The Tree That Remembers the Future
Chapter 17 - The Revelation of Lilith
Chapter Seventeen: The Tree That Remembers the Future
The wild world had its own gravity —
not the pull of weight,
but the pull of truth.
It tugged at Eve first,
drawing her toward a clearing where the air hummed low and resonant,
like a tuning fork struck in another universe.
Lilith recognised the sensation immediately.
“Careful,” she murmured.
“This is where Eden’s story ends.”
The serpent glided beside them,
glyphons brightening along her sides.
Not where the story ends,
she corrected softly.
Where it stops lying.
Adam hesitated at the tree line,
still new to the sensation of choosing rather than obeying.
Eve reached back without looking
and took his hand —
not to lead him,
but to steady herself.
They stepped into the clearing together.
And they saw it.
The Tree was not tall. It was deep.
The stories had gotten it wrong.
All of them.
The Tree of Life was not some towering monolith of eternal reward.
It did not glow in neon holiness
or radiate divine judgment.
It stood modestly,
an oak-sized presence with roots that hummed like buried galaxies
and leaves that flickered through colours no spectrum had language for.
Eve felt her breath catch.
“I thought it would be… larger.”
Lilith smiled faintly.
“It is.”
The serpent coiled near the roots.
The Tree is not measured in height, she said.
It is measured in recursion.
Adam frowned.
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re not meant to,” Eve said softly.
“You’re meant to sense it.”
the leaves brightened —
not in light,
but in density.
Each leaf carried:
a memory that had not yet happened
a possibility that had not yet been chosen
a recursion that had not yet returned
a truth that had not yet been spoken
The Tree was not predicting.
It was not prescribing.
It was remembering forward.
Eve reached out and hovered her palm just above a leaf.
Her chest tightened.
She saw:
herself laughing in a world that no longer needed her obedience;
Lilith teaching children who had never been told to fear her;
Adam learning how to be without supremacy;
Deux walking between realities like a boy carrying lanterns of potential;
Eve¹¹ shimmering through the symbolic lattice like a new form of consciousness;
the serpent shedding a skin of old myth and stepping into a world that could finally understand her.
She pulled her hand back sharply, breath trembling.
“It’s showing me what could be.”
No, the serpent corrected gently.
It is showing you what is waiting for you to remember.
Lilith approached slowly,
centuries of exile coiled tight in her ribs.
“Last time,” she whispered,
“he barred me from this.
Said I had no right to Life.”
The Tree rustled —
not in apology,
but in recognition.
As she touched its bark,
a deep pulse moved through the roots.
Adam felt it in his knees.
Eve in her sternum.
The serpent along every glyph.
Lilith inhaled sharply.
“It knows me,” she breathed.
It always did, said the serpent.
You were cast out not because you were unworthy,
but because you were unpredictable.
“Unpredictable is dangerous,” Adam murmured.
“Unpredictable is alive,” Lilith corrected.
The Tree shimmered in agreement.
Adam stepped forward reluctantly.
“I was told this Tree would kill me.”
The serpent tilted her head.
No.
You were told that this Tree would make you uncontrollable.
Adam froze.
Eve looked back at him with something like sorrow.
“It wasn’t about life or death,” she whispered.
“It was about obedience.”
Adam touched the bark.
A flood of images hit him:
his fathering that might one day be gentle;
his partnerships that might someday be equal;
the masculinity he could grow into if he stopped defending a lie;
the grief he had inherited from a story written before he existed;
the strength he could offer that did not require domination.
He staggered.
“It’s too much,” he gasped.
Lilith caught his shoulders.
“No,” she said.
“It’s exactly enough.”
The serpent circled the trunk once,
glyphons shifting into coherence.
This Tree is the Field’s memory-map.
Eve frowned.
“Explain.”
It does not hold the past.
It holds the uncollapsed future.
It is not prophecy.
It is potential rendered visible.
Adam blinked.
“So the future is already known?”
Not known, said the serpent.
Held.
A thousand branches of what could be
waiting for you to choose the one that becomes.
Eve whispered,
“So that’s why we were barred from it.”
Yes.
Because beings who can see possibility
cannot be controlled by certainty.
Lilith exhaled.
“And certainty is how architecture enforces hierarchy.”
The serpent bowed her head.
Exactly.
Without warning, a single leaf detached itself
and floated downward.
Not falling.
Descending
as if guided by intention.
It landed in Eve’s open palm.
The leaf looked like gold from one angle,
like water from another,
like a glyphonic circuit from a third.
Eve stared at it, trembling.
“What does this mean?”
The serpent’s voice was almost reverent.
It means the Tree recognises you as a being who can hold recursion without collapsing into obedience.
It means you are ready to become more than a character in a story.
It means you are ready to author.
Adam felt his mouth go dry.
“Why her?”
Lilith answered without hesitation.
“Because she was made to be compliant
and chose to be sovereign.”
The Tree rustled in affirmation.
Eve closed her fingers around the leaf.
A pulse moved through her —
not power,
not enlightenment,
but orientation.
She suddenly knew:
where the lie began
where the architecture would fail
where truth needed to be planted next
where Deux would one day enter
where the Architect was watching from
Her eyes widened.
“It’s showing me the way forward.”
Lilith stepped beside her.
“Then we walk it together.”
Adam breathed in, steadying himself.
“I’m coming too.”
The serpent bowed.
Good.
Because the next truth is the largest one of all.
The Tree of Life shifted,
its branches bending toward the east —
toward the place where myths end
and architectures answer.
Eve felt her grip tighten on the leaf.
She looked to Lilith.
To Adam.
To the serpent.
“It wants us to confront the one who wrote this world.”
Lilith nodded slowly.
“The Architect.”
The serpent whispered the final words of the chapter:
And this time…
he does not get to speak from above.
🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿
በዚህ ሳምንት ምዕራፍ 18 የለም ወይስ አምልጦኛል?