Six Crime Stories (23 page)

Cain was so distraught
,
I kept my thoughts to myself on the subject of the voice that had pushed him to murder. I had a strong suspicion about who had been behind that voice
,
but it would have done no good just then to mention it.

And the truth was
,
despite my suspicion
,
I thought the voice could just as well have been God
'
s. After the way he
'
d treated Adam and me
,
kicking us out of Eden over a single mistake that was the result of trickery
,
I couldn
'
t dismiss the possibility that he was manipulating us. Maybe it was all just another way of punishing us for what we
'
d done
,
as if the punishment we
'
d already received wasn
'
t enough.

Either way
,
whoever had whispered into my boy
'
s ear
,
I couldn
'
t place the blame solely on Cain. I couldn
'
t find it in my heart to condemn him
,
knowing he
'
d been tricked just as surely as I.

"
I
'
m sorry
,
"
he said.
"
I
'
m so
,
so sorry.
"

"
I forgive you
,
"
I said
,
and I meant it with all my heart...not just because we had both been tricked into making mistakes...or because I loved him or because he was the only son I had left.

I forgave him because I had once been in his place
,
and forgiveness was what I wished God could have given me the one time I did something wrong.

*****

Cain cried himself to sleep in my arms. I stayed awake for a long time after that
,
silently shedding tears of my own as I caressed his troubled brow...tears for him
,
tears for Abel
,
tears for myself.

But eventually
,
exhaustion overcame me and I
,
too
,
fell asleep.

As I slept
,
I dreamed again that I was in Eden...but this time
,
I was alone. No Abel
,
no Adam
,
no Cain
,
no angels. Not even the Voice was there
,
I think. No one but me.

And my old enemy.

It was daytime
,
but the sky was dark with storm clouds. Screaming creatures leaped through the vegetation in all directions
,
fur soaked with rain. Lightning spiked the tall trees
,
and fierce winds whipped fruit from the branches. It pelted me as a I ran
,
trying desperately to escape
,
heart pounding like the thunder crashing around me.

And no matter how hard I ran
,
no matter how loud the racket all around me
,
I could not get away from the single
,
terrible sound that drove me onward
,
mad with panic.

The whisper of my enemy
'
s body gliding over the ground. Persistent
,
revolting
,
familiar...terrifying.

Crackling over leaves and twigs. Rustling over soft grass. Slithering.

Hissing.

I reached the borders of Eden
,
but as I tried to charge across
,
I struck an invisible wall. Dazed from the impact
,
I hurtled backward
,
plunging into the streaming greenery. I hit the ground hard
,
stars dancing before my eyes
,
the taste of blood in my mouth.

And I couldn
'
t move. I was paralyzed by the fall
,
unable even to lift a finger.

Unable to scream as I heard the sound of my enemy draw near and felt the weight of him ripple over my belly and saw his glistening muzzle slide from between my breasts and rear up overhead
,
the mouth open
,
fangs gleaming...

But before he could do one thing more
,
I awoke from my dream.

I was in a state of complete panic
,
and I know I would have been screaming at the top of my lungs
,
shrieking in that terrible moment before I realized I was free of the nightmare...

I would have been shrieking if I hadn
'
t had a gag stuffed in my mouth.

*****

As soon as I realized something was wrong
,
I shot to full alertness
,
instantly casting off all traces of the nightmare except a few lingering images and a feeling of terror. It mixed with the shock and confusion I felt upon awakening to find myself restrained
,
swiftly escalating my panic.

In my nightmare
,
I had been paralyzed. I discovered I was similarly immobilized in the waking world.

Something that tasted like leather had been forced between my teeth and secured tightly by a strap tied around my head. With the gag in place
,
I could make noises in my throat but couldn
'
t move my jaws
,
tongue
,
or lips to enunciate words.

When I tried to reach up and remove the gag
,
I quickly realized that my hands were also bound. I couldn
'
t even lift them up to the gag together
,
because they were strapped behind my back.

In the next instant
,
when I tried to move my feet
,
I realized that they
,
too
,
were tied...and the bonds restraining them were tightening. Twisting on the ground
,
I stared wide-eyed down the length of my body
,
wondering in a single frantic moment if I would see Cain
,
if he had overcome his inhibitions and decided to follow the voice
'
s orders after all and sacrifice his parents.

The fact that it wasn
'
t Cain didn
'
t make me relax a bit.

When he noticed me looking
,
Adam smiled in the gray pre-dawn light.
"
Good morning
,
Eve
,
"
he said in a hushed voice.
"
Sorry about this
,
but it
'
s necessary.
"

Angry and frightened
,
I jolted my bound feet from his grip
,
hoisting up my knees in preparation for a two-legged kick. Unfortunately
,
Adam was able to grab my ankles fast and spin me around onto my stomach
,
preventing the blow.

"
It
'
s just I know you wouldn
'
t come with me any other way
,
"
said Adam
,
cinching the cords tighter around my ankles
,
then my wrists.
"
Not where we
'
re going.
"

It didn
'
t take a genius to guess what he meant by that. Grunting
,
I writhed in the dirt
,
trying to flop myself from my stomach onto my side so at least I could try again to kick him.

Adam
,
with his superior strength
,
hauled me up off the ground like a bundle of straw and slung me over his shoulder.
"
You should thank me
,
"
he said.
"
I found out who really killed Abel.
"

Adam turned and carried me off along the riverbank. I knew the direction we
'
d be traveling before we started to move.

Upriver.

"
And it wasn
'
t Cain
,
"
said Adam.
"
You
'
ll see.
"

Lifting my head from Adam
'
s back
,
I saw Cain behind us
,
sprawled alongside the dead fire at our campsite. The club he
'
d used to attack us lay on the ground near his head.

From a distance
,
it was impossible to tell if he was dead or alive.

"
Cain was just upset and confused over losing his brother
,
"
said Adam.
"
He blamed himself for not saving him
,
and in Cain
'
s mind
,
that turned into blaming himself for killing him.
"

Helpless
,
I slumped against Adam
'
s back. I wondered if he had come up with this latest brainstorm himself
,
or if he
'
d had help.

As we walked onward
,
I got my answer.

It was the same sound I
'
d run from in my nightmare. The sound I remembered so well from years ago.

Something sliding through the tall grass and weeds above the muddy bank. Unseen but whispering like a thought in the back of my mind
,
like a fragment of a dream come to life. Diaphanous. Beautiful. Malevolent.

Never leaving my side.

Once or twice
,
I might have seen the sun glinting off polished scales through the grass and weeds. A flash of color. The faint ripple of disturbed grass as something moved through it.

And I knew...if not the details
,
at least the players in what was to come.

I felt terrified and exhilarated at the same time. The enemy
,
the true enemy who had engineered Abel
'
s demise
,
had revealed himself. He was playing for bigger stakes now
,
moving us to where he wanted us to be.

And in so doing
,
moved himself out of the shadows and within my reach. Which was exactly where I wanted him to be
,
I realized.

Because now
,
more than ever
,
we had a score to settle.

*****

The closer we got to Eden
,
the sweeter the air smelled. The riot of floral fragrances wafting out of the place made every other garden I
'
d been to seem as aromatic as a pile of rocks.

When I drew a breath
,
I grew dizzy from the thick
,
unearthly perfume. It unlocked memories that hadn
'
t seen the light of day since I
'
d left paradise
,
memories of unicorn rides and singing fish and heatless flame and sun showers in which every raindrop had a different color and flavor and musical note.

As we approached our destination
,
the sky grew brighter
,
too. It had been a dreary day downriver
,
but as we gained on Eden
,
gray clouds filed away
,
exposing bright blue perfection and a sun of steady white radiance. Watching our shadows on the ground as Adam hauled me upriver
,
I noticed that their angle didn
'
t change
,
as if the sun wasn
'
t moving. Though I was certain that enough time had passed for morning to shift to afternoon and afternoon to evening
,
the day actually became brighter
,
as if time was working differently as we neared our old home.

Other things worked differently
,
too. I had a period of disorientation--and more than a little nausea--as I adjusted to the changes in the world...or maybe they were changes in my mind or some of both. I remembered that sounds had taste
,
and smells had rhythm
,
and everything
,
living or dead
,
glowed with energy of varying hue and texture and pitch. My sixth
,
seventh
,
and eighth senses reawakened
,
which spooked me because I
'
d forgotten they existed. I saw colors and creatures and impossible physical phenomena that shocked me
,
even seen upside-down as I hung over my husband
'
s shoulder
,
and brought back flashes of another world more intense than I had ever remembered in exile
,
in waking or dreaming moments or the wildest flights of fancy in-between.

And all this was just the drainage of Eden
,
the dimmest echo of a power too great to be contained from seeping into the world. All this flowed around and through us
,
and we hadn
'
t even taken a step into the forbidden land.

The one thing that didn
'
t change
,
though
,
was the sound of the enemy sliding through the grass and weeds alongside us. It accompanied us all the way to the borders of glittering Eden...mysterious
,
expectant
,
lethal
,
inevitable.

And doomed
,
if I had anything to do with it.