She frowned, and glanced down at the porridge in the pot, and began scraping it into a neat mound. ‘I’ll be a very, very long time,’ she said forbiddingly.
‘Take as long as you like,’ he said. ‘I can wait.’
It was an eerie experience to ride north along the Eden Road. On the right lay the fresh, rainwashed cane of Bullet Tree Piece – untouched except for a sprinkling of ash – while on the left lay the desolation of Bellevue. Life and death side by side, thought Sophie, with only a narrow strip of red road in between.
It was a horrible thought. It kept coming back to her that if things had been just a little different yesterday – if Ben had been a little slower in deciding what to do or where to go – she wouldn’t be heading up the road to see him. She’d be going to his funeral.
It was too narrow an escape for her to feel joy or even relief. She felt as if she were standing at the edge of a great black hole, leaning over and watching the bottom rushing up towards her.
She reached the gaunt, burnt-out hulk of the guango tree which marked the turnoff onto Fever Hill land, and started across the cane-pieces. She rode through acre upon acre of silent desolation. Endless ranks of burnt cane, standing like an army of blackened skeletons. Nothing moved. Her horse trod gingerly over the crisp black ground, stirring up a bitter tang of ash. A solitary john crow lifted off from the ground and wheeled away.
She found Ben a couple of miles in, by the blackened ruins of the wagon which Clemency had told her about. He was hatless, sitting on the ground with his knees drawn up, contemplating the remains. The heat of the fire must have been intense, for all that was left of the coffins was a pile of smoking cinders.
At her approach he turned and watched her, but to her surprise he didn’t get up and come towards her.
Feeling suddenly awkward, she dismounted. ‘I got your note,’ she said.
He nodded. He wore the same riding-clothes as the day before, but with a clean calico shirt, obviously borrowed. He’d washed but he hadn’t shaved, and his face looked shadowed and drawn. The cut on his cheek had dried to a crusted scab.
She stopped a few feet away from him. ‘According to Madeleine, you jumped in the river to escape the fire.’
He nodded. ‘It seemed the best thing to do.’ His voice sounded rough. She wondered if that was from the smoke or from crying. His eyes were red-rimmed, the eyelashes spiky.
She tried to imagine what it must be like to have brought the remains of one’s brother and sisters all the way from London, only to have them swept away by a cane-fire. She badly wanted to go down on her knees and put her arms round him, but something told her to keep her distance. He didn’t seem to want her here. He wouldn’t even meet her eyes.
As lightly as she could, she said, ‘Belle wants to know if you met an alligator.’
He tried to smile, but it wasn’t very successful. ‘How is she?’
‘Contrite. And she keeps telling everyone that Partisan’s a hero. This morning she made him and Muffin one of her special hot-molasses mashes, and when I left she was braiding their manes.’ She knew she was talking too much, but she couldn’t help it. He was beginning to worry her.
‘So you’re back at Eden now,’ he said.
‘Yes. Well. It’s a start.’
He nodded. ‘That’s good. It’s good that you’re back.’
‘Madeleine wants you to come and stay, until you can rebuild. So does Cameron.’
‘Do they?’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t think they do. Not really.’
‘You’re wrong. And Madeleine knew you wouldn’t believe me, so she wrote you a note.’ She handed it to him, and watched him get to his feet and walk a few paces away to read it. He stood there reading it for a long time. Then he folded it carefully and put it in his breast pocket. He cleared his throat. ‘Tell her thank you,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘but it’s better that I don’t.’
‘Ben, what’s wrong?’
He flicked her a glance. Then he stooped for a handful of ash, and opened his hand and watched it drift away on the breeze. ‘Look around you, Sophie. It’s all gone.’
‘But – surely you can get in at least some of the cane? And—’
‘It’s not that,’ he broke in. ‘Of course I can get in some of the cane. Of course I’ve still got money in the bank. It isn’t that.’ He paused. ‘It was the Monroe great house. Your grandfather’s house. Then it was mine, and now it’s gone.’ He glanced at the blackened remains of the coffins. ‘It’s all gone. I couldn’t save any of it.’
‘What do you mean? You got every single person out alive. You got me and Belle out alive.’
He did not reply. She watched him walk to the other side of the wagon and break off a fragment of charcoal and crumble it in his fingers. And at last she began to understand. This wasn’t about the destruction of the great house, or even the loss of his brother and sisters’ remains. Or rather, it wasn’t only about those things. He’d simply reached the end of his resources. She had always thought of him as someone with an unlimited capacity for fighting back. No matter what happened to him, he would always get up and start again, because that was who he was. Now she realized that nobody can do that; not all the time.
She followed him round to his side of the wagon. ‘Yesterday on Overlook Hill’, she began, ‘you told me that this time you were making the right choice. I didn’t know what you meant until this morning.’ She paused. ‘Clemency came to me just after breakfast. She told me about Kate. About the choice you had to make when you were a boy.’
Again he forced a smile. It was painful to see. ‘Everything I do turns to ashes.’
‘If you weren’t so exhausted, you’d know that’s absolutely not true.’
He nodded, but she could see that he didn’t believe her.
She tried a different tack. ‘You said once that you’re like your father. That you destroy the things you love. Do you still think that’s true?’
He didn’t answer at once. ‘Poor bastard,’ he said at last. ‘You know, when he died, he was only a couple of years older than I am now. He didn’t live long after Kate.’
‘Does that mean you’ve forgiven him?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
‘Don’t you think it’s time you forgave yourself?’
He hesitated. ‘Sophie, I brought them out to be with me. I know it sounds odd, but it meant something. Now look at them. Just ashes, blown away.’
‘What’s so bad about that?’ she said with deliberate bluntness. ‘They’re out here in the sun and the fresh air. It’s a good place to be.’
He did not reply.
‘Ben . . .’ She put her hands on his shoulders and turned him round to face her. ‘Look at you. Coming out here all on your own, when you’re exhausted. When did you last get any sleep?’
He frowned.
‘Added to which, you probably haven’t eaten anything since God knows when, and you’ve just lost your home. Of course you’re feeling low.’ She put her palm against the roughness of his cheek. Then she stood on tiptoe and kissed his mouth.
He didn’t return her kiss.
‘Come back to the house,’ she said quickly, to cover her confusion. ‘I mean, come back to Eden. Have something to eat, and a proper sleep, and I promise you’ll feel better.’
He was looking down at her, still frowning. Suddenly he took a deep breath and put his arms about her, and pulled her hard against him. He held her so tightly that she could hardly breathe.
She could feel his heart racing, and the heat of his breath on her temple. She could smell his clean sharp smell of windblown grass and red dust and Ben. She put her arms round him and buried her face in his neck.
When at last they drew apart, they were both blinking back tears.
‘Whatever happens,’ he muttered between his teeth, ‘you’re not going to marry Alexander Traherne.’
It was so unexpected that she laughed. ‘What?’
‘I mean it, Sophie. He—’
‘I know! I broke it off on Boxing Day.’
He looked bemused. ‘What?’
‘At your Masquerade.’
‘But – you never told me.’
‘You never gave me the chance. You were too busy seducing Sibella.’
‘I didn’t actually seduce her—’
‘I know, I know.’ She was starting to feel happy again. Bickering was always a good sign.
‘Tell me honestly,’ he said, looking into her eyes. ‘Do you truly not mind about the house?’
She gave his shoulders another shake. ‘No! We’ll build another house. And next Christmas we’ll give an enormous party, and invite everyone in Trelawny. Including Great-Aunt May.’
He was watching her intently, as if he still wasn’t quite ready to believe that she was in earnest.
‘And we’ll sort the replies into three piles,’ she went on. ‘One pile for acceptances, and one for regrets, and one for “never in a million years”.’
Ben laughed.
The End
Acknowledgements and Author’s Note
As with The Shadow Catcher, I must thank my cousins Alec and Jacqui Henderson of Orange Valley Estate, Trelawny, Jamaica, for their help when I was researching this book, as well as my aunt, Martha Henderson.
I should also deal with a few points concerning the story itself.
The principal Jamaican families and properties featured in the book are entirely fictional, and I have taken some liberties with the local geography around Falmouth in order to accommodate the estates of Eden, Fever Hill, Burntwood and Parnassus.
As regards the patois of the Jamaican people, I haven’t attempted to reproduce this precisely, but have instead tried to make it more accessible to the general reader, while retaining, I hope, at least some of its colour and richness.
Michelle Paver
To find out more about Michelle Paver and her novels, visit her website at www.michellepaver.com.
She enchanted you with Wolf Brother. She chilled you to the bone with Dark Matter. Now, prepare to have your heart stolen away to another place and time. From the carnal pleasures of Ancient Rome to the grim battlefields of Flanders… you will live many lives, love many loves – brought to life so convincingly you will wonder where reality ends and fiction begins.
Yes, the past is another country. Let Michelle Paver take you there.
Instant Download - Buy Now - Read Now
THE SERPENT'S TOOTH
Part three of the Daughters of Eden trilogy
Michelle Paver
Digitally published by
Michelle Paver was born in Malawi; her father was South African and her mother is Belgian. They moved to England when she was small and she was brought up in Wimbledon, where she still lives.
Please visit Michelle's website to watch her talk about all her books, and to receive her newsletter.
THE SERPENT'S TOOTH
Copyright © Michelle Paver 2005
The right of Michelle Paver to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Condition of Sale
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
First publication in Great Britain by Transworld Publishers, a division of The Random House Group Ltd
ISBN 978-0-9927494-4-6 (ePub)
This edition digitally published by
Also by Michelle Paver
Without Charity
A Place In The Hills
The Shadow Catcher: Book One in The Eden Trilogy
Fever Hill: Book Two in The Eden Trilogy
The Serpent's Tooth: Book Three in The Eden Trilogy
Wolf Brother: Book One in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series
Spirit Walker: Book Two in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series
Soul Eater: Book Three in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series
Outcast: Book Four in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series
Oath Breaker: Book Five in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series
Ghost Hunter: Book Six in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series
Dark Matter: A Ghost Story
The Outsiders: Book One in the Gods and Warriors series
The Burning Shadow: Book Two in the Gods and Warriors series
THE
SERPENT'S TOOTH
Part One
Chapter One
Eden Estate, Jamaica, 1912
Belle had never wanted anything so much as the black onyx inkstand. Lyndon Traherne said she’d never win it because she was only a girl, but he was wrong. She would take first prize from right under his nose, and present the inkstand to Papa, and together they would place it on his desk, where it belonged.
Papa absolutely deserved the best. He was always working on the estate – at the boiling-house or in the cane-pieces – but however late he got home he always came in to kiss her goodnight. She would pretend to be asleep, and wait for the scratch of his whiskers, and his smell of horses and burnt sugar. And whenever she had the nightmare she would pad across to his study, and he would give her a thimbleful of rum and water and a puff at his cigar. Then she’d curl up on the Turkey rug beneath the oil painting of the big house in Scotland, and ask him impossible questions about robins and snow.
So the first prize in the Historical Society Juvenile Fancy Dress Ball had to be hers. Her costume had to be the best in Trelawny. Best on the Northside. Best in Jamaica.
To create a sense of drama, she announced that she’d be going as a fairy, when in fact she intended to make a surprise entrance as the Devil. She’d worked it all out. Saved her pocket money, and secretly bought a remnant of crimson sari silk at Falmouth market. She had every detail clear in her mind: the horns, the tail, the flickering flames of Hell. It would be perfection.
The day before the party found her furious and tearful amid a storm of botched fragments and crumpled fencing-wire horns.
Her mother came in, and gave her a long, steady look. ‘Why didn’t you ask me for help?’ she said quietly.
‘Because I wanted to do it myself!’
Her mother bit her lip and studied the remains. She looked tired, her dark hair coming down from her chignon in wisps. This was the first time she had hosted the Juvenile Ball, and she wanted it to be a success. But their house at Eden wasn’t really big enough, so they’d had to move the furniture off the verandah, and erect an awning in the garden. She’d been working for days. And the twins were colicky, which didn’t help.
Belle felt a pang of guilt at giving her this added trouble. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she muttered, aiming a kick at a nearby horn. ‘It’s my fault for choosing the Devil. I’ll just go as a wretched fairy.’
Her mother stooped and picked up a scrap of sari silk. ‘You always punish yourself.’
Belle thrust out her lower lip. ‘Well, because I deserve it.’
‘No you don’t. We can use my old dressing gown. The one Papa bought in Kingston that was a mistake? And these can be flames.’ She picked up the sari silk. ‘A nice, fiery ruff to hide that new bosom you’re so embarrassed about.’
Belle’s face burned. She’d been worrying about that.
‘But you’ll have to help,’ said her mother. ‘You do the horns, the tail, and the hooves.’
‘Hooves?’ said Belle.
‘Well, of course. All devils have hooves.’
Somehow, it was finished in time – and it was magnificent. Layer on layer of spangled scarlet flames. Plump red felt horns fixed to an Alice band. Cunning little hooves of crimson satin which fitted over her button boots like demonic spats. And best of all, a three-pronged tail that would be perfect for spiking air-balls, and Lyndon Traherne’s pride.
Then, on the morning of the party, disaster struck. Belle got her monthly cramps – what her mother called her petit ami. An odd name for bleeding and stomach ache and appalling embarrassment.
She told her parents that she had a headache, and sneaked a Dover’s powder from the bath-house cupboard. She didn’t want anyone to know. She hated the idea of growing up.
‘But you’re nearly fourteen,’ her mother would say when she was trying to persuade Belle into grown-up combinations, or gently mooting the notion of school in England.
‘Thirteen and five months,’ Belle would snap back. ‘That’s nowhere near fourteen.’ But even thirteen sounded too old.
She lay curled on her bed, watching the tree-ferns dip and sway against the louvres, and listening to the slap of the servants’ slippers and the chup-chup-zi of the sugarquits under the eaves.
She felt sore and churned up inside. And that wasn’t the worst of it. Ever since she’d started getting the cramps, she’d developed a terrible compulsion: an irresistible urge to picture every man she saw without any clothes. It didn’t matter who it was. Old Braverly the cook. Her dashing uncle Ben. Even Papa.
And she knew very well what to imagine, because last year she’d seen a group of field hands cooling off at the swimming-hole by the Arethusa Road. At the time, they’d looked so happy that she’d simply envied them their freedom. But a few months later, when the cramps started to come, the memory had returned to haunt her. It was awful. Shameful. There must be something wrong with her.
The Daughters of Eden Trilogy Page 83
