Page 36 of A Serpent in the Garden

His shoulders loosened with relief and he held his arms out to receive me. I sank onto his lap after a moment’s hesitation, my head finding a comfortable spot where his neck met his shoulder as he wrapped the blanket around us.

“Her furniture is much more comfortable than the ones I’m used to,” I murmured against his throat, my back pressed against the padded arm of the chair. “I’ve never seen cushions on chairs before.”

“Physical comfort leads to sin.” Serich’s voice was choked with sleep, though he said it almost reflexively, as if it had been on the tip of his tongue all the while.

I supposed that was why the benches and pews in churches were so unpleasant to sit upon. “And an achy back.”

“The Church thinks choosing discomfort makes a soul more inclined toward God.” He tightened his arms around my waist, a bottomless breath lifting his chest. “Though I suppose a hag wouldn’t care about such things.”

I doubted I would either, were I a hag. I didn’t even care about it now, come to think of it. It offered no comment, though sighed deeply as if he found us rather tedious. The thought had barely floated across my mind when It snatched at it.

Of course I find him tedious, he said. He disdains the cushion beneath his ass but has no issue with the comfort of a woman on his lap.

He wasn’t disdaining anything, just mentioning a fact.

“Are you ready to go back out there?” Serich’s breath ruffled the hair about my face as I stared into the flames. The wind gave a sudden scream against the windows, as if a succubus were howling at the glass. In the sudden updraft, the fire spat a shower of hissing, multicolored sparks.

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” I would miss the security of the cottage but lingering would do no good and only serve to put off the inevitable. Come first light, we would have to leave. But dawn was a while off and Blathilde slept on, so I let my limbs fall slack against Serich as he held me against him.

Blathilde woke when the sky had lightened to deepest plum. If she were unhappy to find herself in her own body, she didn’t grumble about it. She set Serich the task of cooking eggs over the hearth and shuffled about with my satchel in her arms, adding bits and bobs to it.

At the look she cast me, I joined her by her bookcase of curiosities and potions.

“I’ve put cuttings of devil’s breath, alcerin, and wulfsnare in here for you,” she muttered, showing me the pocket she’d slipped the herbs in. “You’ll want to take them at first light every day you’re in this place. You’ll cover more ground and shave time off your journey.”

“What do you want for them?” I tried not to sound too shrewd. I did not think I’d want to strike another bargain.

“Call it a gift.”

“Thank you.”

“Fair warning about the herbs: They’re potent and not without side effects. Alcerin saps your hunger, can make it difficult for some to sleep. It gives, but it takes. You’ll get where you’re going quicker but it won’t be without a cost.”

I thanked her as she tucked extra bits of bread carefully inside my satchel. “I’ll take whatever help we can get out there.” Two powerless humans wouldn’t last long without an edge. The only reason we’d made it as far as we had was because of It.

“You have power,” Blathilde said in her bullfrog croak. “Everyone does. Maybe you’re not looking for yours in the right place.”

I didn’t believe her but I smiled as though I did.

An hour later, as the sky turned into smears of rainwater gray and lilac, she bade us farewell at her front door. “This wood has a few hollow trees that might make decent shelter overnight,” she said. “They may be occupied during daylight, but with any luck you’ll find an empty one come nightfall.”

“Thank you,” I said, as Serich headed down the cottage steps, “for all the help you’ve given us.”

“It was a well-struck bargain. I’ve no need for thanks.”

“Well, I would thank you just the same.”

She blinked death-black eyes up at me as she slid through the crack of her front door. “Look after yourselves, then. I wish you good fortune.”

“And do your wishes come true?” I asked, as the crack in the door grew smaller.

A shout of creaky laughter bled through before she closed the door. “If they did, I wouldn’t have to live in this goddamned place, now would I?”

The damp, fog-soaked wood invaded my nostrils and burst onto my tongue with the taste of earth, mist, the sweet stench of decay, and it chimed with nothing but silence, broken only by the occasional whisper of a breeze through the foliage.

Serich accepted the devil’s breath and alcerin with hesitant fingers, but when he saw me stuff them in my mouth, I’m sure he felt he had little choice but to do the same.

The effects of the alcerin came on rapidly. The sharp bite of peppermint exploding between my back teeth, that curious sizzling shine in my veins, and the only thing in the world that made sense was to move. Onward, backward, from side to side; to the alcerin it didn’t matter, but we used it to press further south.