Snakes of the Hills

All through her schooldays, Evelyn couldn’t wait to leave her home town, and once she did, she never went back. But as she stared at the letter, she realized she might have to. 

She walked to the window and looked at her garden with its straggling rose bushes, the letter dangling between her fingertips. Startled, she almost dropped it when Ian sauntered into the kitchen, asking, 'Did you see that Times review, Eve?' His reading glasses slid down his nose as he peered at the iPad in his hand and read aloud. '”Evelyn O’Neill’s latest novel, Snakes of the Hills, is a deeply moving and compassionate portrait of outsiderdom and the excruciating reality of small-town cruelty. Honest and psychologically profound.”' Ian took off his glasses and placed the iPad on the dining table. 'Congratulations, darling. How wonderful!' 

'Great,' Evelyn said with no emotion, and Ian's smile faded. 

'What’s wrong?'

She held up the official document for him to see. 'I received a letter from the curator of my great-aunt Isabel’s estate in my old hometown. Apparently, she died a few weeks ago.' 

'You never told me you still had family in Germany,' he said, and she thought she detected a touch of hurt in his voice. 

'I hardly knew her. She was my grandmother’s sister and mostly kept to herself. People said she was nuts.' Evelyn shrugged and trailed her finger through the fine dust that had settled on the windowsill. 'Maybe she just wanted nothing to do with the nosy Nancies.'

Ian joined her at the window. 'What will you do?'

'I need to fly over and figure out what to do with the house and her stuff...' She stared out of the window again and exhaled. 'I never expected that I would ever have to return to that town.'

'I know.' Ian stroked her hair before his hand came to rest on her shoulder. 'I take a few days off and come with you.' 

'Thank you, but that won’t be necessary.' 

'Are you sure?' A deep crease appeared between his puckered brows, and she leaned over to kiss it. 

'Yes, don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine,' Evelyn lied. 

*

Heathrow Airport was less crowded than Evelyn had expected after the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions. She rushed through check-in and security, her mind already airborne and miles away. A mumbling voice announced Evelyn’s departure gate through the speakers, and fifty minutes later, she fastened her seatbelt in dreadful anticipation. 

'Excuse me, madam, but our policy requires you to still wear a mask.' The flight attendant beamed a dazzling fake smile. 

'Sorry, I forgot.' Evelyn pulled a fabric mask from her handbag when the massive aircraft's engines roared to life. From the window seat to her right, a lady in a floral summer dress regarded her curiously. 

'Pardon my bluntness, but I saw your face and I wondered...,' the woman lifted a book from her lap and showed Evelyn the familiar cover with the entwined snakes. She turned it and tapped on the photo below the description. 'You’re Evelyn O’Neill, aren’t you?'  

'Yes,' Evelyn said and flinched, as the woman clapped her hands and cried, 'I can’t believe it! I adore your books.' 

Her fan lost herself in a monologue about her last novels, which were 'fabulous' but couldn’t match the realism of Snakes of the Hills. The lavish praise embarrassed Evelyn and she repeatedly tried to stop the woman when one of the enthusiastic exclamations caught her attention and she asked, 'What did you just say?'

'I said I felt sorry for this girl who bullied Martha in Snakes of the Hills.'

Evelyn raised her eyebrows in bewilderment. 'Why?'

'Martha is peculiar, sure, with all her reciting of poetry and such. But she’s talented; someone with opportunities in life, you see? But that girl?' the woman shook her head regretfully, 'all that awaits her is a dull future full of yearning and she knows it. And isn’t that sad?' 

It had never occurred to Evelyn that one could sympathise with the tyrannical bully, but as she reflected on the woman’s answer, she admitted it held some truth. 

Two hours later, Evelyn said goodbye to her delighted seatmate and took the train from Frankfurt airport to her final destination. By the time the skyscrapers gave way to green fields that gradually rose into rolling vineyards, her stomach had knotted itself into an iron fist. 

*

The moment Evelyn’s feet touched the ground of the town where she had spent the first nineteen years of her life, she succumbed to the heavy feeling of otherness that had made her flee the place twenty years ago. With the light daypack on her back, she trudged to Isabel’s house, which lay hidden behind the cemetery and its ancient fir trees.

The house was a two-storey building covered in ivy and she took the key from under the doormat where the curator had left it. As Evelyn ambled through the rooms crammed with old furniture, she marvelled at the crocheted granny doilies sprawled across every surface. There were no photos of family or friends, and as Evelyn stared at the blank walls, she wondered if this was what her life would have looked like had she stayed. Her stomach cramped, and the urge to leave spurred her on to finish the inspection. She called the curator of the estate to discuss the further proceedings; Evelyn just wanted to sell Isabel’s stuff as soon as possible and be done with it. They arranged a meeting for the next day and she set off for the hotel, where she spent the night. 

She walked past the school building and looked at the smiling suns that adorned the windows of the classrooms and thought back to her school days and the rare times she had smiled. In sixth grade, a teacher had scolded her in front of the class for her essay, 'What if boys wore skirts?', which he had found 'nasty', earning her the nickname 'Evel-Lyn', and by the age of fourteen, she had a reputation for being as crazy as her aunt. As a result, she had no friends and was never invited to birthday parties or hang outs at the local swimming bath. And then there was Laura. 

The girl had been bullying her at every opportunity, stealing her notebooks, calling her ugly names, and laughing with her friends at her spectacles. As they grew older, Evelyn had hoped Laura would lose interest in her, but in vain. The ordeal culminated in a scene whose memory Evelyn tried to suppress - the broken school locker, the tattered pages of her manuscript, two years' hard work strewn across the floor. And Laura's words, etching her mind like poison. 'You’re a waste of space, Evel-Lyn, and nobody cares about your stupid stories. No one wants anything to do with you and you will die a lonely old freak!' 

Evelyn never fully understood what made her an outsider; as if her love for writing and her peculiar family members defined her whole personality. As soon as she held her Abitur certificate in her hands, she ran away from Laura and that damned town, but it took her many years and therapy sessions to restore her shattered self-esteem. Even now, she sometimes wondered if there wasn't something deeply wrong with her. 

Evelyn’s throat suddenly felt dry, and she headed to the grocery shop across the street. 

'NO! Damn it!' someone cried as she entered, which was followed by a crash as half the contents of the cereal cupboard scattered on the floor. A woman about Evelyn's age bent down to clean up the mess. 

'Let me help you,' Evelyn said and froze, as the distraught woman looked up with a grateful smile. 

'Thank you,' the woman said without a sign of recognition as she returned to her task. Evelyn’s heart was hammering in her chest and she just wanted to turn around and leave the shop. But she didn’t. Instead, she stooped and hesitantly grabbed a pack of oat flakes. 

The woman rubbed her eyes. 'Clumsy me, but I'm so tired.' 

Evelyn mumbled a noncommittal reply, still too shocked to speak in coherent sentences. When the last item was back in place, the woman stood up and thanked her again. Looking Evelyn square in the face, she said, 'You know what? I would love to be in your shoes.' 

'What? Why?!'  

The woman shrugged and pushed her slipped bra strap back up. 'Because you look like someone who lives a happy life.'

Evelyn didn't know what to say and didn't have to as a faint melody began to play. The woman reached into her handbag and pulled out a phone. Glancing at the display, she sighed. 'I'll have to answer this. Thanks again,' she said. 'Hello...yes...no...' Her excited voice faded as she rushed down the aisles. 

'Bye, Laura,' Evelyn said, but Laura had already disappeared. 

Evelyn took a bottle of water from a cupboard and shuffled to the counter. The cashier said something, and she nodded without listening. 

A minute later, she was walking down a narrow street in her old hometown, thinking of nasty essays and honest books, of painful memories and sympathy for bullies, when something extraordinary happened.

For the first time since her arrival, the cramps in her stomach eased. Evelyn took a deep breath and smiled.