Free Eve by Elissa Elliott

backward a safe distance and watched him warily. I barked at Goat to stay away. Goat looked up once, nonchalantly, then resumed her eating.
    The asp had sunk down now, hovering over his coiled body. I knew what damage he could do; I had seen an asp lash out at a sheep once, and at a rat, and they both went into shiverous convulsions such as I had never seen before, foaming at the mouth and contorting in the body. I had enough problems—I didn’t need to be shriveled by asp venom.
    Curious, I hunched down and squatted, the better to watch him. The distance between us was such that I was not frightened. With the sky whitening, I could see the veins running through his black hood, his yellowish-brown stripes. His body was fluid, like the rope Abel used with his flocks, and the smooth warm sheen of his scales reminded me of the yellow jewelry that ringed the visiting strangers’ limbs.
    Mother had told us about the serpent in the Garden: not really a serpent at first but a man, like Father and my older brothers, a robust man with quick flirting eyes and a smile that unnerved her. He was too eager to please, a little arrogant and crass—thrilling, to say the least. This serpent was the end product, the thing that was cursed to go around on his belly, right before Mother and Father were thrust from the Garden. Very clever, Mother said. Very interesting, Mother said. Very beguiling, Mother said. She had said this all, in my opinion, very wistfully.
    “Lucifer,” I whispered. For that is the name Mother said he went by. “Lucifer.”
    The asp rose up again and hissed. He wound his body tighter, as if to strangle the ground.
    I was not afraid. If Mother could entertain him, then I could too. “Lucifer, if that’s you in there, why don’t you speak? I know who you are.”
    The asp grew still.
    “Mother has told me all about you and the Garden and how youtricked her into eating of the fruit. Well, Mother’s not so smart. She’s quite gullible, if you want to know the truth. Especially if she’s told she’s pretty.” I stared at him, willing him to speak to me. “Works every time.”
    He cocked his head like Goat does when I’m talking to her, curious.
    “You knew exactly what you were doing,” I said. “I am not so dumb. I am not so easily tricked.”
    Still, the asp did not move.
    I continued. “What I want to know is: What transpired in the Garden? I find it hard to believe that this Elohim who created Mother and Father would purposely test them, to see if they loved Him well enough. Were you part of the plan? Did Elohim and you have an agreement?” I traced the outline of Mother’s tree in the sand as I spoke. “You know what I think? You and Elohim had a fight, and you were full of vengeance and ill will, and who was there but Mother and Father, Elohim’s beloved, and you thought: Well, now, there’s an idea! Sully their hands; spoil their allure. Then Elohim would have nothing.” I paused, let this sink in.
    The asp’s slanted eyes narrowed.
    “What I find curious too is that, according to Mother, you told the truth. You weren’t lying. Now, how can that be? After all, you were cursed by Elohim. And if you told the truth, does that make Elohim a liar? Or if you told a half-truth, did you simply forget to tell Mother the rest of the story?”
    I finished my drawing in the sand and taunted him with my stick. “You are a wily one. We might have gotten along splen—”
    The asp swung forward, lunging at me, flicking his tail.
    I screamed. I jumped up and caught his head in the fork of my stick and rammed him into the ground. His body shook in the sand, flinging dirt everywhere. I brought a rock down on his head, over and over again, until it was nothing but a flattened fibrous disk. I took great pleasure in this—in fact, I gave a triumphant yell—because I had felt so long that a part of Mother had been destroyed by this creature.
    Then I stood, quiet.
    It occurred to me that I had never taken a life