The Firefly Witch Read Online Free Page B

I’ll be there. You’re never alone.” She lay her head on my shoulder with a sleepy smile.
    ***
    Journal entry (continued):
     
    I spent the morning in the West Tennessee University library following my one clue: the spirit’s odd statement about “secretions and blood.” It rang a distant bell in my memory.
    Many books mentioned Adam’s first wife, the infamous mother-of-demons Lilith, but only obscure Jewish scholars, in passing references to the Talmudic commentary known as the Midrash, made any mention of another wife between Lilith and Eve. I was surprised, in a way, because she seemed the exact opposite of Christ: Jesus was the “son of man,” rejected by mankind, while this nameless woman was the daughter of God, rejected first by Adam, then by God himself. Feminists should love this story, but my research found so little evidence I’m sure most of them have never heard of it. The very reason for Adam’s rejection--God created the woman right before his eyes, and he was disgusted at her fluid- and tissue-filled body--seemed relevant to contemporary sexual differences.
    The undergraduate assigned to assist me for the day expressed her opinion that the Nameless Virgin, as one source called her, was part of a logical patriarchal progression. First Lilith, created at the same time as Adam, and rejected because she believed herself his equal (famously telling him, “I will not lie beneath you,” and choosing damnation over subjugation); then the Nameless Virgin, whose creation, identical to Adam’s, disgusted him; and finally Eve, created from Adam and clearly subservient to him. Also mighty convenient for blame, the girl added. I told her that her observations were very astute.
    There was nothing for it but to call the spirit again. But this time, I would take no chances, for I knew the power involved.
    ***
    I took a late lunch, because I wanted to meet Tanna after her session in the library. She seemed really happy to see me, and as we walked across campus to the cafeteria, I knew all the men watched her. I felt really proud, and not a little smug.
    I got us some coffee and joined her by the big window that looked out across the four dormitories. “So what have you been doing?” I said.
    “Trying to identify the spirit I contacted last night.”
    “Any luck?”
    “That depends on how open your mind is.”
    “My dad always said he could see straight through, ear to ear.”
    She giggled. I’d known a lot of girls who laughed, but Tanna giggled like a little girl, a huge contrast to her normal intensity. I found it, like everything else about her, irresistible.
    “Okay. This spirit mentioned Paradise and a Creator, and she came to me in a Christian church, so I started with Judeo-Christian legends. Did you know Adam had more than one wife?”
    I nodded. “Before Eve, there was...Lilith, right?”
    “Right. But some sources say there’s a third one, between Lilith and Eve.”
    “What’s her name?”
    “She never had one.” Tanna then told me this incredible story about Adam being repulsed because he’d watch God create this chick, and knew about all the stuff inside her--blood, fluid, sloppy internal organs and so forth--completely ignoring the fact that all this stuff was inside him.
    “So how does this tie in with--?” I prompted when she finished.
    “Well...this poor creature, this Nameless Virgin, was destroyed by the God who’d created her, apparently mere moments after being created. And that makes her the first person to die, if you buy into the mythology.”
    “But...you’re not a Christian,” I pointed out.
    “No. But if I’ve learned one lesson well, it’s that all paths are sacred. Christians see Deity as God, Wiccans as the Lord and Lady. Same being, different names and faces. And biology backs up the single-ancestor theory of mankind; random DNA samples from everywhere in the world show a common distant ancestor, for all people, a female. An Eve. And if there was an