The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth (108 page)

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THE SERPENT'S TOOTH

Part three of the
Daughters of Eden
trilogy

Michelle Paver

Digitally published by

Michelle Paver was born in Malawi; her father was South African and her mother is Belgian. They moved to England when she was small and she was brought up in Wimbledon, where she still lives.

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THE SERPENT'S TOOTH

Copyright © Michelle Paver 2005

The right of Michelle Paver to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Condition of Sale
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

First publication in Great Britain by Transworld Publishers, a division of The Random House Group Ltd

ISBN 978-0-9927494-4-6 (ePub)

This edition digitally published by

Also by Michelle Paver

Without Charity

A Place In The Hills

The Shadow Catcher: Book One in The Eden Trilogy

Fever Hill: Book Two in The Eden Trilogy

The Serpent's Tooth: Book Three in The Eden Trilogy

Wolf Brother: Book One in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series

Spirit Walker: Book Two in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series

Soul Eater: Book Three in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series

Outcast: Book Four in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series

Oath Breaker: Book Five in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series

Ghost Hunter: Book Six in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series

Dark Matter: A Ghost Story

The Outsiders: Book One in the Gods and Warriors series

The Burning Shadow: Book Two in the Gods and Warriors series

THE
SERPENT'S TOOTH

Part One

Chapter One

Eden Estate, Jamaica, 1912

Belle had never wanted anything so much as the black onyx inkstand. Lyndon Traherne said she’d never win it because she was only a girl, but he was wrong. She would take first prize from right under his nose, and present the inkstand to Papa, and together they would place it on his desk, where it belonged.

Papa absolutely deserved the best. He was always working on the estate – at the boiling-house or in the cane-pieces – but however late he got home he always came in to kiss her goodnight. She would pretend to be asleep, and wait for the scratch of his whiskers, and his smell of horses and burnt sugar. And whenever she had the nightmare she would pad across to his study, and he would give her a thimbleful of rum and water and a puff at his cigar. Then she’d curl up on the Turkey rug beneath the oil painting of the big house in Scotland, and ask him impossible questions about robins and snow.

So the first prize in the Historical Society Juvenile Fancy Dress Ball
had
to be hers. Her costume had to be the best in Trelawny. Best on the Northside. Best in Jamaica.

To create a sense of drama, she announced that she’d be going as a fairy, when in fact she intended to make a surprise entrance as the Devil. She’d worked it all out. Saved her pocket money, and secretly bought a remnant of crimson sari silk at Falmouth market. She had every detail clear in her mind: the horns, the tail, the flickering flames of Hell. It would be
perfection
.

The day before the party found her furious and tearful amid a storm of botched fragments and crumpled fencing-wire horns.

Her mother came in, and gave her a long, steady look. ‘Why didn’t you ask me for help?’ she said quietly.

‘Because I wanted to do it myself!’

Her mother bit her lip and studied the remains. She looked tired, her dark hair coming down from her chignon in wisps. This was the first time she had hosted the Juvenile Ball, and she wanted it to be a success. But their house at Eden wasn’t really big enough, so they’d had to move the furniture off the verandah, and erect an awning in the garden. She’d been working for days. And the twins were colicky, which didn’t help.

Belle felt a pang of guilt at giving her this added trouble. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she muttered, aiming a kick at a nearby horn. ‘It’s my fault for choosing the Devil. I’ll just go as a wretched fairy.’

Her mother stooped and picked up a scrap of sari silk. ‘You always punish yourself.’

Belle thrust out her lower lip. ‘Well, because I deserve it.’

‘No you don’t. We can use my old dressing gown. The one Papa bought in Kingston that was a mistake? And these can be flames.’ She picked up the sari silk. ‘A nice, fiery ruff to hide that new bosom you’re so embarrassed about.’

Belle’s face burned. She’d been worrying about that.

‘But you’ll have to help,’ said her mother. ‘You do the horns, the tail, and the hooves.’

‘
Hooves
?’ said Belle.

‘Well, of course. All devils have hooves.’

Somehow, it was finished in time – and it was magnificent. Layer on layer of spangled scarlet flames. Plump red felt horns fixed to an Alice band. Cunning little hooves of crimson satin which fitted over her button boots like demonic spats. And best of all, a three-pronged tail that would be perfect for spiking air-balls, and Lyndon Traherne’s pride.

Then, on the morning of the party, disaster struck. Belle got her monthly cramps – what her mother called her
petit ami
. An odd name for bleeding and stomach ache and appalling embarrassment.

She told her parents that she had a headache, and sneaked a Dover’s powder from the bath-house cupboard. She didn’t want
anyone
to know. She hated the idea of growing up.

‘But you’re nearly fourteen,’ her mother would say when she was trying to persuade Belle into grown-up combinations, or gently mooting the notion of school in England.

‘Thirteen and five months,’ Belle would snap back. ‘That’s nowhere near fourteen.’ But even thirteen sounded too old.

She lay curled on her bed, watching the tree-ferns dip and sway against the louvres, and listening to the slap of the servants’ slippers and the
chup-chup-zi
of the sugarquits under the eaves.

She felt sore and churned up inside. And that wasn’t the worst of it. Ever since she’d started getting the cramps, she’d developed a terrible compulsion: an irresistible urge to picture every man she saw without any clothes. It didn’t matter who it was. Old Braverly the cook. Her dashing uncle Ben. Even
Papa
.

And she knew very well
what
to imagine, because last year she’d seen a group of field hands cooling off at the swimming-hole by the Arethusa Road. At the time, they’d looked so happy that she’d simply envied them their freedom. But a few months later, when the cramps started to come, the memory had returned to haunt her. It was awful. Shameful. There must be something wrong with her.

She slept away the morning, and felt a little better, and got dressed and went to the party.

She didn’t win.

Everyone agreed that hers was by far the best costume. Better than Dodo Cornwallis’s genial, large-footed fairy; better than Sissy Irving’s slyly pretty little Pierrot; better even than Lyndon Traherne’s steeplechase jockey, in genuine racing silks made specially for him, with real spurs and soft boots of Italian kid.

But it was Lyndon who won.

‘Because,’ said old Mrs Pitcaithley, the senior judge, ‘boys can be jockeys, but girls can’t be devils.’

Her mother shot Belle an anxious look, but she was too proud to let her feelings show. She put on a smile and gave Mrs Pitcaithley a regal nod, while in her head she was taking aim with Papa’s rifle, and blowing a great hole in Lyndon’s narrow, silk-clad chest.

He didn’t
need
the inkstand. His papa was the richest man in Trelawny. Lyndon could buy ten inkstands out of his pocket money. He’d probably just lose this one on the steamer when he went back to school.

For her mother’s sake, Belle sat through tea under the awning with the other children. She even managed a square of sweet-potato pie with coconut syrup. Then, when the Reverend Prewitt was setting up the magic lantern display, she fled.

She took the path by the river, into the airless green tunnel of the giant bamboo, until she reached her special place under the duppy tree.

Her heart was thudding with rage. She peeled back her stocking and scratched a tick-bite on her knee until it bled. Snatched a handful of ginger lilies and crushed them, breathing in the sharp spicy scent to make her eyes sting.
Why
had she chosen the Devil? If she’d picked any other costume she would have won, and Papa would have got his inkstand. It was all her fault.

Mosquitoes whined in her ears, but she let them bite. The rasp of the crickets was deafening. She welcomed it. Distantly, she could hear the murmur of the party. She ground her teeth. She didn’t belong back there. She didn’t know the rules.