Garrit’s gaze shifted to the journal. “I have to believe that you know what you’re talking about, but this situation makes us all uneasy. The family is coming back. Brienne’s already cancelled her flight. Maman and Papa are on their way.”
“I guess that means we’ll want to keep the staff on for the duration.” Rain was starting to fall in heavy drops against the window. Lightning flashed, blinding in its intensity, and she scowled into the distance as the thunder clapped so loudly it shook the house. “What is it about that tree? It’s been struck again.”
Garrit stood beside her, one hand at the small of her back. “Malchance, I suppose. I’d better make sure nothing’s caught fire.” His eyes were trained on the tree line and worry wrinkled his forehead. He glanced down at her and his expression cleared immediately. “Why don’t you go make arrangements with the cook? We’ll have at least two more for dinner, if not more.”
“Sure.” Smoke rose from the tree, and lightning flashed again. The thunder which followed made the windows rattle. “Wait for the rain to ease up first.”
“Better now than later. I’ll take care of it. Go on.”
She glanced up at him again. His face had fallen back into the same troubled lines. He didn’t even look at her as she turned to go, his gaze locked on the tree once more.
Maybe it was genetic. Ryam had always been driven to distraction by thunderstorms too. The familiarity was almost reassuring, all things considered.
Chapter Twenty: Creation
It tasted like warm sunlight and strawberries, liquid and sweet and smooth. The fruit filled her mouth with the same tingling that had crawled down her arms. Juice dribbled over her chin and she wiped it away with the back of her hand as she swallowed. The tingling moved with the fruit into her stomach, radiating out from there to her limbs, to her fingertips. Like the prickling of nettles against her skin. Her body felt as though it had been lit from within by the sun.
Lilith turned and ran, the fruit she had taken held tightly in her hands. Eve paid her no mind. It was only a matter of time now, anyway. Wasn’t that what Adam had told her? That it was only a matter of time?
Reu’s face was white, but he took the fruit from her hand, not waiting for her to offer it. Lamech still stood with them, his eyes wide with fear as Reu took his bite.
“Go, Lamech,” Eve said. “Before Adam wonders what keeps you.”
He hesitated for another moment and then sprinted after Lilith.
Eve’s vision blurred and shifted, and she was looking at herself. The ground seemed unsteady, and somehow she knew she was in Reu’s mind, looking through his eyes. But she had never seen so clearly before, not even when Adam had touched her. She clutched at her head, stretched and bruised. It was too much. She tried to step back, to put space between them, but her body felt sluggish and unbalanced.
Reu supported her when she began to fall, easing her to the ground. “Are you all right?”
She closed her eyes, but she could still see. Her face half hidden by her hair, and her hands. It was odd to see herself this way. Odder still when the sight stayed even after Reu pulled his arm away. She stared at the red leaves beneath her hands and knees to clear the vision. Her head pounded, and the roaring from her first moments returned to her ears.
She could feel the same from Reu, though he didn’t make a sound as he sat beside her. And she could feel the creature in the tree above them, watching closely, waiting to see what they would do next, and what would be done to them.
Every bird, every animal in the Garden touched her mind. With a thought she could see through their eyes, as she had seen through Adam’s, but there were so many that the world around her fractured and she fought to keep her own sight. And comprehension. All at once and slowly over time, everything was brighter and sharper. All the things she had seen, witnessed, felt and heard in the last two days became significant. She understood, at last, what God had intended for her, and what Lucifer had tried to explain. Live, he had said. Whatever this power was, her children, her people, would need it to survive. Perhaps it was not what God wanted for them, this knowledge of life and death and evil, but he had seen the need to provide the path. To give her and all her people the strength to stand against Adam.
“Eve?”
Her whole body flushed at his nakedness, all muscle and tanned skin, and thatches of rough, curly hair. She blushed and dropped her gaze again. “Yes,” she said. “Are you well?”
“Well enough, I think. To go back.”
“You shouldn’t have eaten the fruit.” She climbed unsteadily to her feet, crossing her arms over her chest to cover her breasts. She kept her back to him, too, so that he couldn’t see her womanhood. “He won’t forgive it, Reu.”
“I did what had to be done, just as you have. But if we don’t return, there is no telling what he might do to the others. And I can’t—I cannot stand by, Eve. Even for your sake.”
“I don’t know what’s worse than the things he’s done already. To Lilith.” She crossed the clearing to the trees. There was a banana tree on their way back, with broad enough leaves to cover her body. She didn’t want to face Adam so naked and exposed.
Reu followed, holding back branches that might scrape her. “I wish you hadn’t had to see her that way.”
“What you see is only the least of the pain he’s caused her,” she said softly. “The worst of it is in her mind. He’s taken her will with the power God gave him. As he tried to take mine.” She found the tree and stripped several leaves, wrapping them around her chest and hips. It made her feel much more comfortable to be covered, and she was finally able to turn and face Reu again.
It was impossible not to notice the way he looked at her. The adoration in his eyes. How had she not seen it before? When Adam had spoken of making him love her, she had dismissed it. When the creature, the serpent, had asked if he would still love her, she had been more concerned with the other things it had said. But it was true. She flushed again, her cheeks burning, and looked away again, adjusting the banana leaf at her hips.
He put a finger beneath her chin and tilted her face back up to his. “I will not let him harm you ever again, Eve. And when I am gone, my sons will protect you from him. And their sons, after them. Forever.”
“You love me.”
He smiled, caressing her cheek. “More than my life. From the moment you were made.”
She covered his hand with her own, pressing it against her cheek and closing her eyes. It seemed only fitting that she see herself through his eyes in this moment. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
His gaze lingered on her mouth while her eyes were closed, drinking in the sight of her face. “I wanted you to be able to choose.”
But there was something else behind his words. Some knowledge he hadn’t shared. She saw her forehead wrinkle in concentration while it eluded her.
She opened her eyes. “You’re hiding something.”
“It isn’t important.” His jaw tightened and he took her hand, walking with her once again toward the caves. Toward Adam. “Just know that no matter what you choose, I will always care for you and protect you.”
But the truth rose to the surface of his mind, where she saw it clearly. He had walked with God.
He had bargained with God.
“Oh, Reu.”
He hesitated, his whole body stiffening at her tone. “The serpent asked if I would love you still when you could read my mind as easily as your own. You can see now it is so. I will, always. No matter what.”
“God made you love me?” She tightened her hand around his when he tried to let go of her.
He sighed. “So that you would be protected.”
She looked up at his face as they walked. His eyes were dark again, and she could feel his discomfort. “But you, more than anyone, believe so strongly in free will. In choice.”
“This was my choice, Eve. God did not force it on me without my permission. Free will was his greatest gift to us. And I wouldn’t tr
ade my love for you for anything. Even if you never return it.”
Her heart ached for him. The sin of eating the fruit was not the only sacrifice he had been called upon to make, yet he had done so willingly. Without complaint, without hesitation.
“You deserve all good things, Reu. I am honored by your love, though I’m unsure if I am worthy of it.”
He glanced down at her, his eyes soft and dark. “You are worthy of so much more than I can give you, Eve.”
They paused at the clearing before the caves. Adam was speaking with Lilith and Lamech, his face growing darker with every word. He held the fruit in his hand, but it was unblemished, whole.
Eve felt relief from a dread she had not even known she was carrying. Adam’s anger hung thick in the air even from this distance, made all the more bitter on the back of her tongue with the fear of the others and the confusion of those who did not yet understand the significance of what had been found. Reu held the branches aside for her, and they stepped out from the cover of the trees.
Adam’s eyes locked on her the moment she was in the open, traveling from her face, over her body, pausing on the crude coverings she had made for herself, and back again. She blushed at the sight of Adam’s nakedness, and didn’t dare let her eyes stray from his face. Then Adam’s gaze settled on Reu’s hand holding hers, and Eve flinched from the jealous rage that washed over her, black and stinging in her mind.
Adam shoved Lilith and Enoch out of his way and crossed to them, the fruit still in his hand, though Eve thought in that moment, he no longer remembered it.
“You lust for power, and yet you deny me. You eat of my fruit, but refuse to sleep at my side.” He raised his hand to strike her, and she braced herself for the impact.
Reu’s hand wrapped around Adam’s wrist before it could come. “You will not lay a hand upon her again, Adam.”
Adam stared at him, his open hand turning into a fist. “You forget yourself, Reu.” He twisted free from Reu’s grasp. “I am lord here, and Eve will be my wife.”
“I will not.” She raised her voice so the others who had begun to gather would hear more clearly. Her refusal would be known to all of them. “I will not be your wife, Adam.”
“You dare?” He tore his gaze from Reu to glare at her. His anger was a force against her mind, but the fruit had given her greater strength, and his will did not touch her. His eyes narrowed and his voice was cold and hard. “You are not just refusing me, you are giving up the world I offer you. Your only chance for happiness. None of the others will give you what you need. Do you forget I am your only equal?”
“You’re right,” she said softly, and he began, almost to smirk. But she went on. “Reu is not my equal. He is my better. And yours as well.”
He lunged at her, dropping the fruit to wrap both his hands around her throat. There were no words now, just incoherencies as they fell to the ground. Images of her body bruised, her face bloodied until she huddled, whimpering in the dark—the punishments he would inflict on her for such an insult, seared upon the backs of her eyelids.
She clawed at his hands, trying to pry his fingers away as she choked. It was worse than anything she had ever experienced before, and tears flowed down her cheeks into her ears. She dug her nails into his skin, drawing blood.
Reu drove his fist into Adam’s face, and she could breathe again. Adam’s lip split open, but he smiled a terrible smile.
Eve saw what he meant a moment before he acted, but her wordless shout wasn’t fast enough to stop Adam from kneeing Reu hard in the groin. Reu dropped like a rock to the ground, on his knees, bent over and wheezing with pain.
Adam kicked him in the ribs, sending him shoulder first into the dirt.
Eve’s vision swam. She crawled to Reu and cradled his head in her lap. He groaned.
“You chose wrongly, Eve.” Adam grabbed her by her arm and dragged her away from him through the dirt, pulling her roughly to her feet. “But I am merciful. Change your mind now, and I will pretend none of this happened. Marry me, and perhaps I’ll even let Reu stay in the Garden as your pet.”
She shook her head. “No.”
He threw her back to the ground and spit in her face.
She wiped it from her cheek, staring at her hand. Beads of blood rose from the scratches and scrapes on her palm, skinned again when she fell.
“Then I have no use for you. Seth, Lamech. Take her and her dog and cast them out of the Garden. Bar the gates behind them. If I’m lucky, the angels will kill them for their sin.” He picked the fruit back up from the ground and turned his back on her.
She felt hands grab her, but she pulled free and climbed to her feet without help. “Maybe you should wait to see what happens before you eat the fruit yourself, Adam. If they kill us, they’ll surely come for you, too.”
“Anyone else who defies me will suffer the same fate as these two.” His voice was even and cold, and he pretended that he didn’t hear her, even as she felt him consider her warning. “Eve will watch Reu starve and die outside these gates, as any of the rest of you would in his place. Assuming the angels don’t interfere before then. For they have sinned, not by eating the fruit, but by denying their God. Elohim is dead and gone, his rules with Him. I am your God now, and you will all obey me, or you will die. That is your choice.”
And then Lamech grabbed her again, and Seth lifted Reu to his feet. The two men dragged them to the gate and threw them out of the Garden without another word.
Chapter Twenty-one: 460 BC
There was nothing odd about a god leaving Asgard to walk the earth, Thor told himself. He repeated it when he did not find Sif feasting with the others in Odin’s hall, and again when he saw no sign of her in the cottage they shared. He repeated it a third time when a word with Heimdall confirmed that she had taken the rainbow bridge to earth, and Loki had been whispering stories of Thorgrim in her ear.
“But not only that,” Heimdall said. Thor had found him on the bridge, of course. It was not for fear of the other gods that he guarded it, though Bifrost was the only way they might come in or out of Asgard without the express permission of Odin. Heimdall guarded against the gods that had not yet come—those who searched for new worlds to claim as their own, after tearing the last apart with war. And he guarded also against the dead, for Bifrost was the only path left to that realm, and it had been filled with enemies of the Aesir. Somewhere in Niflheim, Surt still longed for vengeance and destruction, though he had lost his flaming sword.
“Loki spreads rumors of a goddess, a daughter of the True God who walks the earth,” Heimdall told him. Every rumor whispered in Asgard travelled to Heimdall’s ear, and from there, to Odin’s. “The Trickster claims she is the reason you remained so long away.”
Thor grunted, pretending disinterest, but his blood ran cold. “And Sif?”
Heimdall shrugged, his golden teeth flashing in a joyless smile. “Sif goes in search of such a goddess, to see the face of the woman who be-spelled you.”
“Sif travels on a fool’s errand.”
Heimdall said nothing, but even his silence spoke volumes. Thor was only grateful Heimdall would not speak of anything Odin did not wish shared freely. What Heimdall had seen or heard of Thor’s affair with Eve would never pass through his lips to any other.
“If she travels beyond our lands, she is bound to cause trouble when she meets this supposed goddess,” Thor said.
“I have no doubt that is her intent,” Heimdall replied. “Loki has accused you of affairs with no less than three other goddesses, though oddly, he did not name Freyja. It seems you prefer despoiling virgins.”
He ground his teeth. “If Sif truly believes I am capable of such, I am surprised she returned to my bed at all.”
“None in Asgard would court her while she remains your wife, Thor. If she wishes revenge, she will have to find a partner elsewhere, now that Loki is forbidden from having his way. But I have heard there is a Trickster god among the Celts. Did you not meet with them in yo
ur travels?”
Lugh. Yes, he had met with him and his brethren, but he had not cared overmuch for any of their ilk. They were worse than Bragi when it came to plain speech, and fought fiercely among themselves. Lugh had not been the worst of the lot—a thunder god as well as a mischief maker and god of war. But the combination of powers made him unpredictable in the extreme. If Thor was considered short tempered, Lugh’s temper was kindling, already sparked, looking for an excuse to blaze. There was always the chance the right wind would blow to bank his anger into laughter, but it wasn’t something to be relied on.
“Is that where she went?”
Heimdall cocked his head to the side, his eyes narrowing as he listened. Behind him, his hall stood on the steep cliff that marked the edge of Asgard’s open fields and rising mountains. His hearing was too acute to give him any peace closer to Odin’s hall, and for as long as Thor remembered, the guardian had always lived alone.
“If so, she has been and gone. I hear her voice in our lands, now. In Thorgrim’s village. She asks for stories in exchange for blessings upon their grain and stores.”
Of course she did. And if he followed her now, demanded to know what she had learned, it would only make her all that more determined. Thor gazed out over the bridge, heat and light shimmering and distorting the curving earth below. As long as she did not find Eve, that was all that mattered. And Eve was well away from the North Lands. Beyond even the Olympian lands, he thought, from the pulse of her light, burning in the back of his mind.
All these years later, he could not shake her from his thoughts, and when she grieved, he felt the pull of her pain, the ache of it echoing in his heart. Late in the night, after Sif slept, he found himself reaching for her, soothing her dreams, offering her what solace he could give, drawing the memories of their life together to the surface to give her peace when she struggled. All these years later, he loved her as much as he ever had, no matter how hard he fought against it.
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