Page 32 of A Serpent in the Garden

At the back of my mind, It laughed so loudly I almost wanted to laugh, too.

“Don’t give me that look.” She tossed it aside. “It grows wild here. Woke up one morning and there it was, right next to the rosemary.” She reached for another sprig, an herb so dark a green that it was almost black, ridged with bunches of leaves that were rough as a cat’s tongue. “Devil’s breath. For stamina. Demons don’t tire very easily. Too much can overwork your heart and cause serious damage, but chew a few of these little leaves and you’d be surprised at your endurance.” She handed it to me to place inside the basket of dirty turnips and carrots she’d uprooted for that night’s dinner.

“How does it grow?” I tossed out a hand toward the rest of the garden. “How does any of this grow, without the sun?”

She tipped my face back toward the sky, my braid trailing down my back. I had to elbow It out of the way and give my eyes a mighty wrench to take them off of my profile and look up too, though only ashen patches of the sky swirled behind the branches. “I have the occasional sunny day,” she said, my voice turning pensive, “when something up there wants to take a peek at us. But the soil is rich here, full of energy. You don’t sense it?”

I sank her desiccated hands into the dirt, which felt warm as bathwater though the day was cool.

“Hell may be for the dead and damned, but the demons who run it are powerful, full of vitality.” She submerged my hands in the earth as well. “The sun may snub them but they don’t need the light to flourish. And they’ve got to eat, too.”

I’d always figured if they ate at all, it would be fresh meat, hot blood.

A great-grandmother from my father’s side was a succubus, It said. She may have been partial to hot blood but I can’t say the same about the rest of us.

“The moon shines here, at least,” I croaked back to her. The sky had been pregnant with it the night Serich and I climbed the fig, so bright it seemed suspended a few feet from our heads.

“It waxes and wanes, goes through phases. It has a dark side but it’s as immortal as the sun.” Blathilde gave me a sidelong glance, letting the warm earth slip through my fingers. “The moon is feminine. They say the first demon was a woman. I doubt she would snub her children.” She plucked another sprig, this one a rusty red emitting a curious, invigorating scent with the vaguest whiff of peppermint. “Alcerin. Good for energy. Crunch one of these needles between your back teeth and let the juices bleed out. It’s another one you’ve got to go careful with. Too much of a good thing, you know. More than one needle and the body won’t know how to stop moving and rest. It will push through all sorts of terrible pain and do more harm than good. One needle is all it takes for a nice jolt.” She handed me the sprig.

“Why don’t you take these yourself?” I asked, adding it to the basket as well. These herbs grew so thickly I could tell she didn’t harvest them nearly as often as the thyme and rosemary.

“What, lovelace?” She smiled, and I wished with all my heart I would never find such a coy expression upon my face ever again. “I’ve had no need for that for years.”

“Devil’s breath, alcerin—why don’t you take these to help you around your home?” I could see where her wards were in the daylight seeping through the canopy overhead. The air shimmered at the boundary, as if from a heat haze. “You spend much of your magic to keep your wards intact; why can’t you use these herbs to help you with your chores? I can’t imagine you find humans here willing to bargain with their youth very often.”

“They may give me energy and stamina but I still have old bones and weak joints. I pay for it later. An extra bit of energy isn’t worth what it costs. Sometimes I can get away with taking a little wulfsnare—” she plucked a wispy gray weed that smelled of something near incense—“if I want to go looking for rabbits. It can help with agility, keeping my arrow steady, my eyes sharp, but I don’t need meat very often. I make do mostly with the eggs from my chickens.”

“You must get lonely here.” I had to admit her property had a peculiar charm, but all this calm and quiet and lack of company would leave me feeling marooned. I didn’t think the succubi would make good dinner guests. When was the last time she had spoken to anybody before Serich and I came along?

“Loneliness is the hag’s condition.” She hopped lightly to my feet, dusting off my thighs. “We’re used to such things. Come.” She helped me stand. “It’s time for my tonic.”

Serich was pulling a clean shirt over his head when we made it inside the cottage. I caught a snatch of hard brown midriff before the fabric slithered into place and his head popped out of the neck hole.

Blathilde pressed the basket into his hands as she swept past him. “Get these rinsed and chop them for us,” she said over my shoulder on her way to the bookcase. “They’ll be going in the soup.”

He eyed her as she stopped by her potions but his muttered words were for me. “I think she’s planning to milk me for all I’m worth.”

“It’s been a while since she’s had visitors around to help her, I’m sure.”

She waved me over, shrugging my hair off my shoulder, a fat green bottle in her hand.

Serich had to bend nearly in half to murmur in my shriveled ear. “Is she going to make you drink a potion?”

“A tonic.”

He clamped a hand around my frail arm and turned me to face him. “Is that wise? What if it’s a poison?”

“Then I would be surprised,” I said, blinking up at him. “She would have poisoned me a long time ago if that was her plan.” And if It wasn’t hissing and spitting about it, I wasn’t worried.

“I’m old, boy.” Blathilde set my hands on the curve of my hips, head cocked irritably so my braid swung behind my back like a pendulum. “I’m a stooped old hag. I need a tonic to help smooth my joints, keep my bones healthy. If I wanted to kill either of you, the last way it would happen is with poison.”

Serich gave me a dark, significant look and carried the basket off toward the kitchen.

“Knives are in the block,” she called waspishly, and gestured for me to join her.

The bottles and phials were plentiful and varied, crowded onto shelves, and I had to stand on a little stool just to see them, Blathilde’s body was so tiny. One bottle held a living blue flame, its contents ceaselessly twirling, licking up the glass, which was cold to the touch. A phial black as nightmares looked as though it contained a chunk of purest night and its opposite stood beside it, a phial saturated with golden light, as if a bit of sun had been cleaved off and secreted into the glass.

One bottle stood empty though fogged on the inside, the way the windows in the Warren cottage looked when we breathed against the glass.