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The Lorelei Signal

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The Serpent Queen

Written by KC Grifant / Artwork by Lee Ann Barlow

The women gathered to the pond still as black glass, where, if one watched long enough, it was possible to make out the faint ripples of what lived beneath. 

 

Callista, Calli for short, kept her eyes fixed on the pond’s surface. She waited along with a dozen others, a mix of snake charmers, witches or otherwise mystically-trained women. They stood in garments bleached the same white as the tree trunks that wound up and out of sight into the velvety green darkness around them.

 

Small disks of scrying glass hung from trees, transmitting their activities back to the towns and the kingdom’s quarters, where the Serpent Queen Throne sat, vacant. No one had passed the serpent test for decades. But tonight, Calli thought with a shiver, would be different.

 

The back of one of the enormous Crescent Snakes, wide as a tree trunk and skin blinding white, broke the still of the pond for an instant.

 

The others next to her stifled gasps. Calli herself had spent countless hours in her childhood handing deadly cobras in preparation for this moment, but even she swallowed back a surge of panic at the sight of the venomous snake. She gritted her teeth for what was to come.

 

The sighting was a sign. Time to begin.

 

The women started diving in, one by one, even the most practiced among them shuddering in fear. Calli trembled as well, but for a different reason.

 

Particles of orichalcum mixed with the blood of a baby Crescent Snake that she had doused in hours before made her skin freeze and the world swell around her as it took hold. It had cost her all her family’s considerable wealth for the concoction, the coins stolen under the guise of a common burglary and potion bought in secrecy. The theft had crushed her mother’s spirit even further.

 

It won’t have been in vain, Calli thought as she fought to focus. The concoction would rile up the snakes toward the others but protect her. She would be the first in years to survive the Crescent Snake bath. She would be Queen. Then…she tried not to think of her brother’s body, found near the Northern border where one of the countless tribes roamed, that the current inefficient leaders did nothing to stop—

 

Steady, Calli thought and gripped her fists.

 

She jumped.

 

In other circumstances the warm water under the moonlight would be relaxing. But a dense body bumped against her leg as snakes coiled beneath them. Calli bit her lip to keep from screaming and switched to a well-practiced breathing exercise. The other girls likewise steeled themselves, tapping into months or years of training. The creatures wound through the water, sending up churning waves.

 

It didn’t take long until one in their group broke, sobbing and clamoring out of the pond. The others watched with disdain. Some things were worse than death. The girl would never be welcomed in society again.

 

“Pathetic,” Calli said aloud, her teeth chattering despite the heat of the water. She prayed she had taken enough of the alchemical mixture to work. Too much and the snakes would be overly excited; it would be obvious something was off. Cheater, a voice nagged at Calli, but she pushed it away. She was doing what needed to be done.

 

A swimmer, Demi, tread closer to her. Calli looked away but it was too late. 

 

“You aren’t yourself,” Demi hissed. “Your eyes, I can see it.” She flicked her black braid behind her. “Confess now or I’ll reveal you.”

 

A serpent broke the water between them and Calli froze. 

 

But her concoction was working. The snakes slid harmlessly against her, as if she were one of them.

 

The others weren’t so lucky.

 

Demi screamed, fangs striking into her chest with a crunch like a tree falling. Calli wiped the spray of blood from her cheek and glimpsed the creature’s eyes—yellow as the Harvest moon—before Demi and the snake disappeared into the pond’s depths.

 

Another snake emerged almost too quickly to glimpse, pulling a girl under before she could make a sound. The survivors stifled screams or closed their eyes as the snakes took them, one by one, filling the star-dusted air with the stench of blood and flesh.

 

She was last. She was alive. But it wasn’t enough to survive; there had to be a sign the snakes accepted her.

 

More creatures slid behind and under Calli, their skin electric against hers. She held a breath, looking down at the rippling bone-colored flesh. The snakes lifted her up, gently, presenting her to the moonlight.

 

“The Serpent Queen,” voices murmured. Townsfolk in ceremonial garb, black as the pond, emerged from the trees and bowed as Calli floated.

 

She smiled, taking in the adoration of the gazes around her, of the thousands of eyes she could feel watching her through the scrying mirrors. Finally, she would do what she was meant to: bring lost wealth to her family, expand to other realms, forge alliances to grow her power and make their kingdom as great as she knew it could be.

 

Ripples grew beneath her.

 

Something was wrong.

 

The snakes weren’t just cradling her—they were winding tight around her arms and legs.

Before she could shout, a tug pulled her under the thin surface that separated air from water, moon from darkness, tree trunks from snake bodies. She gasped before she was under. The snakes dragged her toward an enormous glowing orb at the bottom of the pond.

 

For a moment, Calli thought it was the moon, fallen into the sea. But then she saw the squiggling serpents, like rope-sized maggots, erupting from a crack at the top of the egg. The snakes forced her closer, where hundreds of the newborn serpents swam around a snake larger than the oldest oak.

 

The snake baby’s blood, she realized. They thought she was one of them, a foundling that needed gathering.

 

“I’m human!” Calli’s stifled protest dissipated into bubbles as they brought her to the enormous snake, pieces of human arms and legs floating around it, the baby creatures flitting like darts to eat.

 

The snakes had chosen.

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KC Grifant is an award-winning writer based in Southern California who creates internationally published horror, fantasy, science fiction, and weird west stories. Many of her short stories have appeared in podcasts, magazines, games, and Stoker-nominated anthologies.


Her weird western novel, Melinda West: Monster Gunslinger (Brigids Gate Press, 2023), described as a blend of Bonnie & Clyde meet The Witcher and Supernatural, is the first in a series. It ranked #1 in Amazon New Releases for Western Horrors and has received positive reviews internationally. The second novel, Melinda West and the Gremlin Queen, will release in 2025. She is also author of the short story collection Shrouded Horror: Tales of the Uncanny (Dragon’s Roost Press, 2024) and co-creator of the Monster Gunslingers card game.

 

In addition to writing, she is the co-chair and founder of the Horror Writers Association San Diego chapter, a short story instructor, and member of numerous writing organizations, including the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association.

 

Learn more at www.KCGrifant.com or connect on the social networks at @KCGrifant.

 

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