The garden snakes are very kind; such slithery, scaly little creatures, winding up her elbow to the soft skin beneath her arm, flicking each tiny freckle with their cold forked tongues. She lies in the grass, covered by the untrimmed weeds, and plays the part of Medusa mixed with Ophelia flawlessly. A snake twists into her hair, followed by its dozen counterparts. She reaches a hand to the sky as the words spill undaunted from her mouth, a language she speaks without understanding, stay with me hissed from her own naïve tongue. And oh, the blessed snakes, they obey her.