The Witching Snakes pt 21

Bai Suzhen and Greenie Go Traveling. In 1604, They Meet in an English Inn and Talk about Old Times.

Read Part 20

The Wanderer

One day, Bai Suzhen fled the lands of paper and fireworks. In Mongolia, she fell in love as Genghis Khan ascended. She walked the Silk Road. It sang with gold and saffron. She returned centuries later to see barley and skulls.

In Baghdad she anticipated, her heart sore, the mercy of Allah. Nightly, she danced. She drank eucalyptus. She wept in the daylight and drank tears at twilight. Her bleeding fingers drew snakes on silk curtains.

In Italy she met Vikings. They built castles and recalled their glory days. With every tale, another castle rose to the sky. They talked about destruction, of worthless kin and the sorrow. They loved Boethius. His wheel brought them into the ecstatic fortune. She sang madrigals about breaking open the chamber doors. She guarded treasure houses and felt oak in her hand.

Greenie was out in the world, too eager for praise, too easily broken. Many were the decades when Greenie walked into Bai Suzhen's world, reeking of rum and fear. She screamed about hidden gold and its seekers. Her lovers died weighed down in winter sorrow.

Bai Suzhen changed her names. She became Sarah and Agatha and Michal and Dina and Margarita and Inga and Nanda and Nadia and Bogi and Ashanti and Beatrice. She wore petticoats. She carried a sword. She simpered in the shadows. She tried domesticity. In 1474, she became the giant snake of memory for a day.

In the shadow of the Italian Renaissance, Greenie would join Bai Suzhen to tease and torture mortals. Most decades, Bai Suzhen took lovers and lay in black caves, too dark for Greenie. Greenie embraced and kissed gentlemen and peasant ladies; her dreams grew savage, full of knees and hands. She sought favor from sullen princes and old queens. Many mornings, Greenie woke alone, friendless and took to the waves. Seagulls shrieked her favorite melody.