The Serpent’s Lullaby

In the winter of 2004, our small farmhouse on the edge of the Blackwood Forest became a tomb of silence. My daughters, Elara and little Mae, were tucked in their beds, and my husband, Callum, slept beside me, his breathing a steady rhythm against the frost on the windowpanes. I was on the side of the bed nearest the wall, where a glass terrarium housed our corn snake, Nebuchadnezzar, a creature of amber and black that I’d kept for years.

That night, I woke from a sleep so deep it felt like drowning. The air was cold, but the room was stifling. A sound tickled my ears – not a creak, but a soft, rhythmic scrape, like something being dragged across the floorboards. My heart pounded as I lay frozen, straining to listen. It came from the hallway, just beyond our door. I told myself it was the house settling, or a branch against the siding, but the sound was too deliberate, too patient. I wanted to wake Callum, but my voice was a knot in my throat. Cowardice won. I pulled the quilt over my head and squeezed my eyes shut, whispering a prayer to the old gods my grandmother swore by. Sleep claimed me again, but the memory of that sound lingered like a stain.

A week later, it happened again. I woke to the same suffocating darkness, and this time, a scent filled the room – an intoxicating sweetness, like honeysuckle and sun-warmed earth, but thicker, cloying, as if it were seeping from the terrarium itself. I turned my head, and there, in the faint moonlight filtering through the curtains, I saw Nebuchadnezzar’s form coiled around a branch, his head raised, tongue flicking as if tasting the air. The sweetness grew stronger, almost nauseating, and I felt a pull, a drowsy compulsion to get out of bed and approach the tank. My limbs felt leaden, but I fought it, digging my nails into my palms until the pain cut through the fog. The scent dissipated, and I lay trembling until dawn.

The next night, I didn’t sleep. I kept vigil, watching the terrarium and the dark hallway. At around 3 AM, the scraping returned, but this time it was directly outside our door. Then, the doorknob began to turn, slowly, deliberately. The door creaked open a few inches, revealing a sliver of blackness. I saw a shape – not human, but low to the ground, like a hulking silhouette of an animal. It paused, then slid back into the hall, and the door clicked shut. The scent of decay replaced the sweetness, and my blood ran cold.

The next morning, I told Callum everything. He dismissed it as my imagination, the stress of winter, or perhaps a raccoon that had gotten into the house. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. I checked on the children, both sleeping peacefully, and I went to the terrarium. Nebuchadnezzar was gone. The mesh lid was slightly ajar, and the tank was empty. We searched the house, but found no trace. Callum said he must have escaped through a hole in the floorboards, and we’d never see him again. I didn’t believe it.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I sat in the rocking chair in the corner, watching the hallway. Hours passed. Then, I heard a soft hiss from behind me. I whirled around, but the room was empty. The scent of honeysuckle returned, and with it, a low, guttural voice that seemed to come from everywhere at once:

‘You will forget them.’

I screamed, but the sound died in my throat. Callum woke with a start, but I couldn’t speak, only point at the empty terrarium. For a moment, he looked at me with fear, but then his eyes glazed over, and he said, ‘There’s nothing there, love. Go back to sleep.’

In the days that followed, the fabric of our home began to unravel. Callum grew distant, forgetting our anniversary, the children’s names. Elara started waking from nightmares, crying that a ‘dark shape’ was standing at the foot of her bed. I found Mae wandering the hallway at night, her eyes open but unseeing, whispering words I didn’t recognize. I tried to burn sage, to sprinkle salt, but each time, the scent of honeysuckle returned, and I felt my own memories fraying at the edges.

One night, I followed the sound of children’s laughter into the living room. There, in the flickering glow of the fireplace, I saw them – Elara and Mae – huddled together, staring at a spot on the wall where the wallpaper had turned black, forming a pattern like coils. They were chanting, their voices sweet and wrong. I ran to them, grabbed them, but they turned to me with smiles too wide, and said in unison, ‘He’s hungry.’

I looked at the black pattern, and I saw it move – a serpentine shape twisting, growing, until it filled the wall. And I understood. Nebuchadnezzar had not been a pet. He had been a vessel, a key. And the thing that had come through the opened door in the hallway was his master – a being that fed on memory, on love, on the very bonds that held a family together.

I fled with my children, driving through the night to my mother’s house. But when I looked in the rearview mirror, I saw three silhouettes in the back seat – Callum, Elara, and Mae – and they all smiled at me with eyes like black glass. The car swerved, and I woke up in the hospital, a nurse telling me I’d been in an accident. They told me my family had died in the crash, but I knew better. I could still smell honeysuckle, and in the corner of my room, a shadow coiled and waited.

Now, I sit in a quiet ward, watching the walls. Sometimes, I hear them – my daughters’ voices, singing a lullaby my grandmother used to hum. And I know, when the sweet scent fills the air, that he will come for me again, and this time, there will be no sleep to save me.