Maya Serpentine's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

The path from the arch dropped through ferns and opened without warning. Maya stopped at the edge. The garden lay below her in a shallow bowl of stone. Cracked serpent statues ringed a mossy well at the center. Vines wrapped their carved coils. Pale flowers pushed through the broken tiles. Shallow pools held a soft green light that did not come from the sky. It was alive. It was also hurt. Whole sections of the outer wall had fallen. One statue lay in three pieces across the path. The serpent on her wrist lifted its head higher than she had ever seen it lift. It tasted the air and did not settle. She stepped down into the bowl slowly. She did not speak. The serpent poured from her wrist to the ground and moved ahead of her, thick and sure, tracing a line she could not see. It passed the first broken statue and paused. The moss there brightened under its belly, then dimmed as it moved on. It went to the second statue and did the same. Maya followed at a distance. She watched the light wake behind the serpent and fade again, like a lamp carried through a long room. At the well, the serpent stopped. It rose against the stone lip and held there, as if listening. Maya knelt on the tiles and set her palm flat on the moss. The ground was warm. She took the burned map from her coat and laid it beside her hand. The ink line that had ended at the gate now ran forward across the parchment and stopped inside the drawn shape of the garden. It marked the well. The map had brought her as far as it could. She reached into the well. The water was cold and shallow. Her fingers found a flat stone at the bottom, cut with the same scale pattern as the arch. She pressed it. Nothing moved. She pressed harder. The serpent slid down her arm into the water and laid itself across the stone. The green light in the pools brightened once, held, and steadied. The fallen statue behind her did not rise. The cracked tiles did not close. But the garden held its light now, and did not dim when she breathed. The serpent climbed back to her wrist, heavier again, and stayed. Maya sat on the well's edge and looked at what she had found. The garden was not restored. It was only awake. She would have to learn the rest of the work here, alone, and she did not yet know how long that would take.