Chapter 11 #2
For the first time in months, I let myself wish for my fathers.
For the calm, calculating gaze Fabian would give Mrs. Smetlar at this news, and the exasperated, distrustful glare Don would throw her way.
Although… perhaps they already knew. Perhaps Mr. Fenway would have told us the same thing if he were still alive—albeit without four walls of dead animals pressing in on us while he said it.
Mrs. Smetlar herself straightened her rod of a back even more.
“If it means maintaining the strength and prosperity Dyonisia Reeve has given this precious island, I shall be glad to watch the Good Council throw many more of you to sea after you fail your Final Tests.”
And finally, her smile gave way to a leer.
Mr. Conine’s double block of Predators & Prey came as a relief two hours later, when our whole class trudged to Building 3C.
Gileon had found Nuisance waiting for him outside on a low stone wall—thank the God of the Cosmos for that—so now he filled the beetle in on everything Mrs. Smetlar had said while we walked.
“Wren always used to complain about Mr. Fenway’s digestive issues,” Rodhi said mournfully, “but I bet she’s gonna wish for his stink back when she meets that vulture of a woman this afternoon. If only I had the right kind of pan, I’d bake her into a pie and feed her to the—”
“I just hope Dazmine’s okay,” I interrupted before he could finish that horrible sentence. The last we needed was for a spider to report it back to Mrs. Smetlar… although I doubted a single living thing wanted to get within half a mile of that room surrounded by their own nightmares.
Rodhi, Emelle, and I glanced up toward Dazmine, who was walking ahead with her eyes glued to the stone walkway. I might not have cared for Jenia, but if it had been Emelle who’d been exiled…
I might have thrown my knife at Mrs. Smetlar for what she’d said.
None of us said another word until we got to Mr. Conine, who was waiting for us right outside the classroom door, his sideburns and circle beard as bushy as ever. When the entire class had gathered around him, he clapped his leathery hands and rubbed his palms together.
“Welcome back, Wild Whisperers. I had a whole lesson planned on gibbons, but it turns out our friends in the Object Summoning sector need our help. Lots of bugs out this year. Which means lots of food for the mice. Which means… lots of snakes. Specifically black mambas.”
Murmurs broke the silence. We’d talked to snakes last year—and broken up a fight between a boa constrictor and a mongoose during a quarterly test—but only ever interacted with non-venomous ones.
Black mambas… I remembered Fabian and Don warning me to avoid them altogether in Alderwick. This should be fun.
“If you’ll follow me,” Mr. Conine said, “I’ll explain as we walk.”
He began to wind through the smallest passageways of our sector, and we followed in single file.
His voice echoed back as he said, “The Summoners have used their magic to expel the snakes, of course, but…” A gruff laugh.
“Mambas are prideful and can hold a mean grudge. No amount of physically removing them will keep them away for long, not when they know where all the food is now. So it’ll be our job to make the mambas leave for good—by tricking them. ”
Interesting. Usually, Mr. Conine warned us against being deceptive toward animals. The fact that he was encouraging deception now…
Mr. Conine laughed again, probably hearing all our murmurs as we ducked under a painted arch and came to a row of quaint wooden classrooms clogged with objects hanging from strings over our heads: shoes and empty bottles, pocket watches and even some underwear.
“The boa constrictors we dealt with last year are downright docile compared to black mambas. Whereas boa constrictors value companionship in small doses, black mambas value trickery.”
Mr. Conine turned to face us again, his expression tightening into something serious.
“They will try to trick you, to lure you in, so it’s very important that you resist whatever it is they offer. Don’t make any sudden movements, and don’t get too close.”
A group of Summoners passed by, then, each levitating a different object over their heads as if they were balancing buckets. One of them did a double take at the sight of us standing in his sector, and the pitcher that had been floating over his head gave a violent tremor and clanged to the ground.
An instructor screeched out a reprimand. Mr. Conine waited until the boy had picked up his pitcher with his invisible Summoning hands and moved on with the rest of his class before resuming his instructions.
“Your job today is to find a black mamba and trick them into leaving the Esholian Institute. Lie, cheat, steal—I am giving you permission to be the worst kind of person possible when it comes to them. Because trust me—they will see through your lies, but they will commend you for the attempt, and respect you enough to leave. But by the orchid and the owl, class, do not get close enough to touch.”
With that, we all broke apart. Gileon and Nuisance went one way and Rodhi and Emelle went another, so I plunged toward the back of the Summoning sector, where mossy, overhanging branches soon dampened any sound and the wood of the classrooms began to rot.
A tingle climbed up the back of my neck, merging with the constant ache in my head. It was so silent here—besides the low humming of trees—that I looked over my shoulder more than once for signs of any flesh-eating plants swaying nearby.
Nothing. Nothing besides these derelict classrooms with moss-cloaked windowpanes and caved-in roofs. Too familiar. As if I’d been here in a dream or another life.
Just as I was eyeing a broken door with bloodstains splattered on its surface, a high, hissing voice said, “Looking for someone, girl?”
I almost whirled, but stopped myself. Do not make any sudden movements, Mr. Conine had said. So I turned slowly instead.
A pale gray snake, long and slender, had lifted its head from a chipped wooden porch, where it sunbathed in a single strip of light that had broken through the upper canopies. Its scales weren’t black, but I was sure the roof of its mouth would be.
Not that I’d want to get close enough to find out.
“No,” I lied. “Just taking a stroll. What about you?”
The mamba blinked: the only sign it was surprised that I had understood its hissing. That I wasn’t a Summoner who could expel it with invisible hands, but a Wild Whisperer who could talk back.
“You smell like you’re troubled,” it said, its tongue flicking out to taste the air. “And slightly sad. Almost as if you are in a constant state of pain.”
“How astute of you.” I backed up a pace as it slithered down the sagging steps and re-coiled itself on the ground before me.
“But you do not taste scared,” the mamba said. “Why is that?”
Because I trusted my knife hand. Because I could feel the antler handle pressed firmly against my thigh, ready for me to wield it.
But I said, “You’ve had your fill of poor, innocent mice, I hear.” Now, more than ever, I was glad I always snuck Willa bits of cheese. She’d never have to worry about venturing out into snake territory for a meal. “Why would I be afraid of you eating me?”
The mamba seemed to smile, its mouth opening at a slanted angle to reveal two delicate, needle-like fangs.
“Indeed, I have had my fill, but not of mice. Would you like me to tell you about my latest meal?” The mamba didn’t wait for me to respond.
“It was a red-sided opossum who’d fallen from a tree nearby.
She was wounded, just as you are, and begged me for a dose of my venom to take the pain away. It was a mercy.”
“Is that so?” I tried not to sound too interested, willing the throbbing in my head to go away for one damned second so I could focus. Bored. I had to keep my face bored and disinterested.
The mamba coiled tighter, gathering itself.
“Oh yes. My venom has a soothing property that works so quickly, it’ll be like floating among the clouds and stars within seconds. Tell me, girl—how long has it been since you’ve felt pleasure?”
Never, it seemed. It was as if I’d spent my whole life sleeping up until three months ago, when I’d opened my eyes to haze and coldness. To emptiness and pain that only grew and grew and grew.
The tears in my throat rose up to nip at my nose, my eyes.
Clouds and stars. That sounded nice. That sounded good. I belonged up in the clouds, between stars and beneath the moon.
But—I shook my head and stumbled back a step—I had to help the Good Council catch Steeler on Sunday.
My vision seemed to clear. I found the mamba’s slitted gaze.
“I know of something even better than clouds and stars.”
It paused. Flicked its tongue once.
“Oh?”
“Yes,” I said, determination hardening in my bones. “Yes. It’s far away from here, on the other end of the island, where there are no other snakes to compete with. Only endless food and endless sun.”
It was my biggest lie yet, of course. Nobody knew what lay within the boundary of the Uninhabitable Zone on the other end of the island. The one time I’d seen it from a flying carriage, it had been nothing but swirling, milky mist that definitely wouldn’t let any sunlight through.
Still, the mamba seemed to consider my words with a tilt of its coffin-shaped head.
“And you would forego sweet, dark oblivion for this place of endless light?”
What had Jagaros told me last night? Everything will come to light soon enough. And this time, that light will be permanent.
To me, it didn’t matter if that light came from warm, buttery sunlight or the fiercest blaze of wildfire or the stroke of a moonbeam on a dark, misty night. I just needed something, anything, to shed a glimmer onto the dark, frosty thing I’d become inside.
“Light is light,” I answered. “If I had to choose, I would take that over darkness any day. As should you.”
The mamba was silent for so long I wondered if it had gone to sleep. Then it bowed its head ever so slightly.
“Perhaps I shall go find this faraway place, then.”
It saw through my deception, as Mr. Conine had predicted. Saw through my deception and respected it. With a swift jerk of its glistening gray head, it slithered away until the last of it had disappeared.
Leaving me with that single question: how long had it been since I’d felt pleasure? Or anything besides a throbbing head and a wall of ice?
Maybe Emelle was right—maybe it was time to go to a party for real. To break my no-drinking rule for a night and flirt and dance.
And shake away the weight of Steeler’s body in that alleyway, warm and hard and electric where it had pressed against mine.