Serpent's Touch (Serpent's Touch 1)

AMIRA

Ihit him with a cucumber.

I wanted to do something brave for once, help in some way, and instead ended up hitting him with the cucumber…

Shame and mortification wracked me. Madame was right. I never could do anything properly.

A day later, the fair ended. The bracks tore down the tents and packed up the trucks. The menagerie was moving farther south in Georgia. After that, I overheard, we were leaving the United States for England at the end of January.

All those locations were mostly just sounds to me. When traveling with the menagerie, the differences between places and countries were subtle. Instead of a tent, there might be an exhibition hall. Instead of a truck, we’d take a plane. Other than that, my life didn’t change much, no matter where Madame chose for us to travel.

Instead of being tossed and shaken in the cabin of a truck, Madame took a plane to the nearest airport to the next fair. She’d be waiting for us in a hotel when we got there in a couple of days.

With her departure, breathing got a lot easier. The bracks were still bossing me around, and I ended up working just as much as if she were here. But not hearing her voice, not expecting it to rise to the shrill of displeasure at any moment, felt like a weight had been temporarily lifted off my shoulders.

I moved quickly, helping to break down the menagerie and our camp while also trying to stay out of the bracks’ way as much as possible.

My hand had been healing. The bruise bloomed in every shade of blue, yellow, and red, but the swelling and the pain had gone down. By keeping my hand tucked inside my sleeve, I managed to hide it from Radax and avoid his questions.

When we were almost done, I took one of the few things that still needed to be loaded—a bucket with tubes and other pool paraphernalia, left from when Madame had a giant water tank. She had displayed a siren man in it, Zeph. But Zeph escaped in November, and she’d sold the tank. The bucket with spare tubes and cords remained because Madame probably forgot to give the order to get rid of it, and the bracks didn’t do much without her orders.

Walking along the open tractor trailers, I found the one with the crate where Madame kept her prisoner, the gorgonian. I shoved the bucket in, then loitered around, pretending to be busy with arranging the things inside the trailer.

Ever since my fiasco with the cucumber, I’d been keeping away from the gorgonian’s crate. He must be angry with me for hitting him, and I didn’t need to have one more person yelling at me.

I did wonder, however, what happened to the cucumber. Did the gorgonian eat it? If he did, it wouldn’t have lasted long. By now, he must be hungry and thirsty again.

Placed deep inside the trailer, the crate must’ve been one of the first things loaded today. It’d been sitting in the hot truck for a while now. I couldn’t help thinking how hot and stuffy it must be inside that wooden box, and how thirsty the person in it must feel.

Then another thought entered my mind. What if he didn’t eat the cucumber? I had no idea what kind of creature the gorgonian was. What if cucumbers weren’t what they ate?

Then, the stupid vegetable would be lying on the floor of his crate, rotting. Not only would it make the conditions inside the crate even more uncomfortable, but if a brack or Madame ever discovered the rotting cucumber, they would demand to know how it got there.

If he didn’t eat the cucumber, I absolutely had to get it back.

Once all was done and packed, I found Radax.

“Ready?” he asked, standing next to a truck.

I nodded. “I’ll go in the back, with the animals.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to drive in the front with me?” he asked.

Dez climbed into the driver’s seat of the truck Radax was pointing at. If I went with them, I’d have to listen to Dez bragging about his time with Madame, what he’d brought for her from Nerifir the last time he went there, and how much she praised him for it.

“Maybe later?” I said tentatively, reluctant to say no to Radax.

He didn’t look happy about my decision but didn’t argue. “We’ll stop for dinner later in the evening. You’ll let me know if you changed your mind. Do you have anything to eat until then?”

“I do.” I produced a wrapped sandwich and a plastic water bottle from the deep pockets of my hoodie.

“Well, climb in, then.” He held the back door to his truck open for me.

“Um… I need to get something first. You go ahead. I’ll get Vuk to lock the doors in a minute.”

Dez stuck his bald head out of the driver’s side window.

“Come on, Radax!” He slapped the outside of the door with his hand to attract our attention, as if his booming voice wasn’t loud enough. “Time to get going!”

Radax touched my arm. “Well, take care. I’ll check on you at the next stop.”

That wasn’t good. He’d be checking on me in his truck while I’d be in the one with the crate. I’d have to think of something to explain it to him later.

I waited until Radax jumped into the cabin of his truck. Then I locked his back doors before climbing inside the truck with the crate and crouching behind a pile of stacked boxes. The truck’s doors were closed and locked shortly after. Then, our entire caravan was on the move. I found a comfy enough spot between the rolls of tent fabric. Then I sat and silently stared at the crate.

The track shook and jumped on the dirt road before we came to a paved one. It couldn’t be comfortable riding in the crate with nothing but chains holding one in place. Yet not a sound came from inside the crate.

I was never the one to start a conversation, but I feared I had no choice in this case. Trying to get my nerves under control, I cleared my throat.

A shuffling noise finally came from the crate, accompanied by the rattling of chains.

“I’m ready,” the gorgonian said.

“For what?” I blinked in confusion.

“If you’re going to toss another vegetable at me, do it now, while my head is out of the way.” His voice sounded smoother and stronger this time, somewhat grumpy, but with a soft teasing note, too.

“Oh, no. Did I hit you in the head?” A wave of mortification flooded me anew.

“My eye, to be precise.”

“I’m so sorry,” I half-whispered, hiding my mouth behind my hand. “Did I hurt you?”

“Horribly.”