While wandering to the west of Nod, I find a garden perfect in all ways and overflowing with produce. The waste of it angers me. Fruit and nuts cascade to the ground each day: life-giving bounty raining down to rot amongst the grass. I could feed a tribe here. Hell, I could feed a village. It’s child’s play to slip into the borders and pocket enough for myself. I first spot her on the second day of my scavenging. 

My initial glimpse is only the outline of a person moving behind the tall olive trees I was harvesting. I panic, dropping the handfuls of ripe fruit and fleeing. It’s a cowardly instinct, but it’d saved me plenty of times since my exile. I fall back to the shelter I’d thrown together in a nearby thicket. Little more than a crude lean-to, it held the meager belongings I’d fled with. I make a meal of dried fruits and boiled roots. As I watch the stars and will myself to sleep, I try to remember the last time I’d spoken to another person.

***

Today is a new day. I’m not willing to abandon this find without making sure that I was outmatched by the dweller in the garden. I have nothing to use as a weapon aside from a knife, my ragged nails, and calloused knuckles. The knife is a tool with more important uses. I don’t have the stomach for killing. Either my desperation would overcome them or this would be the end of my journey. I don’t have it in me to voyage further.

I empty both of my packs and take an extra waterskin with me for good measure. I’d heard a stream somewhere deeper in the grove, past where I’ve been willing to explore so far. Taking water from it would be a good way to test the dweller. If they’re a decent person they shouldn’t object to me taking some water from a plentiful source. If they consented to that it would be easy to ask to take the gleanings before they rotted on the ground. If they agreed to neither: they’d find me less helpless than I felt at times.

It’s only a few parasangs to the edge of the garden and I pause for a moment to fill my lungs with the sweet air. It’s cool and cloudy today and I’m barely sweating. A good day for this. I’m watchful as I weave between the trees and bushes, neither pausing to appreciate the flowering foliage nor hurrying. I walk like I belong but keep my senses and instincts on a razor’s edge. After all, I’ve had a lifetime of practice watching for predators on two legs. 

I find the stream without coming across anyone and start filling my waterskin. Had I spooked myself yesterday? Maybe my paranoia was hurting instead of helping this time. The water in the stream is clear as the sky. I keep my hands submerged after the skin fills and savor the current running across my arms. It’s pleasant enough to override the stabs of disgust that looking at the coarse brown hair covering my body usually brings.

A flicker of movement at the periphery of my vision brings my eyes up. The dweller is standing across the river from me, no more than a dozen spans away. I gasp and in my shock overbalance, falling backwards on my ass. The dweller cries out in dismay and I mentally brace for a fight. But she isn’t looking at me. She’s watching my dropped waterskin flow down the stream. She leaps after it, bounding down the water up to her knees. She cries again and dives beneath the water. A couple seconds pass before she comes back up: waterskin in hand and a triumphant smile on her lips. Long blonde hair falls dripping to a waist that’s soft and shapely. Her legs are powerful and toned, thick around the thighs and rear. She has well muscled arms, full breasts, and a heart-shaped face with laugh lines around her eyes. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. She laughs and it’s as musical as the stream.

I’m still sitting on my ass clutching grass between my fingers. I let go and stand on wobbly knees. “Thank you.” I wince at how crude and mannish my voice sounds compared to her, and try not to think about how she must see me right now. I’d left my village with the light skins I usually foraged in. They covered as much of me as I could manage in the summer heat. They can’t hide my broad chest and wide shoulders, nor give me the hips and breasts that I weep for each night. At least my dark curls had grown out enough to hide most of my face. The sharp bronze knife I’d bartered for before I left has kept the stubble off my cheeks and jaw, but the rest of me is so damned hairy. All of that is to say: I look like an ugly man and know it. 

Shame and guilt swirl together with relief in my heart. If a woman had claimed this place instead of a man, it would be easier for me to scare her off. But I still hoped that we could share this bounty. I’d rather have friendship than competition. “Thank you,” I start again, “is this your land? Would you be able to spare the water and food? I’m alone, are you?” She stares at me with no comprehension in her eyes. I try again. “Are you alone?” I receive only her blank gaze. “Can you understand me?”

As an answer she makes a soft noise and begins walking towards me. I take a step back but then hold my ground. There’s no anger or threat in her posture, only curiosity. She stops within arm’s reach and offers my waterskin back to me. Her beauty is even more overwhelming up close. Envy fills my heart like acid but I choke it down and take the waterskin back. 

She is still smiling at me. I do my best to match it. I can’t help it, her lack of care is shocking and new. I can’t recall a time absent from the fear of violence. I’ve spent my entire life ducking from blows and ignoring insults. She looks at me like she’s never been harmed in her life. Her peach-colored skin bears none of the scars that mark the history of violation like my body does.

At a loss on how to communicate, I mime my words with my hands while I talk. “Are…you…alone?” Stretching the words out seems to help along with me signing: first one finger then two. She shakes her head and points back over her shoulder, holding up two extra fingers. She cocks her head at me and mewls a wordless question while she points. Do I want to meet them? Definitely not. I shake my head empathetically. “Not now. Can I share the food here?” I enunciate each word clearly. She nods, smiles, and takes me by the hand.

We spend the rest of the day together. She shows me her favorite spots in the garden, trees that bear fruit low enough for us to reach, shrubs with berries that practically explode with flavor on our tongues. We lunch across a clearing from a tall apple tree. When I go to pick one of the bright red fruits she restrains me for the first time. Her hand around my wrist is insistent and she shakes her head with such force her hair floats across my face. I nod my understanding. It’s a small request and she seems to have no problem with me taking anything else in this garden. She pulls me back and we circle a wide berth around the tree.

As the sun begins to go down a deeper voice calls out from the direction she had pointed to earlier. With our time together at an end I ask what I should call her. “Eve,” she says in the same sing-song voice she laughs and shouts in.

“It’s nice to meet you, Eve. I’m Lilith. Can I come tomorrow?” Without warning she hugs me, nodding her affirmation against my shoulder. Hesitating just for a moment, I hug her back. She is soft and warm against me. No one has held me like this since I told my parents that my body was wrong decades ago. Leaving her here is hard. I, back to my lonely shelter. Her, back with the two unseen companions. 

That night I dream of apples bitten into by full lips beneath eyes as green as mine are yellow. In the reflection of those eyes I see myself as I wish my reflection would show. A woman as beautiful as any other.

***

Each day Eve meets me at the stream. We stroll in the shade of trees grown for centuries along a stream older than the mountains. I share my story and she listens to the retelling of moments that feel small when put into words. I tell her of how I broke my bow upon my knee as an act of youthful defiance. I illustrate the beatings that followed using the lines of scars that run down my body. She nods placidly along as I explain how I was assigned to women’s duties: foraging, washing, firetending, and anything else the men felt was beneath them. None of the elders could understand this as the reward it was.

Eve hears of the final confrontation that led to my exile: the discovery by the elders that I had chosen a new name, new clothes, a partner who loved me as a woman. My partner had repented when we were dragged into the circle and threatened with exile. I refused, crying my defiance to the heavens. Their stones had chased me as I fled. Eve traces the dent one had left on the arm when it had been broken. She kisses it as if her kindness could erase what had been done to me. Perhaps with enough time it will.

I meet one of the other dwellers on a sunny morning a week later. He stands with Eve. He lacks her beauty and grace but has the same kind expression and gentle manner. I feel lost and unsure how to be around him. I’m used to crude, grabbing men, glutted on the fat of their position with hands ready to strike and take. His name is Adam and he gives Eve the first portion of each picking. Even that small detail is enough to let me drop my shoulders a bit. No man I’d met before would let his partner eat first.

Eve brought Adam with her today so he can carry her on his shoulders and reach the fruit that grows at the crowns of taller trees. The fruit is sweeter than the rest, and by the time the sun is setting I accept his offer to bear me aloft. He holds me carefully and sets me down lightly. His short hair tickles my thighs. His strong arms make me feel like I'm easy to carry. I could just as easily lift and carry him, but being treated the same as Eve is another thing I’ve never had a man do before. A wall comes down inside of me and loosens something in my heart.

Adam joins us regularly from then on. Not every day, but within a few weeks I’ve relaxed around him enough that I cherish our excursions together as much as I do my time alone with Eve. It seems impossible that I would find two souls of such kindness and safety. Especially when they are so unlike me. While he has more body hair than Eve, Adam is still smoother and slighter than me and at least two spans shorter. Both of them are missing my thick nails that part fruit and bark with ease. The colors that ripe fruit show are invisible to them and they often need my help to spot them in the foliage. Their hearing is worse than the half-deaf elders of my village. People of a different stock. It bothers them none and I try to unlearn the fearful stories the elders told of aliens and foreigners. After all, they’ve treated me with more love than my own family ever has.

***

The days have begun to grow shorter when I come to the garden to find neither Eve nor Adam waiting there for me. Fear drives me over the stream and into the eastern half of the garden. They’ve always refused to take me this way; I go alone towards the third dweller that shares this place with them. The trees and other flora look the same. I continue forward until I hear something new: the sound of Eve gently weeping.

I don’t have the stomach for killing but before leaving my people I learned how a hunter approaches prey. It’s kept me safe in my exile and it serves me well here as I creep between trees. I mind my shadows and footsteps until I’m close enough to see horror in a clearing beneath a pomegranate tree. Eve is weeping over a body on the ground and Adam is holding her shoulders while she cries. 

The corpse is fresh, blood still bright red under the early sun. Even from a distance the killing wound is clear: a wide hole carved into the stomach of a broad, shaggy man of at least three fathoms in height. He was a true giant. I’ve been told they live in further lands, up in the crowns of mountains. Conquerors and brutes said the elders, but I have no reason to trust their word. In my time walking the garden I’ve seen only small rodents, birds, fish, and insects. Nothing that could do this damage. I sigh softly, too quiet for them to hear. I’d wondered when I’d meet their third companion and now it seems I’ll never have the chance.

I begin to step into the clearing but stop when the body seizes, jerking up towards the sky and rolling side to side as if suddenly alive again. It’s impossible. Not even a giant could survive that wound. I clap a hand over my mouth to stop from screaming. The despondent look on Adam's face and Eve’s tears are unchanged. As if this is expected. Because this is not the first time they have seen this. They’re waiting for the third dweller of the garden to emerge from the body.

Its arrival is presaged by a fountain of gore that spurts upwards from the carved hole. Mashed organs and shattered bones spill from the sides of the corpse as first arms and then torso crest upwards, breaking through the red river of ruined flesh like a brown trout jumping from a river. Bent forward in an arch, its head emerges just before hips and legs. Four fangs protrude from its lipless mouth with a piece of intestine pierced between them. The giant’s loops of guts unspool as the third dweller stands and gulps down the offal. Its stomach bulges with each swallow until it’s as gravid as a pregnant woman near her labor. When it’s finally satisfied, the creature steps from the despoiled giant and falls to the ground on all fours, its belly full to bursting with meat, brushing the grass beneath. Inch by inch it meticulously licks itself clean with a long and thin tongue. 

The flesh exposed is pale like a fish with dark rivers running beneath its skin. It’s thin, lanky, and hairless like a lizard. This is another thing, far further from my form than my friends. Five fingers and a thumb, two bright eyes, long claws, and four limbs. I can’t help but to see it as a person despite the brutality it’s committed. Each shoulder blade has a nub at the center and another pair of nubs sit at the crook of its lower back. It scratches at them as if irritated in some way at their presence. It moves gracefully like a dancer, as if its body was barely tethered to the Earth. Eve has stopped weeping and sits meekly, staring off at nothing in particular. The third dweller crawls to my friend, sniffing at her hair with long slits that split its face where its nose should be. 

I jump when it speaks. It sounds like my father’s fist striking my stomach. Like a stone breaking my arm. Like a hand on my throat while my supposed protector whispers into my ear that I will always be a freak. “Pests in the garden always make a good meal. Leave him for me and find your friend to play with.” In answer Adam helps lift Eve to her feet. The third dweller watches them with hunger in its eyes despite the bounty already swelling its gut. “Soon it will be time, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. You are nearly ripe and I am more than ready to plant seeds in the fertile soil of your souls. You will hold beauty within yourselves that this world has never known.” It stays low to the ground and reaches up with long arms. Taking Adam's face in its hand it says “you will know rule in all of its burden and pleasure.” Then cupping Eve’s soft cheek it continues “you will know desire as it sustains and tortures you.” 

Its laugh is like a blade in my ear. “You shall both know the pain of life and the blissful joy of returning to the dust.” Its tongue darts from its mouth, tasting the air. “Keep your friend from the two trees.” The third dweller pats Eve on the head. “It will be good for this one to have her friend with her for what will come.” It squeezes Eve’s cheek one last time and drops back fully to the ground. It crawls off, away to the east, moving faster than I can follow despite its burden. My friends look after it with a mix of fear and love. The bruised women in my village had the same look as they watched their husbands go off to hunt. 

I emerge from my hiding place after being sure the third dweller was gone. Eve cries out at the sight of me and runs into my arms, leaving Adam to catch up to us. I stroke her hair. She smells salty, reminding me of the brief time I spent on the coast during the early days of my exile.  “Who is that?” I whisper quietly to her.

“Angel” she calls it. “Hurts everyone who comes to the garden. Loves us.” They’re the most words she has spoken. She shudders and clings to me. The three of us spend the day at the stream. Adam and Eve will not cross to the western side but refuse to let me come to the eastern bank. So we sit amongst rocks in the middle of the stream and don’t speak. We fast, as none of us feel hungry.

***

I'd never thought to come at night before but tonight I return to see if I can find Angel. As I creep along the western side, I’m not sure if I’m hoping to discover it or dreading what I’ll find if I do. Either way I crave assurance for the safety of my beloved friends. As if knowing Angel will give me peace of mind that it means them no harm. I turn over the words I’d heard in my head. It speaks of their future as a real thing. Surely it won’t make a meal out of them? Bone of its bone and flesh of its flesh. Children? That seemed unlikely but I fail to think of another meaning to that epithet.

It doesn’t take me long to find the trail it leaves behind. I follow grass bright from some burning light shining in the core of each blade. Eventually I find Angel at the end of the trail and watch from a safe distance. It crawls on the ground, slinking on four limbs, dragging its shins and clawing at the earth like violence is struggling to burst out of its hands. Where it passes the grass is bright like the sun. When it approaches a tree it places its palm on the bark and the flowers bloom bright. The leaves shine with a color I’ve never known before. 

It stinks. A smell like if the ocean had turned against life but wherever it crawls there is radiance left behind. I’m not so vain that I delude myself into thinking it’s not aware that I’m following it. Looking at Angel now, you would never imagine that it had eaten nearly its entire weight in flesh earlier. It’s thin enough to see each bone move beneath its skin as it crawls. Eventually I turn and leave. I don’t dare approach and it doesn’t deign to chase me.

***

Days pass before I shake the violence of the encounter off. I feel eyes on me whenever I walk in the garden now. I know what lurks inside its borders: the tender that keeps the place fruitful and clean is a monster. But it’s a monster that seems to like us. Eve called it love. I won’t get better assurance than that. We return to our daily routine until I once again come to the garden and find myself alone. I start to cross to the eastern bank but I’m held back by the sound of a soft song coming from behind me. It’s in the direction of the apple tree. 

Unthinking, I chase after it and burst into the clearing, lungs heaving, heedless of the consequences of asserting my presence so boldly. There’s no intruder this time. It’s only Eve, Adam, and Angel. Angel is singing beneath its breath. The words are impossible to make out but the melody is familiar somehow. As if I’ve been hearing it my entire life, just so quietly that I forget it’s there.

Eve is sitting with her back to the apple tree. Adam is lying beside her. Angel is looming over her, long multijointed limbs trapping her like a cage. With one hand, Angel has Eve pressed against the apple tree. Pinned in place. My hand twitches at my side. I imagine myself running at Angel. Swinging my fist into its head and being rewarded with the sound of my knuckles splitting. I imagine its teeth finding my stomach as it claws me open. I’m not more than half the size of the giant. I wonder how my corpse will look with Angel burrowed inside of me until it chews its way out, fattened by my flesh. 

I keep my hands at my side and watch as Angel plucks an apple from the lowest branch of the tree. It looks over its shoulder, sees me standing still, and nods with approval. Placing the top of the apple between its thumbs, Angel splits it down the middle and places one half on the ground next to Adam. He doesn’t react. He’s staring up at the sky with unblinking eyes as if already dead. Angel holds the other half of the apple to Eve’s mouth. The song stops. “Eat,” it commands, the one syllable filled with threat.

Eve keeps her mouth closed and looks pleadingly at Angel. “Please” she says with such fear that my heart sinks to my stomach.

“Eat” is the only response she gets. She still refuses.

Angel’s other hand shoots upwards with the speed of a viper. Clamped to her jaw, the long claws at the end of each finger dig into the soft flesh of Eve’s cheek. Little rivers of blood begin to run down her face until she finally relents, opening her mouth and letting Angel wedge the apple between her teeth. “Chew.” Eve has screwed her eyes shut. Tears stream to mix with the blood now falling down her neck. In answer, Angel twists the left hand holding her mouth open to bring its palm beneath her chin and forces her to chew. Eve cries out as the flesh of the apple finally hits her tongue. Bite by bite Angel forces the apple down her throat. 

Blood is pooling between Eve’s breasts by the time the last of the fruit has vanished within her. I expect Angel to feed her the second half but instead it unfolds from around her, withdrawing the limbs that lay between her and Adam. “Gone are the days where he served you. It has come time for you to learn a new place, bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. Feed him.” There is brightness in Eve’s eyes. The green is lit with the same fire as the grass and trees that Angel tends. 

Eve shakes her head and speaks with a clarity that is as new as the light within her. “What you have done to me is more than he can bear. Angel, I beg of you. Ask me not to give this burden to him. He has not the strength for it.” In answer Angel plunges the first two of its fingers down her throat until she is gagging against its hand. With its usual speed, Angel wrenches Eve’s mouth down to Adam. She slams into him with such force that I wince at the sound of their teeth clicking together. Eve’s stomach heaves as she vomits up the fruit. Pulp and blood from her slashed tongue leak between the seal of their lips but Angel keeps them pressed together until Adam finally swallows. 

Angel releases Eve. She falls weeping against the tree. Adam is coughing and begins to rise until Angel places a hand on his chest, pressing firmly down with its palm. Blood pools in the divot that each claw makes. Angel chants a command at him.

Cursed is the ground that birthed you;

and to it you shall never return while living.

The sweetness it has given freely is forbidden now,

and you will eat the plants of the field

that claimed with blood and sword.

By the sweat of your brow

you will eat the flesh of beasts and rule men

until you return to the ground,

since from it you were taken by Me;

When Angel finishes, Adam stands. He is frowning, and a fire I am learning to fear is within his eyes. He looks across the clearing and finally rests his eyes on me. The kindness is missing from his gaze. There’s only disdain as he sneers at me and says one word. “Freak.” He spits on the ground and saunters off towards the western edge of the garden. I watch him go as a void opens within me. I’d not realized how much I had to lose. How much Angel could take from me. 

I can’t help myself. I start running towards Eve. Angel watches me approach with disinterest. When I get within its reach, it flashes its arm at me. The impact sends me to the ground. I stagger back up to my feet. My vision is red. Its claws have opened up my face. Blindly I run towards Eve again, sobbing as I go. I’m struck back again. It takes me longer to stand but I manage. My arm, once-broken long ago, now hangs limply at my side again. I hear Eve crying and I run to her. I run as fast as I can and this time I’m not thrown back. Cruel hands seize my still good arm and I am dragged to the ground, next to the first friend I’ve ever known. 

I blink blood from my eyes as Angel speaks to me. “You are not of My flesh but you will serve.” Something hot and thin runs along my nearly severed arm. Angel's tongue. With a spear of pain and my choking gasp, control returns to both of my arms. The second half of the apple is forced into my hands. “Feed her.” My vision has cleared enough to see Eve. She is looking at me with the same blank expression I first found her with. “Feed her or I shall feast upon your flesh and finish this myself.” There is trust in Eve’s eyes. She doesn’t understand what I will do to her. 

I offer her the apple. She turns her head away, some instinct still telling her that this food is not for her. I insist, pressing it softly to her lips. She shakes her head, as she had when I first tried to eat it all those months ago. Angel places its claws upon my throat. Shaking, I try to mimic what it did to her before. With one hand I force open her mouth. I’m stronger than her but it’s hard to get grip with the blood coating her face and my hands. Her blood is a slight shade brighter than mine. When I’ve forced her mouth open enough, I shove the apple-half within and clamp her jaw down. She tries to spit it out but has no ability to overpower me. Her arms flail, beat against me.

“Please” I whisper. “Please.” 

After a few minutes of struggling she gives up. She chews. Swallows. Fire blooms in her green eyes and with it a terrible knowledge. I release her and Angel lets me fall to the ground. Angel chants a command to her as well, shorter but no less cruel:

Children shall be your labor,

filling the earth with your offspring

that shall overtake and subdue her.

You will desire your husband,

and he will rule over you without mercy

and you shall know no other way to live.

Eve clutches her knees to her chest and makes no sound. Angel strokes her hair once. “Find your husband, woman.” Turning to me, it says only “follow.” 

I leave Eve under the apple tree and jog to keep up with Angel as it slinks eastwards. I feel like a child chasing a dog as the sun dries the blood covering me to a crusty black. When we arrive at the pomegranate tree, I know my fate. I stand at the edge of the clearing as Angel crawls up to the trunk and strikes it once with its fist. A single fruit falls. Angel slices it open with the claw of its thumb and scoops out a palmful of seeds. “Come, Lilith. Eat of the tree of life, for you already possess knowledge. Death will not be your fate. You shall know Eve anew.”

Briefly I consider running. I abandon the thought. I do not fear Angel catching me. I fear never seeing Eve and Adam again. I walk to Angel. Kneeling, I take Angel’s palm and lick up the seeds from its hand. The rotten sea smell is overpowering this close but it doesn’t bother me like it did before today. Angel’s flesh is warm: hot like stones under the sun. The seeds are sweet. A fruit sweeter than any I’ve tasted before, and as I swallow them I know in the depths of my being that I will not taste any as sweet again. Their scarlet juices stain my chin and face as I rub against Angel’s hand, chasing each drop and seed with my tongue like a woman dying of thirst. 

My senses recede until all I am is taste. A beast on all fours, need, desire, desperation, licking the palm of its master. The taste of the seeds dwindles to nothing until I’m tasting only the sickly salty smell of Angel. A buzz and hum fill my head. I sway on my knees, falling to my side. Some part of me is draining away forever: a constant knowledge of death that we all walk with. All but me, now. Eternity stretches ahead of me without horizon. I’m alone.

Except, I’m not, not truly. Angel reminds me of this. It lays beside me, strokes my hair, and whispers in my ear. I don’t hear the words, or understand them as discrete utterances. But they live inside me as surely as the eternal life granted by the seeds does. There’s no command in them, not like the ones it left with Eve and Adam. They are words of comfort. Advice from an old immortal to a young one. I lap them into my soul. Not as repeatable lessons or words but as true wisdom, which lives inside us as feelings. I’m assured they will keep my mind and spirit intact, immune to the beating tide of time.

When Angel leaves me, I notice that the nubs on its back have opened. They flower like a rose: spars of bone and wisps of feathers emerge from within to build new structures. I find Eve later that night west of the garden. She has new bruises, not just those left by Angel and I. Adam is sitting next to her by the fire they’ve started. Over it cooks a bird and rabbit. Adam is watching with lust as drops of fat fall and sizzle in the flames. I hardly recognize him. 

Eve is still familiar to me. The light within her doesn’t outshine the woman I know. I hesitate, then leave. I can’t talk to her with Adam there. I return to my shelter to sleep. I pass by the garden on my way and see Angel. It looked as it did before but the nubs have grown into wings pure as snow. Angel wheels over the garden in lazy circles. It looks natural up there. As if all the time it spent on the ground with us was no more than an infant learning to walk.

***

I trail Eve and Adam as they continue westwards. They’re like children wandering through the woods. Adam has no instinct for hunting. Without me spooking animals into his path, he would return empty handed each night. Eve gathers what she can while her husband fumbles after prey. When finished, she returns to camp to sew skins for clothes and tend the fire. I’m tempted to go to her but even their poor eyes can see too clearly in the day for me to take the risk. I wait for the night, for Eve to rise and relieve herself while Adam sleeps. I leave her with some dignity, waiting to call her until she has finished, though it’s beyond me how she can miss me when I’m less than a score paces from her while she does so. Still, she is unsurprised to meet me. A weariness has settled on her shoulders like a mantle. She falls into my arms like she did that first day in the garden. I take her a distance away from Adam. To peace and quiet, at least for a night.

As we lie together beneath the trees, I trace the scars that Angel’s claws left on her face. Eve watches me with a faraway look. “Those were sweet days were they not Lilith? They are like dreams to me now. How can they be of the same life as the one I live now?”

My heart breaks for her. “Because we were happy then, Eve. Come back with me. Let's find another garden. Leave this behind. Leave him to Angel’s commands.”

She smiles at me like I’m a child whining to play longer. “No. You cannot understand. You know not what it means to lie awake at night with an emptiness in your womb that stretches to your soul. There is no leaving behind what Angel put in us.”

I laugh, shocking her with my bitterness. “No? I don’t know what it means to want something you can’t have? It's new to you Eve but I've known that feeling for my entire life. We choose how we handle that loss.”

Her face reddens and she looks at the ground in shame. “Forgive me. I forget myself. But you are strong. Far stronger than I. I cannot bear it. This night together is sweet but by morning my soul will cry for Adam. I can leave him no sooner than leave you. A thread stretches between us and if it breaks I will die. Will you not stay by me Lilith? Will you not grant me the tenderness of your arms? I can still find some scrap of dream when you hold me close.” I’ve heard some say that running is a weakness. I’ve said it about myself before. But looking at Eve now, I know it takes more strength than staying.

How can I refuse her? I follow them. The nights are ours and the days are Adam's. Eventually they come to a village of half-eaten corpses and swarming crows. A winged figure hunches over the roof of the large hall that dominates the center of the space. It tosses a head at the feet of Adam before taking flight. Like Angel, but with only two wings instead of four. The severed head wears a crown of silver. Adam takes it for himself along with the new home.

The winged figure finds me that night before Eve does. It introduces itself as one of Angel’s new offspring. The resemblance is clear. I tell it that I prefer Eve as my partner for the night. “Just so,” it answers. “Angel will have its heart gladdened to know that you have been a faithful companion.” It leaves me with tidings of slaughter. Eve and Adam have been given a clear field to begin their little kingdom. I’m not sure what response Angel’s offspring is looking for from me. I take the news with placid acceptance, nodding with disinterest and return to my meal.

Eve comes to me later. She talks of her husband’s plans for the new land before falling into silence. She kisses me in the dark. This has been a new dynamic to our relationship, one I’m still conflicted with. Before their change, neither Eve nor Adam showed any interest in sex. It’d been mutual. They’d been like children. Now Eve seems older than I. She’s certainly had many nights with Adam exhibiting far less restraint than I have held onto. On previous nights I’ve made excuses, kept things slow. 

I abandon restraint tonight and follow where she leads us. I kiss her back. She tastes salty, gritty. Like hard work and pain. I push my lips harder against hers. In answer she brings her tongue forward, entwinning with mine. I grab handfuls of her blonde hair, once sleek and well groomed, now dusty and dull. It tangles between my fingers as they find the back of her head to bring Eve closer to me. I use my tongue to find each part of her mouth and map it forever in my heart. She’s so warm, so tender, so precious to me. Each part’s a treasure to be cherished. Meanwhile Eve frees our bodies from our clothes. At first she’s careful in her work, slipping straps off and trying to find clasps. But she grows impatient and starts to tear. I hear stitches pop and I laugh. I take my tongue from her mouth and free my hands from her hair to help us undress. 

When we’ve taken all but my undercloths off, I notice that a string of my saliva still hangs from her lips. I brush it away with my thumb, which she takes into her mouth without hesitation. The softness of her tongue running along my thumb brings my awareness to a part of myself I try not to think about. I’m hard. Painfully so. I pull back in embarrassment. I want to be with her as a woman, not as her husband is. But Eve looks at me with such concern and love that I whimper. She asks “what is wrong Lilith?”

It should be an easy question but I’ve no easy answer for her. “It’s…I’m not like you Eve. Not like a woman. Down there.”

Eve cocks her head at me. “And in what manner is a woman ‘down there’?”

“Well, you have-”

She interrupts me. “We have.” I can’t bring myself to start again. I look over her shoulder at nothing. Just let my gaze go as soft as my penis has. “Lilith.” She takes my face into her hands and rubs small circles into my cheeks. I can feel my stubble catching under her thumbs and I want to run, flee, get away from this beautiful woman that I will always be ugly next to. “Lilith. You are the only other woman I have ever known. I do not care what parts you have. I care less how we are different. I want you. Do you want me?”

I don’t answer quickly. I look into her eyes first, so green, so bright here on this gentle night. “Yes,” I whisper. “I want you Eve.”

“Then fuck the rest.”

She pushes me, as hard as she can, which is at most half of my own strength, but the surprise is enough to send me on my back. Before I can get back up she’s on top of me. Her thighs straddle mine and she has my cock in her hand. She’s stroking gently, slowly, running a finger just under the head as she teases me out of my sheath. It’s a struggle to let her. It feels like centuries since I’ve been with my ex-partner, the one woman in my village who’d wanted me. Even then I’d hardly been able to manage my own body being touched. The focus had always been on the other's needs and body. It was easier. Always has been. 

But I trust Eve. I grab the grass beneath me and hold on for life as I breathe as deeply as I can. Heat is returning to my cock along with a deep need I’ve never allowed to be fulfilled. Eve feels it rising in her hand. She shifts forward until I can feel the wet warmth of her pussy against my cock. It twitches in her hand and oozes a fat drop of precum down its length. She catches the drop on her thumb, licks it off. Her eyes find mine and ask a question that needs no words to be understood. I nod.

Eve raises on her knees and places the tip of my cock against her slit. She keeps her bright eyes locked on me. I whimper. Let go of the grass. Dig my fingers into her firm thighs instead. Eve gasps my name as she takes me into herself, lowering until our bodies are flush once again. She remains still for a moment that stretches into eternity. Holds all of me within herself like there’s no part of myself beyond what parts of her I can touch.

Eternity breaks as Eve twitches then rocks forward slowly, letting out a deep breath as she first relaxes and then tenses again and again in a back and forth rhythm that consumes any last scrap of reason inside me. I arch my back and thrust upwards, matching her rhythm, following her lead. Over and over and over and over until the moon has fallen low into the sky and we are both spent and gasping and wet and sticky and smiling in the crushed grass with eyes only for each other.

***

The apple had supposedly given Eve and Adam knowledge. I’m not sure how to measure that. On one hand: they build as they never have before. Adam’s craft work is undeniably ingenious. He builds pastures with clever little locks on the gates that he can open but the cattle can’t. It’s an offspring of Angel that actually herds the cattle to the pastures. Adam builds a granary, a tanning kit, and mends the roofs and walls of the buildings. Eve gathers the grain, I flush the animals to Adam’s bow, and all but one building sits empty. The wealth of technical skills that have taken root in him does go deep in some areas, even if shallow in others. 

On the other hand: Adam apparently has no ability to keep track of his wife. I worry at first that our nights together will make him suspicious. This passes quickly. Eve makes a simple excuse. She enjoys a walk at night. This apparently is enough to ward off suspicion. He’s grown so sure of his domination that the possibility of rebellion, resistance, or escape is beyond him. Eve and I wash together in a nearby pond at the end of our nights together, a ritual of departure and deception.

Eve’s different now. Sadder. Wiser. She carries a weight on her shoulders that never leaves except for the moments we share together. Adam’s become an entirely different person. He reminds me of the elders from my village. He has no kind words for Eve, only a raised hand. She’s meek around him because he’ll tolerate no other attitude. Most of the day they are silent together. It’s painful to watch. Sometimes one of Angel’s offspring will join me in one of my perches. The one with me today has wisps of hair. This is the first time I’ve seen this feature on one. For all I know, each is the same one, just changing slightly between visits. I’ve resisted naming them so far and I refuse to let this break that pattern. They can damn well name themselves if they want me to tell them apart. I don't presume to give a name. Adam might. I won't. 

The offspring asks me, “Why have you stayed here? Lazy you may be, but survival in wild lands comes easily to you. You could live anywhere, Lilith. Adam will kill you if he sees you.”

I snort. “He’d try. But he’ll have to learn how to see me first. I stay for Eve.”

“Why?”

The truth: because in her arms, I feel like a woman. It’s the only way she has ever seen me. As a woman. I don’t think I can find that again. Or at least, I’m not confident enough to try. I don’t tell it that of course. Instead I say “I like her eyes.”

The offspring looks at me with a blank expression. Its eyes are golden like tiny suns. I feel naked under them. “Do you know that she has become pregnant?”

I have to grab onto the branch we’re sitting on to stop from falling backwards off my seat. My blood turns to ice. “What?”

“The child will not be of Adam. Angel wanted you to know that.”

It flies off and leaves me to my terror.

***

I tell Eve the news tonight. She doesn’t share my fear. She kisses me. Wraps her arms around me. Whispers into my ear that she’s glad. That she doesn’t want a child from him. She wants me. She’s always wanted me. We fuck that night under our favorite tree. A hollow at its base fits her body perfectly when she lays down. I brace my hands against the twining roots as I thrust into her. Our voices mix as we cry our pleasure to the night sky. Afterwards, I ask again for her to come with me. To leave. She refuses as always. We go back and forth on the same points. My vision for a better life. Our love. Her command to stay with him. To serve him. The thread she can’t break.

“I don’t want him raising my child.” This is a new objection and I brace for her reaction.

Eve is quiet for a long moment. “They will not be your child.”

I pull away enough to sit up. I hold her eyes to mine. “Excuse me?”

Eve doesn’t look away. “They will not be your child, Lilith. I must stay with him. Therefore, they must be his child. Or else he will kill me and my child.” Already the child is hers, not mine. I had hoped. Some stupid, naive, idiot part of me had hoped that this would make a difference. That a child would shock her out of whatever spell Angel had put her under. That the strength that kept her intact would be enough to keep our child safe.

I’d hoped in vain. As the months pass, we find new rules. Yes, I will stay. No, we won’t call them our child, even in private. No, I can’t meet the child. Not until they’re old enough to leave, if they so choose to. I hope more than anything that they will leave. Even if Eve won’t. I won’t abandon my child. Even a child I can only claim as mine in my own heart.

***

Angel sends an offspring to help with Eve’s labor. She names him Abel, for the stream we met at. It’s a funny joke. Adam thinks he's the maker. We know better. It’s something. Some mark of ownership, something that marks him as mine, even if only a secret meaning to his name. Tokens like these are what get me through the years. For a time, I lose my nights with Eve to Abel, but I feel no jealousy. It only makes our reuniting all the sweeter. It’s not until Eve starts to show that we realize the other consequence of our time apart. The second child will be Adam’s in all ways, blood included.

Another offspring helps with this birth as well. Adam doesn’t even stay in the village and goes hunting. Because I stay to watch over Eve, he returns empty handed. He never really learns. Eve names him Cain, but never tells me why. Afterwards I wonder if she had some presage of all that would follow. Cain takes after his father. Abel takes after me. The difference between the two is more apparent each year. Even as the older brother, it becomes notable when Abel grows taller than Adam before even becoming a proper man. Abel and I share a hair color, and like me he grows more across his body than his supposed father ever has. The men suspect nothing. The differences are not enough to pierce Adam’s pride nor Abel’s blind trust. Cain can’t see past his jealousy.

Eve is many things, but a fair mother is not one of them. These are the times that she seems the most changed by their presence. She dotes on Abel, pampers him, puts him first in all things. She isn’t cold to Cain. It’s just clear who her favorite is. Adam cares for neither child, only assigns them labor. Cain’s given the pastures to attend to. It suits him, the rough handling that the cattle require, the violation of milking and breeding. He has his father’s cruelty. Abel helps Eve in the fields, planting, harvesting, growing. He talks to the fruit trees when he thinks he’s alone. Gentle words of encouragement and gratitude for the harvest. I ache for his adulthood. For him to choose a different life. He doesn’t know it, but at that moment he’ll be picking me.

***

The closer to adulthood Abel gets, the more he fights with Adam. They always start as small things. Eve serves Abel a larger portion than Adam. Abel leaves his tools in places Adam considers wrong. They always end the same way: Adam beating Eve. He never strikes either son. Cain watches these moments with a sneer. He never fights with his father. They hardly talk at all, only when necessary for work. These tales are retold to me in my nights with Eve.

The night it all goes wrong is when Abel stops Adam from striking his wife. Eve had dropped a bowl on the ground. It shattered. With his usual casualness, Adam made to backhand Eve. Abel caught his hand first. And held it. He has my strength. He told Adam that if he tried to hit Eve again, it would be the last thing he did. Adam had asked if he would dare to kill his father.

Abel told him that no father of his would beat his mother. Eve has pride overflowing from her eyes as she tells me. My response is simple. “He’s right. He doesn’t have a father. Just two mothers.”

Eve frowns. “Lilith, we said-”

I interrupt her. “When he was a child. That time’s past. Let me see him. He’s ready.”

Eve chews her lip. “Let me think upon this. We will talk more tomorrow.” Then she leans over to me and places her hand on mine. I rub the back of her knuckles with my thumb. They’re getting wrinkled. Eve grows older each year. I stay the same just as Angel had said. Our lovemaking is so forceful it borders on violence that night. We’re too eager for each other. The future is too exciting. We can hardly wait for what tomorrow brings.

***

At the edge of the sorghum field, there's an old olive tree I climb to watch Eve and Abel do their first walks through the land. The sun’s higher than it should be by the time I see Eve emerge. She’s covered in blood. Eve walks listlessly, eyes watching nothing, walking forwards with arms swaying and hands twitching. She’s alone.

I scramble down the tree and run to her. She falls into my arms and I lower her gently to the ground. Wiping blood from her face, I ask “Eve? Are you ok? Where is everyone? What happened?” She only stares at me. I snap my fingers in front of her eyes. They flare and she returns to herself. I try again. “Eve? Where’s Abel?”

“Gone.” She croaks. “Gone. My fault.”

I leave her and run to the house. Cain is dragging his brother’s body out by the ankle. My son. My beautiful, kind son. They split his face open. His brains are spilling out behind him as they drag him into the dirt. Adam is watching Cain work and eating handfuls of olives that Eve and Abel had picked yesterday. Adam looks up as I approach. Finally sees me. His lips curl in disgust and recognition.

I let my anger win. Before he can react, I take Adam by the throat and lift him off his feet. It’s easy. There was never a contest. Olives spill to the dirt to rot uneaten. His face bulges, turns pink, then red, then purple. He’s clawing at my arms but his thin nails break against my skin. Eventually he stops struggling. Something is beating against my back, Cain, trying to help his father. And then I’m struck in the head from behind. The shock is enough to make me drop Adam and I turn to this new attacker.

Eve is standing behind me holding a heavy rake. She winds up to take another swing at me. I don’t try to dodge her, I just catch the rake mid-swing and toss it aside. We lock eyes. Eve snarls. I look at the body of our son, cooling in the dirt.

I walk away. It’s a cowardly instinct but it’d saved me plenty of times since my exile. I look back once. Eve is tending to Adam, holding Cain and comforting him. I wait for Eve that night beneath our favorite tree. She doesn’t come that night. Nor the next. Nor any other. I leave after I see a new child appear in their village.

***

I continue west. The garden and the dwellers within it took years from me, but I have no end to those. In time, I hope to put them behind me as I meet new people and make new memories. 

Each place I come to is empty and dead. I continue, hoping against better instincts. I abandon that hope when I reach the ocean without finding another living person. The word of Angel’s offspring had been true. They’d left no competition to their own project. I turn back to find the garden again. At least Angel will be there. And past that, Nod. My village, maybe.

I’m met by one of Angel’s offspring along the road. Hairless, but it does walk mostly like a person.

“Where do you wander to, Lilith?”

I shrug. “I thought I’d see what your relative is up to. Maybe meet a cute girl. Who can say? No kids to babysit anymore, figured this would be a good time to be a suitor.” It laughs. I laugh with it. The absurdity of the situation gets to me. What else can we do but laugh?

For a time it follows me and we travel together. I think it pities me. It’s almost gentle when it tells me that there are none of my people left. Nor any others but the ones Angel sired; winged and wingless. It should bother me more than it does. I’d probably shed tears if there had been anyone I cared about in that list of the dead.

The garden is unchanged. Angel still circles above. I wave as I pass and it dips a wing in response. I find what remains of my old village a few weeks later. It’s unique in one regard: they’d buried the bodies after eating their fill. I wander across the earth. At first the oceans are the fences I pass along. Eventually I grow tired of the restriction, and ask some of Angel’s offspring to teach me how to sail. Instead they carry me across the sea. It takes three to lift me. 

The journey is far more pleasant than expected. They carry me with a gentleness that reminds me of Adam on that first day we met. We stop along islands. I eat tropical fruit and they pluck fish from the waves. The land they take me to is new and beautiful. I never name the wild things I find but make friends with those that seem interested in me. The offspring still visit me here and bring me news of Eve’s children and their growth, how they spread across the land. 

Some centuries later I ask to cross the sea again and am obliged. They take me across a different sea. It takes me many years of wandering to find the garden again. Eve’s children have built many cities and settlements, but none have more sight than their ancestors. Avoiding them is easy. They don’t want to see me. Angel or one of its offspring have kept my shelter intact in the woods outside the garden. A sign above my lean-to reads ‘Eden.’ I leave it. It reminds me of better days. 

Across the ages I see many wanderers discover the consequences of trying to sneak into the garden. With a cry Angel plummets on them. They scatter and flee. Some escape. The rest are food. Angel eats half of each body and leaves the remaining as a warning. None rot. Eventually the borders of the garden are defined with a ragged line of half-eaten corpses pristine as the day they died until the end of time. As centuries pass the line piles higher until the bodies form a hedge. Few people learn from other’s experiences no matter how gruesome and obvious the results are. I wonder sometimes what would happen if I tried to cross that border. Would Angel strike me down? Or would it welcome me as a friend? I’m in no rush to find out. That day will come when I’m no longer willing to continue. 

For now, we wave at each other from a distance. This close to the garden there are few of Eve's children to bother me and I live in peace. When I feel restless, I wander and watch Eve’s descendents fill the land. Except for a few accidental encounters they will never know me as their stepmother. An exiled relative. 

I remember their first mother and hold her face in my mind. Each generation I see less of her and more of their father in these children. They learn new cruelties as if they’re games to be mastered. I know now why Angel cast them out of the garden after planting reason in their heads. The twisted desires in them need space to run wild, or they’ll destroy themselves. This earth is only so big. I walk it end to end enough times to be sure of that. What happens when they run out of space?

I ask this to one of Angel’s offspring. By now, they’re far closer to the appearance of Eve’s children. They stand upright and have mostly the same proportions as well as the correct number of fingers. Apparently Eve’s children call them all angels, something I’m sure Angel would find funny if it ever bothered to talk to any of them. This one introduces herself with a name and pronouns, proving that nothing stays the same and I’ll always play the part of the fool. She is called Har, and is one of the oldest offspring. She tells me that soon they will be trying something new: a way to solve the space problem and fill the sky more fully with their own kind. I ask what they’re planning and she only smiles at me. “Just wait and see,” she says. It will apparently be hard to miss.