Chapter 1: The Snake in the Snow

When I was a kid, my family was dirt poor.

We lived in a battered two-story house on the edge of a sleepy Midwestern town, where the wind always found its way through the cracks in our windows. My dad was long gone. Sometimes I’d stare at his old flannel shirt, still hanging by the back door, and wonder if he ever missed us at all. So it was just Mom, my older brother Derek, my sister Hannah, and me—trying to make ends meet on government cheese, day-old Wonder Bread from the food pantry, and whatever we could scrounge up mowing lawns or shoveling driveways. Sometimes, hunger was so loud it drowned out everything else.

To feed my older brother, my mom once dug through the snow in the backyard and found a hibernating, three-colored snake.

The backyard was little more than a patch of hard-packed earth behind our rickety porch, half-buried in old car parts and broken plastic toys. But that winter was brutal—snow piled up to the porch railing, and Mom's hands were raw and red as she pawed through the drifts in her battered rubber boots, eyes desperate. When she found that snake, she held it up like a miracle. Her breath came out in white clouds, and for a second, I thought she might start crying or laughing—maybe both.

She cooked the snake meat in a big pot until it fell apart, and my brother ate so much the grease was all over his mouth.

I still remember the smell: gamey, oily, mixing with the tang of onions and whatever stale spices Mom had left. Derek tore into that meat like he'd never tasted real food before. The kitchen was so cold, our breath hung in the air as we ate. I watched him eat, my own stomach twisting with envy, wishing just once I could eat until I was full. He licked the fat from his lips, his cheeks pink with heat from the stove.

Who could’ve guessed that the next day, my brother lost his mind?

It started at breakfast. Derek’s eyes went glassy, and he made this weird hissing noise, low and sharp, like a busted radiator. He slid off his chair and hit the linoleum, twisting and flailing, knocking over Mom's only good coffee mug. I thought he was joking at first, but the terror on Mom's face made me freeze.

He crawled around on the floor, writhing like a snake.

His arms bent at weird angles, and he slithered on his belly, tongue darting in and out. I’d never seen someone move like that—like his bones had melted. I backed into a corner, clutching my knees. Derek's nails scratched the floorboards so hard it made my teeth ache.

Uncle Ray—who drove the town’s only hearse and always carried a battered Thermos of black coffee—sat on our porch for ages before finally saying that the snake had turned into a monster, some kind of legendary serpent.

Uncle Ray was one of those guys who wore the same gray Carhartt jacket year-round and always smelled faintly of cigarettes and fried fish. Folks called him for everything from picking up the dead to setting up awkward town parades. He sat on our porch swing, sucking his teeth, staring out over the frozen backyard. Finally, he cleared his throat and said, real low, “That weren’t no regular snake, not with colors like that. Old folks used to say, you ever see a three-colored snake, it’s bad luck. Worse, it could be something else—something that don’t belong here.”

This three-colored snake had gained some kind of strange power. To calm it down, a virgin girl had to be given as a bride.

He said it like it was the most natural thing in the world, glancing at Mom as if waiting for her to argue. His voice dropped even lower, and he added, “That’s the only way, missy. There’s stories—towns over, same thing happened. If you want your boy back, you gotta offer the snake a bride.”

And in our family, the only virgin girl was my sister.

The words hung heavy in the air, settling into the cracks of the porch like a winter frost. My sister, Hannah, looked at her shoes and didn’t say a word. The world suddenly felt so much smaller—and a hell of a lot colder.