Part 7 (1/2)
I hesitated before asking, ”Why not?”
”Because you pose no threat”
”And that blonde runner did?”
”I proainst the leather seat and waited, but he ?”
”I want to show you soazed out at the aluminum sky, the lusterless yolk of sun Lucian's account had left off with the creation of that very body, with the coh I had spoken ”After that, El drew back the darkness covering Eden like a dusty cloth frootten furniture It had been formless since the rebellion, a watery wasteland Now he separated those waters, lifting a canopy of the Eden up froan to take interest in that planet for the first tireat stones toppled like titans into the murky ocean My heart quickened I knehat Lucifer must think: that El had seen the merit of a second God And maybe even now he restored the earth for us-no,We would be happy there again Our star would ascend after all, even if we never entered the throne room of Elohim ourselves I didn't care about any of that anyto take us back”
”But how could he? You said-”
”I know And if I had thought about it at the time, I would have known it was impossible He could no sooner welcohteous, perfect And we, as we had becoed No, that's a pallid euphemism for the truth, which was this: We were ruined More ruined than the wasted earth e-before Still, we hovered nearby, hopeful, waiting to see ould beco to see what El would create for him The earth, after all, was his”
He was quiet for several minutes before he said softly, ”It was trearden We knee expected, though there really was no reason for El to reproduce it And he didn't; this was an entirely different work, this new Eden Earth and water, deep and mountain We watched, despite ourselves, fascinated hat Elwith our vast minds to anticipate the is that sprang up froreat wash of green”
”It was a novelty to you,” I said, alarden but a rich and lush neorld, tee with life! Who could have fathomed such delicate complexity? It awed us And for another reason, too: All those strange green things had within them the power to create, to reproduce, each of theine! Iine!”
It had never occurred to ht seem to a race of finite number
”I was enthralled by the veins on the back of leaves, by the seeds growing inside fruit and pod,” he said, lifting his hands froh to hold-as he ers, each pod, broken apart to reveal the seeds within ”The sticky pollen on the stamens It was bizarre It esome This was beyond your science fiction to us I had never even dreas And by the look on Lucifer's face, neither had he
”There were new and foreign bodies in the heavens now, too, their courses precharted for nant, moved by the pull of the new moon I was instantly in love and left the others to walk by the ht I stood by the shore and watched the tides leave their skeletal treasures on the sand, lulled by the rhythm of a world that seemed to say, Be at peace; know that I Aed for it, for all that ithin it, and to be a part of it” I longed for it, for all that ithin it, and to be a part of it”
We had turned off Me at the scratched Plexiglas divider between us, seeing in its surface the mottled white of the moon, when a Lexus abruptly cut in front of us Lucian hit the breaks and flashed a distinct bird over the steering wheel
”Don't do that!” I said, alarun!”
”He doesn't have a gun,” he said, and flashed it again Some time after the car had sped on ahead, the dereat lass and all the sands within it Sands within an hourglass are measured a closed set, a finite amount And they were now set in motion I would never look at the heavens the same; where I once saw the artful strew of El's stars, I no the cogs and pendulu the finite measure of time”
”Who says time has to be finite?” I studied hiainst one te a history that was not his I wondered if it was the deht off the hanger
”Things with beginnings also have ends The beginning of tilass to , every grain one in a too-li and lost forever I understood that things now and hereafter set in s of consequence, of inevitability The passing of every moment since has disconcerted me See the clock on the dash?” He tapped it ”You're deaf to it, to the death of each second But I aht his fixation with tiht I understood the preoccupation, the co Every timepiece I had ever seen him wear had been expensive Was it that time was precious?
And to think that in the last year I had done nothing but pass ti first days and then weeks andout the pain, waiting for clarity and direction, waiting for the day that so for clarity and direction, waiting for the day that so had
The deering his watch with ers capable of ”I didn't understand it yet, of course I was preoccupied, if unsettled Each new day brought neonders to Eden The next day El spoke again, and the water swar about fish-fish and birds?” I saw the distinct ie ofaniotten until thislike thee and alien creatures, swih the sky So queer and diverse Even Lucifer watched, stark eyed, beside hile accord that we had once shared, that he coveted this strange neorld and all the things inside it He had wanted to be a God, but in that moment I believe he re blow! El did so he had never done before: He blessed thes spoken, even to Lucifer, and he had been the anointed one Coveted words! And then, to these creatures, these base and strange new things, he gave license to create ine!” Iine!”
In the rearview mirror I saw fever in his eyes
”These were no Gods-no spiritual beings even-these creatures creatures But they had been given the power to create” But they had been given the power to create”
I had never seen him this emotional
”We had no such power! They had been blessed We had no such blessing Can you understand?”
”Maybe,” I said, thinking how a firstborn -how I had felt at the birth of my sister when I was six years old
”That day,” he said, at a stoplight now, his hand a fist on his chest, ”another new thing sprouted, this tied heart By nightfall, jealousy had wound its tendrils throughme from the inside From Lucifer's face I kneas not the only one
”And noith the passing of another day, there cas, ic they should have been miserable-censored, conde, to fly and not swim I wanted theeness and variety And they ate things”
He chuckled, but the sound was hollow ”Never before had we seen such a pheno things for the sake of a too- We watched thereen, leaf and branch, fruit and seed, even the tiny plankton of the sea-all devoured by bodies with appetites we did not understand So strange, so novel We couldn't get enough of it”
I thought back to the coffee in the cafe, the scone at the bookstore, and the de me Even in the tea shop, he hadn't drunk from his cup but watched me lift it to my lips so intently I had wondered if he had poisoned it
”Yes!” He laughed ”So now you knohy I will never tire of watching you consus”
This struck me as deviant as a foot fetish ”Then why don't you ever eat?”
His expression sloisted In the rearview mirror, I saw acid leak into his eyes ”Because it all tastes like the dirt dirt you coainst the seat, startled into silence as he drove on, eyes boring into the road before us
We entered a residential area of large, rolling yards Iron fences enclosed wooded drives, old elates I recognized this Bele I had attended a party here at the family home of a friend-of-a-friend I had been struck by the sheer size of the house, awed by the French table clocks, chinoiserie secretaries, and any sideboards that whispered ”heirloom” and ”old money,” each of them at anachronistic odds with the modern security syste beer bottle on top of a Queen Anne table and I had discretely re
For years I returned whenever I found abled roofs and columned porticoes, the dark shutters and diaht up at work, I would pull out one of my own manuscripts and finish it And when that day caure advance and movie deal-I would buy a place here whereWheels in front of the garage, where our two family cars-one of them an SUV and the other an Audi sedan-were parked inside When the kids were old enough, they could go off to the local private school, complete with its own ice-hockey rink
I indeed finished theHoht the house The first book sold fewer than 3,500 copies, and the series was cancelled after the release of the second Had it stayed in print long enough, I was sure it would have done better, but the unsold copies returned too quickly, their shelf space surrendered to higher volume tenants