Page 30 of A Serpent in the Garden

I’m not sure. It’s not a punishment I’ve ever seen happen before.

Then you must have done something terrible to deserve it.

I suppose, It said thoughtfully after a while, that would depend on who you ask.

I woke to the smell of eggs frying and nearly wrenched something when I shot upright in an unfamiliar bed. It had been up all night, I could tell, feeling him survey the scene through my sleep-crusted eyes.

Weak light burned high through the hag’s cottage windows. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d ever been in bed so late. The only reason I’d been able to drift off at all was because I caved eventually and asked It to force my sleep.

Blathilde seemed to have been up for hours. In the kitchen, the dead bird was plucked, its naked skin riddled with gooseflesh. Wooden surfaces shone, free of dust; her potions and phials in the bookcase gleamed in the flames from the hearth. The laundry had disappeared from her little table, replaced by a chipped plate and fork. I found no trace of Serich.

“If you’re wondering where your friend is,” Blathilde said, crouched by the fire as she stabbed at the eggs I’d smelled cooking, “he’s tending the chickens.”

“Do they bite?” It seemed like everything did, here.

“No more than usual.”

She stood and I wished she hadn’t. I supposed she had no other option but to wear her usual clothes while mine were drying. Her black dress may have been a shapeless, billowing sack, but it was also about three feet too short for my body, rippling around my naked thighs as she carried the pan to her table. I felt It smirk in my head but he at least spared me his commentary.

“Did Serich help you tidy up?” I asked, my voice a ghastly croak.

“Serich snored until I prodded him awake a couple hours ago. Very hesitant to leave you alone with me, he was.” She slid the eggs out of the iron pan and onto the plate. “I did it myself. It’s nice not to have to reach for a bloody stool every time I need to get something from a cabinet. Mending a pile of old clothes didn’t do in my hands. I did stab you accidentally before I’d gotten used to your fingers, but we’ll get that fixed up, I’ve got a poultice that’ll help.” She showed me an injury that I couldn’t see through her filmy eyes and sat in a chair facing the bed, knee upon knee, one ankle crossed behind the other. “Young bodies are so resilient. I slept with my knees against my chest and what little discomfort it caused in the morning melted away after twenty minutes of moving around. Come and eat.”

I staggered the few steps to get to the bench opposite hers. “I’m beginning to suspect you wanted my youth for manual labor.”

“I can’t spend all my magic on household charms if I want my wards to hold.” She gave me my own half-smile as she slid the plate across the table with two fingers. “I’ll return you in a better condition than I found you.”

She wasn’t lying; I looked better already. She’d washed my hair; it hung over one shoulder in a shiny braid down to my waist. My overexposed skin was so pale it was almost translucent, but clean as a whistle.

Blathilde watched me beadily as I ate a forkful of eggs. “What is it you two are doing here?” she asked once I’d swallowed, handing me a glass of water. One of my brows arched as she met my gaze, behind which It watched her impassively. “You three, I should say.”

“We’re going to Hell. It’s the only way to separate It from me.”

If she thought my ultimate destination a folly, she didn’t show it on my face. “And who did your parents provoke to such anger?”

“My parents are dead,” I said, after a surprised pause. “They were gone long before it happened.”

She toyed with the ends of my braid, a small dent of confusion etching between my brows. “I’d heard it’s usually a punishment for a person who’s upset a demon or reneged on a barter with one. A crueler sentence than it would normally be, infecting someone’s innocent child with malevolence, watching it deteriorate. Weighing the risk of attempted exorcism. Plenty of the afflicted don’t survive the procedure. It’s a ghastly business.”

“It hasn’t been terribly malevolent. Just sulky.”

“I know,” she said. “I wouldn’t have let you through my front door if I thought otherwise. How long have you had It?”

“Six years. He doesn’t like it any better than I do. It wasn’t his choice to be here.”

“It was cursed onto you?” She sucked in my bottom lip, cupping my pointed chin in my hand as my eyes drifted off. “I’ve never heard of a cursed possession.”

“He doesn’t possess me,” I said, pushing away my plate. “He’s just…with me.”

“And he doesn’t want to be. He hasn’t forced your hand, made you suffer more than you already were. One might call that kind, for a demon, being mostly content to remain a passenger.” She removed the empty plate from before me. “I don’t think the same can be said for the demon who placed this curse upon him. Which might make them a tad reluctant to lift it.”

I felt It shift restlessly, but he said nothing.

“It’s not a kindness, it’s self-preservation,” I said as she walked the empty plates over to the kitchen. “He doesn’t want to be more bound to me than he already is.”

“Come.” She gestured to the front door, where steely daylight poured through the cracks around the hinges. “My old bones need the fresh air.”

The day was cool and gray when we stepped outside to meet it. Her domain was a quiet one, with only the sighing of leaves and branches, the swaying of her neat little garden. With her wards and towering trees acting as sentries, it seemed a world unto itself.