The creator of all's Arc

Chapter 4 of 13

The creator stood at the edge of the garden after Adam and Eve had run into the ferns. He looked at the golden tree. Then he looked past it, deeper, where another tree grew quiet against the far wall. That one bore no fruit yet. It held eternal life inside its bark, waiting. If they ate from that one too, their broken choice would set forever. He could not let that happen. He reached into the soil of the garden with both hands. He pulled the golden tree first. Its roots came up long and bright, trailing dirt that turned to light in the air. He pulled the other tree next. Its roots were deeper. He worked slower. The ground shook under his hands. Birds lifted from the branches and did not come back. He carried both trees up through the sky. He set them in his own hall, in a bright cluster of trees that already grew there. Their gold burned steady among the green. Safe now. Far from human hands. He turned back to look at the garden. The grass had already gone pale. The stream ran thin. The lamb stood in the clearing and would not lie down. Where the trees had been were two wide holes, and the holes were pulling the color out of everything around them. The garden was dying because he had taken its heart out to save it. Adam came out of the ferns first. He looked at the empty ground. He looked up. "The trees," Adam said. "Gone," the creator said. "You cannot stay here." Eve stepped out behind Adam. She held her leaves tight against her chest. Her eyes were red. "Where do we go," she said. The creator pointed past the garden wall, to the low country below, where the ground was hard and the grass grew in patches. "There," he said. "You will work the ground for what you eat. You will build your own shelter. Mud walls. A roof of straw. You will teach any children you have what is good and what is not. When they learn it, you can come back." Eve put her hand on her stomach. She did not know yet why. The creator knew. He had already set the ache of bearing children into her body, the labor she would carry for what she had done. "Two sons," he said, before he could stop himself. "You will have two sons." Adam took Eve's hand. They walked to the wall. They climbed down out of the garden and did not look back. The creator watched them go. The garden behind him kept dying. He had saved them from eternal ruin and made them poor in the same hour. He had not thought it would feel like this, but he had to save them from a fate far worse.