Fallen. David Maine

hadn’t always hated his brother. What child did? The feeling had grown up like a weed, sprouting on soil too harsh to support any more useful fruit. In time it thickened, its stems growing woody and tough. When at last it flowered, its blooms were brilliant red and its perfume carried an acrid tang.

      His father, a fair enough man by most standards, had tried his best with the youngster. But as the years passed and the family accumulated children one after another, even Adam had proved unequal to the task of adequately loving his firstborn.

      As for Cain’s mother, well. Cain can barely remember her face.

      So then: maybe he is the original misanthrope. The thought does not exactly warm him, but it doesn’t scare him either. He has many reasons to scorn the bulk of humanity, and feels no shame for it. But what about his son? Will he scorn Henoch as much as he has scorned nearly everyone else? Does he want to?

      The thought pains his stomach. It’s not true . . . he doesn’t think.

      The boy adds another handful of green twigs to the fire. He catches Cain watching him and demands, What?

      Cain blinks.—Sorry?

      —You’re staring at me again.

      —Just thinking.

      —Think someplace else then.

      —That’s enough! snaps Zoru.

      Such cheek! And it can’t all be blamed on the boy’s illness. Had Cain ever dared to speak so disrespectfully to his own father?

      Well, yes. Often in fact.

      Cain looks away, grinning in spite of himself. Better that the boy has spirit than be a toadying foot-licker, like some he could mention.

      He sets aside his worries. How could he ever scorn Henoch? It’s normal enough to grow a bit impatient with the boy from time to time. Or so he hopes. But to banish Henoch from his sight, the way his own father banished him—the very idea causes his insides to clench up. He could never do such a thing.

      But an insistent voice nags: Had Adam felt the same? Cain remembers their conversation on the night Adam revealed his origins.—I would never send you away, he had said. And Cain had urged, But just suppose.

      —Never, repeated Adam.

      Now another gust of smoke tightens Cain’s throat. Liar, he thinks bitterly. Lying son of a bitch.

      Never have I beheld such an abomination. . . .

      Zoru slides a fat-bellied fish onto each of their plates.—Your father says we’ll stay here and wander no longer.

      The boy turns moss-green eyes on him.—It’s true?

      Cain nods.

      They eat for a time in silence. Cain steals glances at his son, who appears distracted and flushed. Small pink spots prickle his arms and cheeks and Cain has a sudden vision of his boy as one of those thin, bandy-legged men who never grow into any vitality. Something like Cain’s own father in fact. He fervently hopes this isn’t true.

      Picking at his food without interest, Henoch gazes about in a constant review of his surroundings. He so resembles a sparrow guarding its nest that Cain smiles again.

      The boy overlooks nothing: he remarks this too.—What?

      —You seem most interested in your new home, Cain tells him.

      His face is grave.—It’s my first.

      —True enough, Cain nods.

      —It’ll be different to stay in one place, says Zoru.—But you’ll get used to it.

      The boy nods eagerly.—I’m tired of wandering.

      Zoru’s eyes hook Cain’s for a moment before pulling away. Momentarily he feels the sadness of never having asked Henoch: So, what would you like to do? Nor his wife for that matter.

      He bends into the fish, and bones crackle under his teeth. Hot oil slickens his lips.

      No point in regret. If he needed to wander this far, so be it. Nothing to be done about it now. What could be done, though—what he could do—

      Cain lets his gaze rest upon his son. A project of some sort is needed, something to bring them together. After all this time, there is still much they do not know about each other. Too much. And yes, he can hear the malcontent voice in the back of his mind demand, How much can any of us truly know another? To which he answers, That is beside the point. I must make the effort.

      The boy is watching him again.—What now? he demands.—You keep staring at me that way you do sometimes.

      —Think nothing of it, grimaces Cain, turning his attention once more to his supper.

      The boy doesn’t speak. Cain has to wonder what the child means by the way you do sometimes.

      Now is not the moment to broach the subject of a project. Time for that later. They have never lived together in one place as a family, and his own experience in this regard is not encouraging. He must wait and decide how to proceed. He must think carefully. He must hit upon just the perfect plan.

      But first they must all work together to make this wild place a home.

      36 the mistake

      When they wake the goats are gone.

      It is Zoru who finds the tethers bundled at the boy’s feet. The child, barely five years old, sleeps the sleep of the innocent, but his mother stares at the boy in a haze of uncertainty, as if knowing that she must act swiftly, or these may be the last innocent moments of his life.

      Cain watches as she twists the rawhide in her fingers. Her breathing is quick and nervous and she gazes about her like a fluttery squirrel, but Cain has gone to piss behind a screen of hemlocks. As the urine streams out, fury floods in to take its place. Cain voids himself and watches his wife and can almost hear her think: What to do?

      Before she can decide, he is there like a vision. Like a swarm, like rage.—Where are they? he hisses.

      Zoru glances as if baffled.—Where are what?

      The palm of his hand spins her to the ground. Long moments pass before her face rearranges itself into pain. Black spots drip into the brown earth, spreading like spilt wine. There is something satisfying in this. A tormenting voice in his mind keens, More! More!

      Had his father heard such howling?

      —Vex me not, growls Cain. His hands tremble. Part of him wants to vomit in rage and fear. He has not felt this way for a long time.

      Zoru blinks away saltwater and raises her head to see her husband looming over her child. The look on her face suggests that Cain has ceased to be human. In his hand he hefts a gray stone. Zoru screams.

      •

      Cain stands with the stone in his hand. It is a good stone, smoothened by wind and rain till its warm soft curves fit his palm like the skull of a small animal. It feels like a friend. It feels like the stiffest erection in history and something perfectly suited for the job at hand: to pulp the head of a child lying helpless on the ground. It has no sharp edges or brittle corners, nothing to cut flesh, draw blood, make a mess. It will simply stave in the skull of the five-year-old and crush the brain beneath to a useless tangle of sponge. Cain knows perfectly well what the stone will do and how to use it for maximum effect. After all, he has done this before.

      Zoru screams.

      It is a scream to wake the dead: in this case it wakes Henoch, who responds not by screaming in answer or jumping up to flee or diving into his mother’s arms. His response is to lie as still as a lizard on a rock and stare up at his father with almond-shaped eyes the size of hen’s eggs. Moss green those eyes are, like his uncle’s. His dead Uncle Abel whom he’s never met.

      Perhaps his reaction saves his life. Run