Children of Corruption

It was swathed in shadows. The garden. Filled with crumbling marble statues and dying rose bushes. 

The torn remnants of Lilith’s wings fluttered in the cold wind. She had grown used to it over the years. It still hurt. But the constant pain had been pushed to the corners of her mind. The kids ran across the stone paths, playing games of tag and hide and seek. With tangled curls falling around their faces, and grubby cheeks red from laughter. Lilith watched on, sitting silently on an iron bench, hands tucked neatly in her lap. 

Heaven had turned its back on them, she would not. 

Heaven had given up on her too. She could remember the day. It was burned in her mind, a constant movie playing in the background of her thoughts. One does not simply forget the day their family looks them in the eye and tells them they are not one of them anymore. 

They had torn off her wings and cast her out like trash. Calling her corrupted. Why? She’d done nothing but show a little empathy. Looked at a bunch of mis-fit children, deemed unworthy of entering the pearly landscape and felt pity. 

But looking at them, something had weighed heavy in her heart. She would do it again. Even knowing the cost. 

Overhead the stormy gray clouds parted. The sudden change caused Lilith to look up, staring at the sky as angels descended into her garden. For the first time in a long time she rose from the bench, standing to meet them. She positioned herself between the choir of angels and her children. A strange warmth filled the cold space as they stood there and Lilith gritted her teeth. This space was not theirs to invade or take for themselves. 

Her black hair lay limply over her shoulder as she moved towards them. Eyes narrowed as she surveyed them, “Yes?” she said. 

The first angel stepped forward, chest puffed out, as if he were important there. He raised his chin, and his blue eyes flicked over her disdainfully.“Stop taking them in Lilith, they are corrupted. They were refused our everlasting grace for a reason.”

He was talking about  her children,who noticed what was happening and had crept together protectively. Clustered in a small huddle, tucked behind a rose bush, its shriveling thorns offering little protection. 

Lilith turned back to the angels, and stood tall, “I am not one of you anymore. you can't tell me what to do. You lost that power when you tore my wings and cast me out,” she said. 

The Angel sighed and shrugged, 

 “I didn’t want to do this, however if you're not going to comply I will have to get Adam to talk to you.” 

Although, something in his expression told Lilith, he had wanted it to go that way.

So she blinked, “Go ahead” she said.

He stepped back as a final angel descended , dark curls flopping around his perfectly carved face and wings and scattering, gold dust across her garden path. He paused and regarded her for a moment.

“Have we met before?” he asked. 

For a fraction of a moment, Lilith wanted to say yes. But she stood there, staring at the man she once loved, and felt nothing for him except the numb rage that had been with her since the moment he cast her out.There was no point loving someone who did not love her back. Or maybe never loved her at all. Males were a fickle thing, in fact, love as a whole was a fickle thing.

“But that is the plight of a woman”, Lilith thought as she glanced back at the children, watching on with wide eyes, ‘the minute we stop giving, they have no use for us, and we are cast aside, replaced and forgotten.’

So she raised her chin, and stared him dead in the eyes, “No,” she said, with a slight shake of her head. 

He huffed, and ran a hand through his dark brown locks as he turned away and surveyed her garden. He shrugged, turning to the other angels with a slight flap of his golden wings. “They're nothing but corrupted children.” 

His eyes were bright with amusement as he stared at them, 

“What do you think they're going to do to us, take over heaven?” 

The angels around him seemed to fumble for an answer. “I'm feeling generous today, boys. Let's leave them to their misery.” 

A small snort escaped her lips. That was another issue with males. He thought he was generous, sparing them from his blood thirsty ways. In fact it was his decisions that had brought them here the first place.

Adam turned around, “Hmm,” he said, examining her, “You’d be pretty if it weren't for your wings.”

His eyes raked over her body as though she were an imperfect possession to be evaluated. Lilith did not open her mouth, she would not give him a reason to be angered. Even as he jerked her chin upwards, causing their eyes to meet.

“Leave her,” the first angel snapped, “She’s corrupted. You will not find pleasure in loving her.” 

How he still didn’t recognize her was a mystery to Lilith. How she had loved this stranger  was another. Centuries worth of memories clung to her as they stared at each other, one angry and the other with a hungry gaze. It would have been something if he only recognised her but males always had been forgetful creatures, when something wasn't of use to them. 

Finally Adam let go of Lilith’s chin, jerking his own at the angels who surrounded them, “Lets go,” he said. 

With a beat of his golden wings he rose into the sky, soaring upwards. They followed after him, ever obedient. Disappearing up into the mass of white clouds that had arrived with them. 

Lilith watched them go. 

“Goodbye Adam,” she thought. 

She blinked as she watched the last trace of gold dust from his wings be swallowed by the garden’s shadows., “I will never forget you, no matter how much I wish I could. I loved you, but loving you was like loving fire, and you consumed everything i gave you then demanded more. I hope you rot in Heaven.”

She turned her eyes back to the angel in front of her. He bared his pearly white teeth in a snarl and she arched an eyebrow as he spat at her feet, “Devil creature. No male will ever love what you’ve become.” 

She pursed her lips, “I hope not,” she replied, “I don’t wish to be touched by their holy hands. Those are what is truly tainted.”

He chose not to answer, instead shooting her one last hateful glare and taking flight. Shooting up into the sky and disappearing skywards. Lilith turned away, looking gently at her children,

“It's alright,” she assured them, “they're gone.” 

And so she sat back down on the iron bench, clasped her hands  neatly in her lap and watched the bright white clouds fade from the sky to be replaced with rolling, gray ones, filled with thunder, and the promise of rain. She gazed as the children resumed playing, eyes bright with excitement and grubby hands reaching out for one another, their shouts fast to fill the air again. 

For the first time in a hundred years Lilith smiled. She did not need Heaven, nor did the children. They had her.

“Heaven can do as they wish, but these children are mine. No one will ever lay a finger on them.”  

It took her a second to notice, but the pain was gone from her tattered wings. 

Around them the garden hadn’t changed, the light of the angels had not lingered long enough to taint it. It was swathed in shadows, their home.