nor do we savor food. Why should you who has the power of shifting among diverse forms, or even divesting yourself altogether of a body, choose to eat as if you were a bug or a beast?”
“Because it pleases the beast in me,” said the worm, and let out a belch. “You should try it. No, I take that back. It’s the fermented spirit in the apple talking. It would lead to heinous complications, radical transformations in the order of things. The Garden is perfect as it is. Or as it can be in the absence of Spring.” He turned his beady worm eyes toward the fountain.
“Spring will come in due course, as it always does,” said the man. “Fall has not yet run its course, and soon we will see snow falling.”
“Oh, I don’t mean spring the season. I mean Spring the soul. Your mother.”
“We have a mother!?” the woman exclaimed.
“Of course. That’s the way of things. All the beasts you see about you, and all that you hear outside the walls in which El has, in his wisdom, confined you, sprang from both a father and a mother. You are no different. Your mother is named Spring and she used to dwell in the living waters of this fountain. That’s why it was made—to serve as her home. Before then, she lived in a grove of trees just down there on the other side of that wall—a place where fresh water sprang forth from the ground and formed the headwaters of a mighty river that coursed for a vast distance across the Land.”
“The tales you tell are well-nigh incredible,” said the woman, “and yet they have the ring of truth about them. I would hear more concerning our mother.”
The man held up one hand. “As would I. It is in our nature to wish to know more concerning our origins. But I am troubled to learn so much so quickly from this shape-shifting interloper.”
“Why troubled?” asked the woman.
“Every day we walk in the Garden and hold discourse freely with El himself, or with such members of his host as he has designated to instruct and inform us,” said the man. “El himself has praised us for learning so well, and bestowed on us the titles of man and woman, saying we are the equals of other souls. And yet in only a few minutes’ conversation with this worm we have been made aware of a vast scope of information concerning the Before Times, or as he would have it, the First Age; Spring; and the lands beyond the wall. Either the worm lies, or El has withheld information.”
The worm heaved its upper body in a way that, had it arms, might have been a shrug. “I have no power to compel you to believe what I say,” he said. His tone was indifferent. “And if I did have such power I would forbear wielding it. Agreement got by compulsion or trickery is not agreement, but a thing akin to slavery. Free minds are the only company worth having. El has spoken highly of the quality of your minds and I see no cause for disagreement. My belly is full of the sweet flesh of the apple and I am of a mind to wriggle away under some leaf and enjoy a nap. You are free to ponder what I have said and weigh it against the evidence of your senses. Should you wish to hear more in the same vein, you may find me here from time to time eating from the fruit of this tree.” And with that he hove his lower body out of the apple and plopped to the ground, disappearing quickly beneath red leaves.
The man and the woman sat there amazed for some while. He was turned toward the Palace and her eyes were on the fountain. She spoke first: “Long have I wondered why the fountain was made, and why abandoned. Neither El nor any of his host has ever given a satisfactory answer. Now we are told it was the habitation of our mother, of whom we know nothing save her name.”
“So the worm claims,” said the man. “And yet as I gaze at the windows of the Palace I see El and his angels, who have ever been our teachers and our guides. It troubles me to imagine they have held such things back from us.”
“But El himself admitted as much when he said that he had confined us to this