The Python Problem

“Out here, we don't have emergencies—we have escalating misunderstandings with teeth.”

Tugging firmly on Vincent's lead, I guided the stubborn goat into the Drop Zone, each step a battle of wills. The rope cut into my palms as he dug in his hooves and leaned back with theatrical resistance, his entire body a stubborn counterweight to my efforts. My muscles strained, tension biting through my shoulders and forearms as I grit my teeth against the effort.

Vincent bleated in protest—long, indignant, and echoing across the dusty expanse like the wail of a wronged soul. His voice rebounded off crates and containers, louder than it had any right to be, as though announcing his unjust imprisonment to the universe.

“Oh hush, you. This is what happens when you can't behave yourself,” I muttered, the words more reflex than reprimand, my voice coloured with exasperation—but also, admittedly, with the reluctant affection one reserves for incorrigible pets and troublesome uncles.

Kneeling down, I worked quickly to fasten him to a grounded stake, double-checking each knot. My fingers moved with muscle memory, even as my eyes flicked over the Drop Zone, making mental notes of the weaknesses Vincent would surely exploit if given half a chance.

It was then that a flicker of motion in the corner of my vision caught my attention. I looked up to see Beatrix wandering the far side of the Drop Zone. Her movement lacked its usual surety; she drifted between crates and equipment in a loose, disjointed pattern, as if she weren’t really seeing the things she passed. Her brow was drawn, her steps uncertain—like someone searching not just for an object, but for focus.

“Everything alright over there, Beatrix?” I called, raising my voice to carry across the dry expanse. The question came out instinctively, laced with concern I didn’t entirely expect to feel.

She startled at the sound, turning toward me with a jerk, her expression quickly rearranged into a vague smile. One hand lifted in a fluttering wave, its movement too quick, too casual. “Yes, yes… I'm fine. Just… looking for something.” The way she said it made my skin prickle—light, evasive, too rehearsed.

I stood slowly, wiping my hands on my trousers as I scanned the chaotic sprawl of the Drop Zone. There was something unsettling about her—something off-kilter.

“Need a hand? This place is a labyrinth,” I offered, my voice tinged with sarcasm, but the concern beneath it was real. Here, where every scrap meant potential warmth or food or communication, rummaging at random felt like madness—or desperation.

Beatrix didn’t even look up this time. “No, no. I'll find it,” she said, already turning away, her focus consumed once more by whatever unseen purpose was driving her.

I let out a breath through my nose and shrugged, more to myself than anyone else, and bent again to check the tether. The knot held. Vincent stood beside me, now mercifully still, chewing moodily at nothing in particular, occasionally glancing at me like I’d personally ruined his day.

A few minutes passed in relative quiet, the stillness stretching taut between us, punctuated only by Vincent’s occasional disgruntled bleating. He shuffled restlessly on his tether, stomping a hoof with theatrical indignation, as though personally offended by the consequences of his own mischief. The wind stirred faint wisps of dust around my boots, the heat pressing down in sluggish waves that made every breath feel just a little heavier.

I had just begun redoing the final loop of his tether when Beatrix’s voice cut across the space between us—sharp, brittle.

“What exactly are you doing over there?”

I turned my head slowly, fixing her with a flat look, my brows lifting in disbelief. Did she really not know, or was she pretending not to? Either way, I wasn't in the mood for games.

“Seriously? I’m securing this woolly menace after he rampaged through camp and made a meal of the coriander crop,” I replied, each word dipped in dry sarcasm, my voice taut with the kind of restrained fury that simmers just beneath the surface. The knot in my hands tightened sharply, as if echoing the knot forming in my chest.

Beatrix’s eyes widened with sudden panic, her entire demeanour shifting in an instant. Her mouth parted slightly, and for a heartbeat, she looked like she might bolt. That flash of pure, unfiltered terror was so stark—so unlike her usual brisk, guarded composure—that it sent a chill up my spine despite the heat.

“You’re going to leave Vincent here?” she asked, her voice rising in pitch. “Karen, I really don’t think that’s wise…” The rest of her sentence trailed off, collapsing under the weight of unspoken dread. It hung there, unfinished, like a warning whispered too late.

Something in her tone—something barely held in check—pricked at me like the sting of a burr under the skin. My fingers stilled on the rope, and I stood, brushing the dust from my palms as I studied her.

“What’s the heck is going on, Beatrix? You’re acting even odder than usual,” I said, folding my arms across my chest. The tone I used wasn’t cruel, but it was sharp—threaded with the kind of suspicion that came from experience. In Bixbus, odd wasn’t quaint. Odd meant dangerous. Odd meant someone knew more than they were letting on.

The wind shifted again, drawing a curtain of dry air between us, and I waited. The look I gave her wasn’t unkind, but it was unrelenting. Whatever she was hiding, I wanted it brought into the light—and I wasn’t about to let it slip quietly into the shadows.

She worried her lower lip, teeth pressing into the tender flesh in a familiar, compulsive tic. Her gaze darted restlessly around the Drop Zone, flitting from pile to pile like a trapped animal searching for an exit. Something in her demeanour shifted—something fragile giving way. At last, her shoulders sagged, and she exhaled a breath so laden with tension it was as though she were expelling the very weight of her secret.

“I... may have misplaced Maggie,” she said at last, voice so faint it barely registered, like a confession murmured to the wind.

A cold jolt shot down my spine. My brow furrowed instantly, instincts snapping to attention. I took a half step forward, my eyes narrowing. “Who… or more likely… what is Maggie?” I asked, my tone low and tight with warning, each syllable enunciated with precision like a blade sliding from its sheath.

Beatrix swallowed hard, her throat bobbing visibly. “She’s a reticulated python,” she blurted, the words coming in a single breathless rush, as if saying them quickly might somehow lessen their weight.

Time seemed to slow. The words hung in the air, surreal and absurd, like an ill-timed punchline in a tragedy. I stared at her, unblinking. “Tell me you’re joking,” I said, each word heavy with the force of my rapidly escalating disbelief.

When her silence confirmed the worst, I threw up my hands, the frustration I’d been holding in boiling over. “Beatrix! That thing should be secured!” My voice cracked the air like a whip. It was all I could do not to scream. The only thing more terrifying than a deadly predator in our fragile settlement was knowing someone had willingly brought it here.

A shiver rippled down my spine, chased by an icy dread. I imagined coils gliding silently through sleeping quarters, cold eyes watching from the shadows. The absurdity of it almost made me laugh—almost.

“She’s perfectly friendly!” Beatrix pleaded, her hands lifted in a defensive gesture, palms outward like a supplicant before judgement. “Maggie wouldn’t hurt a fly. Well… maybe a fly. But nothing larger!”

Her tone was desperate, eyes wide with the need to be believed. But it only made things worse. My stomach turned.

I pinched the bridge of my nose, the gesture a futile attempt to hold back the building storm of panic. “Right, because that makes me feel so much better about having an escaped constrictor slithering around,” I snapped, my voice slick with sarcasm and barely contained fear. The heat of the midday sun had nothing on the fire rising in my chest now.

A snake. A bloody python. And she’d lost it.

Shooting Vincent a glare—as if he, in his oblivious stubbornness, were somehow complicit in this fresh catastrophe—I turned and began undoing the knots I’d so carefully tied only minutes before. My fingers moved quickly, but not cleanly, trembling slightly with urgency. The coarse rope chafed against my skin, but I barely noticed, the adrenaline sharpening everything else to a razor’s edge.

As much as I disliked that fuzz-brained goat, leaving him here now felt like tempting fate, handing Maggie a four-legged appetiser with a ribbon tied around his neck. A risk I simply could not afford.

“I’m taking this guy back to camp before ‘friendly’ Maggie mistakes him for a furry chew toy,” I muttered, tugging the rope free with a final snap.

Vincent snorted as if in protest, stamping a hoof and tossing his head dramatically. I ignored his indignation. There were more immediate predators to worry about than his wounded pride.

As I worked, I threw Beatrix a sidelong glance, my eyes narrowing into slits of suspicion. My mind was already spinning, parsing through worst-case scenarios and reaching for damage control protocols that didn’t exist.

“How long has she been missing? And please, tell me she’s at least somewhere in this general vicinity,” I asked, the sharpness in my voice only partially masking the anxiety curled like a cold stone in my stomach.

Beatrix winced, the guilt writ plainly across her face. Her shoulders curled inward, and for a moment she looked far younger than she was—small, almost childlike.

“Well... we came through the Portal late last night,” she admitted, her voice faltering. “It was a bit of an unexpected entry. Maggie slithered away in the confusion. I’ve been searching for hours, but… I don’t actually know which way she went.”

Each word hit like a hammer—unexpected entry, slithered away, don’t know. My stomach clenched. The implications unspooled rapidly in my mind: tents, sleeping bodies, warm shelters. Maggie could be anywhere. And unlike us, she was born for this terrain.

I sucked in a breath through gritted teeth. “I’ll keep an eye out,” I said, my voice clipped, stretched taut with effort. A tiny part of me clung to the hope that this wouldn’t spiral into another disaster. “If Maggie’s as ‘friendly’ as you claim, maybe she just found a little nook to curl up in here.”

Even as I spoke the words, I knew they were for my benefit as much as hers.

Beatrix nodded faintly, properly chastened now, her usual bravado dimmed to a faint glow. “Right. Well… thanks then. I’ll just… keep looking,” she murmured, before drifting away like smoke on the wind, her steps aimless and laden with uncertainty.

I tugged Vincent’s lead firmly, eliciting a grumbling bleat of protest, and started back towards the main camp. The rope pulled taut between us, a lifeline that felt at once ridiculous and essential. My ears strained for any faint, dragging noise through the dust—any whisper of scales sliding unseen.

My heart hammered against my ribs, an insistent reminder of the fragile balance we clung to. If that snake had found its way into the camp overnight…

I swallowed hard and pushed the thought down, locking it behind the iron door of necessity.

One crisis at a time, Karen. One crisis at a time, I told myself, again and again, until the words became a rhythm for my steps.