Page 52 of A Serpent in the Garden

“Will you see nothing, because of It?”

“I won’t be immune.”

“Okay.” The golden mist blistered across the surface of his falchion as he fingered its handle. “Just walk through it?”

“That’s it.”

He kissed me, then. A quick, last-second thing, as if he wasn’t sure when he’d see me next. And then he took me by the hand and we walked right through the mist.

I had expected it to be like passing through a damp curtain when we walked through the hazy web of gold, but I felt absolutely nothing.

Serich clenched my hand as we exchanged questioning looks: what now? Is that it?

But nothing happened.

At the questions brimming in my mind, It said, I don’t know. I told you I’ve never felt the effects. It’s said to be different every time. Just keep moving.

The dark mouth of the tunnel lay ahead, waiting to receive us.

“Bit of a comedown from what I’d been expecting.” Serich turned to give the mist a final, quizzical look. He dropped my hand, massaging the center of his chest, his expression skeptical. “I expected something hideous.”

A moment later he’d fallen to his knees, a glistening thread of blood spilling from the corner of his mouth.

“Oh my God.” I dropped to the grass beside him, my hands fluttering uselessly in my panic—what to do, where to touch him? No bloodstain blossomed anywhere on his body. There was no wound I could see, nothing I could clap my hand against to staunch the blood, and that thread became a gout, a hot scarlet river pouring down his chin and throat and chest. Serich was making the most horrible noises while It shouted something I wasn’t listening to. I tore through my bag for the faerie blood-soaked clothes, but how could they help, when there was no external injury to wrap the cloth around?

I tore a strip of bloody material off with my teeth, doused it in water from my skin, and wrung it out over Serich’s gasping lips. With luck, it would snake through his throat and find its way down to whatever wound was plaguing him.

Propping his head in my lap, I mopped the blood with my sleeve as if tidying would save him. His beautiful amber eyes were glassy but focused on me. I pressed both palms to his cheeks as I gazed at his upside-down face and told him that he would be fine, to keep still, let the faerie blood work its magic.

But he wasn’t fine. His last breath came out as a red mist and his eyes fogged over and the hand he’d clutched my elbow with thumped to the golden grass.

A few seconds of curious blankness, and then I became aware that I was keening in a horrific soprano, grappling with Serich’s limp form, slapping at his still face, saying I don’t even know what, until a blast of cold tore through me.

You have to get up, It said. Get up and walk away. This isn’t real.

The chill he’d shot me with had shocked me back to myself. A metallic tang blistered over my tongue, something wet dribbling from the corner of my mouth. I wiped it off. My fingers came back red. Blood. I was bleeding from the mouth just like Serich. The mist had done something awful to our insides, but Serich had no It to shield him from the worst and so he’d died, all on some foolhardy quest to rid me of my infestation.

I felt the blood, tasted it. Saw how very very dead Serich looked in my lap. None of this was false.

Get up. On your feet. Stop clutching at him and stand.

My throat was growing thick, sealing up. I couldn’t see for the tears.

Get up right now or I’ll make you.

I didn’t move. A second later I felt It spread through my blood and nerves and muscles and seize control, forcing me to my feet. This isn’t real, he said firmly as he marched me to the entrance of the tunnel. I told you not to believe what you see in the gold wood.

I lurched to a stop just inside the tunnel, turning back to find Serich’s corpse still lying there in the grass, the mist twinkling behind him.

He’s dead, I said dully. His body would have disappeared if he weren’t.

Not if the wood knows you’re still here watching.

We weren’t in the mist when he collapsed, we’d made it out. Something happened to him when he passed through. It happened to me as well, but you’re here and it didn’t hit me as hard. Blood came out of my mouth, too.

Nothing happened to you. You’re fine. It’s not real.

If it’s not real, then where is Serich? I made a show of glancing around, calling Serich’s name down the tunnel, but only my own voice bounced back. I know you tasted the blood on my lips just like I did. If it weren’t real, he would be here waiting for me.