I stepped over the low wall of gray river rock set around her tiny square of the garden. She came toward me with open arms enveloping me with her tiny, bird-like body. She was a head shorter than I was, the size of a young girl in the desert. Her eyes glittered as she stepped back, gestured to the snakes at her feet.

“They’re the ones from home,” she murmured, the long, flexible bodies moving over one another, twining with the plants to form a moving mass of vines. She plucks one from the pile, and it quickly wraps around her arm, forming a tongue-flicking bracelet of alabaster scales. Its smooth belly caresses her fingers, and its eyes- pure garnet, as I am these days- take in nothing but her face.

Her smile brightens the garden once more, and she takes my arm, gently setting the snake among his companions again. We step over the threshhold, for a walk around the garden. Two other concubines are sitting by a pool, the sapphire water catching their troubled faces. Lilac lets go, moving ahead, and I follow.