79

He knew as soon as he glanced down that it was impossible. He stood no chance of escaping this pit. He must have been ten metres from the top still, and the thick, wet, white bodies of the serpents could emerge from this pit in a matter of seconds if they decided to. So instead of climbing, Conor opted to make himself small and hope they were blind or disinterested. A poor strategy, but the only one he had. He lifted the root that would have been his next rung up and crawled beneath it. The roots here were thick and tightly knit, so he could manoeuvre himself closer to the soil of the pit wall. He crept in and turned as he slammed his back against the dirt and jutted his feet out to one of the roots below. He was in plain view, but at least here he could watch as the three serpents jostled each other as they ran up the pit wall. The one that had emerged second ran nearest, its peculiar white body propelled past him but a metre away. The three serpents rammed into each other repeatedly, causing the entire pit to shake, loosing huge flakes of earth from the wall, avalanching dirt down to the base. Conor realised he had been holding his breath only once he gently exhaled. The third one that had emerged and quieted the other two slowed and turned back towards Conor. It slowly crept nearer him. A moment later, its great head stood glaring in at him behind the roots of his little cell. It seemed to know him somehow, and then two words. Two words that pulled him right back to Ella in the bloody diamond.

“Come in.”

With that, it turned and returned upward towards the light and the tree above. Conor waited a short while before twisting out of the roots and returning to his journey up the pit wall. The serpents were out of view now, but, minutes later, when his head crested above the top of the pit edge and met a wall of rotten vegetables, he could see the paths the serpents had made, and could see the three of them, reared up and looking in the eyes of the young woman in the first large branch of the burnt oak tree.