Glory

When Gnomon saw the snake, the impulse of his five-year-old heart was to possess it. Its contours showed off shades of emerald layered into wide scales that gathered light rays and dignified them with satin elegance. The loops of the snake’s body draped from the branch of a small magnolia tree that Gnomon's father had planted. That act had been motivated by gratitude in the manner of tradition: many things had been terrible to endure, but they had been endured. And now the tree was bearing fruit in the form of green convolutions.

The witch observed from the shadows of the loblolly pines as the boy stretched out a lean arm, narrow and tan like his mother's, reaching out to attract attention of the unwinding loops that seemed to know just how to unwrap themselves and not fall. Gnomon's eyes fastened on the scales sliding over each other. It was a puzzle endowed with the power to solve itself. It moved, but it did not fall from the branch.

Gnomon knew about things falling, and the deep devil that wanted them. The devil was sometimes beneath the water in the community well. Gnomon had leaned over the edge many times, scraping his belly against the circle of flagstones, just to see the devil once. He hadn't succeeded, but he had smelled a mossy cool scent, not too different from the forest at night. The devil was all around, just underfoot, taking many forms.

But something as beautiful as the snake could not be the devil. There were some truths that were self-evident: beauty was good, for instance, and his mother was the evidence. Sundial was her name, and she was all one needed as proof to know that beauty and love and truth and goodness were all the same thing.

Gnomon also knew that, unlike the snake, the devil was trapped. He was buried like the stiff man who let himself be put in a hole with the whole village watching. The stiff man’s hand was pointing at something, but no one knew what it was trying to communicate, except that it was surely a warning that would be good to know of, if only one could talk to him. But like his arms and legs, the man's mouth was stiff too, and he failed to say a thing about what he had seen. Eventually the earth covered him, and it was very like he had never been. Except that Gnomon couldn't get the man's arm out of his mind, wondering when it would one day erupt from the soil like the stalks of corn did in spring.

The deep devil was envious.  He wanted beautiful things for himself, like the emerald coils that oiled over one another and revealed a coffin-shaped head with utterly black eyes.

The deep devil couldn't reach things to take them, but he could pull them toward himself. One could even discern what sorts of things the devil coveted. Rain and leaves, and his mother's heirloom bowl from her grandmother. Gnomon had seen it, shards remaining where the bowl had been, scattered floor-wide--and devilishly sharp, he discovered upon his first sight of blood.

The witch, of course, would have thought all this was nonsense. The real devils are not subterranean grasping spirits, but subtle tricksters that conceal truths from us. Sometimes they clouded sight that should be sure, and other times they brightly lit the way to regret. She blinked away the dryness in her eyes.

The witch did not speak because she could not, and had not spoken for a long time. Her tongue had gone out of her when her heart did, after she poisoned her friend. That was a trade with the real devil, and she carried the debt and felt it grow. Now she stood apart, different from those who hadn’t poisoned their friends or otherwise followed their hopes into despair. She stood apart and observed.

The snake was the color of the necklace she was given when she was made a witch. She saw herself in the snake, young and too certain. Green. She steadied herself against the rough bark of a pine and waited for the judgment.

Gnomon wiggled his fingers, and the snake's head tracked. A black ribbon of a tongue licked the air, fluttering curiosity. This delighted the boy and confirmed his sense that it was both beautiful and good. It curved its neck into a lazy spring-like S, an unhurried judge.

It was too high to reach. Gnomon applied his mind to the problem. He thought of the deep devil, and his young mind grasped the solution in a flash of joy. Gnomon grasped a low-lying branch, heavy with the thick tulip-shaped leaves, and gave a good yank. It had the desired effect of wagging the larger branch the snake coiled on, but it did not cause it to fall. Instead the snake twisted its body toward the extremity of the tree, where Gnomon's hand still tugged and waved the leaves, and the green loops flowed until they were wound around Gnomon’s arm.

The boy started at the intimate contact of the snake's dry skin. He felt the power beneath the rippling scales, and began to be afraid. He tried not to breathe or blink as the animal inspected him.

The witch saw herself in the snake. Not as she was now, but before, when it was her in the place of judgment. The night she became a witch.

Sundail had been there, pregnant with Gnomon. Lying beside her weak husband, and frightened that death might come for them all. But it was only the witch’s friend who left the world that night, and the witch read the words, and then they burned the body.

They were good words, said for a false purpose. The witch remembered speaking them with such heaviness in her.

Sun and soul mother, giver of life:

We diminish.

Our light of curiosity grows dimmer,

The faces that turn to you for warmth are fewer.

The mind that knows itself,

Knows less.

While her eyes turned inward to hypocrisy, the green devil deliberated on its judgment of the boy.

Gnomon grasped the snake behind the head. Its body flailed and strained to be free. He strengthened his grip. The snake began to whip, winding and unwinding in a furious whirl, and now it showed its fangs. The gaping mouth and needle-like weapons caused the awful realization that Gnomon had been wrong: he was holding a real devil by the throat, and it wanted to bite him.

And it did, of course.

The poison that pooled behind the snake’s round eyes surged into the boy’s arm in searing pulses. Poison is always a betrayal, and the witch felt it again. She rubbed her arm without thinking.

The witch waited until the snake had disappeared, and went to the boy. Gnomon began to shake and turn pale, but his lips became dark. The witch held him to her own body and thought of Sundial, who had chosen the name Gnomon because she wanted her son to stand in the sun and cast a long shadow. The shadows were coming early.

All the witch’s magic was gone except for one thing. It was a small package with all the lettering worn off. Even the glyph was gone, but she knew what it was. It was like Agony and Cupid and other powerful drugs, but this one made you forget the world and its poisons. They called this one Glory, and it let you see the wonder of life all at once. All the devils ran away from Glory.

The boy pushed his cheek against the witch’s chest and dragged breath into his body with effort. He looked into her eyes for help. The witch opened the last of her magic, and prised the needle out.

Gnomon felt the devil tugging him down, and it terrified him. He saw the shape in the witch’s hand, and saw her mouth the word silently: magic. He was too weak to nod.

The witch pressed the needle into her arm.