Madeleine Armstrong

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Content Warning

child death

Snakes can lay up to 100 eggs or give birth to up to 80 live babies.

When the men went to war, Etta stayed in the village with her son, Rain, and the other women and children. He was her one and only, and not for want of trying. Etta had always ached for a little girl, and for years she’d tolerated the sympathetic and superior looks from the other villagers as they’d presided over ever-expanding broods.

Now she watched her boy constantly, keeping him inside while the other children played. At night she memorised the curves of his face and the whorls of his ears, the way his eyelashes caught the light just so. When she blew one of those eyelashes away, she had only one wish: that the enemy soldiers would never find them.

She tried to make their survival a kind of game. Walking to the well each morning, their holey shoes kicking up clouds of red dust, they cast spells against monsters: lions and wolves and bears, never men.

That day, they found a dead fox by the roadside. Its fur was matted but it looked fresh. Etta slung it across her shoulders.

“How did it die?” Rain looked like he wanted to reach out and stroke it.

“Maybe it just gave up,” Etta said, thinking how easy it’d be to lie down in the dust.

“Maybe a snake bit it. A venomous one with big fangs.” Rain said.

“I doubt it.” Etta thought about telling him that snakes were the least of his worries, but she stopped herself.

They filled their buckets: two big ones for Etta, and a little pail for Rain which he carried carefully, taking care not to spill a drop. On the way back they crossed paths with others making the same journey, their faces weary. The neighbours weren’t so superior any more.

It hadn’t always been like this. Once there’d been TV and games and holidays. The only thing Rain had left from that time was a dog-eared book about snakes, which some auntie had brought back from a trip to New York; another world.

Rain flicked through the book while they hid from the sun in their tumble-down cottage on the village’s outskirts.

“Snakes don’t blink because they don’t have any eyelids,” he shouted to Etta as she skinned the fox in the kitchen, sweat sticking her dress to her back.

“Mmm,” she said, hacking at the fox’s paw with a cleaver. She was reminded of her old cat, Lucky, and how easily things could be snatched away. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, leaving a wet smear across her face.  

She felt the sudden need  to check on Rain. Dropping the cleaver, she rushed into the living room, breathless. He was staring at the book, tracing an S shape on the page. When Etta stroked his back he squirmed away.

“What’s deadlier? Black mamba or king cobra?” he asked.

Etta couldn’t look. The snakes, with their beady eyes and limbless bodies, gave her the creeps.

“Hopefully we’ll never have to find out, sweetie.”

In the evening, after she’d chopped enough wood for the following day, they sprinkled precious water around the boundaries of their yard. Etta eyed the looming forest, creeping closer every day.

“Snake poison, to keep the monsters out,” Rain said.

She nodded. It was the only way she could get him to sleep. They went inside and curled up in the bed Etta had shared with her husband. Before. Rain snuggled into the crook of her body and she held him close, inhaling the earthy smell of his hair. Eventually, his snuffling breath eased into a rhythmic snore. She lay awake listening to the birds’ evening calls, straining her ears for anything rustling in the trees, imagining thick tendrils inching out, wrapping around their house and squeezing it to death.

Snakes do not feed their young.

Another morning, another early start, before the sun bit. Another back-breaking journey. It’d be quicker without Rain, but Etta couldn’t let him out of her sight.

Returning from the well, they saw a crowd on the old village green: ragged women and girls and a few young boys, faces smudged with ash and horror. They’d gathered on the bare earth between the boarded-up pub and the cricket pavilion, clutching rucksacks and cuddly toys. The children hunkered close to their mothers, who stood in brittle silence, avoiding the eyes of the villagers.

Etta, her buckets sloshing, moved past the gaggle of neighbours, standing apart.

“We have to feed them,” said Miss Harris, the old schoolteacher.

“We don’t have enough for ourselves,” grumbled Mrs Lee.

“What if we were in their shoes?” Miss Harris said, even though most of the visitors were barefoot.

Etta said nothing, kept walking. She didn’t want to get close to the newcomers, with their taint of death, didn’t want Rain near them either, but he’d stopped and was staring.

“Come on,” she hissed. He wouldn’t budge. Ordinarily she’d pull him along, but her hands were full, arms burning with the weight of her buckets.

“I’ll watch him,” said Miss Harris.

With no other choice, Etta hurried home, left the buckets in the kitchen, and rushed back to the square. Miss Harris stood alone by the postbox. Gulping back fear, Etta marched over, ready to give her hell, then she saw Rain playing with one of the new boys, about his age. They ran and jumped, skidding on knees through the dirt. The boy’s mother, a baby strapped to her chest, looked on with blank eyes.

“Come here, Rain!” Etta shouted. When he didn’t come she hurried over, grabbed his arm and pulled until he screamed. She yanked him all the way home as he got more and more hysterical.

“It’s too dangerous out there,” she said, slamming them into the house.

He quietened. Sniffed. “You mean the monsters?”

Etta didn’t know what to say. Rain was probably imagining all sorts of beasts stalking the fields; the Surrey Serengeti.

“Bo’s brother was killed by monsters,” Rain said, as if he was talking about the weather.

Etta choked on the humid air, fighting to stay calm. “Bo’s your new friend?” She couldn’t stop the tremble in her voice.

Rain nodded. “I said we’d protect him with our magic.”

Etta ran to the door, threw the bolt across, slipped the chain into place. The soldiers could be close. They could be here right now.

“No more going outside without me, understand?” she shouted.

Rain’s mouth drooped into a reptilian beak. Fresh tears spilled onto his cheeks.

Etta softened. “I just want to keep you safe.”

She grabbed him and hugged him, pressing her face into his shoulder even as he pulled away, hoping he wouldn’t notice she was crying too.

That night, they sat up in bed reading the snake book, Etta forcing herself to look as Rain pointed out his favourites: a rippling python; a bright green boomslang. Anything so she could have him close.

Later, Rain snoring beside her, Etta prayed even harder than usual for the end of the war and her husband’s safe return.

Some species of snake are very protective of their young and will care for them until they are ready to fend for themselves. Other species abandon their eggs or young soon after birth.

Etta gave up on sleep and hauled herself out of bed, even though the sky was still ashy grey. She decided to tend to her vegetable patch before it got too hot.

As she opened the back door, she was hit by the stink of smoke. She heard screams coming from the village green. High voices, the way kids’ playground cries used to carry across the fields. Then the guttural yells of men. The crack of gunfire. One, two, three times.

Etta’s stomach dropped, the sensation of a fairground ride she barely remembered.

The enemy was here.

She raced back inside to Rain, shook him awake, whispered that they needed to leave. “We’re going on an adventure.”

His brown eyes lit up. “Where?”

“Into the woods.”

She grabbed the bag by the door, the one that’d sat  there for months, just in case. 

“Where’s my book?” Rain’s lip wobbled and she knew he wouldn’t come without it, so she dashed from room to room until she finally found the damned thing tucked down the side of the bed.

“Race you,” Etta said.

They fled into the forest, their ragged breathing muffled by the undergrowth. Thick brambles caught their ankles, ripping already ruined shoes.

Etta strained to hear the stomp of boots, a shout that would tell her they’d been followed.

“Are you looking for monsters, Mama?”

“Shall we play hide and seek?” she asked, forcing a brightness into her voice. “Look, there’s a good place.” She pointed at a crooked oak, the soil dredged away from its roots, exposing a nook they could shelter in. She climbed into the hollow and helped Rain in after her. Birds trilled in the bushes. Etta could almost fool herself that this was a normal day, a fun outing, a nice family walk.

“The monsters will never find us here,” Rain said.

For a while, he was happy scanning the trees for a swishing tail or sharp fangs. Then he started to complain that he was bored and hungry and wanted to go home.

Etta handed him the snake book while she rummaged for snacks, not taking anything for herself even though her stomach was rumbling. It was shady and cool among the trees, making it hard to tell what time it was. If they could make it through the night, maybe they could go home the next morning. Maybe the men would have gone by then.

“Look. A cottonmouth.”

At first, Etta thought Rain was pointing at the page, but then saw his finger was lifted towards the trees.

A crack of twigs breaking. Footsteps. Not the soft pad of an animal, but the crashing of heavy boots not caring about what they disturbed.

Etta grabbed Rain, put her hand across his mouth before he could give them away. He thrashed but she held tight, squeezing, pressing him close, trying to let him know,  without words, that it’d be alright if only he’d stay still and quiet. He must’ve got the message, because he went limp in her arms.

She waited. The noise had stopped. Either the soldier had disappeared, or it’d been a false alarm. Birds started to sing again, in relief, Etta thought.

She released Rain. He swayed, collapsed into her side.

“The monster’s gone,” she whispered, but he didn’t reply.

She turned to him, her chest tight. His head flopped forwards, like he was asleep, or unconscious, or…

“No,” she murmured, shaking him, but he wouldn’t wake up.

“Stop messing around.” She tilted up his chin. His face was slack. The light had left his brown eyes.

Etta let out a long, keening cry.

“Over here!” A man shouted. More footsteps crackled the woodland floor, closer now. Etta coiled around her boy, weeping. From her low position, she saw only black boots clumping towards her – a thick tread, red earth between their teeth.

Then something else was there too: a flash of iridescent green; a tiny rattle, smaller than a baby’s; a bright slash of red and gold bands. Long, sinuous bodies wound through the leaves, between the soldiers’ feet; a writhing, slithering carpet. Their eyes unblinking, they didn’t flinch as they washed towards Etta in a sea of scales.

Etta held out her arms, welcoming them. She exposed the pale skin of her wrists to their fangs. Pleaded for their poison to flow through her.

Some snakes will kill their own young to protect them from predators.

Madeleine won the Hammond House international short story prize in 2023, and has been published by Flash Fiction Magazine, Fussub Mag, The Hooghly Review, LISP, Moonflake, Trash Cat Lit, Underbelly Press, Waffle Fried and WestWord. She’s a journalist and runner, and lives in south-east London with her husband, son and two cats. Twitter/X @Madeleine_write; Bluesky @madeleinewrite.bsky.social