Lucifer's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

Lucifer climbed out of Hell on foot, as he had sworn. The road burned under him, then cooled, then turned to grass. He came at last to the garden. Green covered everything. A river ran clear. In the center stood a dark tree with twisting branches, its bark carved with faint glowing marks. Its fruit held every secret God had ever hidden. Lucifer knew he could not walk in and take it. The woman guarded it without knowing she did. God had set her here, whole and content, beyond his hand. He needed her to choose the tree herself. He watched Eve for a long time. She had dark eyes and moved without fear. She spoke to the man, Adam, and laughed. She touched the branches of the great tree but never the fruit. God had told her not to eat it. She obeyed because she loved him. That love was the wall Lucifer could not climb. He could not force her. He could only turn her. So Lucifer made himself small. He poured his shape into a slender green snake and slid into the low branches. His scales caught the light. He waited until Eve came near the tree alone. "You look at the fruit," he said, "but you never taste it." Eve stopped. Her eyes went wide. "A snake that speaks." "I speak because I ate," Lucifer said. "The tree gives knowledge. Why would he keep that from you unless he feared it?" "He said we would die," Eve answered. "You will not die." Lucifer curled closer along the branch. "You will see. You will know good from evil, as he knows it. He does not want you to be his equal. He wants you to stay small and grateful." Eve looked at the fruit. She looked at the tree's carved and glowing bark. Lucifer saw the doubt open in her like a crack in stone. She reached up. Her fingers closed on the fruit. She pulled it free and bit. Juice ran down her chin. Nothing struck her. No fire, no death. She turned and called for Adam, and Lucifer watched the man take the fruit from her hand and eat. The garden changed at once. The light dimmed. The clear river darkened. Adam and Eve looked at their bare bodies and covered them, ashamed. A cold wind moved through the branches. Somewhere above, Lucifer felt the eyes of God turn toward the garden. He had done it. The woman had chosen. The wall was broken. Lucifer slid down from the tree, triumph hot in his chest. But the wind carried a new weight, heavy and near. God was coming down into the garden himself. Lucifer had turned God's first woman, but he had not planned to still be here when the maker arrived. The garden gates would close. Now he had to escape the very place he had worked so hard to enter.