Page 1 of A Serpent in the Garden

Daylight broke through the veil as I lay entombed in blankets, waiting for the faraway voices and hissing to die down.

I gave it a while before I went outside. Just to be sure.

Fog wafting off the wood perfumed the air with the wet stench of rot, threading through the bones of my skeletal little village. If the sun shone over Monde’s End, I couldn’t see it. The fogs blotted it out.

Up and down the lane, doors were hesitantly cracking open, fingers edging around doorframes. Slivers of careworn faces, followed by shoulders and torsos wearing varying degrees of tattered cloth as the townspeople ventured out to meet the morning. Each cottage was shabbier than the last.

It’s cheap, living so close to Hell.

Tree branches waved lazily, though the morning was windless. I squinted through the fog at the boundary, saw nothing and nobody lurking at the outskirts of the wood. The earthen roads were calm, dull. No bodies. Across the street, the baker threw open his doors, called a greeting, which I returned before I slipped back inside.

I’m allowed a few undisturbed hours each morning. Since I’m a hindrance when I try to help with the chickens, I roused the little ones instead, pulling the sealing wax from their ears, helping them dress. Livvy was a lump beneath her quilts when I made it back to the room we shared. I took care to be quiet as I slipped into a dress, washed my face.

It spread through my mind like the omnipresent fogs off the wood as I was patting my skin dry.

You ought to comb your hair, It said when I peered into the looking glass, tearing quick fingers through the tangles.

Why bother? Nobody cared what you looked like in the kitchens, so long as you were reasonably clean.

Because it looks a fright.

And yours, I’m sure, is flawless.

It scoffed, claws clacking across the floor of my mind, but offered no further comment as I left the washroom to wake Livvy.

“I’m so tired,” she said, when she could finally form words, tipping her head back as I oiled her tight curls. She hated the fogs for many reasons, but chief among them was they made her hair unmanageable, a static frizz of a halo come early afternoon.

They started a few years ago, the fogs. Nobody has any true explanation as to why. The creatures in the wood grow restless, some say. Hell’s tendrils are reaching out to snatch us. Here at the end of the world, everyone is superstitious. Shadows cast by the trees were demonic fingers, clawing at the village. The sighting of any raven foretold certain doom. Yowling during the harvest moon was from hellfire-breathing big cats that stalked the wood.

Any discourse about the creatures always drew a snort of derision from It.

“At least you don’t look like you’ve broken your nose.” With clove-colored skin, Livvy’s dark undereye circles were difficult to discern. Mine could be spotted at a hundred yards, with my skin the color of watered milk. “Maybe we can buy extra wax the next time we go to Darensdale.” I worked a comb gently through her hair, ends to root, and tied it in a knot at the base of her skull. “You’ll sleep better with your ears sealed.”

“What we need is coffee,” she said around a yawn. “I hear it keeps you going for hours.”

But it went without saying coffee was a luxury we’d never be able to afford.

The fogs only thickened as the morning bore on. They swirled and eddied around Livvy and me as we trudged through town. The worst of them would burn off as the temperature rose, but for now we were half blind, staggering toward Lord Fletcher’s. We kept our arms linked so we didn’t lose track of one another.

Villagers had begun venturing outside by now, their voices floating through the mists, disembodied. “No ruckus,” Livvy said, squinting around. “At least there’s that.”

I would have answered, but a body rammed into us. I knew it would happen a few seconds before it did, could hear the shuffle of boots approaching. It’s a common enough early morning occurrence. Visibility is too low.

A pair of hands found my shoulders, steadying me, and William’s face emerged through the fog. “Sorry Des.” He had a tumble of dark curls, a charmingly chipped front tooth. He also had a wife now.

Not a very attractive one, It offered bluntly.

What did that matter? Was it somehow better to be attractive than loved?

I forced my lips to smooth into a smile, dropped my gaze to the dirt. “Everyone make it through the night?”

“Looks that way,” he said, crossing himself.

That always made It snort. I ignored it as Livvy and I bade William goodbye, and she edged me a sideways look as we approached the entrance to Lord Fletcher’s. The moldering manor rose up through the fog, arrow-shaped leaves of ivy running unchecked over every gray inch of it.

Ivy needs little sun. It’s one of the only plants that flourishes here.

“You still miss him, don’t you?” Livvy asked over the groan of the gates opening. “William?”