Myths of Origin Four Short Novels - By Catherynne M. Valente Page 0,40

not the same for her. I was not human any longer, my lithe serpentbody green as grave-grass, long arms like birch saplings, lips like anemones. And my terrible eyes, almond-shaped emptiness, plain green stones set in my chameleon-face. How awful I must have seemed to her, how grotesque, with my smooth-furred macaque brushing his tail over my collarbone. I emerge Monstrous from the Monster, my skin the dragon-flesh of nightmares.

And so she screamed. “Stay Away, Away! Don’t touch me!” She fox-howled and spat, shaking as though possessed. Her long white hair trembled like an avalanche, black eyes deep as river-rocks. I reached out a hand to calm her, and she scrambled backwards in her huge chair, screeching louder than before.

“No! Don’t come near me, you can’t!” I recoiled from her, and whispered when I spoke. “I won’t hurt you, I promise. I’m not anything bad.”

“No, no, girl, I am,” she hissed like the pop of a black book-spine on the fire. “Very bad, indeed. I’m sick, infected. If you touch me, you’ll be sick, too, and then what will you do, hmm? Don’t breathe near me, don’t touch anything, just leave before you swallow my infection like a frosted cake. This is a plague house. Didn’t you see the black curtains, the sign on the Door? Please go.” She seemed to shrink into her chair, nearly weeping. I was stunned, transfixed by her hate and fear like sour black bread crumbling on my tongue. The Monkey picked at a knot in his fur.

“You’re fine. I would smell it if you were really ill. Hoo. Sick smells awful,” he said matter-of-factly. “No, no, I am Deathly Ill, I am Afflicted, I know it,” she cried quickly, her piccolo voice. The wretched woman was shaking as though her bones were rattlesnakes’ tails. Her breath came in great, tattered rasps, thin chest heaving. I walked across the small room and knelt beside the poor crone, leaning my emerald head on her knee, gazing up at her weathered face.

“Please don’t,” she whimpered, “you’ll die, I swear.”

“It’s alright, grandmother, it’s alright. I’m sick, too. Mad and Dying.” She flinched at the contact of my cheek and her bony knee.

“Is that why you’re green?” The woman seemed interested by the possibility of a new disease.

“I think so.” I answered softly. The fire crackled behind us as she considered us. “Well, if you’re dying anyway, I suppose it doesn’t matter,” she brightened, “But keep your pretty pet away, he’ll catch it for sure.” The Monkey hopped gracefully up onto the lid of one of the oblong jars and proceeded to groom himself contentedly.

“I shall keep my distance if you like. But you’re not sick at all.” He paused in mid-comb. “Darlinggreen, she isn’t, I’m sure. But I can smell something else here, like mint in a rose garden—” He trailed off cryptically, smirking as he returned to his glossy pelt.

The crone chose another fat book off her shelves and began to rip the pages into long strips, stuffing them into her mouth until her eyes watered and her cheeks bulged. Painfully, methodically, she chewed and chewed, until she could swallow the pulpy mass of parchment. Black ink stained her lips and fingers. When she had eaten all she could, she threw the book-carcass onto the fire and reached up to seize another.

“What are you doing?” My serpentmouth hung open in confusion.

“I’m dying. Why should they live? I’m hungry. Why should they be full? Now they are inside me, and I can store up words like a camel stores water. I shall never run out.” She patted her stomach, which was indeed swollen to motherly proportions. “Whereas you, my green-skinned dear, I think will be entirely spent before the end. Dry as a sand-beetle.” She chortled throatily and returned to her books.

“Why do you think you are dying? You have lived a long time,” I asked sleepily, warmed by the fire.

“I do not think, child. I know.” She ignored Ezekiel’s loud, derisive hoo and continued. “I have already killed a boy, already infected him and he is dead, moldering in the ground.”

With this, the old woman began her story, told in a familiar sing-song rhythm, for she had told this tale to herself a thousand times before in her small dark hours, like a rosary. I reclined against her, my back to the rosy heat, listening to the vibrations of her reedy voice through the skin of her leg.

26

“I came of age during the plague years.

Every night I