Page 14 of A Serpent in the Garden

“It was very much alone.”

We started off again, scanning the landscape. Trees abounded, thick and close, burly roots wrestling one another beneath nests of softly glowing white flowers. The light here was as gray as it was in Monde’s End, but it glittered in the wispy fogs as though miniscule stars sparkled through its pores.

Serich looked around doubtfully, as if he too wondered if the wood had been trying to hypnotize us into believing we were safe. “Maybe it’s only the animals we’ll run into in daylight.”

“Maybe not even then.” I’d seen no ground animals, though there were burrows in the earth. I’d searched the trees for nests and found nothing yet, unless they were too far up to see. So much for fanged cats as large as giants who breathed hellfire. There wasn’t a chance in hell Serich and I would miss their footprints. “The stag looked sleepy. I’ve not seen another living thing, not even a squirrel. We’ll move as quickly as we can during the day, find shelter just before dusk.”

“And if there isn’t any shelter?”

“Climb a tree,” I said. “Strap ourselves in as best we can. The things that wake at night might see us but we’ll have fair warning, at least, even if they’re able to climb.” I eyed the bow and arrow at his back. I hoped he knew how to use it. My demonic teacher had known little about archery. I’m not a fucking centaur, It had said when I’d asked.

“We’ll have a job starting fires to keep warm.” Serich kicked at a wet branch in his path, which flew a good five feet before falling noiselessly to the earth. “Everything here is too damp for kindling.”

“Fire will be the last thing we want come nightfall. That would draw things right to us.” I wondered if our scents would linger in the paths we would take, calling the creatures that lived here to wherever we bedded down. Would we have to cake ourselves with mud, clap wet leaves to our clothes, smear our faces with sap?

“Right. Then we’ll have to keep each other warm.”

I bit back a sardonic smile. How jealous those girls in Monde’s End would be if they knew Serich’s pious body would be keeping me warm in the night.

The trees began to wear faces the deeper south we plunged.

They had started simply. I’d taken a couple well-placed knots for eyes, a slash in the bark for a crooked smile. Amusing, convenient imperfections. But they’d grown more obvious, sophisticated, clearly hewn by intelligent hands, until I caught Serich’s sleeve in the darkened middle of a copse of trees and realized we were surrounded by faces.

Leering eyes bled thick sap, slitted nostrils flared, lipless mouths stretched in jagged smiles.

“Those nymphs the old ones back home are always banging on about?” I sounded as if I were asking after the weather.

“Maybe.” Serich’s eyes darted around, cataloging the terrain. Finding nothing but trees. “I don’t see any signs, do you?”

None. Just the grinning faces all around us, the hollow bleeding eyes. I wasn’t even sure what to look for, how much of what the village elders said was true. They were said to be nigh on ten feet tall, these nymphs. They wore artfully draped ivy; they had the voices of giggling girls and milky green skin. Their eyes were emeralds and their hair was black as night. They might kill with a glance, if they wanted, but more often they feasted on the marrow of children to soak up their verve. That was the only way to keep themselves young. Stay away from the wood, the elders were prone to croak at the young ones of Monde’s End. Or you’ll find yourself in the claws of a nymph.

But It had told me humans knew nothing of the wood. Perhaps it was all just a story.

I felt a prickle on the back of my neck and wondered if It had finished its sulk, but my mind was clear without its shadowy presence.

Perhaps something was perched between branches, watching us. Perhaps a breeze had drifted past, bristling those little hairs on my flesh. Perhaps paranoia was tunneling into my bones, making its nest. Well, good. Fear was the only way we would survive this place.

A bright slash of pain caught me just above the ankle. I hopped back, falling against Serich’s chest. Fairies was my first wild thought, a tiny little sprite with a tiny little axe, but all I found was a violet, many-lipped flower swaying innocently by my boot.

And then the lips burst open, flashing a triple set of bared, moon-white teeth. I struck a moment before it did, crushing it beneath my foot and into a smear of poisonous purple and scattered teeth.

I took Serich’s hand, angling around the smiling sentries. “Let’s go.”

By the time all the hiking had begun to wear on us, it was nearing midday. We were moving slower, like the air had thickened, our breathing labored. I felt sweat at my temples, saw Serich’s hairline glimmering. I hadn’t eaten that morning and was sure he hadn’t either, since I’d found him just as dawn had broken. This was not a place in which it paid to get lightheaded, even if all seemed calm and sleepy by daylight. We’d brought skins of water but we’d have to find a water source eventually. Days it would take to get through this place, It had said.

“Should we stop for a few minutes? Eat something?” I didn’t like suggesting it. Moving targets were harder to catch, but the creatures that dwelled here were likely far quicker than we were to begin with.

Serich’s head was moving as if on a swivel. “When we find somewhere a bit more open. Higher visibility.”

The trees were thinning now, spreading out. Snatches of gray sky peeked through branches heavy with leaves which held dew like tiny saucers. Nests had cropped up but no birdsong floated through the wood. I supposed it was possible even the birds were nocturnal here.

It wasn’t like I could ask It.

I felt an odd concoction of pleased and annoyed that my mind had been my own for so long. As nice as it was to have a few thoughts It hadn’t chimed in to comment on, I felt It could be a lot of help if it would only condescend to do so.

You’re behaving like a child, I said, though I wasn’t sure if It heard. Or cared. I should have put you to bed with warm milk and a blankie.

“Look at that.” Serich’s voice shattered the unearthly silence as he pointed unnecessarily. One would have to be blind not to notice it, how out-of-place it was in this wood.