Eve: In the Beginning (34 page)

The tree where he’d left Eve to rest looked twisted and lonely against the dark gray sky.

Another burst of light illuminated the surrounding terrain. He should have been able to see Eve by now, leaning against the tree, waiting for him, but the area beneath the tree was barren.

Adam pushed his legs faster, wishing he were already there. His breath came in gulps interspersed with inhaling drops of water. “Eve!” he called out, doubtful she could hear him over the roar of the storm, but he was desperate enough to try.

Only a few paces were left. Then he was there, beneath the rattling, dripping branches. His heart thudded and skipped a beat as he saw her curled up on the ground, her hands covering her face.

“Eve,” he rasped out. What had happened to her? He shouldn’t have left, but the sky had been clear and the wind mild when he’d departed. Dread pulsed through him as he imagined the worst. Was she still breathing?

He knelt beside her and grasped her wrists, pulling her hands away from her face. There was resistance to his touch, and there was warmth in her body. He leaned over her, too afraid to believe, but when her eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks and her eyes opened, relief poured into every part of his body.

“Adam,” her mouth said, but no sound came.

He didn’t need words — not yet. He needed her to be alive and well. Gathering her in his arms, he sat against the tree, her body nestled against him. With one hand, he grabbed a skin coat he had discarded earlier in the heat and wrapped it around the both of them.

The wind pulled at their hair and coats, making a high-pitched keening sound interrupted by rumbling from the clouds and shots of light streaking across the sky.

Eve shuddered in his arms, but she wasn’t crying ... or speaking ... yet. Adam just held her tight, his chest constricting at the thought of his wife being in danger for even one moment. She was barely a remnant of her former self: he hadn’t heard her laugh since their daughter was born. She hadn’t even smiled.

The storm didn’t fade until it was almost dark, and then the light remained suspended between the gray of the storm and the twilight of the evening.

“He was here,” Eve whispered.

The sound startled him. He’d become used to his wife’s silence. At first Adam wasn’t sure if Eve was speaking or if the wind created the sounds. But when he looked down, her eyes were open. He didn’t need to ask who
he
was. Adam tightened his hold around her trembling body.

“I shouldn’t have left.” His skin burned with self-incrimination.

A sigh escaped her. “I needed to talk to him,” Eve said, her voice a little stronger. “Without you.”

Adam drew away, feeling stung. With the movement, the deerskin coat fell off her shoulders.

“Listen to me first,” Eve said, her expression pleading.

But he didn’t want to hear her explanation, even if it meant she was finally speaking again — even if it meant the sorrow had temporarily left her eyes, replaced by urgency. He wanted to leave, to walk away, to put space between them so he could think. After all that had happened, all that Lucifer had destroyed, she had
wanted
to speak to him?

He released her and moved so that she had the deerskin coat to herself. She didn’t readjust it over her shoulders. She just let it sit around her waist. He resisted the urge to fix it.

Her hand touched his, and he looked down at it as if it were something foreign on his skin.

“I wanted out of this sorrow,” she said. “I wanted someone to understand.”

“But
I
understand,” Adam said, the frustration building. “It’s my sorrow too.” He swallowed against the tightness in his throat. His whisper came out hoarse. “She was my daughter too.”

Eve’s eyes reddened. “I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to bear such a burden.”

“Together,” Adam said. “You and I
together
.”

“Lucifer offered me another way,” she said in a quiet voice.

“Of course he did.” Fear shot through him. Had Eve made a covenant with Lucifer?
Have I already lost her?
If so, then why was she still here, with him? To say good-bye?

“I didn’t take it, Adam,” she said. “I don’t think that I ever really considered taking it.” She looked down. “Maybe I did, or maybe I just wanted to hear that I still had a choice.” Moisture dripped down her face, and she didn’t make a move to brush it away.

“We’ve always had choices,” he said in a quiet voice. “But the choices leading to Lucifer are not the ones we seek.”

She let out a breath and raised her red-rimmed eyes to meet his. “He was persuasive, and he promised that he could make the pain and sorrow of this world go away. He told me that I wouldn’t have to feel
this
anymore.” Her hand went to her chest.

He stared at her hand. “What was the price?”

“You,” she said. “And our future children.”

It was the first time that Adam had heard Eve speak of future children as though they might be a possibility. A small bit of hope grew inside him.

“I thought of all the souls that are dependent on me — on
us
— who are waiting.” She brought her hand to her face and finally brushed away the wet. “I will never forget our first daughter, and I don’t want anything to make me forget. I don’t want to forget how much I wanted her or loved her. I can’t let Lucifer take that away from me. It would be like losing her again.”

Adam placed his hands on each side of her face, gently stroking her cheeks with his thumbs. “We’ll never forget, but not forgetting doesn’t mean we have to stop living.”

Her arms went around his neck. “I told him no. I realized that no matter what sorrow this world brings, my love for you is stronger than all of it.” She moved closer. “I told him that I choose you always, forever.”

Adam held Eve tight, breathing her in, her fragile parts and her strong parts. Without each part, she wouldn’t be his — she wouldn’t be Eve, the mother of all living.

And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.

Genesis 3:20

I never want to leave Adam’s arms, and I bury myself in them as he sleeps. Lying beneath the full moon with the sound of a nearby stream, everything seems quiet and peaceful. But I know that although I have rejected Lucifer again, he won’t give up.

I won’t give up either.

Adam has been so patient, so understanding, that the guilt sits hard in my stomach. He is too good. He has waited for me long enough. I haven’t allowed any intimacy, my fear like a wall between us. I can see it in his eyes as well, the fear of the unknown, but there is also the spark of faith.

If I am ready, he is ready. This I know, but I need to also have faith in Elohim. Faith in myself that I have made the right choice. Faith in us.

The moonlight plays across Adam’s features, his cheekbones, nose, and chin. His eyelashes are thick and dark upon his cheeks, his brow relaxed in sleep. We have not found a place to dwell yet and continue to spend each night in a different place, but I feel settled inside.

There was a time when I wondered if I’d come out of the darkness that engulfed me — if I’d be able to see again, to love again, to feel again. It wasn’t until I was at the lowest point and allowed Lucifer to come back into influence that I realized what I had been giving up.

I had been giving up Adam — who was warm, strong, dedicated, faithful — who was my husband. And for what? To exist in the depths of despair as some kind of proof that I wasn’t happy about my daughter’s death when living and bringing more children to the earth would have manifested my love for her and would have proved that I was worthy of her
love.

In the farthest corner of my heart, I wonder if she was taken because I wasn’t worthy yet, because my faith was not strong enough, and because I was willing to consider Lucifer’s offers.

No
, I breathe out.
Don’t think that. Her soul is where it needs to be. And
your
soul is where it needs to be — separated from her for now.

My refinement has just begun. I am only part of the woman that I hope to be when this mortal probation is over. When I meet my daughter in the afterlife, I want to be worthy of her praise.

Adam’s steady breathing is soothing, and I reach my hand up to touch his face. I try not to wake him, but when his eyes slowly open, I know what I want.
Him. Us. Together.

I lean up on my elbow and slowly kiss him. It feels like an eternity since I’ve allowed myself this pleasure. Pushing past the fear and the unknown, I let him take me into his arms. To start a new beginning.

The air has grown increasingly heavy. The incessant heat has released its hold, but there is a new touch to the air. It seems to weigh on us and slow us down.

When Adam asks if I want to stop for a midday rest, I answer, “No. I feel there is something that we must see and that it won’t be long now.”

Of course, I could have been saying this for days and days, but there is something that feels different about this day. The sun is the same, the high clouds are no different, the breeze is light, but my heart beats strangely off rhythm, as if it’s sensing something new.

The trees we are walking through thin, and we make our way around large rocks. The rocks seem as though they are guarding or protecting someplace. Parts of them are covered in green growth. “What is that?” I ask, running my hand along the dry texture.

“They look like small herbs,” Adam says, peering closer. “Dried herbs.”

A bird, large and white with gray, flies overhead. It screeches against the sky.

“What kind of bird is that?” I point to it, although Adam is already following it with his gaze.

“I haven’t seen it before,” he says in a quiet voice, and I think that he feels it too: a change, a difference.

“Come on.” I grab his hand, suddenly impatient and not wanting to examine tiny herbs on large rocks. We move around the rocks together, hand in hand, then stop when the earth seems to fall away in front of us.

We are at the top of a ridge that drops straight down. The large rocks have kept it hidden from view. My heart plunges as I gaze downward, as if my body were moving down with my gaze, falling in the air.

An expanse of pale earth stretches from the bottom of the ridge until it meets blue.

Adam and I stare at the blue that’s much larger than any body of water we’ve ever seen. “It’s the sea,” he says.

The word
sea
enters my soul and surrounds me, and I whisper it to myself. “The sea.”

The blue ripples like a river, but instead of endlessly moving forward, it pulls back. Then it moves forward again — and then back. The vast body of water extends as far as I can see, until it meets the sky above, where the sky blends blue with the water, stretching even farther, stretching forever.

It’s as if we’ve reached the end of the earth.

“Is this the end?” I ask in a whisper. I don’t know why I am whispering, except for the fact that it seems my normal breath is gone.

“If it is, it’s incredible,” Adam says. He releases my hand and moves away from me, walking along the ridge. I follow, keeping my gaze on the vast waters. I want to get closer to them, to touch them, but the ridge is too steep.

We walk for several moments in silence, just staring at the blue. There are crests of white as the ripples turn and plunge back into themselves.

When Adam stops, he waits for me to catch up. “I think we can get down here.”

I study the descent with some doubt, but it looks safer than the place where we first stood.

Adam starts down the ridge, then turns and holds out his hand, a grin on his face. I grasp his hand, threading my fingers through his. I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until I nearly have to gasp for air. I gingerly take a step, then another. I am so focused on the immense stretch of breathing water that I miss a step and stumble into Adam. He steadies me and pulls me close.

Arm in arm, we walk down the ridge toward the blue.

The sea breathes and moves as one, as a vast body changing its formation, then changing back.

About halfway down the ridge, the smell hits me. It’s unlike anything I’ve smelled before. It’s a warm smell that I can literally taste — it’s rough yet clean, sharp yet smooth.