by David Neal
For Wright, it was simple enough to uncover nonbelievers by way of handling rattlesnakes: After all, God would shield those who led a Holy seasoned life. The snakes knew your heart, and if you were faithful, then by Grace you’d be saved, and the rest be damned.
Pastor Brackenbury must have been a charlatan, not living a genuine godly life, for he didn’t survive that first test of purity, nor did any others who clung to Brackenbury’s “flaccid” style of worship. Indeed, I thought myself faithful enough, but that hubris proved me as corrupt as Cain’s puppets, for the snakes bit me too—and I nearly died that day.
I’d since been terrified that my failings would prove too indecent an abomination to be weekly forgiven. I wanted to live God’s life, not from fear of damnation, but from fear of the serpents. I tried, but my flaws were known…
“Satan throws lies in our face, and you must throw back those lies! Armor yourself with the genuine Holy Ghost fire. Receive!”
Ronny and Carter stood in front of me, and they screamed with arms lifted to touch the rafters, “Receive!”
Jenny Teakle, cousin of Jonas, started convulsing and fell to the floor flopping like a fish pulled to the bank of the Nolichucky.
“She’s received!” went the joyous cry.
Old Mrs. Kittenridge, filled with arthritis, leapt in the air like a fervent hare.
“She’s received!”
Mary Ruth Barton started screaming, only they weren’t just shrieks, but actual words, though I couldn’t understand them, sounding like a duck quacking in Latin. Her rabid tongue hung from her mouth, and she jabbered away as the others cried, “She’s received!”
Four boys each carried in a snake box to Wright, and the sound of rattles clawed at my senses, louder and louder, promising to finish what they began two years prior. The beading sweat like I’d had at Murrell’s barn dance returned to my forehead, only now it turned cold, even though the church already felt hot enough to cook us all. Someone shrieked and another collapsed.
“Behold the agents of God!” Wright proclaimed, pulling out a rattler that must’ve been seven feet long. “Blessed be their judgment, for we will cast out the nonbelievers!”
That snake was a monster, hideous and terrible, striped orange and black with eyes yellow as angry flames. Wright held it to his huge face and the snake bared long fangs. “Jesus shield me!”
And he kissed the thing right on its awful mouth, a deeper kiss even than I gave Aimee Greenwood last Harvest Day, tongue and all.
“Only the repentant receive benediction!” the pastor shouted. “Come forth in faith!”
And we came: Pa and Ma pulling me in a rush with the crowd to prove none of them was less holy than any others, and I shook with terror.
The serpents were passed around like taking communion, people accepting and crying in tongues, and the snakes answering back. Parents and children caressed the rattlers together as if they were precious as a mewling infant’s cheek, petting the sinewy coils and glittering scales. The crowd surged like a swirling whirlpool with Wright at its center, and his rattlers hissed and judged, and one-by-one the people of Whaleyville were found righteous, unless they weren’t. Three people screamed for real and fell to the floor, filled not with His heavenly spirit, but rather filled with the wicked yellow venom of the vipers.
“Open your heart to the Lord, and repent your sins,” Wright said, “or the snakes will know ye!”
Pa cried out, “I coveted my neighbor John Loom’s crop of bean shoots last week!” and he took a snake.
Ma admitted, “I lied when I told my sons our dead dog went to heaven, since I know animals ain’t got souls!” She took the snake passed over from Pa.
I was next, and Wright shouted, “Repent!”
Horrible thoughts of the revival tent came to me, two years back when I first took a snake. I hadn’t been found worthy then, and a viper’s bite sickened me with wither and seizures.
Memories brought terror, and I cried tears and shouted, “I had unclean thoughts about Rosalie Jacobs last night in bed!”
The shame washed over me, the stigma and guilt of everyone knowing my deficiencies. And suddenly I saw her, halfway back in the clutches of our shrieking and chanting flock, and I averted my eyes, but not before I saw Rosalie’s red lips rise in a strange, biting smile.
But the power of salvation took hold and must have leeched the sin from my heart, for my mind cleared and I immediately felt righteous. I took the rattler by its neck and its mouth hissed open and a probing, forked tongue shot at me, testing, but I stayed strong, unflinching, even when its fangs reached for my wrist…
O! It rattled its war cry and tried my spirit, but finally acquiesced that my faith was good, and the serpent grew harmless as a spring pond.
“Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” went the cries, and I was proven righteous as the lot.
* * *
The congregation picnicked afterward, as the weather was fine, and folks gotta eat, so we may as well do it together since Whaleyville likes to call itself “tight-knit.”
I still felt righteous, but I also knew I lied to myself a little, as part of me didn’t regret at all those unclean thoughts of Rosalie…I only repented from fear of the snakes, which was greater than my desire of her, though that didn’t cause my longing to be any lessened.
Gingham cloth was spread out, and some splintered benches and tables moved beneath giant boughed trees that were fat as Pastor Wright. The women set to laying plates and pouring drinks, and groups of men gossiped around us. I made out Herb Cranston’s voice above the others.
“…Heard a basilisk got at Philemon Talbot’s cousin in Kingsport last week, and that cousin died faster than a flying turd hits earth.”
“We gotta do somethin’ about it,” said Holly Barber, who called the dance last night. Holly was a stout, zealous man with side whiskers that billowed under his chin like wild brambles. “Those snakes are crossin’ the river.”
“Ain’t natural snakes, either. Hell spawn, called forth by Swannanoa’s church. It’s a wonder they ain’t been struck down for the abomination they are.”
“Snakes with the heads of chickens,” Jonas Teakle added, winking at his cousin, Jenny. Jonas was always winking at her and, rumor was, he’d taken her in the husband-sense long ago and continued still, even though it wasn’t allowed, them bein’ cousins and all. He turned and winked in the other direction at another cousin, Jimmy.
Herb replied, indignant, “We oughta teach them what the holy judgment of rattlers can do…”
Other men joined in, and their voices and words became indistinguishable.
“You hear that?” I asked Ronny. “They’re talking about snakes with chicken heads.”
“That’s what we were telling you last night. Don’t you listen? And the basilisks ain’t chicken-headed, they’re rooster-headed.”
“That’s perplexing.”
“Heard it true from George Templeton.”
“Well, I never heard of such a thing.” We sat squeezed between devout Jameson Lightspeed on one side and the freckled Peckingpaw sisters on the other. I thought briefly of the three folks snake-bit today, of what they might have done worse than the rest of us, then presumed God or Wright would either save ‘em or damn ‘em, and join us for chicken wings and slaw afterward.
Carter said, “Lilac’s been trackin’ the basilisks down, but the things ain’t amiable to extermination.”
Ronny added, “Heard you look at one and it’ll turn you straight to stone.”
I couldn’t even reply, that notion sounded so asinine, and I made a face that told as such.
“And if the basilisks bite you,” someone added from behind, “their venom will melt the flesh off your bones.”
The voice startled me, being so near. I turned, and it was none other than Rosalie Jacobs.
I puckered with humiliation. No one wants a gal to publically discover she’s the object of his midnight fantasies, and now I had to face her after professing all in
church.
Ronny gulped. Carter sputtered, “A-Ain’t heard that.”
“I hear a lot of things,” she said, “though just because it’s preached, don’t prove it true.”
Rosalie stood over me as I sat, and her hip nudged my arm, and her hand squeezed my shoulder. The touch felt gentle and beguiling, a lush cloud to wrap me in scented billows. “That was brave,” she said, “to reveal yourself like that.”
“I—I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I, uh…it just slipped out.”
“You possess good qualities, Davey.”
“You know my name?”
“Doesn’t everyone know everyone around here?”
True enough. She still held my shoulder, and I saw the tips of delicate fingers splay toward my heart. Her skin was bronzed, and her nails white as daisy blades.
When I looked up to her face, all I could say was, “Where’s Luke?”
Her red smile hinted that secret again from last night. “Luke has good qualities, too.”
Naturally, I didn’t know what that meant.
Carter brought the conversation back to him. “So what’re you sayin’? Basilisks ain’t real?”
“Oh, they’re real all right,” she replied. “Like your brother said, they’ve got the heads of roosters. And they have little wings midway up the body, stubby things like a baby bat. Not good for much, except lifting the serpent halfway off the ground.”
Ronny said, “I gotta see one.”
“So you shall,” she murmured, and he looked at her curiously.
Carter got himself excited. “I heard they’re born from an egg like a chicken, only it’s the rooster that lays it, not the hen. You hear that, too?”
“A male laying eggs?” I asked. “That don’t make sense. Has the basilisk got the plumbing of both sexes?”
“Actually, a male from any species may lay the eggs for basilisks,” Rosalie answered.
My brain twisted on that, while Rosalie gave me a look that sent all wits leaping overboard. She continued, “Though basilisks themselves are always female.”
And she stared into my eyes…
I heard in school one time that snakes on the other side of the world—cobras—can hypnotize their prey by staring deep into their eyes, and I thought of her look as that: I was immobile, transfixed, rent open for her to peer inside my soul, judging me, as did the rattlers.
Her gaze broke and she let go of my shoulder, shrugging a signal she was done with us.
“See you later, Davey,” she said, and I knew that was a promise.
Rosalie walked away, though at the same time I could’ve sworn I saw her walking away also from Jonas Teakle, winking at him the way he winked at his kin.
* * *
Next day, I woke to screams coming from the neighboring farm, and not at all like the rapturous screams during Pastor Wright’s sermon. Pa took his shotgun and ran out, not even wearing a shirt. His bare chest was a carpet of thick black hair, whereas my chest sprouted but few hairs, and those light and scraggly at best.
He didn’t wait for me, but I got my own rifle from the oak cabinet and ran after him, as it was my friends, Ronny and Carter’s family, who neighbored us.
I arrived there and saw Mrs. Loom was a terrible mess, clenching and unclenching her fists like wringing out an invisible cloth. A pile of bones lay at her feet, pooled by stinking muck that breathed steam and bubbles. She looked like she wanted to touch it, but couldn’t bring herself to do so.
Carter stood in the doorframe, pale as a bed sheet. He mouthed, “Oh no, oh no.”
“Where’s Ronny?” I asked, and Carter’s tears told me exactly where he was.
I felt to collapse.
“Goddamned snake monster got in here,” Mr. Loom roared. He carried a shotgun bigger’n Pa’s. “It slipped out back by the coops. We gotta get it.”
He and Pa went that way, and I followed, though they didn’t care if I was there or not, so taken were they by hunter’s bloodlust.
“Must’ve crossed from over the river,” Mr. Loom yelled. “Damn that hellish town!”
I followed only halfway across the long yard, Mrs. Loom’s cries nervously holding me back like a leash.
Just as Pa and Mr. Loom turned out of sight around the coops, I saw it.
The basilisk seemed to be waiting for me, poised behind a row of hedges, for only when I was alone did it pop out from the dewy leaves. A mask of feathered crust was the creature’s face, and the red comb atop its head waggled like swaying sawgrass. Indeed, I’d heard it described, but that didn’t lessen my shock seeing a snake with the head of a rooster. It wasn’t big, maybe the length of my arm, and half of that was just a long, ropy tail, covered in jade-green scales. Its stumpy wings flapped like crazy, only strong enough to lift the serpent’s upper body, just like Rosalie said, so the creature looked like a kite that isn’t quite airborne yet, its tail still dragging the ground.
I raised the rifle, but too late, its eyes caught my own! I froze, remembering what Ronny said—look at one and it’ll turn you to stone.
And it was true…I wasn’t stone yet, but I couldn’t move either, taken by the spell of its magic eyes, and I knew, just knew, the thing was reading me—the way Rosalie had—communicating something, or testing some quality of my spirit, and if I didn’t pass, transformation of my likeness into rock would befall.
Its ancient eyes glinted at me, a wink of copper-hued acceptance, and I was released. The basilisk dropped tight to the ground, tucked in its lil’ wings, and slithered back through the hedges.
I pointed my rifle under obligation and fired half-heartedly. My aim is terrible, and the bullet went wide, as I knew it would.
Pa and Mr. Loom came runnin’.
“I shot at it, but it got away.”
Mr. Loom cursed and dashed toward the hedge, where I’d blasted.
I saw Pa glance, not after Mr. Loom, but the other way, enviously at a stand of golden peach trees, knowing that our own trees were withered and gave us shriveled and bitter fruit.
Pa caught my notice, sighed, and clapped me on the shoulder. “Good try, son. At least you tossed lead at it.”
* * *
Ronny’s death launched the town into arms-bearing fury. By late afternoon, a group of men gathered outside our church, led by Pastor Wright spittin’ and frothin’ and screamin’ how we got to claim retribution, there being no allowance for serpents to kill folks in Whaleyville and get away with it (his own serpents being the exception, I presume).
The call went up for a party to hunt downriver next morning and kill every basilisk found, and then cross over to Swannanoa and see what needed doin’ there.
Judge McClellan shouted agreement, and so too did Herb Cranston and George Templeton and all the others. Joe Halverson, who played the mouth harp, joined in, only he was smilin’ all the while, though it was malicious-like, not a nice or secretive smile the way Rosalie gave to me.
“We oughta catch ‘em alive and slice off their wings and tails and eyes, and send ‘em still squirming back to Swannanoa’s church,” Joe said. He was known to break the legs of barking dogs just to watch them suffer for keeping him awake at night. Most folks felt righteous to avenge John Loom’s son, but Joe Halverson was of a wrathful and vicious ilk, and he just liked cutting and torturing critters for any reason.
I felt uneasy going, but it’s considered a queer thing in Whaleyville to ever decline a hunting trip. Plus Pa was big on it, and since I was friends with Ronny, everyone expected me to crave vengeance.
Though it’s true Ronny was my friend, I didn’t feel any obligation to avenge him; that small, resentful part of my brain reminded me neither of the Loom brothers ever defended or sought vengeance for me, even when Luke Holder practiced log splittin’ techniques on my face at Murrell’s barn dance.
* * *
Cold night fell, and it was all Pa could do not to wallop something, he was so excited and anxious about the basilisks, both killin’ them tomorrow and double-checkin’ e
very room to make sure they didn’t slither inside tonight and get us first. Like me, he was temperamental, and I knew that small, resentful voice in my head sometimes also filled his own.
“The Looms have a stronger fence than us, and the creature still got through,” Pa raged.
“The Looms thought they were better’n everyone else. That’s what got ‘em.” Ma was wary of his moodiness, and weary, too, chasing after my brothers who were fightin’ and hollerin’ as always.
Pa kicked over a chair, shoutin’ at no one. “Why should their peach trees and bean shoots grow more fertile than ours?”
It all seemed too much, and I decided I’d had enough and said so. “I’m turnin’ in.”
“‘Night, Davey,” they replied and went back to it.
I bedded down.
Outside, the moon was full like a pregger’s belly, it glowing through my window, me pacified by its calm. I gazed upon it, letting sleep rise in slowly cresting waves, when a pebble ticked off the glass. The waves of sleep receded. Another pebble, another tick.
I went to the window and opened it, and saw fiery copper eyes lit upon a bright, pert face.
“How’d you know where I live?” I whispered.
“Doesn’t everyone know everyone around here?” Rosalie replied.
True enough, I thought. Except for you…
She added, “I’m going for a stroll. Care to join?”
“Right now? At night?”
“Now is the time for all good things.”
My mouth went dry. Quick as a whistle, I tossed on my trousers, shirt, and boots, and went out the window to join her.
She took my hand in her own, and it was like seizing a shooting star.
“Thought I’d head to Swannanoa,” she said.
“That’s fifty miles across the river! And what’d you want there, anyway?”
“There’s shortcuts everywhere.” Her voice fell somewhere between a whisper and a sigh. “And I’ll tell you what I want…”
