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“Dark leaves rustled in the forest, their dried tips rubbing against each other like the slow rattle of a snake. Emma paused, a warning echoing in her mind. Since her arrival to the reptile research base on Crete, she had ventured into the palm forest alone each afternoon, wandering deeper each time.

Never enter the forest alone. It was the rule her research mentor emphasized most during orientation. But there was nothing truly dangerous on the island. Hercules had cleared away all the deadly creatures to honor Zeus’s birthplace. She smiled, recounting the myth the airport taxi driver had told them. Emma knew, out of all the snakes there, only the cat snake had venom, and it was too mild to hurt a human.

Still, if Dr. Belken discovered her sneaking out at dusk, she might as well kiss a Columbia University recommendation letter goodbye. Yet the forest called her in, beckoning her to explore its ancient grounds.

She stepped over sandy soil, glancing over her shoulder at the wooden stairs and scanning to see if anyone was watching before turning into the trees. She savored a breath. The air was dry and the heat tame, with an endless breeze carrying wisps of sea salt and the spice of wild herbs through the dancing shadows of leaves.

A rustling halted her steps.

Her eyes darted to catch a beige, reptilian tail slipping into the nearby shrubs.

She held her breath and crept toward it, afraid to scare it off. It would sense the vibration of even her lightest step.

She peered through a thicket of narrow, glossy leaves and clustered pink flowers. Her heart pounded, instincts heightened, but she reminded herself that even a bite couldn’t kill her.

At first, she didn’t see anything. Then scales materialized among the leaves on a thick, coiled body. Only now they were green and pink. She squinted. Was it a different snake, or had it changed?

Its serpentine head emerged through the leaves, forked tongue flickering. She froze.

This was not a cat snake.”

And:
“Slowly, she followed the beam of sunlight through the glass above her, gathering whatever dry leaves and kindling she could find as she moved, until she struck the proper angle. Then she held the ice disc between her fingers, moving it until it caught the stream of sunlight. She wondered, as she beheld the glowing stream of air, if Medusa had ever left that cave to bathe in the sun’s warmth, or hope for mercy in the light of Helios’s chariot.

Emma held her breath, remembering her physics teacher, Ms. Levine, mentioning this phenomena once during an ill-fated attempt to inspire the class. Emma might’ve been the only one paying attention, but she never thought that one day her life might depend on her teacher’s words. At first, there was nothing. Then, in the brush beneath her, a wisp of smoke arose like a weightless serpent from the earth.”