Strange, but I’d expected his scales to be green.

I was sure that was what my aunt had told me. But her voice had worn the blurred edges of her medication, and my heartbeat had danced with fear.

I remember trying to focus out the window as her words filled the air between us. I could just glimpse the corner of the building opposite and I stared at it intently, trying not to blink, trying not to notice the bars that laced across her windowpanes and kept the world at bay.

“He gnaws on the roots of the tree, you see.”

I did see. I saw the fire escape of the building opposite, its rails shining in the twilight. It looked pretty.

“And those of us trapped here underneath the roots….we hear his jaws crunch down, right above our heads. It never stops.”

My aunt paused, leant towards me. I could force my attention away from her body, but not her voice.

“He’s coiled around the roots down here. If you listen, you can hear him hiss.”

The hospital bed creaked as she pushed herself off and teetered for one long moment, the sedatives disturbing her balance and decaying her dignity, one chalky pill at a time. I knew her unsteady gait by now, and as the only family member willing to venture into this place, it had become sickeningly familiar to me. She shuffled towards me and I stared wide-eyed at the fire escape, imagining my fingers curled around the cold steel of its rails. Please focus, please don’t blink, don’t close your eyes.

She tried to bend and meet my gaze but lurched forward, one arm outstretched. I automatically grabbed it to steady her and she locked on tight, jerking me to face her. Her eyes were dark and for once, utterly clear.

“I know you hear his hisses too.”

Jesus, those childhood stories…..way back when I’d thought they were just that, fairytales to seduce and bewitch her wide-eyed nieces and nephews, giggling with dread and delight. She wove her stories well; the howling of wolves and bleaching of bones, scarlet splashes on snow and plump ripe Kinderen to be devoured. But whenever she spoke of Nithhoggr, the serpent coiled around the roots of the Underworld tree, spitting his poison into the mouths of the mad below, then her eyes always turned my way, and I knew the story was for me alone.

It took years, however, until I heard him trailing behind me, heard the crunch of those jaws. Until I realised that no therapist, no medicine, no prayer, could stop him preparing his poison for me.

Now I have my own bars, my own chalk mouth, my own shuffle. But he keeps me company in here, in ways I can’t describe to you. I’ve inherited my aunt’s sick blood, the demons that dance in our dreams and darken our eyes, but not her storytelling abilities.

I wish I could tell you of his scales….the way the light glows on the ruby and gold. It’s dark down here in the Underworld, but not in the way you imagine. This darkness is rich with beauty, with loss, with promise. When you get a glimpse of his jewel tones, the dance of light on his scales…..there’s still such beauty down here, once your eyes adjust to the darkness.

I can’t imagine living without him.

Now, when I hear him hiss behind me, when I hear him preparing his poison, I no longer flinch. I turn towards him, and I open my mouth.

© bellmusker 2008