Read The Serpent Garden - Judith Merkle Riley for Free Online

shift, oblivious to the cold, I used a weasel’s tooth to finish burnishing the little circle of parchment which, the previous night, I had glued tight to a base cut from an old playing card and then left to dry. I took out my husband’s drawing of the princess. An easy job, I thought, looking at the smooth, pretty face with just a hint of a spoiled pout in the expression.
    I set out a row of clean mussel shells to mix the colors in and took six of the best pencils, the narrow little squirrel’s-hair brushes I had made for Master Dallet. I ground and mixed the carnation fresh, to get the light, pretty skin tone just right, then coated the parchment and left it to dry. It was all easy; I’d done it a hundred times for him, now the hundred and first was for me. By now I was frozen through, and glad Nan had made up the fire.
    Over my clothes, I put on the silk smock my husband used for miniature painting, to protect the tiny image from hairs or lint that might come from clothing, and then I sat at the worktable. I had a fierce headache; the parchment circle on the drawing board seemed to move and double itself in front of my eyes. My fingers could hardly bend for the swelling. All at once, I felt empty and cold. It had been more than a year since I’d put a line of my own onto paper. What if my skill had gone? What would I tell those rich Frenchmen? My God, if Master Dallet found out, he might break my bones; he might kill me.
    Now I was very frightened; I could feel some shapeless, wicked thing hiding in the corner, making darkness even in the daytime. I could hear a rustling in the chimney and smell something ugly, like old, rotting wood. My skin started to crawl. “You’ve lost the art,” the thing whispered. “Better to kill yourself now, before your husband does it.” My chest was all heavy, and I couldn’t breathe. It was something, something terrible like an evil presence that was taking away my painting just when I needed it most.
    Then I tried to take away my fear with the thought of all that money, and the good things I could do with it which would be entirely for others and so entirely virtuous. I’ll just start, and my old skill will come back, I thought. But the dark thing crowded more into the room, and I started weeping even though I was so stubborn as to keep hunting out my drawing things.
    But as I laid the big drawing out on the table for copying, I felt the oddest pressure in the air behind me, as if someone curious were watching what I was doing. “Of course you can, Susanna,” I heard in my ear. I turned my head suddenly, and caught a flash in the corner of my eye, something that shone, all translucent, and which I can only describe as, well, oddly
feathery
. The light seemed bright and rich in the room, and my heart lost its heaviness. I could feel a calm sort of joy beating through my veins, where sad, heavy blood should have been. Well, I thought, now I’m seeing things as well as having a dreadful headache. Maybe Nan was right and it was all from putting my head out in the rain when she told me not to.
    Then all at once the headache faded, as if someone had touched my forehead. The edges of the parchment circle regained their sharpness. A curious heat flooded through me, and I began to sweat. Oh, I thought, I must spare the parchment, so I wiped the fast-flowing drops off my forehead with my sleeve. I was soaking now, and even the silk smock was damp through. My fingers seemed to loosen and felt clever and deft.
    With the boldness of a swimmer who dives into an unknown river, I took a deep breath and mixed the first color for the line drawing, carnation with a little thin lake, and laid down the forehead stroke. There it lay, neat and correct. Inwardly, I exulted. As I felt my hands and mind connect in the old way, inwardly, I seemed to hear an odd sound, like the approving rustle of a voice coming from somewhere nearby. All around it, I could hear the faint echo of children’s laughter,