When he walked up, she heard his bare footfalls on the grass, and turned her head his way a little to greet him. When she did, something that was hung around her neck clattered. He sat beside her without a word.
He reached out and tentatively touched the tip of a finger to the clattery thing. "Is this new?" he asked.
She had returned to looking out over the calm surface of the stream. "Yep."
He waited a long time for his follow-up question. "What is it?"
She looked down at it, as if seeing it for the first time. "Oh. It's bones."
"Bones?" he asked. "From where? I don't think I've ever seen ones like that before." It was true; the bones of the animals varied greatly, but these were all almost exactly identical to each other, a long line of them strung on a blade of river grass and resting in a loose loop around her neck.
"They're from that serpent thing," she said nonchalantly, tossing her hair to expose more of the ivory cylinders to the bright sun. "You remember, the one that was in that tree over there?" She waved a hand behind them, the vaguest of gestures.
His brow furrowed. "Wait... you mean the tree that... that weren't not supposed to eat from?"
"Yeah," she said. "That's the one. I told you before about the conversation I had with the serpent that lived in it."
He nodded, puzzled. "Right, I remember that, but... so it died?"
She shrugged. "I guess."
A long pause followed, with him trying to figure out how to draw more information out of her without revealing how concerned he was becoming. Finally, he said, "You didn't eat the fruit, though, right?"
Now she looked at him directly, annoyed. "I'm not stupid, you know. Like you said, it's forbidden."
"Right, I know," he said, backpedaling quickly, "Of course you didn't. But that was the whole point, right? The serpent was trying to convince you that you should. Eat some, I mean. And that I should too, isn't that right?"
She didn't look away, as if daring him to tell her she had done something wrong. "You remember that right."
"And we talked about how weird it was that out of all the animals, this was the only one that could talk."
"Yes, I admit it was really weird," she said. "And I didn't like it. That's why we usually don't go over there anymore."
They turned back to the stream. "So, how did you know it died?"
"Hm?" she responded absently.
"The serpent. Where did you get the bones from? Did you go back over there?"
"I did, as a matter of fact," she said, as if it were none of his business. "I was chasing rabbits."
"Oh," he said. He often would lose her for entire afternoons because she couldn't keep from dashing through the ferns, laughing and pursuing those fluffy little things.
She said, "I wasn't paying much attention to where I was going, and when I looked up I was back at that tree. The serpent was right where I left it. But, you know, this time it was, like, all bones." With one hand, she lifted the necklace up off her bare chest as if to demonstrate, then let it fall back with that disconcerting chattering sound.
"You... It was just dead and turned to bones?"
She nodded, still looking out over the water. "Mm-hm. The last time I had talked to it, it was still pressuring me to try some of that fruit. It said that if we took a bite, it would give us knowledge."
He hadn't heard this part before. "What kind of knowledge?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. Something about geography, knowledge about the stars in the sky. It went on and on about catalytic something-or-others and quantum... thingys. I don't know. Anyhow, I didn't like the way it talked. Or the way it felt, for that matter."
"Felt?"
"Yeah, it slid down onto my shoulders as it was talking, kind of wrapped around me so it could whisper in my ear." His own skin started to crawl, thinking about what that must have been like. "In that little hissing voice," she continued. "I didn't like the way it did that."
"So you killed it," he said.
She was quick to correct him. "No. No, I did not. Because you and I both know that's against the rules, just like eating from the tree. But what I did was... I kind of grabbed it while it was sitting on my shoulders, and threw one end of it up over the branch where it had been sitting. Then I grabbed both ends again, and I sort of twisted them together... like this thing you invented with that long blade of grass." She showed him the spot on the necklace where she had fastened it to itself. "What did you call this again?"
"A knot." He said, then pondered this for a moment. "You tied the serpent into a *knot*? Around the branch of the forbidden tree?"
"Sure," she said. "You probably would have done it too, if you had heard it talking like that, and it was starting to drive you crazy. I wrapped it around the branch, pulled it tight, and just left it there." His stunned silence prompted her to follow with, "But it wasn't me that killed it. Apparently it wasn't as smart as it thought. Couldn't even untangle itself. So much for secret knowledge, right?"
"Oh," he said, and looked with her out over the water for a long time.
"I really like this garden," she said. "We get to stay here forever, don't we?"
He nodded. "That's what I was told." He sat and thought for a long time, not sure why the news that the talking serpent was now dead, and its remains hanging around his companion's neck, should bother him so much.
"Is everything okay?" she asked him. She always seemed to be aware of his emotions, even when he wasn't very sure of them himself.
He frowned as he continued to look into the distance. "Maybe... or, I don't know. That serpent was the only other thing that talked here. I don't think... maybe it... shouldn't have died." He chose his words very carefully, but felt the silence between them turning to stone. He quickly followed up with, "I'm only saying, that I know animals die all the time... just not the talking ones."
"It was the only one we've ever met," she said flatly.
"Right," he said. "That's why I thought it might be something special. That's all I’m saying." He shrugged. "I don't know what I mean. It just seems like... I kind of assumed that the serpent was some sort of guardian for the forbidden tree."
"If it was, it didn't do a very good job. Now its job is being jewelry." She shifted around and shook the bones again. The sound made him cringe. He couldn't help but look over at the necklace, seeing the way the strung vertebrae emerged from under her hair, sweeping across her skin in a graceful, pale arc.
"Do you think..." he began, then stopped. She didn't urge him to continue, but he did anyway. "Do you think, now that the tree's guardian is gone, that the fruit is still technically forbidden?"
"Huh. Hadn't thought about that," she said. She arched an eyebrow over at him. "Why do you ask?"
He met her gaze, for the first time in a long while. "It when we first saw the tree, I thought the fruit looked pretty good... that's all I'm saying."
The smooth face of the water began to ripple as a light wind stirred up. He thought about things a little while longer, and then started to stand.
"Where are you going?" she asked.
He swiped his hands nonchalantly against his thighs several times, brushing the loose bits of grass away. "Nowhere. I'm just going to wander around a little bit. I'll be back in a little while, okay? Maybe I'll grab us something to eat."
She let him go, then sat smiling in the sun with her new necklace, and watched the surface of the water as the wind began to kick up a little more. She couldn't see herself in the surface anymore.
