An excerpt from The Last Eden (unedited)

A Dream of Lilith

At first, all I can see is her. She appears so much larger than any woman I’ve seen before, and if I were corporeal beside her, she’d dwarf me, or maybe I’m wrong because she is so beautiful and the world seems so new and she is very, very alone. She’s naked, her breasts heavy and full and her stomach rounded and maybe she’s pregnant, but if so, it’s early. Her eyes are dark and wild and her hair the same, black and red, hanging in snarls and curls down her back. There is a large wolf by her side, protective, and an owl flitting ahead, like a lookout, pausing in branches until she draws near and then bursting into flight again. She seems sad, determined, lost. Her body is strong, she can walk for miles, maybe days. She is not hungry, not tired. She is humming, a light tune, I catch it like a whisper of a lullaby and I realize it is to comfort herself, perhaps her baby, perhaps her babies.

I begin to decipher thoughts, a language I don’t know but the ideas that I understand, a voice that sounds like the silent voice in my own mind but it’s not mine. She has left something behind, maybe someone, maybe everything, but she sees clearly and her connection to the Source is far more powerful than mine will ever be. She is following her purpose, its path invisible to me but not to her, it seems as she knows exactly where to go. With a sense of great loss, she knows she must leave the safety of everything she has known. She is of the First, but not the only, none of them are, most still having no idea that the rest of the world stretched before them in its beauty and terror, and she must leave him behind, she must go forth and find others, she must protect the life- lives?- growing inside her, and she is instinctively protective, a she-wolf, a tigress. There is no going back, the loss is grief, it is pain, it is consuming, and she puts one foot in front of the other. She will be walking a long time. There is nothing but time.  

She wonders if he will miss her. The taste of fruit is still on her lips, she ate her fill, she may never be hungry again, she certainly has had no need for sustenance since she walked away. She is full. The air around her feels like a thunderstorm, and she knows somehow she passed a test, she was bold, she was willing, and she didn’t even tell him about it. It was not for him. She remembers how she felt, as though her face was caressed, as if she could hear “my daughter” and the voice was fond, but the cost was everything she knew, in return for knowing so much more.

Her lupine companion peered into the shadows of the trees and she realized she has been followed, that he is still coming after her, perhaps still entranced by the enchantment that seems to follow her, a song of energy, a promise of potential. But he was not right for her, she felt it in her core, she was second to none and equal to all and nothing else would please her. Anything else would be a prison and so she walked, hurried away, with a pet on her wolf’s head. With his eyes full of understanding, her beast would not kill him, but keep him at bay and she hoped this was not goodbye, not to her wolf, anyway. She was done with any other goodbyes. She had already heard, carried on an errant breeze, the laughter of another woman, its sound beauty in itself and delight, and it reinforced her knowing– this is not my home. This is not where I belong. I must wander. I must keep wandering. I may never stop.

I feel connected to her, I can taste the sweetness on her tongue, it is tart, her chin had been covered in juices and she had felt wild, like lifeblood itself had dripped from her mouth. She smiles like she knows I am here, she feels at peace, she feels, suddenly, less alone. She meets my gaze squarely and as she smiles, my breath is taken away, and then I feel, physically, a snapping and I am alone again, the world a haze of color and time, and then I am awake, in my room, in the dark, but the not so dark, as there is still light from my clock and the hallway light outside my door, still on,  so it is gray and tinged blue and thousands of years have passed in an instant.

My heart is confused, it is sobbing; it feels like my mother has left me again. My heart is racing as if I had a nightmare, as if I were in danger, but I’m not, not now, not here in my bed with the blankets heavy across my body and my front door locked to the night. For a moment, I catch a sense of the Other, its frustration, its need to recapture something it believes it has lost. It has a different sense of balance. I think its balance is skewed. Perception. I will fight. I will win. I have a warrior spirit in my blood, and I know this in my core, but the dream is fading until all I remember are flashes- her eyes, her wolf, her determination, her sacrifice.

In the morning, I try to tell Granna of my dream, but my memory is hazy and my description lacking even to my own ears. It doesn’t matter. Granna nods, gratified, as if she has been waiting, as if this was something she had anticipated for some time.

“So you have seen her, too,” Granna says.

“Who is she?” I ask the question but I think I am anticipating the answer myself. This conversation is fated. I already know.

“Lillith,” she says. “As far as I can guess, you have seen Lilith. We all see her eventually.”

Copyright © Heather Senz. All rights reserved. This excerpt has been taken from my novel in progress, The Last Eden.