Eve (16 page)

“What have you done?” I hissed, as soon as everyone had gone back to their chores. I grabbed her arm and squeezed my fingernails into her flesh.

Naava wrenched away from me and slapped at my hand. “What have
I
done?” Naava said, standing up. “You’re the one who gave it to me.”

“For the lizard,” I said.

“That’s right,” Naava said, “the lizard who shat on everything I care about. There she goes.”

“You may have killed her!” I said. I spat on her feet. “And the baby. That’s
two
lives.”

Naava’s mouth gaped open, then snapped shut, like fish gills.

“That’s right,” I said. “You heard me.”

Naava sat, plopping her backside down on the courtyard bench. The corners of her mouth were turned down, and she sulked. “I was only
trying to get her out of the way for a little while. What’s the harm in that?”

“You stupid, stupid girl,” I said. “You disgrace us.” With that, I turned to go, my manner as resolute as my inward conviction.

“Don’t put on airs,” said Naava. “Cain is right. You’re worth nothing with that foot. Do you really think Mother cares about you, being crippled and all? Why do you think she takes special pains to notice you? ‘Aya, darling, you look nice today’ or ‘Aya, you have truly outdone yourself today, with this lamb and cabbage mixture. What did you put in it?’” Naava flung her head about, her nose up in the heavens.

I pretended not to hear her, for she is right. Mother
does
say all those things, and I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what she means when she says them. I do not label it as such—
condescension—
for the mere utterance of the word could solidify it, pack it into place, in such a way that I would never recover. For that is how I see it. I
know,
but I don’t
dwell.
There is a great chasm between the two. Sometimes, when the two touch, just lightly, there, like that, it sends forth a great earthquake inside, and the very force of it threatens to rip me apart. That, I cannot have. So I willingly forget those sorts of things, think lightly on them, so that I am not broken wide open and filled with the rotten pulp of truth.

I told Abel what Naava had done. I had no other choice. He thought there was something wrong with the meat, and I did
not
want to bear that responsibility. He had to know what she was like—the
real
Naava under those long eyelashes and straight cheekbones and red-pepper lips. He did not believe me at first. He
could
not believe me. “She wouldn’t,” he said.

“But she did,” I said. “Naava would kill us all if she thought it would make her life better.”

“You are sure?” Abel asked again.

“Ask her yourself,” I said. His hesitancy irritated me. I could tell he was weighing Naava’s beauty against my bitter accusation.

Abel and I were more alike than he knew.

Abel saw things. Another way of saying it is: He had visions. Jacan had related one of Abel’s dreams to me when I took him to bathe in the river.

Here it is: Abel as an eagle, soaring above the plains, searching for shrews and rats and rabbits and partridges he might consume. The sun warms his back, and his feathers ruffle in the breeze. He can see the glint of the sea, the gold of the sand, the green of the palms. He is free, and he thinks,
I should like to stay here.

Funny how Abel and I have the same flying dream,
I thought. Or maybe more
fateful
than
funny.

Jacan stopped midway through to interject thoughts of his own. “Do you think,” he asked, “Abel
could
fly?”

“Well, if he was an eagle,” I said, “certainly.”

“Really?” he said, eyes wide. “I want to be a bird.”

“Pretend you are a fish. Swim!” Otherwise, we would have been there all night!

Abel using the air currents to soar. His wings carrying him high, so high, up to where he is just a speck in the sky. Dropping low, he skims the chaparral on the plains and the cattails in the marshes. He careens down through the masses of herons and cranes and egrets, sending them fluttering and thrashing into the air. He is mighty. He is King of the Sky.

“I am King of the River,” Jacan exclaimed, pulling up a handful of mud from the bottom of the riverbed. It oozed out from between his pudgy fingers.

“You are,” I said. “And I am the princess.”

“No,” Jacan said, standing up in the murky water. “Dara is.” He plucked at a leech that had latched upon his skin and flung it down,
plonk,
into the river.

Abel, King of the Sky, viewing the whitewashed city, the walls hemming in the grand houses that have flat roofs decorated with potted plants and wooden benches. He sees the craftsmen pound their metal, hammer their wheels, and carry stone and clay and bitumen. He spots their temple, built up with steps so that it reaches to the sky, where the gods and goddesses live in invisible palaces. He watches them unload cargo from their ships and load it upon carts and haul it back into the city. Everywhere, it is an ant city, every ant carrying its own blade of grass, its own torn piece of leaf.

All this he sees.

Then, as he is watching, a dark thread of menace seeps from the city
walls and runs out like blood to where the ships are docked. It merges with the river and fills it up with foreboding. Of course, the water runs southward, toward the sea, yet when it flows by our house, Abel’s house, it does not continue toward the sea. It climbs up the levees, through the irrigation channels, and bloodies everything—all the livestock, the barley fields, the vegetable gardens, even Mother’s garden where her babies are buried.

There is no reason for Abel, King of the Sky, to feel choked, but he does. He cannot breathe. His wings do not keep him aloft. He is falling falling falling, and there is nothing he can do about it. No amount of effort will help him now.

Where will he land? Will someone be there to catch him?

“No no no,” said Jacan.

Abel, King of the Sky, falling falling falling. He’s headed for the cistern, for its deep black water. He folds his wings, tucking them close to his body to lessen the impact, then suddenly he hits the surface of the water with such a force, he is knocked senseless. When he opens his eyes, all he can see is the sunlight above, dancing down through the water in sad patterns, and he wants to go up there, to feel the air again, but, no, he is stuck. He cannot move. His wings are broken, his claws useless for swimming, so he sinks farther and farther down, where the sunshine is muted and the music of someone calling “Abel, Abel, can you hear me?” is muffled.

Then Abel wakes up. At precisely this time in the vision. Every time.

“Who is the person above?” I asked.

Jacan shrugged. “He doesn’t say.”

“But what does it mean? Why would Elohim send a dream to Abel if he cannot decipher it?”

Jacan said, “I tell myself when I lay down at night that I will become an eagle like Abel, but it never works.”

“You can’t make up dreams, silly,” I told him. “They’re different for everyone.”

What does it mean?
I thought.
Who belongs to the face over the cistern?

I was Aya the Asp Killer, Aya the Bird. I would find the answer to this mystery to save Abel, my brother. Then he would see me, really
see
me.
Then he would see how much we have in common. Maybe we were made for each other, as Mother and Father were. As Naava and he were not.

I spent the night with Mother. Father’s worry kept her awake, and I could not have that, so I sent him out to sleep under the stars. He protested and said, “I need to stay with her,” but I told him I could not remedy her illness with him hovering over me, watching my every move. Upon my pronouncement, Father’s shoulders bent like a bow, and he wiped the tears from his eyes. “Come get me if she gets worse,” he said softly. When I didn’t answer, he said again, louder, “Come get me. You hear me, Aya? Come get me if anything hap—” He choked on a sob, and I touched him lightly on the arm.

“I will,” I said. “I will.”

Mother’s groans kept me vigilant. I forced Mother to swallow a little mustard oil. In her delirium, she called me insufferable names. She began to shiver, though not because it was cold, and I crawled into bed with her, spooning her to warmth. She muttered to herself about “the sword, the flaming sword” and “too late, too late.” She was back in her Garden; either that or she had been flung from it once again.

I had come upon the hemlock plant with Goat one afternoon on my way back from the river. It was mildly attractive, with its smooth purple-spotted stem and parsleylike leaves. It smelled rank, much like parsnips, but it had pretty white flowers shaped in clusters. Goat set to eating it right away, a leaf or two, but stopped because she found something she liked better nearby— namely, the juicy watercress plant. In quick time, though, Goat was all trembly and wobbly. I set down my basket full of shellfish and hoisted her up into my arms—with some difficulty, since she was twitching every which way—and when I got her back to the house, I tried to get her to taste a little of everything, so I could discover the antidote. Only the mustard oil seemed to clear her eyes and steady her limbs, and even that took a day or two to become effective. I went back later to chop the hemlock down and, of course, to alert Abel, so he could shield his flocks from it.

This is what I do. Feed my family, and save them from death. If I am not needed for my looks, I most certainly am needed for their survival. This they know. And I remind them of it often.

Mother got better, but it was three days until she could sit up. Then, even in her weakened condition, as if her life meant nothing, she had the audacity to challenge Elohim—if I had not seen it myself, I would not have believed it!

It was a catastrophe of major proportions.

I had come into her bedroom to bring her a little broth and some bread, which I knew would settle her stomach.

And what did I see?

Mother, kneeling on the hard earth, her fists folded like penitent artichokes in front of her, babbling to the stone fertility goddess that Cain had brought her. In my haste and horror, I flung the food down, rushed to Mother’s side, pulled her hands down, and blocked her view of the stone creature.