The Serpent King(63)

He told her the story of the Serpent King. She clearly made a great effort to remain neutral, which Dill appreciated, but her face betrayed her horror.

And now you know who I am. Now you’ve seen the tracks that have been laid for me. Maybe the force of my destiny is so great that Travis had to die to bring it into being. Run. Run from me the way people did from my grandpa, the Serpent King.

Lydia sat confounded and speechless for several minutes after he finished. “Just because grief ruined your grandfather doesn’t mean it’ll ruin you,” she finally said. Dill detected the trace of uncertainty in her voice, much as she may have tried to mask it.

He put his face in his hands and wept. “It’s in my blood. It’s like each of my cells has this poison inside it, and the grief chemical from my brain dissolved whatever kept the poison bound up. So now it’s starting to flow free and poison me. Like it did my grandpa and dad.”

Lydia took Dill’s hand and pulled it to her. “I want you to listen to me. They surrendered to their darkness. You don’t have to, and I want you to promise me that you never will.”

“I can’t promise that.”

“Promise me that if you ever feel like surrendering, you’ll tell me.” She put her hand on his cheek, turned his face to hers, and stared him dead in the eyes. “Dill, promise me.”

“You’re leaving. You won’t be around.”

Her eyes welled with tears, and they began streaming down her face and dropping onto the concrete. She pointed and spoke with greater resolve. “Dill, I will spend my life savings and charter a private jet if I have to. I will literally tie you up with duct tape and kidnap your ass and take you home with me. Now promise me.”

Dill took a deep, shuddering breath and turned his gaze away, but he said nothing.

“Dill?” She reached over and turned his face back to hers.

“I promise,” he whispered finally. I don’t know if I can promise what I’ve just promised.

“Say the words.”

“I promise I will tell you if I feel like surrendering.”

“At least promise me that before you consider surrender, not only will you tell me, but you’ll at least try something completely unexpected with your life instead, since you’ll have nothing to lose.”

“What?”

“Anything. Go to college. Join the circus. Live naked in a tepee. Whatever. Just nothing involving snakes or poison, though.”

“I promise.”




They sat their vigil like some sacrament. Until sundown and the blood-orange winter light of the dying day cast long shadows. Dill watched Lydia out of the corner of his eye. The breeze blew her hair across her face. She wore the sunset as a flaming crown. Young and beautiful and luminous and alive, keeping the darkness at bay if only for that brief moment.





When she arrived home, her dad was sitting on the couch, looking at a photo album. He still wore his suit and tie from the funeral. She sat down beside him and laid her head on his shoulder. He put his arm around her and kissed the top of her head.

“Are you looking at baby pictures of me?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Have you been doing this since the funeral?”

“With a break here and there. Are you okay, sweetie?”

“I miss him.”

“I bet. Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really. My heart hurts, Daddy.” She wiped a tear from her cheek before it could reach her dad’s shoulder.

“Mine does too. We’re here for you if and when you feel like talking.” He drew Lydia closer to him and she buried her face in his chest. “We raised you here precisely so you’d never have to deal with something like seeing one of your friends get hurt. And then this happens. I’m an idiot. We should have moved right to the middle of Manhattan to raise you.”

“Dad. You didn’t know.”

“We made the wrong trade-offs. We made the wrong choices. We tried. You need to know that. We tried to raise you the best we could. I’m sorry.”

“I know that. If you hadn’t raised me here, I’d never have gotten to know Travis at all. Like you said that time.”

“I don’t know what would happen if I ever lost you. It would destroy me.”

“You won’t.”

“I want you to be careful in this world. My heart is wrapped up in you.”

“I will.”

After a long while, Lydia stood to go upstairs.

She hadn’t made it more than a few feet when her dad called after her. “Lydia?”

She turned around.

“If I had bought all of Travis’s wood that day, would he still be alive?” His voice sounded hollow and far away, like he was asking the question under great duress on behalf of someone who didn’t want to know the answer.

“Are you asking me if you killed Travis?”

“Yes.”

“No. I don’t think you killed Travis. I think it was the two men who killed Travis who killed Travis. And I don’t think you should absolve them even a little bit by accepting any responsibility.”

He tried to smile, mostly without success. “Thank you,” he said softly. He went back to looking at the photo album, and Lydia went upstairs.