The snake tasted the air again with his wise, quick tongue. ‘Your daughter is in the land which is four lands to the left of here and two lands higher.’
‘And is she safe?’
The snake’s tongue flickered again, fast as fast can be. He thought for a moment. ‘She is safe and comfortable and content. There is only one part of her that is sad and that is the part which remembers you. Your other children told her they would harm you if she didn’t go away and never write and never try to send you any messages. But on the first day of January every year she has sent you roses to make your new year sweet and fill it with colours.’
‘Ah.’ Granny Higginbottom’s eyes became a deeper blue and she shed tears which tasted to Lanmo of the moon and other wildernesses. Then she smiled. ‘That explains it.’ She patted the quilt near Lanmo’s head. ‘Is it time for us to begin?’
‘Well . . . usually . . . yes.’ But Lanmo paused and thought; the old lady had lived so long she might know many things. So he asked her, ‘I have lately been very angry. And I have also felt guilt for the first time. This troubles me. And I have wandered the earth, and the anger and the guilt have not left me. They have been as close as my shadow.’
‘Hmmm . . .’ Granny Higginbottom tickled behind his ear, which he normally wouldn’t have allowed, but it seemed to comfort him. ‘Then you love someone. How strange. I didn’t think you would.’
‘Love?’
‘To be very angry, you must first have loved very much, or have been very much afraid. Now, I do not think you could be afraid of anything or anyone . . .’
‘That is true,’ Lanmo nodded. ‘At least, I think that is true.’
When Granny Higginbottom heard doubt in Lanmo’s voice she added, ‘Not unless perhaps you were afraid for that which you love . . . Is there something you love, snake?’
‘No.’
‘Ah. Then there is someone you love.’
At this, Lanmo found he could not manage to say anything in his wonderful voice. He simply leaned against the old lady’s hand and let her gently rub his golden scales in a way that he liked and that reminded him of his friend Mary. Granny Higginbottom told him quietly, ‘Love is a terrible thing.’
‘So it seems,’ whispered Lanmo.
‘But it is also wonderful.’
‘Perhaps.’ He eased a little nearer Granny Higginbottom. ‘Perhaps it is.’ Then he looked into her eyes with great seriousness. ‘I promise that I will take your three rings and your four jewels and your sixteen gold pieces away with me before anyone else can find them. I will carry them to your daughter’s house. She will recognise your rings and she will know you sent them.’
‘And will you meet with her?’ Granny Higginbottom sounded worried.
‘No. I will not meet with your daughter for a long while yet,’ said Lanmo. ‘But I swear that I will give her your treasures.’
‘I would not have thought you were the kind of snake to make promises.’
‘I am not.’ The snake came as close to smiling as he could. ‘But maybe I am changing,’ he explained. ‘I am not sure.’
The old lady smiled and laid her head back against her pillows and closed her eyes. Then she let Lanmo, who had made himself very small, tuck in under her chin.
‘Good night, snake, and thank you.’
‘I need not be thanked,’ whispered the snake.
‘Will this be quick?’
‘This will be quick and this will be for ever,’ said the snake. ‘Good night, Granny Higginbottom.’
And when he was done the snake took up the old lady’s treasures and wriggled them onto his back which he made very broad and safe, like a golden dish, and he rushed over the lands between him and the lost daughter’s house. When he reached her threshold he tested the air one last time and was sure that the daughter had a heart as good and deep as her mother had once had until it fell still. Then Lanmo whisked, faster than anyone could have seen, in under doors and behind furniture and he left the three rings, the four jewels and the sixteen gold pieces on the kitchen table.
In the morning, Granny Higginbottom’s lost daughter came downstairs to discover her twin girls playing with bright gold pieces and jewels and with three rings that she recognised at once as belonging to her mother.
The daughter sat down then and cried although her children did not know why, and she hugged them very close. And when her husband came downstairs, ready for his breakfast, she held him, too, and she called out a loud and red and towering word from no language that any of them spoke and yet they understood it. They clung to each other and the snake tasted that they were sad and also that they were covered in love.
The snake watched them from a shadow between the saucepans and then he went away and was busy in the many different countries that humans had marked out across the earth to keep themselves divided.
While Lanmo carried out his duties among the peoples of the world, Mary performed her duties as a little girl. She grew older and taller and her arms and legs were sometimes exceptionally clumsy and sometimes exceptionally graceful – she just didn’t know which would happen when and that was rather tiresome for her. Mary performed her duties as a schoolgirl, too, and learned the National Limits of Happiness and the Leisure Percentages and the names of prominent generals, living and dead, and the movements of troops during various famous campaigns. She taught herself how to spell marvellously long and interesting words like photolithography and also tasty words like peristalsis and reticulatus. And she also taught herself how to hop on the spot without stopping (she could get up to nearly three hundred and fifty) and how to burn toast. She had learned all of her mother’s smiles and all of her father’s hugs and vice versa. She was quite happy. When she had spare moments, she would play in the tiny garden and daydream about exploring. When it was cold, she would imagine standing on the back of a sledge and asking her huskies to pull her – padpadpadpadpadpadpad – across snowfields and past polar bears and penguins who would admire her caribou-skin parka and her look of determination. When it was hot, she imagined walking in desert mountains the colour of biscuits in sturdy boots and talking to lizards, or squeezing through the gaps in jungles.
‘You must never squeeze through gaps in jungles.’ Mary looked down and there was the neat shape of Lanmo around her wrist, blinking at her, maybe a little nervously. The snake angled his head as if he would like to nuzzle her palm, but didn’t know if she would like it. ‘You are longer than I remember. And your hair has swelled. You are very changeable.’
Mary was delighted to see her friend, but also annoyed because more than two years had passed since the snake had last appeared and she felt it was inconsiderate of him to be away for such a large amount of time. ‘And you are very late. You haven’t been to visit me for eight hundred and twelve days, three hours and several minutes. I have written out the days in my notebook, if you would like to check.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Lanmo did look sorry. ‘I lost track of the time.’
‘That’s no excuse,’ Mary said.
‘And I had a great deal to do.’
The snake was mumbling because he felt ashamed, but even so Mary couldn’t help enjoying his beautiful voice and being glad that he was there. She decided to sound cross a little longer, though, to teach him a lesson. ‘Now you sound like a grown-up. They are always being busy instead of doing the things that are important.’