding with the leaves,” she said.

It was then that Adam noticed the leaves that littered the area around them, all of them stained with blood. “What about you? Are you injured?” he asked.

“Not as much as you.” Her eyes watered, and she looked away from him.

“Let me see,” he said.

Eve turned to show him her back. The leopard had clawed her, but the scrapes didn’t look too deep. “Let’s wash you off in the river,” he said.

She turned to face him, her cheeks wet again. “I didn’t think the leopard would still be here. I didn’t expect ...”

She lowered her head, and Adam touched her chin, lifting her face to look at him. “Why did you come out here by yourself?” he asked. “The beast could have ended your life ... or mine.” His breath was short again. Fear pulsed through him as he remembered Eve trying to defend herself against the leopard and how close she’d come to dying. What would have happened if the leopard had gained the best of him? How would she survive alone in the wilderness?