Margaret Atwood - MaddAddam

This is the story of Zeb and the Snake Women. The Snake Women do not come into the story at first, they come in later. Important things often come into stories later, but also at the beginning. And in the middle as well.

But I have already told the beginning, so right now it’s the middle. And Zeb is in the middle of the story about Zeb. He is in the middle of his own story.

I am not in this part of the story; it hasn’t come to the part with me. But I’m waiting, far off in the future. I’m waiting for the story of Zeb to join up with mine. The story of Toby. The story I am in right now, with you.

Pilar, who lives in the elderberry bush and talks to us through the bees, was once in the form of an old woman. She gave Zeb a special important thing and told him he had to take care of it — a little thing, like a seed. And the seed would make you sick if you ate it. But some bad people from the chaos were telling all the other people that this seed would make them happy. And only Pilar and Zeb and a small number of other people knew the truth.

Why were the bad people doing that? Because of Money. Money was invisible, like Fuck. They thought that Money was their helper; they thought he was a better helper than Fuck. But they were wrong about that. Money was not their helper. Money goes away just when you need it. But Fuck is very loyal.

So Zeb took the seed, and he went out through the door, because if the bad men knew he had it they would chase him and take it away from him, and then do something very hurtful to him. And he was hurrying without seeming to hurry, and he said, Oh Fuck, and Fuck came flying through the air, very fast, as he always does when you call him; and he showed Zeb how to get to the house of the Snake Women. And the Snake Women opened their door, and took him in.

The Snake Women are … You have seen a snake, and you have seen women. The Snake Women were both. And they lived with several Bird Women and Flower Women. And they hid Zeb inside a giant … Inside a great big … A clam shell. No, a sofa. Or maybe they hid him inside a great big, an enormous … A flower. A very bright flower with lights on it.

Yes, a light-up flower. No one would look for Zeb inside a flower.

And Zeb’s brother, Adam, was inside the flower too. That was nice. They were very happy to see each other, because Adam was the helper of Zeb and Zeb was the helper of Adam.

The Snake Women sometimes bit people, but they didn’t bite Zeb. They liked him. They made him a special drink, called a Champagne Cocktail, and then they did a special dance for him. It was a twisty dance, because after all they were snakes.

They were very kind. Because that is how Oryx made them. And they were her Children, because they were part snake. So they had nothing to do with Crake. Or not much.

And the Snake Women let Zeb sleep in a great big bed, a bed that was shiny and green. They said Fuck could sleep in there as well, because there was lots of room.

And Zeb said, Thank you, because the Snake Women were being so kind to him, and also to his invisible helper. And they made him feel much better.

No, they did not purr over him. Snakes can’t purr. But they … they twined. Yes, that is what they did: some twining. And some constriction, they did that too. Snakes have very good muscles for constriction.

And Zeb was really, really tired, so he went to sleep at once. And the Snake Women and the Bird Women and the Flower Women took care of him, and made sure nothing bad would happen to him while he slept. They said they would protect him and hide him even if the bad men came there.

And the bad men did come. But that is in the next part of the story.

And now I am really, really tired too. And I am going to sleep.

Good night.

That is what she’ll say when it’s time for the next story.

The morning after her visit to Pilar’s elderberry bush, Toby is still feeling the effects of the Enhanced Meditation mixture. The world’s a little brighter than it should be, the scrim of its colours and shapes a little more transparent. She puts on a bedsheet in a calming neutral tone — light blue, no pattern — gives her face a quick wash at the pump, and makes it over to the breakfast table.

Everyone else seems to have eaten and gone. White Sedge and Lotis Blue are clearing off the dishes.

“I think there’s some left,” says Lotis Blue.

“What was it?” Toby asks.

“Ham and kudzu fritters,” says White Sedge.

Toby has dreamt all night: piglet dreams. Innocent piglets, adorable piglets, plumper and cleaner and less feral than the ones she’d actually seen. Piglets flying, pink ones, with white gauzy dragonfly wings; piglets talking in foreign languages; even piglets singing, prancing in rows like some old animated film or out-of-control musical. Wallpaper piglets, repeated over and over, intertwined with vines. All of them happy, none of them dead.

They did love to depict animals endowed with human features, back in that erased civilization of which she had once been a part. Huggable, fluffy, pastel bears, clutching Valentine hearts. Cute cuddly lions. Adorable dancing penguins. Older than that: pink, shiny, comical pigs, with slots in their backs for money: you saw those in antique stores.

She can’t manage the ham, not after a night full of waltzing piglets. And not after yesterday: what the sow communicated to her is still with her, though she couldn’t put it into words. It was more like a current. A current of water, a current of electricity. A long, subsonic wavelength. A brain chemistry mashup. Or, as Philo of the Gardeners once said, Who needs TV? He’d done perhaps too many Vigils and Enhanced Meditations.

“Think I’ll skip that,” says Toby. “It’s not so great warmed over. I’ll go get some coffee.”

“Are you all right?” says White Sedge.

“I’m fine,” says Toby. She walks carefully along the path to the kitchen area, avoiding the places where the pebbles are rippling and dissolving, and finds Rebecca drinking a cup of coffee substitute. Little Blackbeard is there with her, sprawled on the floor, printing. He’s got one of Toby’s pencils, and he’s swiped her notebook too. But useless to call it “swiping” — the Crakers appear to have no concept of personal property.

“You didn’t wake up,” he says, not reproachfully. “You were walking very far, in the night.”

“Have you seen this?” Rebecca says. “The kid’s amazing.”

“What are you writing?” Toby says.

“I am writing the names, Oh Toby,” says Blackbeard. And, sure enough, that’s what he’s been doing. TOBY. ZEB. CRAK. REBECA. ORIX. SNOWMANTHEJIMY.

“He’s collecting them,” says Rebecca. “Names. Who’s next?” she says to Blackbeard.

“Next I will write Amanda,” says Blackbeard solemnly. “And Ren. So they can talk to me.” He scrambles up from the floor and runs off, clutching Toby’s notebook and pencil. How am I going to get those back from him? she wonders.

“Honey, you look wiped,” Rebecca says to her. “Rough night?”

“I overdid something,” says Toby. “In the Enhanced Meditation mix. A few too many mushrooms.”

“It’s a hazard,” says Rebecca. “Drink a lot of water. I’ll make you some clover and pine tea.”

“I saw a giant pig yesterday,” says Toby. “A sow, with piglets.”

“The more the merrier,” says Rebecca. “So long as we’ve got sprayguns. I’m running out of bacon.”

“No, wait,” says Toby. “It — she gave me a very strange look. I got the feeling that she knew I’d shot her husband. Back at the AnooYoo Spa.”