“You were both meant for more than this, more than this place. You were meant to shape the world to your desires, not to live as a flower in a glass case, perfect and preserved for eternity. You were meant to blossom with an unrelenting ferocity, to rip and tear into this life with your roots. You are both beautiful and raw and imperfect. You deserve everything.”
Heinrich sat up beside me and looked at him steadily. “You could come with us.”
The silence stretched long enough that I thought he wouldn’t answer.
Then he laughed. It was a real laugh, surprised out of him—warm and nothing like thunder. It made him look like something that had once been young.
“No, I think we have seen how that will end,” he replied. “But I will find you. I always do.”
He looked at us one last time, and in his eyes I saw the garden and the snake and every version of this moment that had ever happened, stretching back to the very first one.
“Go on then,” he breathed. “Go and be magnificent. You know what you must do.”
We all rose and he pulled me into a deep kiss. He started gently, his lips meeting mine and caressing me softly. I opened to him, and his tongue captured every part of me, a claiming of more than just my body and soul. His fingers wrapped around the back of my head, sliding between the strands of my hair and pulling me to him even tighter, knowing this was goodbye. I opened my eyes to him glowing with a heavenly light that no mortal was meant to see. I squeezed my eyes shut again, and deep in my stomach, that fear returned. I wasn’t meant for this.
Then he released me, and before I could even catch my breath, he turned.
Heinrich had not moved from where he stood, watching. His face was open in a way I had rarely seen, stripped of its careful composure, something wondering and unguarded in his expression. Our angel gazed at him for a long moment with those ancient, burning eyes, and Heinrich looked back and did not flinch.
Then he crossed to Heinrich and took his face in both hands and kissed him with that same terrible gentleness. Heinrich’s eyes closed. One of his hands came up slowly and gripped the angel by the wrist—not pulling away, just holding on, as if he needed something to anchor him to the earth. I watched the light move beneath our angel’s skin, and I watched Heinrich absorb it without breaking.
When they separated, Heinrich exhaled slowly. He opened his eyes and found mine across the small distance between us, and what was in his face made my chest ache.
Our angel placed his hand on my shoulder, his light dimming as shadows surrounded him once more, and in the next moment his skin shifted and he coiled up my arm. His scales were cool and smooth against my heated skin, his weight familiar and grounding.
“It’s time.”
I reached up toward the weighted branches above, and they bent down until one perfect fruit lay in my palm. I grasped itfirmly, ripping it from the branch. The skin was velvety soft, and I did not hesitate as I sank my teeth into its firm flesh.
The fruit was cloyingly sweet, like everything else here. Thick juice ran down my throat as I bit into it, coating every surface of my mouth in its sugary essence. But as I took bite after bite, something new emerged. Something sharp. At first it was sour, like fresh citrus, and it bled into bitterness like the rind of the same fruit. It cut through the deep unending softness of the sweetness like a jagged knife. The sweetness of the fruit—of my life here—was forever tainted, notes of ash and tannin clinging to my tongue. But I couldn’t get enough.
I ripped into the fruit, tearing it in half with my bare hands. As it split, more juices spilled over my hands and arms, and I was drawn to it like a bee to nectar. I ran my tongue over my arms, tracing the paths the juice had taken. I traced those irresistible lines back up to the fruit. A deep gash ran down its core, overflowing with that undeniable nectar that tasted like honey and ash and sin. My tongue laved around the edges of the soft flesh before diving into the warm center, guiding more and more of the juice down my throat.
“That’s it,” the snake hissed. “Take it all.”
As I consumed, visions raced before my mind. Everything, everywhere, and everyone who had been or would be passed through me, even as I couldn’t hold on. I was taken by the current of knowledge, but I couldn’t stop as I ate more and more of the fruit, until I could not eat any more, and the river of all that was deposited me on its sandy shore, and I lay on the ground panting.
The world slowly reassembled itself around me.
Heinrich was kneeling beside me. His hand was on my face, warm and steady, and his eyes moved over me, worry set in the down-turned corners.
I pushed myself upright. My hands were still sticky with juice, the smell rich and irresistible, and I glanced at him—this man who had stood in the light without breaking, who had been my foundation to grow strong.
I held what remained of the fruit out to him.
He looked at it. Then at me.
He was quiet for a moment. The garden breathed around us, patient.
Then he took it from my hands, and bit into it, and I watched his eyes close as the taste hit him, the moment the sweetness turned, the slight crease between his brows as the bitterness came through, and then the moment after that, when something in his face went very still and very open, as the current took him.
I held his hand while the river carried him, and I did not let go as it pulled us both away.
1 KJV,Luke 6:38
2 KJV, Proverbs 3:10
3 KJV,Malachi 3:10
