Page 35 of A Serpent in the Garden

“We can manage.” I suppose I didn’t look reassured, because Serich sank down on the bed beside me and added, “I won’t let you die out there, Des. You didn’t let me die.”

I like cats, you know, I told It later, once Serich and Blathilde were sleeping and he and I were alone.

His answer was immediate, peevish: So?

So it’s not as if it’s some dreadful comparison. I would rather not listen to you sulk about that all night. Cats are sweet. Even if they only ever hissed at me these days.

Stop. You’re making it worse.

Carefully, painstakingly, I turned onto my side when my hip began to twinge. My eyes flipped open. Sleep wouldn’t find me anytime soon; I could feel it in my petrified old bones. I watched the firelight dance over the mane dripping over the side of the chair Blathilde was curled in. My hair looked less dank and dull beneath the flushed glow of the flames, deep and dark, a few shades from black. The edge of my wrist peeked out from behind the arm of the chair, my fingers relaxed with sleep. Would she give me my body back in the morning? I hadn’t wanted to run the risk of annoying her with that question earlier when she’d been nothing but kind to us thus far.

Shadows bled beneath Serich’s feathery lashes as the flames shifted over his sleeping face. His lips were lax, parted slightly, fuller than mine with a cupid’s bow so defined it looked as though it had been carved. Sharp sprays of stubble, tender lips—his face was nothing but contradictions that seamlessly combined to form an impressive cast. I didn’t think I’d have ever been a giggler, but looking at Serich then, I couldn’t state that with any certainty.

His lashes twitched. I followed the movement of his eyeballs behind his closed lids. Dreaming. I wondered what about.

You actually want him, It said, as if suddenly struck by the notion, so surprised he forgot to sound snide.

Yes. I didn’t see the point in denying it.

You want him because you think you’re going to die, he elaborated, parsing my thoughts further.

Yes. And he’s attractive, I can’t deny that. I don’t have feelings for him but I care about him. If it won’t damn me, why shouldn’t I? Is it so awful of me to want him?

I’m not a priest, he said repressively. I don’t find that sort of thing awful.

Do you think he would want to?

I don’t live in his head. How would I know?

You act as though you know everything.

It sounded as though he were biting back a laugh. He would probably cry afterward. Or read to you from the Book. Good Lord. Even that William would have been an improvement on this one. You should have taken him up on his offer. At least do yourself the courtesy of holding out for someone who won’t insist on praying for forgiveness straight afterward.

How? I demanded. How, when I might be dead in days? How would I have ever been able to even kiss William when I never had a moment’s respite, when you are always, always here, listening, watching, commenting? I haven’t been my own since I was fourteen years old.

You’re scapegoating me for being too afraid to let William near you. It sounded indignant. Never have I met such a seething mass of insecurity—

Go to hell, I snapped.

Gladly.

I don’t know why I ever bother to speak to you at all, I shouted into the void, but It was already tucked away in the furthest corner of my mind, unreachable.

I woke as suddenly and completely as if someone had screamed in my ear, and I realized why a second before my eyes snapped open. My body was twisted into an impossible position; my head resting against the padded arm of a chair, my knees drawn into my chest, one arm loose and dangling.

The twenty-four hours are up, It said. I felt the switch a moment ago.

I uncoiled myself from the chair Blathilde had crammed me in. My neck had the beginnings of a crick; my legs the fuzzy prelude of numbness. A canyon had been carved into the back of my arm, where for hours it had rested against the wooden edge of the chair’s seat.

Swallowing a groan, I got to my feet. I dressed in the semidarkness and braided back my hair. Outside it was still dark, night staining the garden violet when I peered out one of the windows. All quiet out there. I rolled my head upon my shoulders to keep the knots in my neck from setting. Bent over to touch my toes, stretched my arms. Serich and Blathilde slept on. Dawn may have been a while off, but I knew I was too alert for sleep, too grateful to be back where I belonged.

Though I wasn’t looking forward to being alone with It, still rankled from the night before. I knew he’d hear that tetchy thought, though he at least did me the favor of holding his tongue.

The fire in the hearth lived on, roaring and crackling and dancing as if it were sentient. I let the flames hypnotize me for a while, turn me half-blind as I watched in silence, when out of the corner of my eye I saw Serich jerk awake.

He drew upright in his chair when I glanced over at him, the threadbare blanket slipping off his lap, a suspicious expression drawing his brows together. As if I were a wild beast looming over him.

“It’s me,” I said. “I woke when I came back to myself.”