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Back The Snakes Save as PDF
Chapters (42)
  1. Title Page
  2. About the Author
  3. By the Same Author
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. PART ONE
  7. 1
  8. 2
  9. 3
  10. 4
  11. 5
  12. 6
  13. 7
  14. 8
  15. PART TWO
  16. 9
  17. 10
  18. 11
  19. 12
  20. 13
  21. 14
  22. 15
  23. 16
  24. 17
  25. 18
  26. 19
  27. 20
  28. PART THREE
  29. 21
  30. 22
  31. 23
  32. 24
  33. 25
  34. 26
  35. PART FOUR
  36. 27
  37. 28
  38. 29
  39. 30
  40. 31
  41. Acknowledgements
  42. Copyright

Her face rested on the ground. She thought it was the ground. She felt the resin-smelling pine needles and the sandy earth. She heard an owl, and for a moment remembered the bedroom at Paligny, and listening to the owls outside in the night, hunting for mice. It seemed so long ago. She would try to crawl. She stretched her hand out into the darkness and felt roots going into the ground. Her fingers moved over them, like raised letters she couldn’t decipher, but it was only her hand that moved, her body was still. Her hair lay on the pine needles. She knew that there were snakes nearby. She could sense them in the dark. The owls were high above her in the sky, gliding as they hunted. They were hanging in the air, and looking down on the sandy ground and the hard roots, on the pine needles, and the snakes in curls, and small flowers studding the dark earth. They saw the gentle mice and the blameless snakes, and they saw her.

She thought of the white folded paper, left on the ground, unread, and all her rage, forgotten. She thought that when she saw Dan again and they were travelling together she’d tell him that she didn’t need to be worth more than gold. She would tell him all her truths and trust him to hear her. Then she remembered she would not see Dan again, and that he’d gone. And there would be no baby. It was not for her.

She couldn’t feel anything under her fingers now. Her hand slipped and rested. She turned her head, weightlessly, and looked up to the invisible sky. She was smaller and smaller, she was diminished, dissolving, quiet. She was only her eyes, and her eyes saw moonlight, shining high above her, the furthest, smallest gleam of it, touching the tallest of the trees. Acutely, cleanly, perfectly, she felt the kindness of the night surround her. She had nothing. She was nothing and content to be.

She didn’t hear Russ coming for her, so she wasn’t frightened. And she didn’t know how easily he found her, across the track, on the empty ground before the edge of the forest, just a short walk from the car. But she saw the sweeping torchlight, silvery and bright. Inside her head were worlds as big as oceans. She gave herself up to them, and her death was nothing to her, because she was not there.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements