Serpent's Kiss Read online

  The story began with the death of a young English aristocrat from a long illness at the very same time that a farm girl in the countryside of Dorchester plummeted to her death inside a well. Neither had known the other in life due to their geographic distance and entirely different social spheres.

  It was in death that they fell in love. When they arrived in the first layer of the glom toward the Kingdom of the Dead, they immediately recognized each other as soul mates. Somehow they learned about the Eurydice clause under the Orpheus Amendment, which stated that if two iterant souls met in the Dead’s Kingdom before the first gate and fell in love, they could be granted a second chance at life as long as they remained true to each other. If they did not, then their punishment entailed dying anew, but this time they would never encounter each other again in the glom or beyond.

  Philip and Virginia could not imagine ever forsaking each other, and so they campaigned for the chance to live and love each other in mid-world. Joanna’s sister, Helda, the Queen of the Dead, was not pleased about their request but, unable to refute the existence of the Eurydice clause, directed the couple to appeal to Joanna instead. “You must make your plea to her, not me. She is the only one charged with the delicate business of resurrection, the only one among us who can bring you back to life. That is not my territory.”

  The two hapless romantics roamed the glom, striving to contact Joanna however they could, using their abilities to push objects without touching them, or choking the life out of small plants. They became increasingly desperate as Joanna—either deliberately or obtusely—failed to hear them and they eventually resorted to frightening the horses that pulled the landau.

  That finally got Joanna’s attention. Since Joanna had no desire for others to be harmed by such recalcitrant spirits, such folly, she acceded to their request and brought the lovers out of the spirit world and back to the land of the living. Philip was still on his deathbed, while Virginia’s body was just rescued from the well when the “miracle” happened. Upon revival, they found each other and immediately wed.

  Philip’s family cut him off and disinherited him for marrying a commoner, but for a while they lived happily in the Dorchester countryside. Then the bills came, and the fights. Philip took to gambling, and his losses piled up. He blamed Virginia for his misery, and she in turn blamed him for failing to provide for them. Virginia was pregnant and became ill during the final months of pregnancy. Destitute and penniless, Philip begged his family for money and help with medicine and food. By the time he returned to his beloved’s side, she was dead, the child a stillbirth. He shot himself and that was that, a tragic story.

  Joanna sighed, thinking of how beautiful those two had been, how rosy and happy when she had visited them in their little Dorchester cottage.

  There was always a catch. Philip and Virginia had tried to cheat death, and more recently Joanna had tried to bring back Lionel Horning. Lionel was only in a coma; he hadn’t gotten past the seventh circle where his soul would have been forever bound to Helda. Still, on his return, he was, as her girls called it, “zombified.” Helda always won her souls in the end.

  Joanna shook her head, thinking of her stubborn and proud sister. But at least now she knew what was going on. A spirit, or spirits, sought to contact her. She couldn’t ignore the signs anymore.

  Joanna closed her eyes in her garden, letting the perfume of the flowers wash over her and feeling the sunshine on her face before moving fearlessly into the glom. She stepped into the twilight world. It was dusky, and above her were tiny, dim pinpricks of light that illuminated the sandy path just well enough for her to make it out.

  She heard an owl’s call, and she hooted back at it. The scent of something rotten filled the air, something heavy and viscous, the smell of death. Joanna moved off the path, toward the sound of the owl. A spirit who sought contact would be on the first level, the one closest to the seam. She didn’t need to continue any farther.

  “Is anyone there?” she whispered as her words echoed back toward her. She kept her voice as quiet as she could, not wanting to bump into Helda. Her sister could be vindictive.

  She heard the flapping of wings, the owl lifting from a branch. She wished she had her wand, so she could see better, but instead she extended her hands to feel around in the darkness. She ran smack into a tree, the bark dead, dry, papery to the touch. She picked at it with a fingernail, and it began to ooze a shiny, dark liquid.

  “Anyone?” she asked again, and again only her voice came back to her: Anyone? Anyone? Anyone?

  She did not feel the presence of a soul seeking her here, so she found the path, returned to mid-world, opened her eyes, and was happy to be standing once again in her lush garden.

  chapter ten

  Love Shack

  Freddie Beauchamp sat at his desk in the Ucky Star, playing hunt-and-peck on his laptop. Now how could a god recently returned from Limbo, new to the modern era, come about such technology?

  Girls was the obvious answer. He didn’t need any magic to hook up other than his lovely smile. When Freddie Beauchamp smiled, all a girl wanted to do was kiss him. After that, they tended to leave presents, like the Wii console, the video games, and the laptop.

  It all started with Gigi McIntyre, a college girl he met by the motel’s ice machine, when he first returned. That first night Gigi was there, too, for a friend’s weekend-long bachelorette party in early September. She stood with the empty bucket, wearing a midriff-baring T-shirt and the smallest denim shorts. Gigi was a lot of fun, a glorious revelation after the years of dull nothingness in Limbo.

  One might imagine a night with the god of the sun would involve cinematic flourish—the immediate tearing off of clothing as soon as the motel door clicked closed, doing it in every imaginable position, on every surface. No.

  Freddie understood that each woman possessed her own distinctive set of rules when it came to sex. Every girl had a different key and Freddie’s gift was knowing how to find it—its particular shape, and how it might turn in the lock. Freddie had unlocked Gigi—did he ever—had given the college girl her very first full-body, writhing, shaking, screaming orgasm. But it had taken hours of talking, teasing, conversation. At the ice machine, he’d asked her if she knew how to work the television remote and they’d watched some old movie before he even made a move. It had taken almost all night to get her in bed, but then Freddie had all the time in the world.

  Gigi had returned the next day to the Ucky Star in a Porsche convertible filled with boxes and clothes. It all belonged to her brother, she’d explained, who had recently left for his freshman year at NYU. “What does he care? We’re rich. Consider these a welcome gift, Freddie,” she’d said with a toss of her dark mane. “When he gets set up at his apartment in the Village, my mom will just buy him all new stuff. All this is from last year. Nearly vintage.” He thanked her, and she had smiled sweetly. She was still grateful to him for that orgasm.

  Gigi zoomed off to New York City, and there were no more college cuties partying at the motel. Things died down. The motel filled with traveling salesmen, couples having illicit affairs, which Freddie found tawdry and sad. He puttered around the boxes Gigi had left, quickly discovering the Wii console and the laptop. The video games were a fun distraction, but the laptop opened a whole new world, one even bigger than the nine worlds of the known universe. He’d missed so much while he was in Limbo, and he caught up on his favorite subjects: sailing ships and oceans. He discovered a deep and instant love for sports cars.

  But these were not as cool as the dating sites, where one could choose a girl as easily as picking from a menu. Freddie put up his profile, using the laptop’s Photo Booth application to take snapshots of himself. His pictures were nothing like the ubiquitous male profile pictures one saw on these sites: bare-chested guy in the bathroom mirror, the reflection of his cell phone’s flash covering most of his face.

  No, Freddie used his magic to create more appealing scenarios: Freddie in a tuxedo, laughing
it up at a cocktail party; Freddie in a cowboy hat on a bull (he’d morphed Buster for that one); Freddie in a gray suit and slightly loosened gray polka-dot tie, looking serious. The kicker was the casual one: Freddie on the beach in a plain T-shirt, jeans, and black Converse (the caption read “This one’s the real me”).

  The girls arrived in droves, so many of them Freddie did not know what to do, and so there were threesomes and moresomes and somemoresomes. He indulged every whim, courted every girl, made each and every one of them feel special. There were no unsatisfied customers.

  His latest obsession was one Hilly Liman. They had been chatting online for a while now, and it was becoming more intense, messaging each other back and forth in the evenings until it was almost morning. For the last few days, the communiqués had become so frequent and impassioned that Freddie had been forced to call off the cavalry of coeds. He had no interest in any of them since meeting Hilly.

  Something formidable had happened: Freddie had fallen in love. There was no other way to explain it. Hilly was different. She made him wait. Unlike the other girls who appeared at his doorstep after one posting, she had only told him her real name after they’d been e-mailing for a few weeks. She was reserved and cautious, and he didn’t think she was playing hard to get. The strangest thing was she didn’t even have a picture of herself on her profile, only a shadowy illustration of a silhouette. He didn’t even know what she looked like, but he was certain she was gorgeous. He could just feel it. He couldn’t explain it, but he was drawn to her from the beginning.

  <> he typed.

  <>

  <> he wrote.

  <> Hilly responded. After a few minutes, she typed again. <>

  Freddie paused, staring at Hilly’s words on the screen, putting his hands behind his head as he stretched his back, which was sore from sitting. He exhaled, then typed <>

  Three knocks sounded at the door. Freya’s signal.

  <> Freddie wrote.

  <>

  <> he typed and on-screen, in the chat box, Freddie’s heart icon turned red, then swiveled upright, and Hilly typed one out for Freddie on her end, and he watched it do the same thing, smiling to himself. You had to love technology.

  Buster nudged his calf as Freya continued to knock.

  “Freddie, you there?” she whispered from outside.

  “Coming!” He closed the laptop and opened the door a crack.

  Freya stood at the doorway, looking wind tossed and holding two shopping bags full of groceries. She stared at him. “Are those … pajamas? Have you been wearing them all day?” Behind her, the sky was gray, and it was almost evening.

  “So?” Freddie asked, annoyed with the sisterly nagging. “It’s not like I go anywhere.”

  “But that’s your fault. I’ve told you so many times to come home.” She shook her head. “Well, aren’t you going to let me in? I brought you healthy stuff from Mom’s garden, some nuts and dried fruit, instead of all that junk food you’ve been eating.”

  Freddie took the bags from her, poked his head outside, looked each way, and then fully opened the door. Freya walked in past him. “You seem distracted,” she said.

  “A little,” he said. He put the bags down as she crossed the room and sat at the end of one of the beds. “Some of those girls won’t leave me alone. I wanted to make sure none of them was out there.”

  Buster scuffled over to Freya, and she kneeled down and pet him, then tickled his snout. “I thought you liked all the attention. Don’t tell me you’re here alone. What happened to the harem?” She observed him with genuine concern and wondered if her twin had truly lost it. He looked a real mess: tousled hair, dirty pajamas, unshaven. He shouldn’t be living this way. She looked around and noticed the computer on his desk.

  “Ooh, you have a Mac!” she said, sauntering over to inspect it.

  “Don’t touch it!”

  “It’s not a bomb!” “It kind of is,” he retorted. He moved the grocery bags on the desk, put a hand on the laptop protectively.

  “You’re acting so weird,” she said, squinting her eyes at him. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

  “All right.” He sighed. He realized he was dying to tell Freya, so it all gushed out: the social media sites and how he’d met someone special—a girl named Hilly Liman. After that he couldn’t say her name enough times.

  As Freya listened, she finally understood how Freddie had kept his loneliness at bay. He’d obviously gone delusional. She was reluctant to burst his bubble about this Hilly girl, who was probably just some slutty college chick, not that there was any other kind, and not that there was anything wrong with that. Freya, of all people, understood the need to experiment, the desire to see just exactly how much fun one could have when one was beautiful and young.

  However, this whole Freddie-in-love thing was too much. She’d grown weary of his whole situation—the motel, the accusations, the sloth.

  Freddie sat on the armchair, legs extended. “She’s the one, Freya. I’m telling you. It’s for real this time.” He smiled.

  “Yeah, right. Every week you fall for someone new, and you haven’t even met this …”

  “Hilly Liman.”

  “Yeah. I should really know her name by now. You say it enough.” Freya pushed a hand through her hair. “Look, I’m tired, and I can’t do this. I can’t find that thing you’re convinced Killian stole from you, that will prove he did it, and we really need to move on. I’m going to let the family know you’re back. Mother will be so happy!”

  Freddie jumped from his seat, his face flushed. “You can’t do that, Freya. No one can know! If the Valkyries know where I am … they’ll … they’ll drag me back. I can’t go back to Limbo! You don’t know what it’s like there! I need to prove I wasn’t the one who destroyed the bridge!” Freddie made a frustrated gesture, then fell back into the armchair, deflated. His head fell. When he looked back up at her, tears welled in his eyes. “I can’t go back. You have to help me, Freya. Please.” His voice broke.

  Freya shook her head, staring ruefully at her twin. “Oh, Freddie, stop,” she said. But her voice was cracking, too.

  chapter eleven

  The Gang’s All Here

  A shaft of light poured through the attic gable, illuminating particles of dust. On the floor, leading through the sundry pieces of furniture, was a Hansel and Gretel–like trail of candy wrappers, paper clips, glitter, DayGlo-colored mini Post-its, and childhood costumes.

  Ingrid had come up to search for a book she couldn’t find in Joanna’s study. She glared at the odd trail. When she had last set foot here after returning from Freya’s Manhattan apartment, she had placed those costumes back in the box and set it upright. Tyler couldn’t have done it because Gracella had yet to return after the other day. Was it Freya maybe? Her sister was certainly the messiest of them, but what would she be doing digging through old costumes? Ingrid set about straightening up, picking up a pink tutu here, a plastic glass slipper there, a black leather mask—hmm, that didn’t look like a child’s costume but like something from Freya’s closet—and when she arrived at the end of the trail, she was standing before Joanna’s large steamer trunk. Was that really cigarette smoke? She sniffed at the air.

  She hovered over the trunk and noticed the latches were undone. When she lifted the top, she stared down at five small heads tucked between five pairs of grungy knees. The heads looked up, and she immediately recognized the pixies. They had glitter all over their dirty faces: three boys and two girls.

  Well, it wouldn’t be accurate to say they were children, although Ingrid thought of them as such. They were adult in years but had childlike bodies and childlike minds, as well as m
ischievous spirits. With their blackened faces, they reminded her of the chimney sweeps of Victorian England, although they were quite the opposite of those poor abused children who had the maturity and jaded attitudes of adults, drinking ale, smoking pipes, and shooting the breeze at the inn after work. The pixies had taken to cheap booze and smoking in mid-world—that much Ingrid had observed at the motel where she’d first met them—but there was something rather naïve about these creatures.

  “Well, look what we have here,” she said, thinking she sounded a bit like Hudson right then.

  “Don’t hate on us, Erda!” said Kelda with her tiny rosebud lips. She lifted a hand in a ragged fingerless glove to protect her face as if Ingrid might smack her.

  “I see you’ve picked up the local slang. Isn’t that just fantastic!” returned Ingrid as all five of the pixies sheepishly rose and stepped out of the trunk. The clever ones, Tyler had called them. Clever boy.

  Their clothes were an array of grimy hues, from dark army olive to black: skinny jeans, ripped T-shirts, frayed sweaters, safety pins, wool caps, and heavy black boots. Ingrid could not have determined what kind of look they were aiming for—punk, grunge, grebo, or crusty. All those rebellious styles looked the same to her no matter the decade; only the year and the label changed. The pixies looked as if they had just returned from war, and they had grown quite odiferous since the last time she’d seen them.

  There was Kelda and Nyph, the two female pixies, petite and small boned like teenage ballerina rebels with their tough clothes and heavy dark eyeliner. While Kelda was fair, with white-blond hair and pale-blue eyes, her skin as nacreous and white as pearl, offset by arresting crimson lips, a tiny bloom, and her ruddy cheeks, Nyph was her opposite with a darker complexion—sleek black hair, olive skin, huge liquid-brown eyes tilting up at the corners, puffy lips. The boys huddled behind the girls of course. There was scruffy, dark-haired Sven with green eyes, whom Ingrid thought of as a grumpy old man, always with the five o’clock shadow and apathetic manner; Val, who had a spiky fire-engine-red Mohawk, who was a perpetual nervous wreck; and finally Irdick, with his tousled head of flaxen hair and round boyish, rosy-cheeked face. He was wearing a T-shirt that read HUGS NOT DRUGS.