The pillars of creation

As she struggled madly to get to the weapon, wriggling, worming her fingers, the snake suddenly lurched, lifting heavy coils higher, pinning her arm to her body.

With her one hand, she still tightly gripped the root behind. The weight of the thing, though, felt as if it would pull her arm from the socket if she didn't let go. She was absolutely certain that letting go would be the worst thing she could do. But the weight was too much. The snake was pulling her so hard that she feared the skin was going to strip from her fingertips.

Despite her best effort, she felt her fingers slipping from the root. As tears of pain stung her eyes, she had no choice. She let go of the root.

She plunged into the dark depths of deeper water. Her feet at last contacted the bottom. She used her momentum to go where she was pulled, letting her legs bend, and then with strength powered by terror, she pushed off the submerged roots. As her body flicked around, she seized the roots on the far side.

The snake rolled with her, turning her on her back. She cried out as her shoulder twisted, But in all the movement, the splashing, the rolling, the choking on water, there was a brief opening in the snake's grip on her. She didn't waste it. She seized the silver handle.

As the broad head, with the thin red tongue flicking, was again coming toward her face, she brought her knife up, wedging the tip of the blade up under the snake's jaw. The snake paused, seeming to recognize the threat that the razor-sharp point represented. Both were still, staring at each other. She felt giddy relief to at last have her knife in hand, even if it was a deadlock.

She was on her back, lying in water with the heavy snake wrapped around her. She wouldn't be able to balance or use her weight to help her. Her arm was weak from the struggle and ached from being twisted. She was exhausted. With all that working against her, it would be no easy matter to dispatch an animal so big and powerful. Even if they were on dry land, such a task would be difficult.

The yellow eyes watched her. She wondered if it was a venomous snake. She hadn't yet seen its fangs. If it went for her face, she wondered if she could be quick enough to stop it.

"I'm sorry I stepped on you," she said. She didn't actually believe the snake could understand her; she was, in a way, talking to herself, reasoning out loud. "We've both scared each other."

The snake remained stone still as it watched her. The tongue remained inside the mouth. Its head, lifted several inches by the tip of the knife, could probably feel the sharp point. Maybe it conceived the threat of the blade as a fang. Jennsen didn't know, she just knew that it would be better not to have to battle such a creature.

She was in the water, the snake's domain, and out of hers. Knife or no knife, the outcome was not certain. Even if she killed it, the weight of the creature, its coils locked around her in a death grip, could still drag her under and drown her. Better to part without a battle, if possible.

"Go, now," she whispered with deadly seriousness. "Or I will have to try to kill you." She lifted the point of the knife to make herself understood in a language she was more confident the snake might possibly understand.

Her legs began to throb as she felt the constriction ease. Inch by inch, the head drew back. Scaled coils loosened and slipped away from her body and legs, leaving her to feel suddenly buoyant. Jennsen followed the head as it backed away, keeping the point of her knife under the thing's jaws, prepared at the slightest sign of threat to thrust with all her strength. Finally, it slipped back into the water.

As soon as she was free of the weight, she scrambled up onto solid ground. She rested on her hands and knees, knife gripped in her fist, gasping for air, getting her breath, letting her frayed nerves settle. She had no idea what the snake thought, or why, or if the same thing might work in another time and place, but this day it had and she whispered a prayer of thanks to the good spirits. If indeed they had anything to do with her deliverance from death's scaly grip, she didn't want to fail to express her gratitude.

With the back of her trembling hand, Jennsen wiped tears of fright from her cheeks before rising up on shaky legs. She turned and looked out at the still black water lying beneath the overhanging leaves and mosses. In retrospect, she recalled her feet touching submerged roots. Looking back at the expanse of water she had crossed, she could see that perhaps the water had risen a few feet to cover the ground there. Maybe the land had sunk. Either way, if she had just carefully walked through the shallow area, rather than tried to jump to the root-turned-snake, it might have proven much less troublesome.

On the way back, she planned to cut herself a walking stick to help her wade through the low place, to feel ahead, and she would take care not to step on a snake.