The Serpent Read online

  “And we had just concluded our meeting.” Her mother picked her way out from behind her desk, stepping over a stack of books and a few boxes of artifacts, and gestured toward the door. Her curly silver hair was matted in the back like she hadn’t yet brushed it today, and she’d dribbled something brown, possibly tea but hopefully soup or something with some actual calories, on the front of her blouse. Her hands were shaking, which made Ernie think the former possibility was more likely—or maybe her mother was terrified. “Mr. Carrig, thank you for stopping by.”

  “I’ll be in town a little while longer if you change your mind, Ms. Terwilliger,” Gabe said. “And for your sake, I hope that you will.”

  “What the heck?” Ernie scowled at Gabe as he sauntered into the front parlor.

  “Quiet, Ernestine,” said her mother, her voice singsong. Nervous. She stood in front of Ernie, looking wispy and jittery as Gabe walked out of the shop. A few seconds later, a motorcycle growled to life.

  Ernie endured a few painful minutes while her mother checked on the elderly couple looking for Civil War memorabilia. When she returned, the questions were practically crawling out of Ernie’s mouth. “Was he threatening you just now?” she whispered sharply as her mom rushed into the room and closed the door. “What’s he asking you to change your mind about? What did he want? What did he mean by ‘grown-up table’?”

  Her mom waved her hands as if she were shooing away a bad smell. “Some collectors are desperate to acquire an item before anyone else gets it, and that Mr. Carrig had heard about the pinfire pistol I picked up from the Gideon estate in August.”

  “He was interested in a pinfire pistol. Huh. He didn’t quite have the look of a collector.”

  “Ah, collectors come in all shapes and sizes. No stereotyping . . .” Mom’s voice trailed off as she began to shuffle some papers around on the desk. “Left it here somewhere,” she muttered. “You’ll need it . . .”

  “Mom?” Ernie asked, softening to a tone her mother usually couldn’t resist. “I don’t need a talisman or sachet or charm or whatever you’re looking for. I just need to know you’re okay. Please tell me what’s going on. I’m here to help.”

  “That’s exactly the problem,” she said, still sorting through the array of notices, letters of inquiry, historical periodicals, take-out menus, and other various crumpled paper items.

  Ernie winced when she saw that one of them was an old picture of her father. “This guy Gabe,” she said. “I’m not stupid, okay? He said he wants your help with something—is it something illegal?”

  Mom let out a high-pitched, frazzled laugh, the kind that said she thought something was preposterous . . . or that Ernie had hit a nerve. “Oh, I don’t think there are any laws against it. How could there be?” She laughed again.

  It did nothing to calm Ernie’s fears. In fact, it did the opposite. “Tell me.”

  “Ah! Here it is!” Mom held up a piece of paper and then thrust it toward her. “This is for you.”

  Ernie looked down at the page. “Airline miles?”

  Mom nodded, grinning. “It turns out I’ve been accruing miles on the business credit card for years and haven’t used a one of them. And now I’m giving them to you.”

  “Huh?”

  “So you can travel. You can leave as soon as your trip is planned!”

  “My trip?”

  “Ernestine, you might think me a crazy old bat, but you need to give me some credit. I know my daughter. And I know she has a desperate desire to see the world.” She peeled her glasses from her face and let them hang from the chain as she dabbed at her eyes with a spotty handkerchief. “I also know that I’m the one thing holding her back.” She offered a tremulous smile and pointed at the ceiling. “I’ll even keep the batteries in the smoke detectors if it’ll make you feel better.”

  Ernie swallowed the lump in her throat as she looked down at the travel voucher. With these miles, she would be able to go anywhere in the world, probably several places in the world. “Mom . . .”

  “I don’t want to hear a single excuse.” She came out from behind her desk and patted Ernie’s back, ushering her toward the door. “I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I won’t take no for an answer.”

  “But—”

  “Who’s the parent here?”

  “Really? I—”

  Mom grasped her shoulders. “Ernestine Philomena. You have taken care of me for years, and you’ve never once complained. Your dear friend just left to start a new life out west, and I am well aware of how you must be feeling.” She shook Ernie a little. “And if you don’t go, I’ll be terribly hurt and will feel even more helpless and incompetent than I already do.”

  Ernie’s mouth opened and closed a few times, but nothing came out. Then footsteps creaked outside the closed door of the office, and her mother nearly jumped a mile.

  “Hello?” said a voice. “We’re ready to check out.”

  Mom smiled. “Wonderful! I’ll be right with y’all.” She fixed Ernie with a glare. “Start planning your trip, young lady. That’s an order.”

  She moved past her daughter and reentered her shop, all bustle and charm. But her hands were still shaking, and she wasn’t fooling Ernie, not one damn bit.

  For some reason Ernie didn’t understand, her mother was trying to get rid of her.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Ernie sat back from her computer, her muscles aching after a tough five a.m. workout with her team. She smiled as she allowed herself a nice, long triceps stretch for each arm. She was in kick-ass shape, having been an avid fitness buff ever since she was a teenager, when she’d started using hard exercise to chase away thoughts of her parents—one gone and one present yet absent—and anything else that was digging at her. But it went beyond coping now; with each obstacle she tackled and overcame, with each race she completed, she was reminded that her body could go anywhere her mind allowed it and that she could take care of herself.

  Finishing her stretch, she gestured toward her screen. “This is the place. Toraja. That’s where I’m going.”

  Dia leaned over and peered at the images. “South Sulawesi. Indonesia? You can’t be serious.”

  Ernie shifted on her office chair, glancing toward the hospital hallway. She could have done this at home, but she’d had some time after she’d finished her workday, and she hadn’t felt like going back to her empty apartment just yet. “I don’t think you can get much further away from our American culture than this place.”

  Dia squinted at the screen. “Their funeral rituals last for days, and sometimes they keep the bodies of their dead relatives hanging around in the house with them for months? That is just weirder than weird.”

  “You didn’t grow up with my mom, obviously.”

  Dia took control of the mouse, reading as she scrolled down the screen. “Their idea of a funeral celebration is slaughtering a bunch of pigs and letting their kids try to ‘catch the spurting blood in bamboo tubes’? Why the hell would you want to go there?”

  “Don’t be disrespectful. They look at death totally differently than we do. If I’m going to travel, I want to be exposed to ways of thinking that are new to me.”

  “Paris is new. Paris is different.”

  “Paris is kind of obvious.”

  Dia’s shiny red lips curled into a dry smile. “Go somewhere with a decent cocktail list, at least. I know you’re little miss commando and all, but from here it just looks like you’re punishing yourself. Like, if you’re going to leave, you’re going to make damn sure you don’t have any fun once you get there.”

  “Mom said I could go anywhere I want.” Ernie frowned. “But part of me wonders if I should wait, you know? Maybe this isn’t a good time.”

  “No, no, no. This is what I’m talking about. You talk big, but when it comes time to pull the trigger . . .” Dia raised her eyebrows.

  “It’s not that,” Ernie said. “I think she might be trying to get me out of Asheville. Like, on purpose.”

>   Dia gave her an are-you-stupid look. “That would be the point of the travel vouchers, honey. That’s what they’re for.”

  “Sure, but why now? Why’s Mom trying to get rid of me? I’m worried about her.”

  “You’ve been worried about her for two decades. Clearly she thinks it’s time you worried about your own damn self. And I agree.”

  “It’s just . . .” Ernie glanced at the clock. She was about to tell Dia about what Gabe had said to her mom, but suddenly she really wanted to make sure that her mom was all right. Ernie stood up and grabbed her sweater off the back of her chair. “I’ll tell you about it tomorrow. Right now, I think I’m going to go check on her.”

  Dia stretched. “I guess I’ll try Jules again.”

  “Have you talked to her since they left?” Ernie had sent a few thus-far-unanswered texts, but she didn’t want to seem too clingy.

  Dia shook her head. “They’re probably in Utah or Nevada or something by now. She mentioned that her dad really wanted to make it a full-on, cross-the-USA road trip. I called this morning, but it went straight to voicemail. Probably no reception out there . . . wherever they are.”

  Ernie had a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Have you checked with her mom? Has anyone heard from them?”

  “Are you just trying to find things to worry about now?”

  Ernie put up her hands. “You’re right. It’s probably fine.” She could almost believe it.

  Dia rolled her eyes. “See you tomorrow, honey. Keep planning that trip.” She reached over and, with two firm clicks, closed the browser showing pictures of colorful Indonesian death rites.

  “Later,” Ernie said as she walked out the door. As she headed down the hall toward the parking lot, she took stock. She was always getting left behind. By her father, by most of her classmates, by her best friend . . . Her mom was still around, but she was only half-there on her best day. Ernie couldn’t be the one doing the leaving—not now, anyway. So she tromped out to her car and set off for the shop. She’d travel when it felt right, and now wasn’t that time. She was needed here. By her mom. Whether Mom liked it or not.

  There was only one car in the lot when she pulled into the drive at Terwilliger Antiquities. She recognized it—the black minivan from yesterday afternoon, one of the cars that had been here when Mr. Scary had stopped by to bully her mom. But he’d been on a motorcycle, so the minivan probably belonged to the couple who’d wanted to buy the sword.

  Ernie parked on the other side of the drive and marched up the walk. As she reached the base of the porch stairs, she paused. Scattered across the dirt were several brown square tiles, along with an overturned box of kosher salt, white crystals spilled across the ground. “What the heck,” she muttered, bending down to pick up some of the tiles. They were maybe two inches square, wooden, with a shape carved or branded into each. One seemed to be a primitive rendering of a spider, another appeared to be some sort of bird, and another an octopus. Yet another looked like a snake. Other tiles were facedown on the ground, as if someone had dropped them in a hurry.

  Ernie raised her head. “Mom?” She tried to yell, but her mouth had gone dry and her voice was barely there. The tiles slipped from her loose fingers as she slowly mounted the stairs. She opened the front door carefully, slowly, so as not to jangle the bell. The door to her mother’s office was closed, but she could hear voices inside. Her mother’s was high pitched. Frantic.

  Ernie bit her lip. She shouldn’t overreact. The couple might have just startled Mom, and maybe now they were in the office, renegotiating on a price or something. It happened sometimes, when people had buyer’s remorse about big-ticket collectibles. Maybe her mom was just trying to calm down a dissatisfied customer.

  None of those thoughts stopped Ernie from grabbing a ceramic jug by the handle as she crept by. She felt better with a weapon in her hands, no matter how primitive. “Mom?” she called out, louder this time. She was steps from the office. She looked down at the doorknob. It was hanging crooked and loose, and the wooden door was cracked.

  Like it had been kicked in.

  The voices in the office went quiet, but no one opened the door. Then she heard her mother’s voice, wavering and scared. “I’m in a meeting, Ernestine. Go on home. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “I need to talk to you now, Mom.” Her gut was screaming that this was wrong, wrong, wrong.

  Someone said something to her mother in a low, rumbling voice. The sound made the hair stand up on the back of Ernie’s neck. It didn’t sound like the couple from yesterday. Ernie grabbed her phone from her bag and dialed 911, then let her thumb hover over the “Send” button. “Open the door, or I’m going to—”

  “No!” screamed her mother.

  The door swung open abruptly, and Ernie only had time to process a large figure in black before she was dragged into the room and tossed onto the floor. The jug hit the ground and shattered, leaving several shards strewn across the wooden boards. Ernie landed hard on her side, and her phone flew from her hand and slid under a cabinet. Gasping to catch her breath, she braced herself on her hands and looked up.

  It was the guy with the cards, the one who had scared Jules half to death. Now he was standing over her, that stupid deck in his hand. His left sleeve was rolled up, revealing his bare, muscled forearm. His black hair was pulled back from his face, and his dark eyes regarded her. “Your daughter?” he asked her mom. “I see the resemblance.”

  Ernie pushed her hair out of her eyes and scooted back a few inches, hoping to reach the largest piece of the broken jug, the one with the handle. If she could—

  She froze when she heard a quiet rattling, like beans in a dry gourd. Mom made a desperate sound in her throat. “Please don’t let it hurt her!” she cried.

  “Then give me what I want,” said the guy as the rattling continued.

  Ernie looked around, seeking the source of the sound even as her body went cold. In the shadows beneath the cabinet where her phone was, something moved. “Oh my god,” she whispered. “Is that a rattlesnake?”

  The guy looked down at her. “Would you like to meet her, Ernestine?”

  “God, no,” said Ernie. And now she couldn’t get to her phone. Great. Her heart was beating so fast that she could barely breathe. “What do you want?”

  “Something I’ve been hunting for a long time. Would you like to help me get it?”

  “This is between us,” her mom said, leaning over her desk. “Let her go.”

  “But you were being very uncooperative before she showed up,” said the guy in black. “I think I’d rather she stay and socialize.”

  The rattling noise got louder, becoming a constant buzz, and Ernie jerked away from the cabinet, rising to her knees. The guy in black began to shuffle his cards. His focus on them was intense, his long fingers sure. The backs of the cards seemed iridescent now, the outline of the snake glowing faintly. Something inside Ernie thrummed with awareness as she stared up at the images flashing by on the cards’ faces. She’d seen tarot decks, but this was something else. None of the symbols looked familiar.

  “I didn’t want to use threats,” said the guy, offering her mom a chilling smile. “Imagine how elated I was to realize what I wanted was here, out in the open, virtually unprotected. I’ve come a long way to acquire them, and I will not leave without them.”

  As he was talking, Ernie’s hand crept toward the shard of jug on the floor. Yeah, there might be a snake under the cabinet, but it couldn’t exactly do a hundred-yard dash like she could, and if she could move fast enough, she might be able to make it to the old landline phone in the front parlor. The entire plan formed in Ernie’s head in the space of a few seconds, and her muscles tensed in anticipation, like they always did before a race. She could almost hear her team chanting—Ah-roo, ah-roo, ah-roo. Time to give it her all.

  The guy in black looked up from his cards, some of which he’d fanned out. “So what do you say? Do you give me what I want, or shall I make a
play?”

  “I can’t violate his trust,” said Mom, who was ashen. Sweating. “I can’t give them to you. Please.”

  The rattlesnake under the cabinet sounded off again, and Ernie used it to her advantage. She moved to her hands and knees and braced one of her legs beneath her, even as she let out a shriek and did her best to look terrified—which, given the circumstances, wasn’t exactly a stretch.

  The guy in black laughed at her fear. “Maybe you’ll play with me, then,” he said to Ernie, holding the cards over her. “Hmm? Just like your friend did? Is she still alive, or has it happened yet?”

  That was it. With a strangled cry, Ernie launched herself from the floor and smacked him across the face with the hunk of jug. As he staggered, she did the one thing that might get him away from her mom—she grabbed at his deck as she barreled toward the doorway of the office. Loose cards flew through the air, buzzing and fluttering like angry hornets, pelting her as if they had a mind of their own. Ernie clutched a bunch of them to her chest as she ran into the front parlor. The guy let out a shout of fury and charged after her.

  She was never going to have a chance to get to the phone, let alone dial it.

  The cards she was clutching were warm, almost hot, as she crashed through the front door and sprinted for her car. She didn’t risk a look back, but it sounded like her pursuer was only a few yards behind her. With a shriek, she threw one of the cards to the side. He dove for it and landed in an animal crouch, cradling the thing to his body. His lips were peeled back from his teeth in a vicious snarl. “Give them to me!” he roared.

  She reached her car and tore the door open, then slammed it shut and locked it just as he crashed into the side. Her mother had followed them out, but instead of calling the police, she was, for some unknown reason, pouring a thin line of salt along the front of the house. But the psycho didn’t even seem aware of her mom. He began to kick at Ernie’s window, shouting for her to give him his cards. She reached for her bag, only to realize she must have dropped it in her panic.