Dreamsnake

“I didn’t know, I didn’t understand…” Melissa jerked away from her. “I thought you were stronger — I thought you could do what you want, but you’re just like me.”

Snake would not let go of Melissa’s hand. She led her into one of the other guest rooms and turned up the light. Here the floor was not heated, and the stone seemed to pull the warmth out through the soles of Snake’s bare feet. She dragged a blanket off the neat bed and wrapped it around her shoulders as she took Melissa to the window seat. They sat down, Melissa reluctantly.

“Now. Tell me what’s wrong.”

With her head down, Melissa hugged her knees to her chest. “You have to do what they want, too.”

“I don’t have to do what anybody wants.”

Melissa looked up. From her right eye, the tears slid straight down her cheek. From the left, the ridges of scar tissue led tear-tracks sideways. She put her head down again. Snake moved nearer and put an arm around her shoulders.

“Just relax. There’s no hurry.”

“They… they do things…”

Snake frowned, totally confounded. “What things? Who’s ‘they’?”

“Him.”

“Who? Not Gabriel!”

Melissa nodded quickly without meeting her gaze.

Snake could not imagine Gabriel hurting anyone deliberately. “What happened? If he hurt you, I’m sure it was an accident.”

Melissa stared at her. “He didn’t do anything to me.” Her voice was contemptuous.

“Melissa, dear, I haven’t understood a word you’ve said. If Gabriel didn’t do anything to you, why were you so upset when you saw him? He’s really very nice.” Perhaps Melissa had heard about Leah and was afraid for Snake.

“He makes you get in his bed.”

“That’s my bed.”

“It doesn’t matter whose bed! Ras can’t find where I sleep, but sometimes…”

“Ras?”

“Me and him. You and the other.”

“Wait,” Snake said. “Ras makes you get in his bed? When you don’t want to?” That was a stupid question, she thought, but she could not think of a better one.

“Want to!” Melissa said with disgust.

With the calmness of disbelief, Snake said carefully, “Does he make you do anything else?”

“He said it would stop hurting, but it never did…” She hid her face against her knees.

What Melissa had been trying to say came clear to Snake in a rush of pity and disgust. Snake hugged Melissa, patting her and stroking her hair until gradually, as if afraid someone would notice and make her stop, Melissa slipped her arms around Snake and cried against her shoulder.

“You don’t have to tell me any more,” Snake said. “I didn’t understand, but now I do. Oh, Melissa, it’s not supposed to be like that. Didn’t anybody ever tell you?”

“He said I was lucky,” Melissa whispered. “He said I should be grateful he would touch me.” She shuddered violently.

Snake rocked her back and forth. “He was lucky,” she said. “He’s been lucky no one knew.”

The door opened and Gabriel looked in. “Snake — ? Oh, there you are.” He came toward her, the light glinting off his golden body. Startled, Melissa glanced toward him. Gabriel froze, shock and horror spreading over his face. Melissa ducked her head again and held Snake tighter, shaking with the effort of controlling her sobs.

“What — ?”

“Go back to bed,” Snake said, even more harshly than she had meant to but less harshly than she felt toward him right now.

“What’s going on?” he asked plaintively. Frowning, he looked at Melissa.

“Go away! I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

He started to protest, saw Snake’s expression change, cut off his words, and left the room. Snake and Melissa sat together in silence for a long time. Melissa’s breathing slowly grew quieter and more regular.

“You see how people look at me?”

“Yes, dear. I see.” After Gabriel’s reaction Snake hardly felt she could paint any more rosy pictures of people’s tolerance. Yet now Snake hoped even more that Melissa would decide to leave this place. Anything would be better. Anything.

Snake’s anger rose in a slow, dangerous, inexorable way. A scarred and hurt and frightened child had as much right to a gentle sexual initiation as any beautiful, confident one, perhaps a greater right. But Melissa had only been scarred and hurt and frightened more. And humiliated. Snake held her and rocked her. Melissa clung contentedly to her like a much younger child. “Melissa…”

“Yes, mistress.”

“Ras is an evil man. He’s hurt you in ways no one who wasn’t evil would ever hurt anyone. I promise you he’ll never hurt you again.”

“What does it matter if it’s him or somebody else?”

“Remember how surprised you were that someone tried to rob me?”

“But that was a crazy. Ras isn’t a crazy.”

“There are more crazies like that than people like Ras.”

“That other one is like Ras. You had to be with him.”

“No, I didn’t. I invited him to stay with me. There are things people can do for each other—”

Melissa glanced up. Snake could not tell if her expression was curiosity or concern, her face was so stiff with the terrible scars of burning. For the first time Snake could see that the scars extended beneath the collar of the child’s shirt. Snake felt the blood drain from her face.

“Mistress, what’s wrong?”

“Tell me something, dear. How badly were you burned? Where are the scars?”

Melissa’s right eye narrowed; that was all she could make of a frown. “My face.” She drew back and touched her collarbone, just to the left of her throat. “Here.” Her hand moved down her chest to the bottom of her rib cage, then to her side. “To here.”

“No farther down?”

“No. My arm was stiff for a long time.” She rotated her left shoulder: it was not as limber as it should have been. “I was lucky. If it was worse and I couldn’t ride, then I wouldn’t be worth keeping alive to anybody.”

Snake released her breath slowly with great relief. She had seen people burned so badly they had no sex left at all, neither external organs nor capacity for pleasurable sensation. Snake thanked all the gods of all the people of the world for what Melissa had told her. Ras had hurt her, but the pain was because she was a child and he was a large and brutal adult, not because the fire had destroyed all other feeling except pain.

“People can do things for each other that give them both pleasure,” Snake said. “That’s why Gabriel and I were together. I wanted him to touch me and he wanted me to touch him. But when someone touches another person without caring how they feel — against their wishes!” She stopped, for she could not understand anyone twisted enough to turn sexuality into assault. “Ras is an evil man,” she said again.

“The other one didn’t hurt you?”

“No. We were having fun.”

“All right,” Melissa said reluctantly.

“I can show you.”

“No! Please don’t.”

“Don’t worry,” Snake said. “Don’t worry. From now on nobody will do anything to you that you don’t want.”

“Mistress Snake, you can’t stop him. I can’t stop him. You have to go away, and I have to stay here.”

Anything would be better than staying here, Snake had thought. Anything. Even exile. Like the dream she had been searching for, the answers slipped up into Snake’s mind, and she laughed and cried at herself for not seeing them sooner.

“Would you come with me, if you could?”

“Come with you?”

“Yes.”

“Mistress Snake — !”

“Healers adopt their children, did you know that? I didn’t realize it before, but I’ve been looking for someone for a long time.”

“But you could have anybody.”

“I want you, if you’ll have me as your parent.”

Melissa huddled against her. “They’ll never let me go,” she whispered. “I’m scared.”

Snake, stroked Melissa’s hair and stared out the window at the darkness and the scattered lights of wealthy, beautiful Mountainside. Some time later, just on the edge of sleep, Melissa whispered, “I’m scared.”

Chapter 8

Snake woke at the first rays of scarlet morning sun. Melissa was gone. She must have slipped out and returned to the stable, and Snake was afraid for her.