Eve: In the Beginning Read Free Page B

There is no mist today.”
    Adam is silent, but he puts an arm around my shoulder. Even though it’s too hot to be touching much, I let his arm remain. Soon enough we step into the cooler shade of the trees. The river on the northern end runs deep and wide. Both of us like to swim like the river fish.
    Adam splashes me as we step into the river, and I laugh and dive under the water. I come up near him and tug him in with me. He swallows a mouthful of water and surfaces with a sputter. I quickly swim toward the opposite bank before he can dunk me.
    But Adam is faster than I am, and he easily overtakes me. I scream as he pulls me beneath the water again, and I manage to wriggle away. I stay underwater as long as possible, letting the current carry me along the bank. When I resurface, Adam is dozens of paces upstream.
    At first I think he’s laughing. Then I realize he is calling out to me. He dives into the river and swims toward me. I wade onto the bank and sit down, waiting for him to arrive, my toes dipped into the water.
    I can’t read Adam’s expression when he rises out of the water, but he is by my side in an instant. “You shouldn’t have gone this far without me,” he says, still breathless from swimming.
    “The current is fast,” I say with a shrug of my shoulder.
    “Eve,” he says, his tone serious.
    I sigh and look over at him. “Just tell me what’s wrong, Adam. Why are you behaving like this? What are you worried about?”
    He runs a hand through his soaking hair, and water droplets fall onto his shoulders. He is stalling, and I wonder why he has to think about talking to me.
    “Has Elohim told you something?” I press.
    “No,” he says quickly. “Elohim hasn’t visited me without your knowledge.”
    It’s been at least one moon cycle since Elohim has appeared. I brush off beads of water clinging to the hairs on his arm. “Why can’t you tell me?”
    “I can,” he says, but his voice is reluctant. “It’s just that I’m not sure of what I saw — if it was anything.”
    “By the tree?” I ask in a quiet voice.
    He nods.
    Then he did see something too. We are silent for a moment.
    When I reach for his hand, I say, “We should explore the garden, see if there are any changes.”
    Adam meets my gaze and squeezes my hand. “You really want to go to the borders, don’t you?”
    I hide a smile. “Only if it would make you feel better.”
    “It might,” he says, and I can see the smile in his eyes. He pulls me to my feet, and we start walking toward the second river. My heart pounds in anticipation. The sky is clear blue, and there is no wind. It’s a perfect day to see into the wilderness beyond.
    “Do you think we’ll be able to catch a glimpse of the sea?” I ask. One of our blessings from Elohim is that Adam and I have dominion over the fish of the sea. But in the garden, there are only rivers.
    Adam chuckles. “Perhaps. Or perhaps not.”
    “What kinds of fish do you think are in the sea?”
    “They are probably much like the ones in the rivers,” he says, his voice ever patient.
    I hear the cattle before I see them. They are scattered quite far from one another today, lowing quietly when not feeding on grass. Adam and I walk among them, stroking their backs and talking to them as if they could reply.
    I love spending time with the gentle cattle, but I’m more interested in visiting the borders today. The grass grows higher near the line of trees, and as Adam and I walk through the trees, I relish the cool shade. My hair is still damp from the river. The birds stop their chattering as Adam and I pass by, and I wonder if they have ever been past the borders. Do the birds follow Elohim’s commandments as well?
    Adam and I stop at the low stone wall that Adam built before I was created. It circles the entire Garden of Eden and has never been crossed by either of us. “There is nothing out there for us,” Adam has told me many times.
    I place both hands atop the rock wall,