Chapter Four: Shadows Between Sons
It began as small things do—a sigh, a silence, a look that lingered too long. At first, I told myself that brothers would always wrestle, that a shove in the field or a harsh word at supper meant nothing. Sons test their strength the way saplings test the wind. But I knew better. I had seen the same bitterness bloom once before—in the garden, between obedience and desire, between what was commanded and what was craved. I had felt how a single seed of discontent could tear open the world.
Cain's anger grew like a thorn bush: slow at first, almost hidden, then spreading until it took root in everything he touched. It was not the loud rage of storms but the quiet, suffocating kind—like vines creeping over stone. He would come to me after long hours in the field, hands calloused, shoulders tight, eyes shadowed with things he did not want to name.
"The ground mocks me, Mother," he would say, tossing down the tools he had crafted with such pride. "I give it seed, and it swallows it whole. It never yields enough. It never honors my labor."
I tried to soothe him as a mother soothes a fevered child. "The earth yields as it wills, Cain. It remembers the blessing of the Lord, and it remembers the curse. We all labor under both. Do not fight it as if it were your enemy."
But he would only look away, jaw clenched. "Then why does it love Abel more than me?"
Those words pierced deeper than he knew. Abel never boasted, never sought praise, yet his joy carried a quiet radiance that stung his brother like salt on an open wound. The sheep followed him easily, their trust a testament to the gentleness he wore like a second skin. Even the air seemed lighter around him, as though creation itself favored him.
When Abel prayed, he did not kneel out of duty but with an intimacy that sometimes made me long for what I had lost. He spoke to God as if speaking to a dear friend who might answer at any moment, while Cain wrestled for every breath of peace. Cain saw this difference and hardened against it. Every offering he brought to God became a test he feared was failed before it began. He prepared his gifts with precision—grain sorted, fruits arranged, the soil brushed from his hands—yet the fear in him soured everything. He believed he was being measured, weighed, and found lacking.
One evening, as we gathered by the fire for the offering, Cain threw down a handful of grain before the flames. His movements were sharp, almost violent. "If the Lord wants smoke," he muttered, bitterness cracking his voice, "let Him take this." Abel, kneeling beside him, hesitated. The soft moonlight caught his profile—young, earnest, unaware of how his goodness struck his brother like a blow. He arranged his lamb carefully, hands gentle even in the act of sacrifice, whispering a brief prayer of gratitude. The lamb had followed him willingly; even in death it seemed peaceful. I stood back, hands folded against my chest, watching them as I once watched the rivers and birds in Eden, trying to read the signs. I saw how Cain's eyes darkened as the flames caught the lamb first, burning bright and clean, while his offering smoldered heavy and gray. He tried to hide his flinch, but I saw it—the small crack in his spirit widening. That night he spoke little. He ate nothing.
Later, I found him sitting alone where the moon touched the field, the grass silver around him. His posture was tight, a bowstring pulled too far. "He didn't even try, Mother," Cain said when he heard me approach, voice trembling with rage he tried desperately to bury. "He just placed the lamb down, and God looked on him. Always on him."
I knelt beside him, my heart aching with a helplessness I had known since the day we left the garden. "Perhaps, my son, God looks not at the gift but at the heart that gives it."
He flinched as if I had struck him. "Then my heart is never enough."
I reached for his hand, but he pulled away. In that moment, I remembered the serpent's voice—soft, patient, warm like honey. Has God said—? Words that twisted truth until it strangled. I saw the same twisting now in my son's eyes.
The next morning, Abel came to me while Cain worked in the hills. He lingered at the doorway, uncertain, his hands still smelling faintly of sheep's wool. "He frightens me sometimes," Abel admitted, voice low. "He looks at me as if I am the curse."
My hands stilled in the bread dough. How could I explain that curses are not always spoken aloud? That sometimes they are born from wounds no one sees?
"You are not the curse, Abel," I said firmly. "But anger, if it is not tended, can grow more poisonous than any serpent. It can swallow a man whole."
Abel nodded, though I could see he did not truly understand. He had never heard the whisper of temptation in its purest form. He had never bargained with darkness. He had never stood at the edge of choice with eternity waiting on either side.
By evening, the brothers were together again in the field. I watched them from a distance as I ground herbs for supper, their figures small against the widening dusk. Their voices rose and fell on the wind—Abel's calm, Cain's sharp and restless. Sometimes their words blurred into laughter; other times they snapped like twigs underfoot. The sheep grew unsettled and scattered. The ravens perched along the branches became unnaturally still, as if listening. I felt a tightening in my chest, a coldness spreading through me that the sun could not reach. It was the same cold I had felt the day the garden closed behind us. I tried to tell myself that brothers argued. That tomorrow they would be better. That morning dew would soften whatever harshness the day had hardened. But the truth settled over me like ash: something unseen had begun to devour Cain from within. When Adam returned from his tasks, I shared my fears with him. He listened quietly, brow furrowed.
"They are young," he said at last. "Passions burn hot in the young. Cain will find his footing."
I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe that time could heal what pride had broken. But I had known Cain's heart since it first beat beneath mine. He felt deeply, painfully, desperately. When he loved, he loved fiercely. When he desired, he desired wholly. And when he envied—that too consumed him. That night, after the others slept, I walked outside. The stars were vast above me, but they did not comfort as they once had. I knelt and pleaded, not with my lips but with my soul: Lord, guard my sons. Guard the one who shines—and the one who shadows himself to hide the hurt. A soft wind stirred the grass. No answer came.