Eve: In the Beginning (9 page)

She took a few steps away from him, then turned. “He has
knowledge
, Adam. He said he could help me gain knowledge as well.” Her eyes were bright in the moonlight. Adam felt as if he’d just fallen into the pond again.

“We don’t even know who this man is,” he said, taking a step forward.

Eve held her hands up. “He’s our brother, and his name is Lucifer.”

Adam grabbed her hands and held them fast. “He’s killed animals. Did you ask him about that?”

“Not yet,” she said.

He stared at her in disbelief. “You mean to speak to him again?”

She looked away. “There’s so much I want to know,” she whispered.

Adam released her hands with a sigh. He wrapped his arms around her, and she leaned against him. “We’ll get your questions answered. I don’t know that Lucifer is the one who should be teaching us. We’ll inquire of Elohim on the seventh day.”

Eve nodded, moving her head against his chest.

“Where did he go?” he asked in a quiet voice, even though he could probably guess the answer.

“South — where the garden is rotting.”

Adam exhaled. “I think that should tell us something, Eve. If Lucifer can make the garden rot, what will he do to us?”

Eve didn’t answer, but he hoped she was thinking about the answer to his question. He wished that he knew her thoughts and that he knew what to say to her so she’d understand the danger posed by Lucifer. Adam didn’t fully understand the danger himself, but the fact that Lucifer spoke to her and that she tried to hide it worried him.

Adam doubted that the strange man would return again tonight, so he led Eve into the alcove. He wrapped his arms about her protectively and finally fell asleep.

The sun is high in the sky when I awaken. Adam isn’t next to me, and for an instant, I wonder if he’s returned. Then I remember the events of the night. And Lucifer.

In the light that filters in from the outside, it’s hard to believe that Lucifer’s real, that I truly have a brother, that there is another man in the Garden of Eden.

I rise to my feet, my body feeling tired, as if I haven’t slept at all. I peer outside and see Adam not too far away. Before he notices me, I slip back inside and scratch another line on the stone wall.

I study the wall for a moment, running my finger along all of the scratches. I marvel at how the days are adding together. There are so many days where nothing has changed. The past several days have been different. And Adam doesn’t like it.

Do I like the changes, though? Do I welcome them? Meeting Lucifer has made me think even more deeply and has added to my questions. I wonder if the changes are good. I wonder what Elohim will say about them.

I know what Adam thinks. Even though he spoke very little last night, I knew Adam’s thoughts. And perhaps he is right: we should not converse with a man who brings rot to the southern portion of Eden. I don’t know how Lucifer brings rot, or how he killed the snake and the animals from which the skin mats were created, but we’ll never find out if we don’t speak with him.

I leave the alcove and find Adam leaning against the rock. Of course he wouldn’t go far, I realize — not after the appearance of Lucifer.

“How did you sleep?” Adam asks, watching me carefully.

My lack of sleep must show on my face. “Fair enough,” I say. A silence forms between us, and I know that Adam has plenty to say to me, but he is waiting for some reason.

Adam hands over a piece of fruit that he must have plucked earlier. I accept it and bite into the yellow-orange flesh. It’s tart, and I wrinkle my nose. “These are not my favorite,” I say.

Adam nods. “It gets better with the next bite.”

But why should I take a bite of something I don’t like when there are so many other fruits that I do enjoy?

I toss the fruit away. He doesn’t like the waste, yet he says nothing, and that makes me wonder anew.

“How long have you been awake?” I ask. His fatigue is plain, and perhaps his tiredness explains why he doesn’t want to admonish me for throwing away a tart fruit.

“I’m not sure,” he answers, and I sense he has slept little.

“I can stand watch if you want to sleep,” I say, but he’s already shaking his head.

He holds out his hand, waiting for me to take it. When I oblige, we walk toward the pond.

“I’ll wait while you wash,” he says. “Then we’ll go to the altar.”

“But it’s not the seventh day.” I look up at him — his eyes are reddened.

“We can’t wait that long.” He slows his step. “Why did our brother speak to you and not to me?”

I don’t have an answer, but I don’t think Adam expects me to know.

His other hand touches my face briefly. His touch is so unlike the whisper of Lucifer’s touch. Adam’s touch is solid and warm.

Does our brother not know that if he can explain things to Adam, we won’t have cause to wonder about him any longer?

“Perhaps Lucifer thought I was more ready to listen,” I say.

Adam narrows his eyes, but he is not upset in the way that I think he might be. “That’s what I’m worried about,” he says in a slow voice. “This brother of ours wanted to speak to you — alone.”

My throat constricts. It seems to be true. If it is, what does that mean?

I don’t know why Lucifer sought me out and avoided Adam. “Why wouldn’t Lucifer want to talk to both of us?”

Adam blows out a breath of air and tightens his hold on my hand. “I wish I knew, but I don’t know anything about him. I wonder why he’s in our garden.”

Perhaps Lucifer knows that Adam is not willing to risk our existence in the garden to obtain knowledge. That is the difference between us, I think — a difference that I don’t know if I like or if I’m willing act on.

I think about Lucifer’s words, and they echo in my mind over and over:
I’ve come to help you obtain what you most desire.

A man who brings rot to the garden has the ability to help me obtain knowledge? I wonder how he means to provide it. By answering my questions? That must be it, I decide. He says he has
kept
his knowledge, and now he intends to share that knowledge with me.

“He said I could ask him my questions,” I say.

Adam’s gaze hardens. “I don’t want you talking to him.”

“There is no harm in doing so,” I say.

Adam stares at me with what I realize is fierce protectiveness. “Eve ...”

“He is our brother, and Elohim created him,” I say. “Certainly Elohim sent him to the garden.”

Adam’s eyes are still hardened. “Elohim has seen fit to instruct us only himself.”

I run my hand up Adam’s arm. “Don’t you want to have more knowledge? Then you can answer all of my questions yourself.”

His mouth curls slightly. “I don’t want him in our garden,” Adam says. “No matter how much knowledge he has, he’s bringing rot to the trees and plants. We’ll be satisfied with what we already have.”

I lean into him and close my eyes. I can’t argue with that. Elohim has created us and given us, not our brother, this garden to inhabit. But I don’t know the full will of Elohim, for he has not told us.

I pull away from Adam. “Let’s hurry to the altar.”

When Lucifer left my side last night, I saw the intention in his eyes. He isn’t planning to leave the garden.

And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind.

Genesis 1:25

Adam placed both hands on the stone altar and stared down at it. The color of the altar had changed from pale to dark gray as the sun dipped below the western horizon. He’d been praying to Elohim all day, and still there was no answer. Adam wanted to cry out to Elohim and demand his attention, but he didn’t want to be disobedient or demanding.

The clouds had come and gone, and now the sky was clear of cloud and mist. Adam felt as if the heavens were as empty as they looked. Discouragement flowed through him. If there was ever a time when Adam was desperate for Elohim’s counsel, this was it.
O Elohim, I need thy counsel
, he thought. Adam couldn’t give up yet.

Again, Adam raised his voice to the heavens in prayer but was met with only silence. He looked over to where Eve sat in the grass not too far off. She nodded at him, as if encouraging him to continue trying.

She was being more patient than usual and alternated between sitting in the grass and walking around, always staying within his sight. It was as if she too hadn’t wanted to be separated from him.

When they’d arrived in the area of the garden where the altar sat in the open field, he and Eve had inspected their surroundings carefully. There was no sign of rot or neglect. The insects and birds were present, and several deer were settled in the shade of the trees at the edges of the field. The white and yellow flowers looked bright and healthy.

Now, Adam lowered his head and breathed out. They heard from Elohim only every few moons, but still Adam had hoped to have his cries answered. He’d decided that if Elohim intended him and Eve to have special instruction regarding the new man in the garden, Elohim might take exception and visit the garden.

A hand touched Adam’s shoulder. Eve leaned next to him. “It’s getting dark,” she said.

Her voice was patient and accepting. He thought she might plague him with questions about why Elohim wasn’t appearing, but she only touched his arm and said, “Come on, Adam. Tomorrow is the seventh day. We’ll come back in the morning.”

The altar had taken on a dark gray hue in the fading light, and the grass had become cool beneath his knees. Adam rose to his feet, feeling reluctant to leave, but he’d done everything he could.

The encroaching darkness was moving in faster than he expected. He grasped Eve’s hand, and they hurried back to the dwelling. Adam kept watch for any sudden shadow moving through the trees. The moonlight filtered through the branches of the more dense areas of the garden, giving them plenty of light, but Adam was still nervous. Why had their “brother” been so determined to speak to Eve alone? The question bothered Adam, and he wasn’t looking forward to meeting their brother in areas of the garden Adam was less familiar with.

All was quiet when they arrived at the alcove. Adam kept Eve’s hand gripped in his as they made a cursory inspection. There were no dead animals or new skin mats. Nothing looked different or disturbed.

It was with relief that Adam settled in the alcove with Eve. Although Elohim hadn’t visited them, Adam knew he’d done all that he could for the day.

“I’ll keep watch if you want to sleep.” He expected that Eve would want to go to sleep soon.

“I want to stay with you,” she said. She followed him to the front of the alcove and sat next to him. He put his arm around her as they watched the darkness claim the last bits of land.

She leaned her head on his shoulder, and the sun-touched scent of her hair reached him.

She had been so quiet all day, making no suggestions, asking no questions, that he wondered if the stranger had said more to her than she was telling him. “What are you thinking about?”

Eve turned her head, and her eyes met his. Her quizzical expression was clear — he’d never asked her questions before.

“Nothing that I haven’t spoken of before,” she said, her gaze full of meaning.

Adam looked away. He knew what she wanted to know: the answer to the question that he couldn’t exactly answer. Why had Elohim given them two opposing commandments? Elohim had been so adamant that they not partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, yet ...

Eve’s sigh broke into his thoughts, and she pulled away from him.

Adam studied her profile in the moonlight. He didn’t know why she persisted in all of her curiosity. Why couldn’t she be settled with their life? He brushed her hair back from her shoulders, but she still didn’t look at him.

“When Elohim visits, we’ll ask —”

She moved away from him and stood. “You spent all day praying, Adam.” Her eyes bore into him. “And tomorrow, we’ll be at the altar again. Do you think Elohim will see fit to answer us just because it’s the seventh day?”

“It’s my hope,” he said, rising to his feet.