Page 4 of A Serpent in the Garden

I fought a wince. Those were the most expensive item he had on offer. A single pie cost nearly a day’s wages. There were six of us in the Warren home. I could ask to pay him later in the week, I supposed, or work in the bakery early in the morning to pay off the cost—

No, It said. Go home.

It was right. We had bolts of cloth to buy the next time we made it to the market in Darensdale, the town five miles away. Livvy’s little siblings outgrew their clothing so quickly.

“I’m sorry.” I backed away toward the door. “I don’t have enough this time.”

John wiped his hands off on his apron, leaving snail-like trails of batter across it. “We can work something out. Take them. They’ll just rot in the end.” He groped the bulge of his stomach in a way that made It recoil. “That, or find their way into my stomach.”

I think he was closing what little distance remained between us. And then the fogs drifting off the wood were suddenly in my head, clouding everything out, lulling me into a transient semi-doze.

When I came back to myself, my wrist felt wrenched, as if a bruise were blooming just beneath the surface. And John Dale was dead upon the floor.

In the beginning, it was a while before It deigned me worth its notice.

I felt It clattering around just beyond the antechamber of my mind, pacing, always pacing. Angry. But quiet.

Even I could tell It did not want to be there.

It didn’t answer my first hesitant greetings. I almost wondered if I was imagining Its noises, the clicking claws, the gnashing teeth, the silken rustle of what sounded like wings. It cleared its throat the way a human would, as if it was on the cusp of speech, but then I’d be met with nothing but silence. I’d thought myself mad until It grudgingly confirmed that I wasn’t. If it has a gender, I don’t know it. It won’t even tell me its name.

Livvy threw holy water she’d stolen from Father Hull on me once, after I’d broken down and confided my affliction. Said the Latin words of expulsion, pressed an iron cross to my flesh. That was the first time I heard the demon laugh, a sinister, spiraling sound that had me sinking to my knees, clutching my head.

This is a cursed possession, It hissed, as though I were simple. You don’t think I would leave if I could? It was ordered by forces much stronger than me or this flaccid sack helping you. Holy water won’t save you, even holy water that hasn’t been stolen.

This sudden disease of my soul had to be my fault. The priests believed general weakness, a frailty of both the body and mind, and a lack of willpower allowed possessions to happen. Perhaps victims weren’t morally or legally responsible, but guilty of a gargantuan personal failing nonetheless. The exorcisms we had heard about sounded ghastly. Holes drilled into the head so the demon could float out. Burns, branding, drowning. Fumigations with noxious substances. Priests beating the afflicted until they broke, until the body was so damaged the spirit no longer wished to inhabit it. Chained and strapped to a padded cross for days, being screamed at in Latin, deprived of food, water. Failing that, being tossed into an asylum.

Usually the victims were killed. Things were simpler that way.

You really ought to calm down, It said, watching, as I did, those dreadful images running through my mind’s eye. None of that will come to pass, I can promise you that.

Though I couldn’t ignore it, as much as I wanted to. I would turn dangerous eventually, as bad as one of those creatures who called from the wood. The entire village would be at my mercy.

But It didn’t seem interested in manipulating my body. It didn’t seem interested in much of anything.

I don’t want to be more bound to you than I already am, It said, tapping an idle claw. The more I use you, the more entwined we’ll become. How about we just live and let live, all right?

I said all right. What else could I say?

And it hasn’t been all abject misery. It warmed up eventually, if a demon could ever warm to a human. It grew bored, spoke more. In a voice dripping with disdain more often than not, but still. It taught me things, helpful things. How to listen to my surroundings, tune into footsteps and cracking twigs and murmuring brush until it seemed as though nothing could sneak upon me. It guided my hands with the shadow of suggestion, showed me how to throw knives at a target those evenings I needed something to do to avoid attending church. Taking control might bind us further, but a mutual decision was no more than a tingle in my limbs.

And so we rubbed along as well as we possibly could. How stupid I’d been for thinking it might last.

You’ll see me hanged for this, I said, gazing down at the blood leaking from John Dale’s steaming corpse. His face cleaved in half, a gully of gore. Throat in tatters. The red puddle beneath his body growing larger and larger. Blood seeped from between my fingers, slid between my eyelashes. I could taste the metal on my lips.

You won’t get caught, It said. Calm, reasonable. What human could do that? Leave the back door open. They’ll think something got in.

I whirled around to check the window on the front door and found the shade drawn. Anyone could have seen me walk into the bakery!

You didn’t see anybody. They’re all locked up tight.

Nothing can leave the wood. I wrapped my arms around myself, pacing. Everyone will know it wasn’t one of those things. The shade on the window shivered in the draft of my steps.

So they’ll think something was able to breach the boundary.

I stopped, horrified. You’d have me terrify the entire village, let everyone think those creatures can suddenly leave the wood?

It’s better than telling them the truth.