IT IS VERY dark in my bedroom. The candle has guttered, the flame has flickered and died. It is cold too, despite the extra blankets. It has been a long winter, one of the very worst. This is spring but there is still a crust of frozen snow on the fields and the farmyard flags, and also ice inside my room patterning the windowpanes.
But it is my birthday tomorrow. I will be ten. I am looking forward to the cake. I have to blow out all its candles with one really big breath. If I do that, Father will give me my present. It is a dress – a red dress with white lace at the neck and hem.
I want to sleep. I squeeze my eyes tight shut and try. It’s better to sleep because then the night will pass quickly. I will open my eyes to see sunlight streaming in through the window, dust motes gleaming like tiny suns.
Suddenly I hear a noise. What is it? It sounds like something scratching on the floor by the wainscot. Could it be a rat? I fear big grey rats with their small eyes and long whiskers. My greatest fear of all is that one might find its way into my bed.
My heart begins to race with fear and I think of calling out for my father. But my mother died two years ago and he manages the farm all by himself. His days are long and tiring and he needs his sleep. No, I must be brave. The rat will soon go away. Why should it bother with my bed? There is no food here.
Again there comes a scratching of sharp claws on wood. My heart jumps with fear. The noise is nearer now, halfway between the window and my bed. I hold my breath, listening for the sound to be repeated. It is, and now it is much closer, just below my bed. If I were to look down, it might be staring up at me with its small beady eyes.
I must get up. I will run to my father’s room. But what if the rat’s whiskers touch my feet? What if I tread on its long thin tail?
Now it gets even louder. I feel a tug at my bedclothes and shiver with fear. The rat is climbing up onto my bed, using its claws to pull itself on top of the blankets. In a panic I try to sit up. But I can’t. I seem to be paralysed. I can open my mouth, but when I scream, no sound escapes my lips.
The rat is crawling up onto my body now. I can feel its small sharp claws pricking into my skin through the blankets. It is sitting on my chest. Its tail goes thumpety-thump, faster and faster, keeping perfect time with the beating of my heart.
And now there is a new thing, even more terrifying. The rat seems to be growing heavier by the second. Its weight is pressing down on my chest, making it difficult to breathe. How can that be possible? How can a rat be so large and heavy?
Now, in the darkness, I sense its face moving closer to mine. It’s a big face and I can feel the rat’s warm breath on my skin. But there is something even stranger than its size and weight. Its eyes are glowing in the dark. They are large and red, and by their lurid glare I can now see its face.
It isn’t a rat, after all. The face is that of a fox or wolf, with a long jaw and big sharp teeth. And those teeth are biting into my neck now. Long, thin, hot needles of pain pierce my throat.
I scream. Over and over again, I scream silently. I feel as if I am dying, slipping down into the deepest darkness, away from this world.
Then I am awake and the weight is gone from my chest. I can move now, and I sit up in bed and begin to cry. Soon I hear the sound of heavy boots pounding across the wooden boards of the corridor. The door is flung open, and Father enters carrying a candle.
He places it on the bedside table, and moments later I am in his arms. I sob and sob, and he strokes my hair and pats my back in reassurance.
‘It’s all right. It’s all right, daughter,’ he murmurs. ‘It was just a dream – just a terrible nightmare.’
But then he holds me at arm’s length and studies my face, neck and shoulders carefully. Next he takes a white handkerchief from the pocket of his nightshirt and gently dabs it at my neck. He scrunches it up in his hand and quickly thrusts it back into his pocket. But not quite fast enough to prevent me from seeing the spots of blood.
Is the nightmare over?
Am I awake?
Or am I still dreaming?
I WOKE UP feeling very thirsty.
I’m always thirsty when I wake up, so there was nothing different there, no hint at all that this would be a day to remember.
I climbed out through the cleft, high in the trunk of my old ghanbala tree, and gazed down upon the white, frosty ground far below.
The sun wouldn’t rise fully for almost an hour and the stars were still visible. I knew all five thousand of them by name, but Cougis, the Dog Star, was my favourite. It was red, a bloodshot eye peering through the black velvet curtain that the Lord of Night casts over the sky.
I had been asleep for almost three months. I always sleep through that time – the darkest, coldest part of winter, which we call shudru. Now I was awake, and thirsty.
It was too close to dawn for taking blood from the humans in my haizda – the ones I farmed. My next preference would be to hunt, but nothing would be about yet. There was nothing to satisfy my thirst – yet there was another way. I could always go and intimidate Old Rowler and force him to trade.
I squeezed back into the tree and slipped my two sharpest blades into the scabbards on my chest. Then I pulled on my long, thick, black overcoat, which has thirteen buttons made of best-quality bone. The coat comes down as far as my brown leather boots and the sleeves are long enough to cover my hairy arms.
I’m hairy all over – and there’s something else I should mention. Something that makes me different from you.
I have a tail.
Don’t laugh – don’t pull a face or shake your head. Be sensible and feel sorry for yourself because you don’t have one. You see, mine’s a long, powerful tail that’s better than an extra arm.
One more thing – my name is Slither, and before my tale is finished you’ll find out why.
Finally I laced up my boots and squeezed back through the cleft and onto the branch.
Then I stepped out into space.
I counted to two before flicking up my slithery tail. It coiled and tightened; the skin rasped against the lowest branch, breaking off shards of bark that fell like dark flakes of snow. I hung there by my tail for a few seconds while my keen eyes searched the ground below. There were no tracks to mark the frost. Not that I expected any. My ears are sharp and I awake at the slightest sound, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry.
I dropped again, landing on the cold hard ground. Then I began to run, watching the ground speed by in a blur beneath my legs. Within minutes I’d be at Old Rowler’s farm.