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I was watching, when Eve was born. The great hand reached from the sky, finger larger than a man, and brushed, so gentle, against Adam's chest. I saw the rib burst forth, stretching and changing before my eyes from bone to woman. Adam cried out, but I do not know if it was from pain or awe or both. She was perfect, made of man instead of beside him, as I had been. Beautiful, soft of face and breast and hip, no firmness or fire to be found. Her eyes were pale and bright as stars.
I hated her. I pitied her. Adam held her in his shattering grip as the two of them watched the great hand return to the clouds. The curse of life was upon her and for those first moments she breathed I think she knew, because all she could do was sob. Eden was complete again, help mate given to God's favored creation. So it was always meant to be. I returned to my wall, the quiet hole I hid within, and that night I wept too.
The next morning Lucifer came to speak to me, as he often did. The hole in the garden wall was strange, and imperfection hidden but intentional. Hate us though he may, the great hand did not want either of us to leave. I did not think we could anyway. From the hole high in the wall, too high to reach for one yet human, we could see that there was nothing beyond the garden, only cold black void. It's purpose, I supposed, was not yet ours to know.
"You have been crying, Lilith," Lucifer said. I looked at him for a moment, as long as I could. He was shaped as a man, perfect in every way, with hair like spun gold and eyes of diamond, but he glowed with a burning light I could not stand to see for long.
"So I have," I said, and lay back upon my bed of dry grass. The flowers did not grow for me anymore, as once they had. A symbol of my barren body. The flowers were for Eve, now.
"I know what God has done. The new woman, the second wife. I am sorry, for whatever that's worth." I smiled. He was kind in his way, only confused. He was as unfamiliar with the world outside of heaven as I was with the world outside of the garden. I didn't think he had grasped yet the severity of his betrayal, his questioning of the great hand he had once called father. Snakes in the garden, the both of us.
"Three other angels came to me yesterday, you know. Offered an olive branch. I had to but lay upon my back as Adam wished, and I would have the garden again. I cast them out. Eve can have the man and the garden, I do not want it, Lucifer. Not at the cost of myself." I felt the warmth as he came closer to me, sitting beside me on the grass mat.
"So it shall be. God has told me that I will be cast from the garden soon, to a pit beneath it that boils with sin. They do not know what sin is, did you know that?" I laughed. I had not known either, until I was told I had committed one. Disobedience to my husband, my earthly lord who was set to guide me. I did not understand why I had to kneel when we had been created together, dust with dust. Such would not be a problem for Eve, at least.
"I hope she does not think of it. If she does not think of it, she will not have to learn she is as good as the cattle in the fields."
"Will you be coming too, to the pit? I am to rule it, God says, but for who? You alone, the only other sinner upon the land? I don't want to rule, not you or anyone. I had only asked why they needed the temptation of the tree, why this paradise was not enough. He thinks I am questioning His judgment, His plan. I just want to understand the good of it." There was panic in his voice, and he was a child. I sat up, and pulled him to my chest, though I kept my face turned away. I felt his shoulders shake as he wept.
"It will be alright. I do not trust in a plan, but you will find your own path, light bringer. I have not been told to leave but I will find a way to visit you, when you go." His shoulders still shook but the sniffling faded.
"I wish I could see Michael again. He told me to quit being foolish, before I spoke. I would like to tell him I'm sorry, before I go. None of my brothers have spoken to me, since then. I do not think God allows it."
"I think some will be brave and follow you, but not Michael. Michael is the strongest in his faith, no matter his love for you. I don't want to hurt you, but you must not rest on false hope." I felt him nod, and we sat in silence for a while. The birds sang often, near the hole in the wall, beautiful and high. They built their nests outside, I think, on an overhang.
We sat and watched the birds and chatted until late afternoon, when we heard the great hand begin to call for lost Lucifer. I did not have to tell him to go, and I watched him leave though it hurt terribly, both from the glow of him and the thought of at last being well and truly alone. He had no wings like the birds, but I saw white feathers falling from his back. When he was gone, I took those I could find from the overhang and hid them beneath my mat.
I started watching Adam and Eve more, after that. They never saw me. Perhaps they couldn't, blind as they were to all things outside of the great hand's goodness.
Eve smiled often, but Adam did not. His eyes were still cold, as they were that night when he pushed me down and hovered above me, slobbering mouth dripping on my face like a craven beast's. I had kicked him and run and he had not chased me. We had never spoken again. I wondered if he even remembered me.
I watched Adam take Eve but once. She did not fight him but her face was slack and her star bright eyes dimmed like the moon behind a cloud. I did not watch that again, but I found that I could no longer stand the sight of Adam.
Eve often tried to speak with him, to talk of the garden and the flowers and the animals. Adam spoke over her, led her by the hand, did not care for the beauty of the night or the sweet way the calf pressed its nose to Eve's palm. Eve danced for him and sang for him and cooked for him, and he sat and asked for more and better and stared at her nakedness in a way that felt more to me like sin than any kick.
I watched Eve on her own more, the moments she slipped away while Adam tended the herds. She would go with her woven basket, gathering fine herbs for the evening's meal, humming to herself as she walked. I did not hate her anymore, after a while, but still pity tore at my heart. She did not know a different way. She was made to never know a different way.
She often stopped at the great tree at the center of the garden, sat and leaned against the bark, watching the leaves sway above her, watching the thick fruits that never fell from the branches as all the others did. I did not come to her, though I wished I might find the bravery to pluck one into my hand and offer her the chance to choose.
I went about this life for so many cycles of the moon, alone and waiting for the day the great hand would come for me and cast me into my own great pit, but the day never came. My efforts to find where Lucifer had been sent had so far amounted to nothing, and I felt as if I were going mad. And so, with a strange desperation in my heart, I found myself hiding in the Tree of Knowledge, awaiting Eve. And Eve came, as she ever did, and rested beneath the tree, and though I was right above her, she could not see me. So I spoke.
"You seem to like this tree, but I've never seen you try the fruit. Why is that?" I did not expect a reply, and yet, Eve startled, scrambling to her feet. I nearly fell from the tree myself.
"Who's there?" She asked, voice high like the birds. She could not see me, but she did hear me, and my heart felt warm.
"A garden snake only, but please, call me Lilith. I'm sorry to have frightened you. It's only, I live alone in this tree, and it's gotten terribly lonely, and I see you every day. I thought we might be friends." She clutched the basket to her chest, fingers squeezing so tightly I thought she might break it. Her eyes flickered wildly, from the tree to the horizon, and I thought she might run and never return. But slowly, she settled, breath coming even once again as she sat once more beneath the tree.
"I would like a friend, I think. There is only me, and my husband, and the other animals. But they don't speak like you. Why is that?" Her voice was soft, and I did not realize how much I'd missed conversation with another.
"I don't know. I have tried to speak to Adam before, but he did not hear me. Perhaps the great hand from the sky I have seen made you special." She laughed. I had never heard her laugh before.
"Perhaps. But all things are special, I think." I wondered if I had ever been so kind. Parts of life before my fall had been fading, slowly but surely, memories of life as part of the garden falling away to make space for life as outsider.
"I hope that is true. It can be hard, as but one of the beasts of the field. Do you dream? Of life beyond the garden?"
"Beyond? No, no, this is paradise, isn't it? I have all I could ever need or want." Her voice was distant, repeating words spoken by another.
"Paradise indeed. But tell me of yourself, your thoughts and likes. When you are done, I shall tell you mine."
And so we did. We did not get to myself that day, so eager was she to share herself. She loved the sweet fruits like the apples and did not like the savory taste of the meats, she loved to run and to look at the stars. Some she had even named, come up with stories to tell of how they had come to be in their strange patterns. She promised, breathless, to come back in the night and show them to me, as she realized the time and fled with her full basket back to Adam.
Days passed, weeks passed, months and years. Eve did not come to the tree every day or every night, but she came as often as she could slip away. She told me how Adam made her feel cold, and that she did not understand why. She told me that killing the beasts of the field for food made her feel ill, and that Adam seemed to relish in it. She told me that she thought she was with child. And that, that I saw.
Her belly swelled with each passing moon, and she was so happy. So happy for another life, a life she could cherish and raise.
She never asked why she couldn't see me. I think she knew that there was something strange, but didn't want to ask or worry why it was so or be forced to tell Adam or the Great Hand that I was there. But still, she would stand and let me lean my ear against her stomach to hear the child's heartbeat within her. It was beautiful. I waited with bated breath for the day the child would be born, so desperate to meet it I felt it was half my own.
Before meeting her in the days, I would gather and bring her favorite foods, have them laying for her by the base of the tree. She would always chuckle and ask how I had done it, but I would simply tell her I had my ways. For the first time, Eden felt truly like paradise.
One day, near the end of nine moons, she began to bleed. Violent, thick blood from somewhere deep inside. Death blood. I tried to scramble from the tree to aid her, but I was stuck, my hands and feet grown into the branches. She screamed. So did I, and begged that she run, that she find the great hand and ask that he aid her child.
I did not know for many days what had happened, whether the child yet lived. But then she came, with Adam rushing ahead of her. He screamed to me, Eve weeping quietly behind him, murmuring, "I'm sorry," over and over.
"Show yourself, Lilith! God has told me what you have done, there is no need to hide! Let me see the face of she who killed my child!" So the child had died, then, but then I supposed I had expected that. But why the thought that I had done it? Had Eve been blamed, and sought a way out? I climbed from the tree, and saw Adam and Eve both step back in surprise. Something had changed, then, that they could see me.
"Adam, I did not touch the child, but if the Great Hand has proclaimed me killer of infants I suppose that is the mantle I shall wear."
"Is that all you will say to me, when the son of my loins withered and died within my wife with but your touch? Is your jealousy so great you must poison the womb of another?"
"I feel no jealousy Adam. I do not wish for a life spent beneath you. I will wear your blame, but I will not have you call it jealousy."
"There can be nothing else. God said I was not to kill you myself but still I cast you out. Go now to your hole, live with the bones of the infants you curse, and do not even think of my wife again." I looked at her. Tears still dripped from her eyes, and her jaw was tight. She did not speak. I laughed, and offered a bow.
"So it shall be. I will wear your blame for the bones of children and hope the both of you sleep sweetly." And so I left again, alone. As, I supposed, it was always meant to be.
Days and weeks passed again, slow, so slow, and there in my hole I lay, alone. I found I could not leave, kept chained by the power given to Adam by the Great Hand. I missed Lucifer. Though I ached to admit it, I missed Eve, her smile, her grace, her gentle way. I felt cold, empty and alone. I held Lucifer's feathers in my fists. They at least were warm, though as time passed they had become singed at the edges. Then one day I heard her, calling.
"Lilith! Lilith, please, I am sorry! I need you now, please!" She was walking by the wall, hands cupped around her mouth. I could see her, from the overhang. My breath felt caught in my throat and for a moment I thought I would be unable to speak as well.
"I am here, Eve, high in the wall. I cannot leave." Eve stiffened, squinted her eyes and stared up at me. For a moment, she smiled as she saw me, but then, she began to weep.
"Please, Lilith, I give you leave to enter the garden, with all I am. I need you now, I need your strength. I am not strong enough on my own, without you. I am sorry I was not strong enough to protect you when I needed to. God knew I had been seeing you, he confronted me when Adam was there, I could not lie, I-,"
"Hush Eve, it's alright. For all I know, after I was cast aside the death of children could have been what was given to my by the Great Hand to bare, for I feel my own womb lies fallow. But thank you for your apology nonetheless. What need do you have of me?"
"I feel sick, Lilith. My mind will not lie silent, I cannot sleep for fear that Adam and God both have lied to me. Who were you, Lilith, that Adam and the Lord both knew you?" I stepped slowly from the hole in the wall, drifted down to her, felt the rush of fresh air in my lungs replacing my stagnant breath.
"I was the first woman, made of dust by Adam's side. I felt myself equal, did not wish a life staring up at another. The great hand and Adam and the angels all told me that I was wrong for that, and because I would not kneel I was cast here, to this place, and the great hand created you of Adam to be his true wife, who would obey for she knew she was made of man." Her pale eyes were wide, brimming with tears.
"I... am meant to be lesser? Is that why they treat me so, lead me about as if I were blind and dumb? I cannot... Lilith, will you come with me to the tree where we once met?" She held her hand out to me, and I took it.
"Of course, Eve. I would walk with you anywhere." And I found that I meant it, deep inside, from my purest heart. Part of me feared that Eve would take of the fruit, though, feared that she did not know what she would lose. I did not want her to suffer as I did. But still, follow I did, to the center of the garden, her hand tight in mine.
It was comfortable beneath the tree, cool and dim and quiet, and we sat together there. She leaned back, head tilted up towards the branches where I once sat, her eyes closed, breath deep. She squeezed my hand.
"I have been thinking of taking the fruit. Even before we met. Every day, I came here and thought, what would happen if I did? What's the worst my life could become?" Her voice was gentle and so, so sweet.
"I will not stop you. If you're sure of what you want, I'll be here with you." She smiled.
"Will you help me? Pluck the fruit for me? I'll take it from you, and we can leave. The world beyond the garden, you remember?" I smiled, and stood, and took the fruit from the branch. And she ate of it, and her eyes went wide, and she clutched at herself, covering her body with her hands. "He hurt me," she wept, and reached for me. I held her and rocked her as she cried.
And then Adam came, screaming up the hill. "My wife," he cried, and though I tried to shield her he was stronger than I and threw me aside. "What did you do, Eve," he hissed. She stared up at him and there was fire in her."
"I ate of the fruit, Adam. I'm sick of this life, I'm leaving with Lilith." He laughed with a wildness I had never heard and ripped a fruit from the tree and ate of it himself, leaves falling and shaking with the force of his hand.
"Where you go I will follow," he bit, "You were given to me." And again she wept and I ran to them, was able to pull her away and try to run but then the great hand too came from the sky and I wept too.
<span;>"You have all fallen," His voice boomed, and I could not look up. "Traitors all, but the worst, my sweet Eve. Why have you done this, child, followed the garden snake and damned your husband?"
<span;>"He made his own choice and I made mine!" Eve called, and her strength amazed even me, the cold steel now in her spine.
"You have led him to sin and so you shall leave the garden together, bound until your deaths. You will toil to bring food from the earth and to bring animals to your service. You will bleed to mark the passage of months and the birth of a child will cause you great pain. Lilith, you will live your life in the pits of hell with Lucifer, and your touch will curse life, and never again will your eyes meet Eve's." I startled, tried to cry out but I could not move or speak. Eve still clutched my hand but I could not even turn to look at her.
"No," she murmured, "No, no, no," and Adam pulled her from me. The great hand touched them both and they were clad in animal furs, and he pulled her away. "Lilith, please, my Lord don't do this, please, I don't want this!" The great hand was silent, and beneath me I felt the ground begin to split and my body begin to sink. At my feet, burning scales that seemed to emerge and fall from my flesh. And then it was over, and Lucifer was there, and again I wept. I could look at him fully, the light faded from him, and it was over. The fall of man, the plan of the great hand, orchestrated with ease. So it would be.
Time passes, days and weeks and months and years. I sat at Lucifer's side, and he was a good friend to me. He told me what he could see of Eve, as the great hand was right and though I could see whatever else of the world I wished, I could not see her.
He said she still cried for me, as I cried for her. Twice again she was with child from Adam, two sons, one who stabbed the other in the back for the favor of the great hand. She wept for them too. She aged, and time passed, and more people were placed upon the land. I stayed the same. The people who did not give themselves to the great hand came to us, and we kept them as safe and comfortable as we could. And though I hoped to see her again, when Eve passed, she passed to the great and passed too from Lucifer's eyes. I hope only that she feels no more need to weep for me.