Chapter 6: Undulating Undertakings

Most people are afraid of snakes.

Daine had never understood that. She had always tried to explain: For every venomous one there are dozens of sleepy slitherers, and besides – well, if you stay still and calm, they aren't likely to attack you.

Most people ignored her.

As a child she would play in the dust outside the homestead with two or three of the tiny creatures coiling around her arms. Her ma would scream if she saw them, and then they would panic and hiss and dart away. But they would always return and bask in the sun with her from the morning until it set. Despite her ma's warnings she never came to any harm.

But Daine didn't dream about being a child. Not often. Her dreams were usually taken up with later days, when she was older and the snakes had learned to ignore the scent of blood that clung to her every month. It was the one thing they did which was against their natures. Usually, the coppery scent would send them hunting in mindless, feral rage. But for some reason they could accept that this human, already too large to swallow, was not to be hunted. Daine was old enough to be curious about their uncanny way of thinking by then, but she was so comfortable with the snakes that it never occurred to her to challenge them.

What did Daine dream about? The days were long and hot and drier than a preacher's wit. There hadn't been much rain that year, and the dust was so fine you could breathe it in and blow it out like smoke. Her grandda had smoked; even in the hottest evenings the porch reeked of tobacco. She had seen the dim red light at the end of his pipe on that evening, when she had looked back at her home from the top of the rise. It looked serene with the sod walls fossilised into parched reddish flesh by the drought. Without the glowing ember and the light from the window you might have thought it was a part of the plain.

Daine missed the grass. She wondered when the rain would come back. She wondered how long it would take to barter with the traders at the outpost. She wondered if they would have any news from the world outside. She didn't wonder if she would see her family again. She thought she knew.

She dreamed of the outpost. In her dream it was busier than it had ever been in real life, with the dust disturbed by hooves and boots and the air ringing with the sounds of steps. Cloud's ears had flicked back and forth at the sound, disliking the clink of the sharp piercing spurs. Daine had reached forward and hushed her, petting her mane like a normal person would instead of speaking. It was hard to see, hard to breathe, and by the time she had bartered for meal and grits and beans both Daine and the pony were hot and tired.

"What do you think, shall we have a rest?" Daine had asked, her voice playful enough that passers-by would assume she was thinking aloud. Cloud snorted and nodded – about time! – and they had traipsed through the outpost towards the river.

It was cooler there, but humid. Someone had set up a ramshackle tent and was selling fried beans, bread and liquor. They settled by the water, and Cloud pulled up mouthfuls of stringy grass while Daine laid back and stared up at the canopy of brownish leaves.

"I miss the rain," she murmured aloud, and laid her hand over her eyes to shut out the slanting glare of the sun. "I think the clouds have forgotten we're here, we're so far away from anything."

Someone laughed, and she lowered her hand to see a young man grinning at her. His eyes were very blue, or perhaps he was just so suntanned and dusty that they looked over-bright.

"Not for long, little missy!" He guffawed, and gestured with his spoon towards the empty plains. "Soon you'll be able to take a daytrip to the seaside, easy as you like, and bring them clouds back with you!"

"Don't tease me." She muttered, covering her eyes again and waving her free hand dismissively. "Go and shout your drunken nonsense at someone else, if it's all the same."

"I ain't drunk." He told her, and belched loudly. "Not unless these beans are so old they've actually fermented."

She raised herself onto one arm and looked at him, raising an eyebrow. He looked rather smug, giving out his stories with the air of a man granting wishes. Daine snorted and folded her arms, hearing Cloud's echoing snort as the pony listened in.

Her voice was scathing, but also the tiniest bit wistful. "Not drunk? Then are you mad? Jaunts to the seaside! I've never even seen the sea."

"Well, you will. Soon as the railways comes through, that goes all the way back to the waves. I seen 'em myself."

That did interest her. Even in her dream Daine remembered the thrill of strange adventure that raced through her stomach. It was the first time she'd heard of the railway, and it seemed like some mystical creature to her naïve ears. A great dragon of steel and iron, belching smoke and steam as it flew across the plains. She'd never been further from her homestead than this outpost. The outside world was made up of stories, not pistons or rails or vast crashing waves. The man had seen her reaction and grinned, but before she could ask any questions someone shouted for him. He tipped his hat at her in half-mocking politeness and scrambled to his feet.

Who was he? The man was nobody – Daine never saw him again – and yet he always crept into her dreams with those bright blue eyes and that same smug smile. He captivated her waking thoughts on that day, too, as she began the long hot trudge back home. Cloud complained about the weight of the sacks she was carrying, but stopped after a few hours when she realised Daine wasn't listening. The girl's ears were full of the crash of imaginary waves and the roar of mechanical dragons. Perhaps Daine remembered it so clearly as her last happy memory. The last few hours of her childhood, of a thirteen-year-old girl who dreamed of the beautiful world beyond her own parched existence.

Perhaps. It never mattered to the dreams why they showed her these things. They just were. They never changed. They couldn't. The next few hours were burned into her mind like light onto an exposed camera slide.

She reached the homestead after dark. The darkness saved her life. That, and the snakes. They flowed over the dust towards her like rippling water, and tangled around her ankles hissing frantically at her. Cloud stomped and reared until they left a respectful space around her, but still they gathered around the human's ankles until she could barely see her own feet.

"What's wrong?" She gasped, finally dragged from her daydream into the cold night air. The snakes didn't answer in words but in emotions: fear, anger, intruders, fear, pain, blood, fear…

"Stop!" She cried, pressing her hands over her ears. "Not all at once! It hurts!"

Yes, hurts… they agreed as one. Pain… fear… blood… hurtsssss…

And she could feel it with them, as if her ears were growing as keen as the snakes': the tremors in the ground as the horse-hooves thudded towards her land, the tearing sense of intruders in the valley, the thick scent of fear in the air and finally, finally she was close enough and she could hear…

"Daine!"

She gasped and threw her hands forward, lashing out blindly at the noise. It was too loud, and so much closer than it should have been. The bandits weren't at the homestead yet. They couldn't be, because first her grandda had stood his ground on the porch with the shotgun raised, and she had heard the dull roar as it had fired into the air, and then a horse was screaming, and then…

"Wake up!" The voice said again, and she felt something touch her shoulder. It was a light touch, but she shrieked and sat bolt upright, feeling dizzy as her sleep-addled mind tried to make sense of the real world.

"I.. I…!" She gasped, staring around blindly, and then she wrenched her eyes opened and glared with every groggy ounce of strength she could muster. "Get… 'way fr'm… me!"

"I'm sorry!" The man held his hands up in mute surrender and backed away. His eyes were huge in the wine-coloured dawn light. "You… you were having a… a nightmare."

"Yeah? Well, I have nightmares." She snapped, and then a surge of anger ran through her. She picked up a pillow and threw it at him, suddenly furious. It missed. "I told you not to touch me! I said!"

"You were crying." He said, and picked up the misaimed missile carefully. "I thought…"

"You thought wrong!" She clenched her hands into fists so he wouldn't be able to see how much they were shaking, and lay down on her side, turning her back to him. Only one or two tears escaped from her eyes before she stubbornly made herself stop. She was sure that he would think she had simply fallen back asleep.

"I'm sorry." He said again, and she couldn't see his face to understand the odd note his voice held. There was a gust of fresh air as he pushed the door open. "I'll… I'll go check on the cows, alright?"

She didn't answer, and after a moment she heard the door click shut behind him. As soon as he was gone she sat upright and tore at her sleeves, pulling them up to see the soft skin on the inside of her elbows. It was there, as she thought it would be. It was always the first place to turn. Red stripes banded across her arms like a vicious rash. The black and yellow still lurked beneath her skin and she sighed, relieved at least about that. Still, she had to touch the red stripes, and she shuddered at the feeling of the rough, scaly skin.

"It's not so bad," she whispered, and pulled her sleeves down guiltily. She repeated the words over and over again, like a mantra, until she almost believed them. It could be worse. It had been worse.

"Stop shivering, girl. Learn to live with it. It's not like it's going to get any better," Daine muttered tetchily to herself, and stood up. If her legs felt rubbery under her then it was probably to do with healing the kittens, not to do with… with anything else. She sighed, scratched her nose fitfully, and then went to pack. She decided it would be a good idea to take clothes with long sleeves.

"Long sleeves in the middle of summer? I'm going to bake!" She rolled her eyes and glared at the door. "I knew I should've shot him."

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