Read Eve: A Novel for Free Online

one thing was certain: men were unpredictable and dangerous.
    Though John talked a lot, he also seemed hesitant about divulging too much information. Perhaps he was concerned about overwhelming her or initiating another seizure. It was a delicate dance, a waltz with two lives inextricably connected and yet warily keeping their distance.
    Just as her scratchy grunts and incoherent groans had replacedthe blinks of yes and no, these too gave way to little whispers that left her mouth as sharp breaths.
    “My name is Lilly,” she rasped one day as soon as she heard John step into the room. “Lilly Fields. I remember.”
    “Well, hello, Lilly Fields,” exclaimed John. “That is a wonderfully picturesque name. Much better suited to you than Egypt. Not that I have anything against Egypt.”
    “Egypt?”
    “In the container where you were found—where I found you—were files and photos. The closest we could come to ascertaining your identity were documents with a picture that referred to you as Egypt, obviously an alias. You look more like an island girl than a desert one anyway, although according to the Healers you have genetic markers from people in both regions.”
    “Thanks, I think.”
    “So I’m curious.” John came within view. “What brought your name back to you?”
    “A dream,” she offered, “or hallucination. Not sure.”
    “Ah, more dreams. That’s good. Anything you want to tell me about them? You seem to have a lot.”
    Lilly thought for a moment before answering, “No. They’re confusing.”
    How could she tell him what she didn’t understand? She felt herself withdrawing. Lilly had no explanations for babies and beginnings or for a wondrous but unfamiliar black woman named Eve who claimed to be her mother, or the certainty that she was just spinning toward the edges of insanity.
    That night, when sounds were hushed and lights had dimmed, Lilly had a sense of being outside, looking up into the sweep of stars. Distant lights pulsed into the darkness of her prison and occasionally roamed across the sky in some great, confident dance. Like an aurora the display rose and fell without predictable patterns. The movements blossomed and stirred distinct emotions about what she had seen with Eve—the deep and thickening dark, and then the most beautiful of unfoldings.
    She rode the currents between wakefulness and sleep, but each time she edged toward rest’s shore, the tiny cry of an infant would wake her anxiety.
    She imagined overhearing voices in a late-night conversation. As the pendulum swung between night and day, thin bits of memory began to visit Lilly, but they never stayed.
    “Now come and see,” a woman said, once more taking both of Lilly’s hands in hers.
    “Eve?” Lilly snapped awake.
    The woman laughed and wrapped Lilly into her embrace. “Dear one,” she whispered, “you are alive and I am the Mother of the Living. You must witness with me the child who occupies so much of your thoughts.”
    Again, Lilly felt as if she was stepping through a black and engulfing drape that separated times and worlds, the dark barrier between the Refuge and Beginnings, and the moment Lilly pierced the divide, Eve again released her hand. They stood side by side, behind them the curtain of light and water.
    “The baby?” Lilly asked, taking a step toward the spot where he had been taken from the earth.
    Atouch on her shoulder gently stopped her. At that same moment Eternal Man, who sat before the boundary, lifted his smiling face. He held the unmoving newborn, wrapped in a swaddling of glorious light, to His chest. He looked directly at Lilly, and she felt His peace wash through and over her. For an instant that single look relieved her of grief and whispered possibilities. Then she looked away and shrugged it off.
    The attending Wind and the Energy that tumbled through the wall gathered round the Man. The three formed a single face that leaned to kiss the child, but it was more than the touch of