The Serpent's Embrace

Fiction - by Scott Miller

Ev looked up as the hunters approached from the cave’s interior. She dropped the hide she’d been scraping and crawled away from the fire to crouch at the edge of her grandfather’s hearth. When they stopped outside the ring of stones, they stood silently with bowed heads. Hov sat staring into his fire, ignoring them.

Their hide trousers and tunics were ragged, unlike her’s and her grandfather’s, and their boots were worn out. They stole glances at the fresh hide and at the bits of meat remaining from breakfast. Her cheeks burned as she lowered her eyes. She couldn’t look at them, couldn’t bear her own affluence.

Hov finally rose and glowered down at them. “Well – what do you want?”

Ab looked up as the rest shrank before their massive leader. “We’re hungry, Hov. We’ve been living on roots for too long. The herds haven’t come, and we want to go in search of them as our grandfathers did.”

Hov glared at them while they studied their own feet. “I brought your grandfathers to this valley and took this cave from the bear that owned it.” He put a hand on his bear skull, and the hunters shuffled back a step. “I provide everything for you, yet you come to me whining that you’re hungry. No one leaves this place. The herds will come when I choose to call them.”

Ab spread his arms. “Why will you not call them now? Or are they not heeding you?”

Hov seemed to grow even larger. His lightning played across his shoulders, and his eyes blazed with blue-white light. Ev crawled away to cower against the cave wall.

The group of hunters parted, leaving Ab standing alone. He’d begun to back away when the bolt from Hov’s outstretched arm hit him in the chest, and he flew backward, crashing to the ground. Smoke rose from his tunic as he lay moaning and twitching.

“This valley is the world. It is mine. All of you are mine.” Hov narrowed his eyes at the hunters. “GO!”

The force of his shout knocked them all to the ground, and they rose or crawled toward the back of the cave. Two of them dragged Ab away.

Hov snorted as his lightning faded. He scanned the silent cave until he found Ada helping Ev to her feet. His eyes blazed again, and his lightning surged. He flicked another bolt from his fingertips, hurling Ada out of the cave onto his back. Ev rushed to him, but a second, lesser bolt knocked her to the ground.

Hov strode over and stood above her. “I told you to stay away from that miserable orphan. Now get back to work.”

She crawled away, then half rose and slunk back to her place at his hearth. She picked up the hide she’d been working on and dared a glance at Ada, who was hauling himself to his feet.

At day’s end, she stood at the cave entrance looking down the valley. The river’s meanders stretched away through forest and meadow, reflecting the red glow of the sky. Mountain tops to either side blushed in the last of the daylight. She sighed. Such a beautiful place, but what wonders must exist beyond.

“Ev, what are you doing there? Work’s to be done.” Hov’s eyes flashed from his place at the fire.

She tore her gaze and her thoughts from the horizon and returned to her place in the shadows. Another of Hov’s hides required her efforts. Soon, it would be time for sleep and the only escape available to her. She looked towards the dim rear of the cave and Ada’s lonely hearth.

“Ev!”

She lowered her eyes and worked until the light failed. Then, she spread her sleeping pelts and made her escape.

Later, in midnight darkness, she sat up. Even though the hearth fires had burned down to their last embers, she could see her too familiar surroundings clearly. But nothing was familiar. Everything had gained a new significance as if on the point of revealing mysteries.

Movement at the back of the cave. A glowing white serpent emerged from a hole in the wall, gliding out until it revealed a body twice her length. Its soft white light entered her when their eyes met, saturating her body and leaking out her pores. It moved past Ada’s hearth and wound its way among the others. Eternity rattled around inside the time it took to reach her.

It crossed Hov’s hearth, avoiding the sorcerer, and climbed the wall to the shelf holding the bear skull. It coiled around it and rested there a moment, capturing her eyes again.

Its gaze drew her out of herself. She watched from above as it descended the wall then glided over her legs and around her body. It wound about her waist, again around her chest, then brought its head over her shoulder and around to face her. She sat still as the stones while the serpent stared into her eyes and flicked its forked tongue against the space between. The light rose in her again, pinning her to her body, and she relaxed in the serpent’s embrace.

Ages turned in its eyes and spun into her’s. She knew the secret hearts of all creatures, understood the flow of time and the span of eternity. Her own glow filled the cave as the serpent flowed over her shoulder and down her body to the ground.

It glided away among the sleeping people, avoiding everyone until it reached Ada’s hearth. There it paused before crossing right over him and continuing the short distance to the hole it had emerged from.

She sat up in dawn’s uncertain light. Wisdom had abandoned her. All of the dream’s knowledge was gone. She shivered and pulled her sleeping pelts around her shoulders. When she looked toward the back of the cave, Ada returned her gaze.

Later, she found him alone in the forest, digging roots. He was always alone, had been since he was a child. Hated by Hov and therefore shunned by the group, he was her only friend.

“Ada, I need to talk to you.”

“Sure, Ev. What’s wrong?”

“Sit with me? I…I’m scared.”

He cocked his head, looking into her eyes, then led her under the shelter of a big shady tree. They sat cross-legged, facing each other, and he put his hand on hers. “What is it? Tell me.”

She shook her head and looked at the ground between them.

“It’s OK. You know you can tell me anything.”

They’d been close since childhood when she’d made a point of befriending him after his parents died. After Hov killed them. He didn’t know that, but he had to suspect. Just as she was beginning to suspect her own mother’s death had been no accident. Now, there was something more than friendship between them. At least that’s how she felt.

“I had a strange dream. I think it was a dream. I…”

“Tell me.” He held her eyes in his.

Heat ran up her neck and into her face. Maybe he felt as she did. She poured out the dream, barely pausing for breath. When she’d finished, he looked past her into the distance, silent.

“Ada?” She shouldn’t have told him. It was only a dream. Why was she making such a big deal out of it?

“I don’t think it’s an ordinary dream, Ev. I think you’re being called by a power.”

“Called? Me? I’m just my grandfather’s servant. He’s powerful, but what does that have to do with me? I’m nobody.”

Ada stood and pulled her to her feet. “No, you’re not. Look at yourself. You’re strong and beautiful. You’re smarter than anyone. You…” He looked down, his face gone red.

She reached out but stopped short of touching his shoulder.

He coughed, took a deep breath, and blew it out, then looked back up. “That serpent was calling you, and we have to follow it.”

“We?”

“Of course, we.”

She smiled, “I don’t know about following it, but thank you for listening to my dream. I better get back. Hov will be looking for me.”

“It’s not just a dream. I know there’s something behind that wall. There’s always a draft blowing through the rocks. And why would a power call you to follow unless it was possible? We should go tonight. I’ll make preparations.”

“I don’t know. I have to think about it.”

“Tonight, Ev.”

She walked back toward the cave. Were they really going to crawl into the underworld down a narrow snake hole? No, it was only a dream. She’d better dig some roots on the way back. It wouldn’t do to arrive empty-handed.

At the cave, she dropped her haul of roots into Hov’s larder. All but one. A few women worked at their hearths, but they wouldn’t say anything. No one spoke to Hov if they didn’t have to, and he wasn’t here. She walked to the back of the cave.

At Ada’s poor hearth, she paused. Only Hov had a favorable location near the entrance, forcing everyone else into the smoke and shadows of the interior. But Ada’s was the worst of all, isolated in the back where sunlight never reached. She bent down and left that last root on his sleeping pelts, then moved to the back wall.

The hole was in a fall of loose rocks. It was too small to enter or to even get her head in. She pulled a rock from the edge of the opening, then another. It could be enlarged, but she hesitated. Something was snagged a hand’s breadth inside. A long, tattered, pale something. A snakeskin.

She coiled it and stuffed it down her tunic, then walked back to Hov’s hearth. Not a dream, a calling by a power. She needed to see Ada again.

The sun was falling toward the mountains when she found him where they’d met that morning. He was bundling sticks and binding them with twisted bark. Torches. He’d gone ahead with preparations despite her doubt.

He looked up. “Ev. We’re going to do this, aren’t we?”

“I guess so….I found the hole and this in it.” She pulled the snakeskin from her tunic and held it out to him.

He stepped back. “That’s not for me. You’re the one.”

“But the serpent touched you too. You have to help me.”

“And I will, but I’m not touching that.”

She put the skin back in her tunic. “I’ve been thinking about why the power spoke to me and about your part in this. I…I need to tell you something. Your parents…”

“What about them?”

“Hov…I mean, after what he did.”

“After what?”

“After he… after…after he murdered your parents.”

“Hov killed my parents? And you knew this? And never told me?” He clenched his jaw and turned away to stare into the sky. After a moment, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then again. He turned back to her and put his hands on her shoulders. “It’s OK, Ev. It’s OK.”

“We were little kids, and I was afraid to tell you. Then time passed, and I hadn’t told you, and I just couldn’t.”

“It’s OK, Ev.”

“He did it for his power, Ada. A blood sacrifice. I…I think he did the same to my mother the year before.”

Ada opened his arms, and she fell into them, sobbing. She cried herself dry, then stepped back, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

“I’m afraid if I’m taken by a power, I’ll become like Hov.”

“That’s not you, Ev. He seized his power through blood and violence. He was already a beast.”

“You’re right. It’s just…I’m scared.” She rubbed her face with both hands, then straightened. “The hole needs to be enlarged. We don’t even know if there’s a passage beyond.”

“I’ll take care of everything this evening. No one pays any attention to what I do.” He took her hand. “Ev, I…

That’s when Hov found them.

“EV!”

Ada turned to him with hard eyes and clenched fists. “You.”

Hov raised an eyebrow, took half a step back, then smiled and knocked him down with a fist to the chest. He stood over him, grinning, as Ada struggled to catch his breath. His lightning flared, and he cocked a flaming arm back to strike.

“No!” Ev lurched between them. Hov hesitated. He frowned down at her, and she closed her eyes, bracing for the blow. When it didn’t come, she looked up. His face was clenched, his fist still poised to strike. Slowly, he dropped his arm as his lightning dimmed. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her away, but she broke free and threw herself at Ada as he struggled to rise. She put her mouth to his ear. “Tonight, Ada.” Then Hov jerked her to her feet and dragged her all the way back to his hearth.

That night, she lay awake as the fire burned down to embers. Grease shone on Hov’s sleeping face in the dim light. How could he stuff himself with meat when the rest of the group had none? He was no leader, just stronger than the rest of them. Maybe this night would change that. Or maybe she’d be burned to ash by the power. Either way.

At last, all was quiet except for scattered snoring and the rustle of restless sleepers. She picked up a stone lamp and the small bundle of fat she’d secreted away at dinner, then stepped across Hov’s hearth stones. She stole among the sleeping people, making her way to Ada.

“Ev?” He whispered into the darkness.

“It’s me. Are you ready? Can we get in?”

“Yes, I think so.”

He knelt, put one of the torches against the last embers of his fire, and blew until it flared. Then he stood and held it between them, gazing at her face.

“What is it?” She looked up at him, then away toward the serpent’s hole.

“Nothing, never mind. Here, you should lead.” He handed her the torch, keeping his bundle of spares.

She walked to the opening and thrust the torch into the hole where a cold draft brightened it and blew the flame back toward her face. The potency of the darkness beyond rocked her back.

“Ev?”

“I don’t want to go in there.”

“Ev.”

She clenched her jaw, pushed the torch back into the opening as far as she could reach and crawled in after it. Ada followed close behind.

They advanced on hands and knees, the sides and ceiling of the passage much too close. Her heart pounded, and her breath came fast and shallow. There was no backing out now, literally. They’d never be able to turn around in this tight space. If the passage didn’t lead somewhere…Well, she’d rather not think about that.

The first torch was almost gone when a wild urge to stand seized her. She halted, her heart sprinting in her chest, before Ada tapped her leg and passed a fresh one forward. She lit it from the first, whipping it back and forth until it burned brightly. She didn’t thank him. The mass of stone around them left no room for speech.

The second torch was long gone, and the third almost done when the walls and ceiling vanished into a larger space. She stood at last and took an uncertain step forward, whipping the torch into brightness as Ada emerged behind her.

The high ceiling was just visible in the torchlight, but she could make out nothing else beyond the wall at her back and the hole they’d emerged from. The void tugged at her, and she leaned against the wall to keep from falling forward.

Ada gripped her shoulder. “Come on. We need to keep moving and see what’s down here while our light lasts.”

She nodded and eased along the wall to her left. Spears of stone rising from the floor and hanging from the ceiling emerged from the darkness as they passed. Stout columns sparkled in the torchlight. So beautiful, so terrifying.

Something on the ground ahead caught the light, and she lowered the torch for a better view. She gasped, lurched back a step, and grabbed Ada’s hand as he groped for her’s. At their feet was a cave bear nest sheltering the intact skeleton of its owner.

The hair on the back of her neck rose tingling, and every muscle urged her to flee. This was Hov’s power, and she couldn’t look at it, couldn’t catch her breath. She released Ada’s hand and wiped the cold sweat from her forehead.

But she had been called here for a reason, so she forced a step forward and leaned down. What was that wound through the bones? She knelt and moved the torch along the skeleton, revealing a long pale snakeskin coiling among the ribs and ultimately passing through an eye socket. This meant something she couldn’t quite get hold of. Her eyes followed the coils around and around, dragging her mind with them.

She snapped back into herself at Ada’s touch. “What do we do now?” he whispered.

She shook her head. How was she supposed to know? She handed him the torch and pulled the stone lamp from her tunic, filled its shallow depression with fat, and inserted a bark wick. Then she lit it from the torch and set it down near the bear’s skull. When she leaned in close and touched the snakeskin where it protruded from an eye socket, a sharp shock flashed up her arm, and she jumped to her feet.

“Are you OK?” Ada held the torch high as he stared at her.

She took the torch without responding and turned to the wall behind her. Passing the flame back and forth across it, she studied the stone. “Do you see this, Ada? Do you see the animals in the wall?”

“What?”

“Look here. This bulge in the rock is a bison. This crack over here looks like a horse’s head and back. Don’t you see it?”

He moved closer, searched the rock, and shook his head. “What are you talking about? There are no animals here. How could there be animals in the stone?”

She studied his face. His voice was odd, and he seemed unsteady on his feet. “Sit with me.”

They sat close together facing the wall, and she put her hand on his back. “Easy now, it’s going to be alright.”

“Having trouble breathing. The air is strange here. I…”

“I know, but it’s gonna be OK.”

He looked a question at her then turned back to the wall. He seemed to relax as he studied it, then he started and pointed. “There. I see the horse now and the bison too. I see them, Ev!”

She smiled at him then returned her attention to the shapes on the wall. Something tickled the back of her mind, some idea trying to form. She stared harder.

At a rustling behind them, she turned. A living serpent was exiting the bear’s eye socket. Ada jumped to his feet and backed away a few steps. She dropped the torch and rose to her knees to face it.

It coiled around her as in her dream. Their eyes met, and a bright spark penetrated her forehead. The serpent flicked its tongue, then passed over her shoulder and slid down her body to the ground.

She put the guttering torch out in the dirt and stood. After rubbing a finger in the sooty remnants, she began tracing onto the wall. Working quickly, finger to soot and back to the wall over and over, she fleshed out the bison’s form then moved on to the horse. Finished, she stepped back.

Ada stood open-mouthed, his eyes practically leaping out of his head. “How did you..? What…? Ev, what is this?”

“Shhhhh.” She stood studying her work. Ada stood still, and the serpent lay coiled at her feet. The animals in the wall seemed to be in motion. What had she just done?

The serpent raised its head, and she looked down to meet its gaze. “Nowwwww yooooou.”

Ada stared at Ev and her serpent, the whites of his eyes shining in the lamplight. She reached out to him, and when he’d moved to her side, rubbed a thick coat of soot from the extinguished torch onto his hand. She did the same for herself. Pressing both of their hands against the rock between the bison and the horse, they left their imprints.

The ground canted abruptly, throwing them against the wall, and she closed her eyes against the storm of fat sparks engulfing them. A chaos of incomprehensible images danced behind her eyelids. So dizzy, was she still on her feet? She seemed to stretch out long and thin, arms and legs gone. She was a serpent, sliding through the wall.

Then they were standing in daylight, leaning against a warm rock face. Everything here was too bright, haloed in vibrant color, and the silence was a velvety presence. She took Ada’s hand. Why was she so calm?

Ada was stiff as the stone he leaned against, staring at the valley that was but was not their own. He clutched her hand as if his life depended on it.

“Ada, you’re hurting me.”

He turned to her, looked down, and jerked his hand open. “Sorry. What happened? Where are we?”

“I don’t know. We passed through the wall and…Well, we’re here.”

And here was so strange. The sky held no sun, though it glowed with an intensity of blue that pierced her heart. All the colors were beyond vivid. So beautiful. But if she looked at anything too long, it seemed to melt without losing its form, pulling her gut along with it.

Ada jerked away a step when the serpent emerged from the rock face between them. Unlike everything else here, it appeared solid as it flowed down the valley, following the river.

“Ev?”

“We have to follow, come on.”

Each step somehow took them a great distance, and they were soon at the gates of the valley. Sheer cliffs towered on either side of the river, and a narrow path squeezed between water and stone ahead of them. The serpent had gone.

Though this was not their home, it was clearly a reflection or an extension of it. Neither of them had ever been outside their own valley, and the prospect of a wider world filled her with joy. She beamed up at Ada as he scanned their surroundings, then looked back downriver.

Her elation dried up and blew away as an enormous cave bear bounded up the path. He stopped too close, then stood upright to tower over them. Ada pulled at Ev’s hand, trying to retreat, but she held her ground, staring up at the bear. Its form was stable, like the serpent’s. That meant something.

The bear roared, its breath hot on her face, and raised a massive paw as if to strike. But Ada pulled her away and took the blow to the side of his head. He crashed into the cliff and lay crumpled against the stone.

Ev roared and leaped at the bear as it lunged forward. It wrapped its arms around her, crushing her to its chest, and they fell into darkness.

They fell for a long time, maybe days, maybe forever. The bear gripped her in a suffocating embrace as they dropped faster and faster.

Eventually, the darkness dissipated, revealing a pit hung with glowing vines. The bear reached out past her and dug its claws into them, slowing their descent. A spray of sticky sap soaked her as she held on.

When her feet finally touched ground, the bear stepped away. She leaned forward, hands on knees and breathing hard while watching the bear who stood a few feet away, watching her.

Before she could catch her breath, the sap began to burn. It penetrated flesh, and her whole body clenched at the fire it kindled inside. Her bones were burning. She threw her head back, and a wail of pain erupted from her throat. Agony was all of existence.

At last, the pain eased, and she sank to her hands and knees. Something of her old self had been incinerated, and something new was growing in its place.

She stood and stretched. The echo of the pain was still sharp, but she felt strong, and her flesh glowed with the same soft light emitted by the vines. When she looked up at the bear and met his eyes, she recognized the kinship that had always been there.

Then, behind the bear, the serpent slid from the tangle of vines. It coiled up and around him until it looked down at her from over his shaggy shoulder. It held her eyes captive for days, years, no time at all. “The bear and I, one and the sssssssame.”

There was a sharp crack and a brilliant flash of light. When she recovered her vision, she was alone at the bottom of the pit.

She felt bright, sharp, overflowing with life as if she’d been half asleep until now. Images of people and animals, mountains and rivers, in this world and her own, flooded her mind. All connected by lines of force, all one. Power radiated throughout her body and crackled off her skin in aurora-like waves.

She looked up at the vines rising endlessly, then raised her arm and grabbed hold of the air. She pulled herself up, hand over hand, until she flew free. Up, faster and faster until the pit walls blurred past. Until the ecstasy of speed and flight consumed her.

Finally, she shot into the open air like a spear released from a strong arm. Below was the familiar valley and the river winding toward a great expanse of shining water. The sea? The great water of the old stories was real! She flew along the coast, past a range of hills, then followed another river inland.

There! A herd of horses grazed on a vast plain. She laughed and swooped down to set them running. Bison stood in groups at the edge of the forest, and a stag raised his antlered head to watch her pass. This was what she’d needed to see.

She faltered, almost fell. Ada. How could she have forgotten him? She rose, along with a sense of dread, and turned back.

Landing where he lay crumpled against the cliff, she knelt and lifted his head onto her lap. “Ada, wake up. Please come back to me.” Her tears fell onto his bloody face as she rocked back and forth.

He blinked and peered up through slitted eyes. “Ev?”

“Ada! Ada, everything’s all right now.” She traced the long gash from the bear’s claw across his face before he pulled her down, and she lost herself in the kiss. No bear, no serpent, no glowing other world. Only him.

When she finally raised her head, he pushed himself up to lean against the rock face and started as if just now seeing her. “Ev! Are you alright? Where’s the bear? What’s happened to you? You’re glowing. What…?”

“I’m good, better than good. Everything’s going to be alright.” She laughed as she helped him up.

He was wobbly but managed to keep his feet. “OK, what do we do now?”

“Now, we go home.”

A few steps brought them miraculously back to the cliff wall they’d started from. She squeezed his hand, and they stepped back through stone into their world.

The lamp was still burning. How long had they been gone? She turned to examine the shapes she’d drawn on the wall and leaned into Ada as he put his arm around her waist. Her lights danced across her shoulders and flickered momentarily across his.

“Time to go, Ev.”

She nodded, took one last look at the images, then made her way to the entry passage by the light of her own body. She crawled in without hesitation, and Ada followed close behind.

They emerged in dawn’s uncertain light as her people went about their morning chores. Hov rose and stretched, backlit at the cave’s entrance, while in the shadows near Ada’s hearth, her glow brightened.

Someone shouted, then someone else. Frightened voices echoed around the cave until Hov’s roar silenced the group and sent them fleeing for cover. She stepped in front of Ada and leaned forward, bracing for the blow, as Hov’s lightning flashed across his shoulders. His eyes blazed, but she saw into the rotten core of his power and smiled.

Hov roared again and flung a blue-white bolt. It hit her chest and splashed out into a storm of fire and smoke engulfing the rear of the cave. When it cleared, she stood unharmed with Ada safe behind her. Hov fired another and kept it burning, a blinding flow of force that thundered and set the air on fire.

She walked out of the cataclysm of flame and pulverized stone, the air clearing as she absorbed the lightning striking her chest. Hov leaned into his rage, and a wild wail like the final terrified cry of a thousand creatures shook the cave. Chunks of stone fell from the ceiling and sloughed from the walls. She felt the terror of her people as wave upon wave of thunder filled the cave.

She strode forward, Hov’s lightning smashing into her chest, until she was face to face with him. She grasped his wrist, and his lightning dimmed, retreated up his arm, and was gone. He reached out to his bear skull but recoiled at the huge white serpent upon it.

He stared, open-mouthed, as she stroked the serpent’s head and allowed it to climb her arm. It coiled around until it encircled her waist and chest, and its head extended over her shoulder, flicking its tongue at him.

Hov sank to his knees. He looked so small and old down there she could almost feel sorry for him. Almost.

“GO!” She thundered, and the force of it blew him down onto his back. He looked up with nothing but fear in his eyes. “Go.” She said more gently, and he scuttled backward until he was out of the cave. Then he rose and hobbled away.

Ev brought the last group back through the passage. Now everyone had seen the sacred space and left their handprints on its walls. She walked to the front of the cave, where Ada was completing preparations. He stood to greet her. She ran her finger down the long scar crossing his face. The bear’s mark made him even more handsome. He smiled and pulled her into his arms.

“Almost ready?” She asked.

“Whenever you say.”

She leaned into a kiss, then turned to face her people. Her light rippled across her shoulders as she fingered the necklace she’d braided from snakeskin and hung with a bear claw.

“It is time to go, time to start living correctly as our grandparents did. We will return to this place, but the world is wide. Now, let’s go hunting.”

Her people ambled past, laughing and chattering. When the last had exited the cave, she turned and looked back into its depths. She raised a hand in farewell, turned, and followed her people down the river.

Back to Table of Content >

< Back to Home Site