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There's something about bones that Eve doesn't like. Maybe it's the way hers feel, long beneath her skin, or maybe it's the way her chest tightens when she looks at Adam, not in a good way but in a way that makes it hard to breathe. Like she owes him something, like he didn't gift her this rib but uses it over her head, constantly: you wouldn't exist if not for my sacrifice.
Over and over again, until she ducks back into the trees whenever she spots him.
Eve begins to take walks through the garden. She's curious about it, wants to touch its edges, see all the creatures living in it. Sometimes the lionesses walk beside her for a time, letting her rub their heads gently, purring.
(She likes the lionesses much more than the lions.)
Sometimes she climbs the trees in her attempt to see outside the garden, but it seems to extend forever. Sometimes she does this when those heavy footsteps echo, that voice calling for Adam, for her too – Eve doesn't like God, there's something predatory in him that makes her uneasy.
She avoids him, too.
–
Her voice begins to get rusty from remaining silent. Adam wouldn't like what she wants to say, so she says nothing at all, bowing her head and pretending she doesn't mind. He never asks what she's thinking anyway, so it isn't hard to feign emptiness.
Sometimes he talks about another woman, someone else he knew; Eve asks about her sometimes, desperate for someone else to talk to, desperate to hear about this person who had been in her position once before – and escaped. And if Adam thinks it's jealousy, well – she isn't exactly going to tell him the only time she likes listening to him is when he's talking about someone else.
At night, when they're lying together in the grass, she tries her hardest to remain awake until he's asleep, moving across the small field they sleep in to curl up beside the lioness that sleeps here for just this purpose. It makes Eve feel safe, sleeping beside such strength; it is so hard to feel this way with him, but beside Mary, her favorite lioness, (she named her once, on a whim) she feels – almost as powerful as Mary must be, strong muscles and teeth sharp enough to protect, to defend. With someone to protect, Eve feels like she could do anything.
She doesn't want to protect Adam. She never wants to see him again, but no matter how big the garden feels they always end up meeting every night, every day; it's as if the garden changes sizes when Adam is lonely, just to make it easier to hunt her down.
(Someday she would like to do the hunting, the lionesses have been teaching her; but that would require someone she wants to see, and he isn't that person.)
–
Once Eve stumbles on a path she's never seen before. It's narrow, just wide enough for one person, and a dusty brown color that stains her feet. She follows it, though, eager for something new. All this green hurts her eyes sometimes; sometimes she thinks she'd love a new color, something the complete opposite of this life, this false paradise.
The path leads to two trees, nondescript, utterly uninteresting to her were it not for the memory that now jumps into her mind – Adam looking down at her, saying don't eat from these two trees, He has forbidden it.
Why not? she'd asked, curious – he had wrapped his fingers around her arm, pressing down into the skin tightly, as if to add to the weight of his voice.
It will make us like him, he said, and that is forbidden.
What is he, then? Eve had wanted to ask. God seems like a large overbearing monster, a bear or at times like a sleepy lion, all golden light and yawns that seem to shake the air itself. She never liked it when he was relaxed, it made him more dangerous. No matter how many times he says he loves them both, she never trusted him. Not like she trusts Mary, or herself.
To Eve, God is like a wild beast you wish was a pet, and eventually you forget that they once took your hand into their mouth and ate it fiercely.
She holds her hand to her chest and shudders once, hard. God is like a word that must never be said.
Like a person you can never touch.
She steps into the meadow, eyes riveted on the trees. 'I don't believe it,' Eve whispers, her hands clenching into fists at her sides.
'Believe it,' a voice says. Eve jumps, whirls around, but there's no one there, only her and the trees and the birds overhead, singing as if they had no idea what was beneath them. Probably they don't.
'Where are you?' Eve steps further into the meadow, drawn to the voice despite her instincts ringing in her head.
'Down here,' and she looks down to see a snake, bigger than any she'd ever seen before. Completely black, with a white stripe over its head, and fangs as large as Eve's fingers.
She crouches, smothering her fear underneath her delight in finding someone else who could speak.
'You don't look afraid,' the snake observes, drawing up against Eve's ankle and gently winding around her bent leg, until they're face to face.
'I'm not,' she replies easily. 'Not of you, at least.'
'Why not?'
'If you can speak then you're human, and humans don't hurt each other.' It's difficult for Eve to put into words the way she feels; maybe it's that the power of speech, to her, is a sort of kindness. Maybe she sees something familiar in the snake, or maybe it's just the part of herself that sleeps with lionesses. She never feared those creatures Adam calls beasts; it's the ones who call themselves man to be wary of.
'You know that's not true.'
'Yes.'
The snake looks at her sharply; it almost looks as if its brow is furrowed, and Eve doesn't bother trying to contain the bubble of laughter that sneaks out of her throat. Her hand lifts to stroke the top of the snake's head, and she relaxes completely.
Eve leans back until she's lying on the grass, and the snake winds around her arm, resting on her chest; she smiles, once, and the snake makes a motion that might be a laugh.
'You could eat the fruit, you know,' the snake says. 'You could be like him.'
'No. Never like him.'
-
After that Eve visits the meadow whenever she can, every day; Adam doesn't seem to notice, having found a new place of his own, one that seems to have a waterfall if his happy exclamations are anything to go by.
Sometimes the snake comes back with her, though always disappears when Adam shows up. It likes to ride on her shoulders, tail wrapped lightly around Eve's throat; she doesn't mind, though. She never noticed how easy it is to let herself be touched if she trusts the other person. With Adam, she always feels like she's suffocating.
–
'My name is Lilith,' the snake says one day, when they're in the meadow with the trees again. They're lying together and looking at the sky, cloudless and so so blue.
'Mine is Eve,' she says. Lilith bumps her head into Eve's chin.
'I know that.'
'You were his first wife, weren't you?' Eve says casually, after several moments of easy silence. She doesn't feel Lilith tense at all, and wonders if perhaps she was wrong when she finally replies.
'I was.'
'What happened?'
'I didn't want him to dominate me. I refused to submit to him in any way, and he didn't like that. He complained to god, who told me it was my duty, my role, to be the easy wife who served Adam.'
'What did you do?'
'I left.' Eve sits up abruptly at that, shocked; Lilith slides easily off her chest, sitting in the grass and looking up at her with a sharpness in her eyes.
'How? How could you find the exit? I've searched for – for as long as I could walk! How did you get out?'
'There is no exit,' Lilith says. Eve's eyes widen. 'You have to make it yourself. This world is both physical and non-physical, so god can walk here with you sometimes. It's almost like a cage that grows so you never realize what it is, and you and Adam – and me, I suppose – are his pets. You aren't anything but a toy.'
'But you got out,' Eve whispers. 'You got out – why did you come back?!' She rises to her feet, face flushing with anger, anger at God, at Adam, at Lilith who never told her the truth –
'You could have gotten away! You could have survived this, him!'
'The question is, will they survive us?' Lilith is calm, despite Eve's rage.
'What?'
'I came back for you. I got out, I met an angel, one who used to be with god. He let me stay with him, and I lived there until I heard god had made someone else. I came back to save you.'
'Then do it,' Eve says, anger deflating instantly. 'I want to leave this place.'
Lilith jerks her scaly head toward the trees. 'Eat one. God will punish you, probably with exile. Then I'll take you home.' Her eyes fasten onto Eve, who steps shakily toward the trees. She grasps the first one she can reach, one arm stretching up toward an apple.
Once the fruit is in hand, she turns back to Lilith, who is still watching her with that unreadable look in her eyes.
Without breaking eye contact, Eve bites into the apple.
Juice runs down her chin and pools at her feet like blood.
–
Before Adam and god return, when the sky is still dusty with color, when the air feels heady and alive, Lilith transforms back into her human form, tall and dark-skinned, with long thick hair that makes Eve consider rethinking her opinion of lions.
She's at least half a foot taller than Eve, and looking up at her feels so much better than looking up at Adam does. (It must be why she prefers looking at the ground. Eve hates showing her throat to him like that, even if nothing truly dies here; it feels dangerous, somehow. There are things worse than death, and Adam is surely capable of those things.)
'You're smaller than me now,' Lilith notes, amused. Eve can't help the crooked grin that spreads across her mouth.
'I don't mind,' she says. 'I liked being bigger than you, but this is nicer.'
Lilith smiles, and takes Eve's hand in her own.
–
The footsteps echo like thunder. Lilith doesn't flinch, but Eve feels her hand tighten minutely. She flexes her fingers in response, thumb rubbing lightly over Lilith's hand.
Adam stops when he sees them, eyes widening; behind him is the vague foggy outline of a man, huge, the feet more defined than the rest of his body, probably so he can make the booming footsteps more easily.
HAVE YOU RETURNED? God says mockingly, Adam still staring at Lilith with that confused expression on his face.
'Only for her,' Lilith replies.
Eve knows when god notices the apple core she holds in her right hand, loosely; she lets it fall to the ground so they all hear its impact.
Eve raises her chin regally.
YOU HAVE SINNED, god says, and Eve's chin raises higher.
She looks at Lilith, then back at him.
'No. I have loved.'
-
Outside the garden is strange. Before this, Eve had only known lush greenery, fruits hanging off nearly every tree, and animals that roamed free, never hurting one another. It hadn't been peaceful, though, as long as Adam and those footsteps had been there.
Here, with Lilith, the night air all lit up from the flaming swords the angels hold, the ones god posted as guards (as if either of them would try to return), it's almost beautiful. So much sand, the night air cool and comfortable, her hand enveloped in Lilith's -- it's more beautiful than anything she's ever seen before.
'Are you ready?' Lilith says, smiling at her, and Eve doesn't hesitate at all, just moves up on her tiptoes, pressing her mouth to Lilith's. It's a sloppy kiss, all teeth, wet and heavy, but it fills Eve with a longing so deep she can hardly understand it. She moves her hand to Lilith's face, cups it gently, feels hands rub soft circles into her back.
'As ready as you are,' she says when they break apart for air.
'Time to go, then.'
-
Later Eve will wonder what Adam's doing with himself now, if god's made him a new companion, perhaps this one a male. She hopes that's what happened. She wonders if Adam can hear all the life she and Lilith created, these vast cities, oceans, strange lands made of ice.
She smiles softly at her reflection in the window, looking out at the city. The darkened sky lends it a beauty, one that she loves to look at. She presses her hand to the glass.
Behind her, Lilith smiles in return. 'What are you thinking?'
'Nothing in particular,' Eve says without turning around. She doesn't need to, Lilith can tell what she's thinking by body language alone. Hands wrap around her waist, the touch gentle but firm, grounding her to this reality, the one they created over the centuries. 'I wonder if he's lonely.'
Lilith nips playfully at her neck, drawing a laugh from Eve. 'Are you?'
Eve turns finally, her smile radiant.
'Not anymore.'