The Serpent Gift

by Lene Kaaberbøl

  There was a rattle and a flutter, and a small shower of heavy drops spattered my head and shoulders. I jerked, but it was just a woodpigeon taking off. It landed heavily on a branch a little farther off, eyeing me with suspicion.

  “Siiiiilky!” My voice sounded strangely lonely even though I knew I was only a very short walk away from the cottage. But even here in the copse, the fog hung like a heavy gray curtain, and when one could see no farther than the next tree, it was easy to feel that one was all alone in the world.

  If only the fog would go away. But it didn’t, of course.

  Wait. What was that? Something… something gray. More solidly gray than the mists. Silky, half hidden by the trees. I wanted to break into a run, but I knew that would only scare her off. I rattled the bucket instead and called to her in a low voice, moving forward with slow, easy strides.

  But when I got there, she was gone again. Where was she now? I had heard no hoofbeats, and yet I could no longer see her. And where were the tracks? The ground looked completely untrampled here. This could not be where she had been standing when I spotted her. Perhaps a little farther on.

  I walked on, rattling the bucket and calling. She had to be here, probably only just out of sight. Perhaps I should backtrack a bit and try to pick up her trail. But when I turned around, one tree looked exactly like the other. Where had I come from? Which way was home? Callan had told us plenty of scary stories about children who lost their way in the Highlands, only to end as a wolf’s dinner or, worse, captured by Underworld spirits, never to be seen again.

  Calm down, I told myself severely. There is absolutely no reason to panic. Just walk back to the brook and follow it until you get to the washing stones. After that, the rest is easy.

  But Silky? I’d seen her.

  I hesitated. Should I go on looking now that I knew I was close? Or should I go back? I so wanted to find her. I was sure she was lost in the mists, lonely and scared and homesick. And what if there really were wolves? They did not often venture this close to human places, but perhaps the fog made them bolder?

  I wish I hadn’t thought of wolves. All of a sudden it was as if I could hear them howling; distantly, to be sure, but they could come closer anytime. Poor Silky! There is no way I’ll let you become a wolf’s dinner, I silently promised. I will find you!

  The copse fell behind. Hardly any trees now, just grass and rock and heather and mist. And still no Silky.

  I stopped. This was no good.

  I’m so sorry, Silky, I silently apologized. I’ll lose my way if I keep going like this. It cut at my heart to think of my poor little horse astray in the fog, unable to find her way home, and the thought of wolves made me even colder than I already was. But there was nothing else to do. I turned around and started walking back to the woods.

  Only one thing wrong.

  I couldn’t find them.

  I hated the fog. It wasn’t just a matter of disliking it, I really hated it. I might as well have been blind, and I couldn’t trust my hearing either; the fog could not really be full of flute music and the howling of wolves. Could it? When I tried to shout, the mists stole away my voice so that only a thin, plaintive call came out. And no one answered. Davin couldn’t be that far away. The house couldn’t be that far away, or the woods, or the Dance, or… anything. Anything recognizable and familiar that would put east and west back where east and west ought to be and would tell me which way was home. And the longer I walked, the colder I got, because the dampness of the fog slowly seeped through my shawl and blouse and skirt. If I didn’t get out of this stupid fog, I would grow mold, I thought viciously.

  What if I kept walking downhill? Yew Tree Cottage was in a hollow, after all. Up and down were about the only directions I felt sure of. So. Downhill. Why did it seem to get colder the lower I got? I would have thought it would be less chilly here than on the hilltops, but not today. And then the ground started to get squishy underfoot, and when I lifted my foot, dark water collected in my footprints for a moment before slowly soaking back into the ground. Surely it wasn’t this soggy around Yew Tree Cottage? The plants seemed different too—tall ferns, wolfsbane and gorse. And the soil was so dark it looked black, and it smelled increasingly of bog.

  I stopped. I didn’t dare go on. The hollow I was headed into was not our hollow. I had to face facts: I was now completely and utterly lost.

  I didn’t know what to do. If I kept walking, I might be moving farther and farther away from the cottage with every step. I felt cold and wet and scared, and it was all I could do not to cry.

  A lithe, scaly body slipped from the ferns and zigzagged across the black earth right in front of my foot. My heart jumped like a frightened frog, but it was just a grass snake; I could see the yellow spots behind its head. I knew it was harmless, but something about the black snaking form still made my skin crawl. No, I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to be up where the ground was dry and firm, at least.

  I tried following my own footsteps, but the ground was pock-marked with wet holes, many more than I could have made. Ferns slapped wetly against my legs, and around me, the mists moved slowly, in lazy swirls. If I didn’t carefully remind myself that fog was fog, the swirls turned into veils and white faces and pale arms reaching out for me.

  Then I heard it once more, and this time there was no doubt. Someone really was playing the flute. The notes danced around me as though they were part of the mist, like a breath of wind through water reeds, or the first few drops of a rain shower. My heart was pounding along like a runaway horse now, because I was really hearing this music, and I could think of only one explanation: this was the spirits of the Underworld playing, trying to lure me into their den.

  Suddenly I knew exactly what had happened. They had taken Silky. She was just the kind of horse they would love, fine-boned but strong, a real Highland horse without a single drop of Lowland blood in her veins. And the fog, of course, was their doing. Under one of the hills here, the Grim-Wife had lit her big cauldron. It was bubbling and boiling and pouring mist into the world, to trick and deceive unwary mortals. They were planning a feast tonight, the Grim-Wife and her people, and the music had already started. And I was horribly afraid that they meant for Silky to be the main course. They had a taste for horseflesh, it was said.

  Oh, why hadn’t I stuck with Davin? If only there had been two of us… and he had a proper sword now, too, instead of that silly iron bar that broke the first time he tried to fight somebody with it.

  I didn’t even dare call out his name. The fog was listening. And in the stories, the spirits liked child’s flesh even better than horseflesh. I couldn’t even count on my stupid Shamer’s eyes anymore. Of course, they might not be much good against creatures like that anyway. They didn’t know about good and evil, people said. It was possible to trade with them if one was clever and very, very careful. But no human could ever trust a creature of the Underworld.

  I had been standing still for so long that I had started to sink into the soggy ground. When I tried to walk on, it was as if someone had hold of my feet from below. I wrested myself free, but it seemed the bog was loath to surrender its grip.

  Not sure whether I was being brave or just incredibly stupid, I started to walk toward the music.

  There, in the middle of a small lake, stood the flute player. He was standing on top of the water, it seemed, while the mists curled caressingly around his knees, stretching up pale fingers to touch the hem of his cloak. The notes drifted along, almost a part of the fog, and whispered into my ears. And my eyes filled with tears, because the stories they told were so incredibly sad. I didn’t understand everything the notes were telling me, but the sadness came through so clearly. The handle of the bucket slipped from my fingers, and I sat down as if I had no strength left in my legs at all.

  He heard the rattle of the bucket and turned around. He had seen me, I knew he had. But still he kept on playing, kept blowing his sad notes across the lake and the reeds. Not until the tune ha
d come to its end did he lower the flute.

  “I thought you might come,” he said. “Now, will you please tell me your name?”

  It was only then that I recognized him. The stranger from the Market, the man in the red shirt. And he wasn’t standing on the water, as I had first thought, but on a flat rock half-hidden by the mists.

  I was so relieved that he wasn’t a spirit that I just told him. “Dina.”

  He nodded as if he already knew. “You’re looking for your horse,” he said.

  “How do you know?”

  He smiled faintly. “Because a dappled gray Highland mare came this way a moment ago. May I help you find her?”

  Silky, as it turned out, was not far away. We found her a little farther up the hill, peacefully munching meadow grass as if she had not a care in the world. I was so happy to see her that I got all teary-eyed again, and at the same time I was angry with her for giving me such a fright. But I tried to sound calm and collected when I called to her.

  “Silky! Come on, girl. Want some oats?”

  She raised her head and pricked up her ears. And then she came forward eagerly to bury her muzzle in the bucket, and I gratefully caught hold of her halter.

  “Thank you,” I told the stranger. “I had almost given up on her.”

  “One should never give up,” he told me in his alien, lilting voice. “Did not your mother teach you that?”

  I nodded hesitantly. Suddenly, I didn’t know how to talk to him. What was he doing here? Had he followed us from the Market? I remembered Beastie’s barking, and how Callan had circled back but found no one.

  “Do you know my mother?” I asked. Should I be afraid of him? But he had found Silky for me. In a way, he had saved her from the Grim-Wife.

  “I knew her once. If you let me walk home with you, perhaps we may become friends once more.”

  I looked at him, trying to decide whether he was telling the truth, but without my Shamer’s eyes, I couldn’t be sure. He did not look like a liar, but one never knew. Mama would be able to tell. Perhaps bringing him to Yew Tree Cottage would be the right thing to do. If I could find it, of course.

  “I’m afraid I’m slightly lost,” I said.

  “Then it is fortunate that I am good at knowing where to go,” he answered calmly.

  It was much farther than I thought it would be. I had time to worry that he might be leading us astray. He had said he was good at finding his way, but I only had his word for it, and besides, he might deliberately be leading us in the wrong direction. But Silky walked with eager steps and pointed ears and looked like a horse headed for home and a warm stable, so I decided to trust her judgment. And after a while we heard voices calling—Davin and Rose and Mama.

  “I’m right here,” I called back. “I’m coming, and I’ve found Silky!”

  “Dina!” Mama’s voice was sharp with relief. “Thank Our Lady. We were afraid you had lost your way in the fog.”

  Davin took Silky’s halter and led her into the stable, and Mama put her arms around me and hugged me tight. She had really been worried, I could tell.

  “Mama, I did get lost a bit,” I said carefully. “But then I met…” I hesitated, realizing that he hadn’t told me his name. “He says he knows you, Mama. He helped me catch Silky.”

  Mama let go of me and seemed to notice the stranger for the first time. He was standing just inside the yard in his gray cloak and for a moment seemed almost a part of the mists. She stiffened. I could feel a sort of jerk going through her, and then her whole body hardened as if she had put on armor.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “Surely you can guess.”

  “No.”

  Her voice was hard as rock, and somehow you could tell that she wasn’t saying “No, I can’t guess,” but “No, I know what you want and I won’t let you have it.”

  “Melussina—”

  “No.” Even more harshly, this time. “Go away. Leave me and my children alone.”

  “You cannot ask that.”

  “Yes, I can. I want no part of you and yours.”

  She still had her hands on my shoulders, and I could tell that they were shaking. Why was she so afraid of him? Or angry with him, or both?

  “I have a right.”

  “Go away,” said Mama, and this time she used the Shamer’s voice so that he had no choice but to obey.

  He bowed his head.

  “As you wish,” he said, wrapping the cloak more closely around him. He turned and walked away, and within a few strides the fog had swallowed him completely. But his voice reached us clearly even though we could no longer see him. It sounded much nearer than he was.

  “You cannot deny me my right forever,” he said. “After all, I am the girl’s father.”

  DINA

  Beastie

  It felt as if my legs no longer quite reached the ground. The girl’s father. The girl. Did he mean me?

  “Inside,” said Mama in a voice as gray and heavy as the fog. “All of you. Inside. Now.”

  On the kitchen table, plates and mugs were still waiting to be used. It was unreal. It was as if I had only closed my eyes for a moment, and now that I had opened them again, everything looked the same but was completely different. Mama closed and locked all the shutters, ordered Beastie on guard outside, and barred the door. And then she did something I had often seen other women do, in Birches and in the Highlands, but never Mama. She took a bowl and brushed a little ash from the hearth into it. Then she spat on her finger and drew sooty black Xs on the door and all the windows. It barred evil from entering, they said. Mama never used to do such things. Perhaps she felt it wasn’t necessary for a Shamer. But why, then, had it become necessary now?

  “Mama—”

  “Not now, Dina. Get the fire going again. Rose, light the lamp.”

  It was midday. Were we supposed to burn expensive lamp oil in daylight hours? Everything was wrong. Everything. The girl’s father. I stood there with a strange buzz and prickle in my whole body, like the deadened feeling in an arm when you’ve fallen asleep on top of it.

  “Mama, he—”

  “We will not talk about that, Dina. Not until the fog is gone. Now we will sit and eat our lunch, and afterward Davin will tell us all a story.”

  She looked at each of us in turn in that way she had which made it impossible to disobey. We all sat down, but I hardly tasted whatever it was I put into my mouth, and on the bench opposite me, Melli was on the brink of tears because she could feel that something was wrong. Belle cowered at Rose’s feet the way she did when a thunderstorm was coming. And at first, nobody said a word.

  “Davin, perhaps you can begin the story while we eat?” Mama finally said.

  Davin looked at her searchingly, almost as if he was checking to see if she was ill.

  “Which one do you want to hear?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Mama. “One that deals with good things. Fun things. A story that makes you laugh.”

  Davin was the best storyteller in the family, probably because it had always been his job to tell bedtime stories to Melli and me whenever Mama was out or too busy. But I could see that it was difficult for him to concentrate right now. Finally he started on “The Tale of the Pig Who Wouldn’t Be Dirty.”

  “Once upon a time, there was a very clean little pig by the name of Persival.” Davin put on his storyteller’s voice, deeper and slower than his normal one. “While the other piglets rolled and wallowed and had mud fights, this little piggy liked nothing better than to scrub his pink hide until he shone with cleanliness. ‘Just because one happens to be born a pig is no reason to behave like one!’ he said, to the despair of his mother, who was a very proper and dirty sow.”

  Melli was already beginning to look less tense. She took a large bite out of the bread slice she was holding and chewed away as she listened.

  “At first Persival’s mother tried to reason with him, explaining how mud and dirt were naturally good for the skin.
Persival wouldn’t listen and continued to scrub away as if soap and water had been invented specifically for him. All the other pigs in the field laughed at him and called him names, Soapy and Cleanie and Flower-Stink and worse things, but Persival turned up his piggy nose at them. ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but filth will never touch me,’ he said. His sibling piglets were ashamed of him, and more than once they ganged up on him and pushed him into the biggest mud hole they could find. But as soon as they let him up, he went straight to the nearest stream for a nice clean bath. And Persival might have grown up to be the cleanest pig in the world, had it not been for two wolves who happened by one day.”

  At the mention of wolves, Melli sat up straight and began to look anxious, and Davin hurriedly explained that the wolves had just eaten and were not very dangerous. They really just wanted to tease the pigs a bit.

  “But Persival didn’t know that,” he continued. “So when he heard the wolves discussing which pig to catch and eat, he was so frightened that his pink skin became nearly green.”

  Melli giggled at the idea of a green pig, and Mama gave Davin a small nod of approval.

  Davin put on a growly deep wolf voice.

  “Let’s eat that one over there,” he growled, and answered himself in an even deeper voice, “Naw, too dirty. Let’s go for that nice little clean one instead.”

  Melli put a hand to her mouth. “That’s Persival,” she whispered. “They want to eat Persival.”

  “Not really,” Davin reminded her. “But Persival thought so. With a squeal he headed straight for the deepest wallow in the field and rolled and rolled and rolled until he was the filthiest piglet of them all.”