Page 25 of Snake-Eater
Selena got up and checked the doors to make sure they were locked. They were. The windows looked out into darkness and she glanced at them quickly, then away. She’d never liked windows at night. She always had the feeling that if she looked up too quickly, she’d see a face pressed against them. She’d made the mistake of telling Walter that once, and he’d pointed out that they were on the second floor and anything that looked into the windows would have to climb up to do it, which made it even worse, because then Selena pictured things climbing up the side of the building, things with long, soft toes like geckos’, flesh pressing into the cracks in the brick, pushing themselves upward ...
She hadn’t told Walter that bit. He wouldn’t have understood at all. At any rate, there was nothing at the windows and the doors were locked and anyway, Copper might be white muzzled and snoring, but if someone was sneaking around the house, she’d be on her feet and barking hysterically before you could say, “Good dog.”
Selena sat back down, but even though she was turning pages, she was only half reading. Where was the feeling coming from? She might be crazy—heh, might—but she didn’t run to paranoia about anything but social interactions. This was strange.
She finished the Tibet journal and looked up, scanning what part of the house was visible. Bookcase, chair, couch, rug, fireplace ...
Statue in the niche beside the fireplace ...
Selena got to her feet. Was that it? Its eyes were crude yellow circles set in pointed white ovals, with black circles of pupil, the sort of eyes children draw when they have moved beyond black dots, but only just. But she could see the eyes from where she sat and that meant it could see her.
It’s a statue. It can’t see anything,said the voice in her head that sounded like Walter.
She took a few steps forward.Snake-Eater,Grandma Billy had called it.
Either it wasn’t a very good statue or Snake-Eater was ugly. The wood had been chopped away and never smoothed, and the paint was thick and blobby. Even Selena, who suffered pangs for every imperfect stuffed animal and teddy bear missing a button, couldn’t find much to appreciate.
Maybe it was its expression. A beak shouldn’t have an expression and certainly those eyes shouldn’t, but the overall impression was of judgment. Snake-Eater looked back at the viewer and found her lacking.
No, it’s not just that. It looks ... sly.As if it found that lack amusing.
Selena felt a strong urge to take it down and put it in a cupboard somewhere, where it couldn’t look at her.
But if she did that, she would be acting as if this was her house, and it wasn’t. She knew it wasn’t. It belonged to Aunt Amelia, and even if Amelia was dead, that didn’t give Selena the right to go in and start changing things.
Still . . .
She stood up on her toes and turned the doll so that it faced the wall instead of looking out into the room.
“There,” she said out loud. Copper looked up, clearly wondering if the word had anything to do with her, and whether it might lead to a trip Outside or, better yet, a Treat. When Selena sat back down in the chair, the dog heaved a sigh of despair at the lot of poor starved hounds and dropped her muzzle back to the floor.
Selena picked up a second journal. Her aunt had gone to Paris, which had always sounded gorgeous and exotic. Amelia had a different opinion. “Paris is a beautiful city and a very ugly one, living on top of each other.” Also it was apparently not a good place to visit if you didn’t like mustard.
The doll was still watching her. Not nearly as strongly as before, but she could still feel it like a prickle against her skin.
She turned a page, which had several photos of the Loire Valley pasted to it. The chateaus were magnificent, but she couldn’t focus on them while the damned doll was staring at her. Finally, she got up again, got the radio from the bedroom, and turned it on.
“This is your host, DJ Raven. If you’ve got any complaints about the programming, please tell my uncle. He owns the station. While you’re talking to him, tell him that my last vacation was three years ago and that my aunt wants to know if he’s ever going to fix the hall light. Now let’s get down with some Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds ...”
The DJ’s voice drove away some of the feeling of being watched, but not all of it. Selena got through two songs and a reading from Sandburg’sRootabaga Storiesbefore her skin started to prickle again.
She got up and stalked toward the doll, and realized that she hadn’t turned it far enough around in its niche. It could still see the room out of the corner of one yellow eye.
You’re being ridiculous,Walter said inside her head.
“Yes, I am,” she said out loud. “And there’s no one else here to be bothered by it.” She turned it the rest of the way toward the wall.
She sat down and went back to reading Aunt Amelia’s travel journals. DJ Raven played the theme songs to children’s cartoons, interspersed with Dolly Parton’s greatest hits. The sense of being watched was gone, and it stayed gone all evening, until Selena went to bed.
It was early morning on the fifth day when she woke up in someone’s arms.
She was still mostly asleep and he was warm and comfortable, even if his arm was heavy where it lay across her waist. Selena burrowed into the pillow, trying not to wake him up, since she wasn’t ready to get up yet herself.I could go back to sleep for an hour or two still.
Realization came slowly, creeping across her skin like gooseflesh. Her eyes snapped open. She stared at the wall opposite, feeling the weight of the stranger’s arm across her, his chest solid against her back. His breath stirred the fine hairs on the back of her neck.
Did I get drunk last night and bring someone home?She’d never done that in her life. And she hadn’t even gone out last night. She’d had to split firewood for the first time, and she’d been tired and sore and a little nervous that she would hit herself in the shins with the axe and chop her own feet off. She’d had a hot shower and then she’d gone to bed early.
Fear sang along her nerves. A thousand questions flooded her mind—how had he gotten in without waking her, why hadn’t Copper barked, why was he here, who was he—but the only one that mattered washow am I going to get away?
