The child blinked at the glaring light. Harsh and unfamiliar sounds accosted her ears. She stumbled, wearied not only by her journey into the new world, but also by the months spent hiding, creeping and outwitting the serpent from that other world.
“Oh, look, just look at her.”
The voice rang above the child’s head. It contained an edge of familiarity and it made her tremble.
A face peered down at her - then another. One had eyes that smiled with a wondrous delight upon her. But the other face. Those eyes were green, intense and madness flickered at their edges. The child’s heart quailed and she gasped. She tried to turn around and run but felt her legs betray her. They wouldn’t work, they were two frail appendages that seemed incapable of all but the most useless of movement.
A scream broke from her, uncontrolled, and tailed away into a wail that she felt would never end.
“Sssh, sssh. Hush now.” The voice was deep and awkward; it sounded as though its owner felt as out of his depth as she did.
“Give her to me,” said the first voice. Female.
The child shuddered.
No, screamed the essence of her being, don’t touch me. Stay away, stay away.
She felt herself lifted and rocked from side to side. Her wailing continued as though some primal part of her had taken control. Her heart twisted with anguish. After all those months spent evading the serpent’s constant search, here she was in the new world, and the serpent had found a way to follow her.
True, it had appeared in a new guise, but she was sure it was the selfsame creature. Something in her innermost being, a self that she felt she was fast forgetting, prompted her to remember, albeit dimly, the serpent’s visage. That glimpse of madness in the eyes, that voice, its edges tainted with a hiss.
But if it was the same creature, and she couldn’t be sure... what did it want with her? Would it kill her – as it had done her twin?
The child flailed with her legs and arms, seeking an escape, the wail rising up from her core.
“Sssh, sssh,” hissed the voice, “it’s alright, don’t cry so. Don’t cry. You’re safe now, I’ve got you. You’re with me now. You’re mine.”
No, she screamed, no, I’m not yours. I don’t belong to you. I don’t belong to anyone!
The child’s cries, her pleas were disregarded as though she spoke them in a foreign tongue.
Please, she wailed, please, let me go, I don’t belong here, I must have come to the wrong place. Please, please…
“I hope this crying and screaming is not going to carry on forever,” said the female voice, “I don’t think I can stand it.”
“She’s certainly got quite a voice on her,” said the male voice. “Here, give her to me. Come on, little one.”
The child felt herself passed from one set of arms to another, as though she was a rag doll. Why was she so helpless, why couldn’t she stop these people from manhandling her? And why didn’t they understand her? Why did they just ignore her voice, as though she were some halfwit, talking a foreign tongue?
Please, she whispered, trying again, please I think I’ve come out in the wrong world. I don’t think this is where I’m meant to be. You must send me back. This can’t possibly be right.
“Hush, little one, ssh, now.”
The arms that rocked her now were warm and strong. She stopped whimpering, gazed up at the brown eyes smiling down at her. She searched them for any signs of the madness she knew so well. Yes, there it was, but it was faint, almost undetectable. And the voice, the voice contained no hiss, just an occasional sibilance.
“There now,” said the man, “see, it’s not so bad.”
“Give her back to me,” said the woman.
The child felt herself passed again from one set of arms to the other.
She stared up, trying to hold her will, trying not to flinch, the terror rippling down her spine.
The green eyes, the madness streaming away from their edges, peered down at the child.
“Say Ma-Ma. Say Mama.”
The child screamed.
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