Cain's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Cain stood at the edge of his brother's field and watched the smoke rise straight and clean. Abel's lamb had burned on the altar that morning, and the smell of it still hung in the air. Cain's own offering had been grain, and it had smoldered low and gray. He pressed his dirt-caked hands together. He wanted only one thing now: to know why God loved Abel's gift and not his own. The wanting burned worse than any fire. He walked until the fields ended and the dry ground began. There he stopped, because a man sat on a flat stone as if he had always been there. The man wore black. A short cape hung off one shoulder, red beneath. He turned long knife over in his hand, slow, and his eyes caught the light and threw it back red. "You smell like burnt wheat," the man said. "He didn't want it." Cain's throat went tight. "Who are you?" "I'm the one who asked the same question you're asking." The man did not look up from the knife. "Why him. Why not me." He smiled with no warmth. "I'm Lucifer. I got close to His throne. Closer than anyone. Then I fell." Cain should have run. Something in him held still instead. "Abel did nothing better than me," he said. "He tends sheep. I break the ground with my hands." "I know." Lucifer stood. He was not tall, but the air around him seemed to lean toward him. "You work harder. You bleed more. And still the favor goes to your brother." He stepped close. "That's not justice. That's a choice someone made. Choices can be unmade." "How?" The word came out before Cain could stop it. Lucifer studied him. "You already know how. You've known since the smoke went the wrong way." He pointed the knife past Cain, toward the field where Abel still worked. "The favor follows the brother. Remove the brother. The favor has nowhere left to go but you." Cain's hands shook. "He's my brother." "Yes." Lucifer said it flat, as if it settled the matter. "That's why it will work." Cain looked back at the field. Abel was kneeling among the lambs, calm, unhurt, loved. The jealousy rose until it crowded out every other thought. He did not decide. He simply began to walk toward his brother, and his feet would not stop. Lucifer did not follow. He sat back down on the stone and watched, the way a man watches a seed he has already planted. Behind Cain, the smoke still rose straight and clean. Ahead of him, Abel lifted his head and smiled, and did not understand yet why Cain's face had changed.