Ed Gorman - Serpent's kiss

"I am, aren't I?" Chris said, and pulled away from the stoplight.

They drove another five minutes in silence. The homes got bigger, cleaner. The electric lights in the gloom looked inviting. Chris wanted to be inside one of those places, feet tucked under her on the couch, a good movie on HBO and a bowl of popcorn on her lap.

"There's even an incantation."

"Oh?" Chris said.

"Yes. If you say the words at the right time, you can force the serpent to leave the person's body"

Chris shuddered. "I don't think I'd want to be around to see that. Would you?"

Emily stared out the window at the blowing darkness. "Have a chance to destroy the thing that destroyed my brother's life? Oh, I'd want to be around, Chris, believe me."

They now reached a long strip of fast-food places. The night sky was aglow with neon red and yellow and green and purple. Teenagers in shiny cars drove up and down the strip, followed occasionally by a police squad car.

"I was right, wasn't I?"

"About me believing you?"

"Yes," Emily said.

"May I reserve judgement?"

"Sure. You may do anything you please."

"I like you."

"And I like you."

"And I want to believe you."

"And I want you to believe me, too."

"But I need time to see how things go. Can you blame me?"

"No," Emily said, and looked out the dark window again. "No, I can't blame you."

"We'll be there in a little bit," Chris said, changing the subject again.

"At Marie's?"

"Yes. I just hope her mother will let us see her."

Emily said, "So do I. And I hope Marie saw that Dobyns was under some kind of trance when he killed that boy." She bit her lip. "The police wouldn't even listen to me when I tried to tell them about Rob."

Chris could see how the stress was getting to Emily now. Emily looked older suddenly in the dashboard light, and no longer so poised or self confident.

"Do you think we could stop at Denny's for a cup of coffee?" Emily said.

"Sure."

"I guess I need some coffee right now."

There was a Denny's two blocks ahead.

Her first impression was, This is not my daughter. This is someone else's daughter. There has been a mistake. A terrible mistake.

Kathleen Fane watched as two uniformed policemen led the Marie impostor up the carpeted steps to the second-floor landing of the apartment house. They moved the girl very carefully, very slowly, as if she were a piece of extraordinarily precious sculpture that might break at any moment.

Even from several feet away, Kathleen could see the blood that was splattered all over her daughter. She had seen people involved in car accidents who hadn't looked so bloody. The scene at the bookstore must have been horrible beyond description.

Marie's eyes were the worst part. 'Shock' was the clinical word. But it came nowhere near describing the deadness of the once beautiful blue gaze. Mother and daughter alike had regarded Marie's eyes as her most attractive feature but now they were terrifying.

As Kathleen walked out in the hall toward her daughter and the policemen, she hoped to see at least some faint flicker of recognition in Marie's eyes. But nothing; nothing. The girl didn't even look up when Kathleen reached out and took her arm.

Kathleen tried not to cry-she knew this was a difficult time for the police officers as well as for Marie and herself-but she could not hold back completely, silver tears formed in the corners of her eyes.

"Good evening, ma'am," the stouter of the two officers said.

"Thank you so much. Thank you so much," Kathleen said, taking Marie from them. The girl's limp was still decidedly pronounced. In fact, her mother wondered if it wasn't worse now. Then, "When I asked about the boy they said they weren't positive that he was- Is he-?" She tried twice to say the word 'dead.' Neither time would her tongue and lips quite form the word.

The taller of the two officers-the slender one-nodded. It was easy to see the grief in his eyes. Obviously police officers were no more exempt from urban horrors than anyone else. The officer told Kathleen about taking Marie to the hospital, about the doctor's examination of the cut on her neck, and of her state in general.

Kathleen took in a breath sharply, thinking of the poor boy's mother. It made so little sense. You send your kids off for what's supposed to be a night of light work and lots of fun and a few hours later, one of them is dead and the other has totally withdrawn from reality.

"Shouldn't she be at the hospital?" Kathleen said, just before taking Marie inside.

"The doctor said she'll be all right tonight but that you should call your family doctor in the morning. He gave her some medication." The officer handed Kathleen a small brown plastic bottle.

"Thank you, officers," Kathleen said.

She took her daughter inside. There were three locks-a dead bolt and two chain locks-but ordinarily she only used one of them. She used to laugh about how paranoid the previous occupant of this apartment must have been. But tonight, without any hesitation, she used all three locks. And she knew that she would for the rest of her life.

The couch made into a comfortable double bed. Kathleen plumped it up even further with two layers of blankets and a nice clean peppermint-striped sheet with matching pillowcases. She then put two heavy comforters on the bed. Then she helped her daughter lie down.

Earlier, Kathleen had given Marie a long, hot shower. She'd even washed Marie's hair and blow-dried it. As a final touch, trying for anything that would get the girl to speak, she sprayed on some of the expensive perfume Marie had given her for Christmas. In her best sheer white nightgown, in her best dark blue robe and matching corduroy slippers, Marie looked very pretty.

Once her daughter was on the couch with the covers pulled up over her, Kathleen went to the kitchen and fixed them a snack, leftover slices of white turkey meat with light daubs of yellow mustard on rye bread, a big dill pickle each, a scattering of chips and two glasses of skim milk turned into the pauper's malted milk with the help of Kraft Chocolate Malt.

She set the two plates on the coffee table in front of the couch and then sat down. "Now you eat what you want, hon. Or nothing at all. It's up to you."

Everything was fine now except for Marie's eyes. They hadn't changed. They still stared off at some horrible private vision.

Kathleen picked up her sandwich. Maybe if she ate, Marie would do likewise. She took a bite from the sandwich, swallowed it, and raised a chip to her mouth. She smiled at her daughter. "I know I'm supposed to be on a diet, hon. No need to remind me."

Marie said nothing. Still stared down at the bed in which she sat.

After two more bites, Kathleen said, "Know what I think I'm going to do? Call Dr. Mason. Tell him everything that's going on and see what he's got to say." She smiled and leaned over and kissed her lovely daughter on the cheek. Marie sat there statue still. If she was aware of her mother's presence, she gave no hint at all.

Kathleen got up and went over to the alcove between living room and dining room. There, in the corner, was a leather chair and light for reading, and next to it on a small table filled with books was a phone.

She found Dr. Mason's number with her other emergency numbers in the back of the telephone book. She didn't get Dr. Mason, of course, she got a somewhat crabby sounding young woman who seemed displeased that anybody would call Dr. Mason at this time of night. Reluctantly, the young woman took the message and said that she'd have Dr. Mason call back. Kathleen wanted to say something catty-she always curbed her tongue when people insulted her; simply accepted their unkindnesses-but she decided this would be the worst time of all to be self-assertive. What if Marie heard her? An atmosphere of tension and argument would be all the girl would need at a time like this.