Jade Green & Jade White | Teen Ink

Jade Green & Jade White MAG

By Anonymous

     Jade Green and Jade White are snake-sisters. They were born a year apart from the flesh of their half-human, half-demon serpent mother, but they feel as close as if they had broken from her womb on one breath of air. Their mother tells them, “Always protect your sister. Be together, always.” Too small to understand, they can feel her words in hearts that beat in harmony. Together they are whole, their bond stronger than iron. They promise to remain together for eternity.

When small they swim in the white rivers, playing with the silver-brown pebbles. They feast on the glittering fish still slippery from the river and, occasionally, when older, on the warm human flesh of an unlucky traveler who happened by. Jade Green giggles as blood smears milk-white skin and watery-green snake scales. Jade White smiles at her sister and wipes her red lips clean with shimmering silk. They tuck flowers into each other’s black hair, admiring themselves as they try on glass and wood and jewel beads they found in the travel bags of their kill.

At night, exhausted, they sleep tucked into each other’s arms, pulse to pulse. Jade Green is sinewy and fresh as the forest leaves that burst from the trees. Her teeth are sharp and silver like knives - but her tongue can be sharper. Jade White is the elder and cooler, remote as the pale light of the moon. Sometimes she seems emotionless but Jade Green is devoted to her like she is a beautiful marble-lotus goddess.

“I will protect you,” she promises fiercely when they are young. “I will never leave you.”

Caught up in these words, she does not hear Jade White whisper, “Are you sure?”

Never is quite a promise.

When they are older, a young man wanders into their forest. Jade Green watches him, biding her time. Jade Green changes her snake-scales to human legs and appears to him as a pretty human girl. She intends to kill him as she has countless others, but there is something different about him. He smiles innocently and asks where she is going. She splutters and her sharp tongue can think of nothing to say. She blushes when he takes her hand and offers to walk with her. She leaves him at the city gate, but his face is etched into her mind.

Jade Green cannot stop thinking about this young man whom she could not kill, even when Jade White scolds that they now have nothing to eat. Jade Green hardly listens. She feels she must go back to the city and find this man who makes the blood rush to her colorless cheeks, who makes her think of things she has never thought of before.

“You are being foolish,” Jade White admonishes. “There are warrior monks who will kill you on sight if you are found in the city. Besides, these are things that were never meant to be. Leave those silly dreams be.”

But Jade Green will not.

One day she steals away while her sister is sleeping to do more than dream. She tracks the scent of her man through the reek of food and smoke and human sweat. When she finds him she pretends it is by chance. He grins, remembering her. He takes her to see the sights of the city and when the day is done, he invites her to his home. Jade Green does not return to the forest until morning. When she does, she runs to her sister and tells her all that happened. She sobers when she sees the tightness in Jade White’s red lips, the darkness in her eyes.

“Be happy for me!” she cries. She winces at the childish shriek, but cannot be satisfied without her sister’s blessing.

Jade White quietly replies, “I am.”

But Jade Green can see she is not. I don’t care, she tells herself.

But she does.

Jade Green goes to see the young man many times. Each time she returns sick with happiness, yet also sad and angry that Jade White does not approve. Weeks pass this way, until one day Jade Green returns with something more than happiness, sadness or even anger. She is sick and ravenous, and Jade White feeds her cool fish and sweet ripe fruit and Jade Green rocks back and forth, clutching her stomach and something else.

Jade White understands, and murmurs softly, “You are carrying a child.”

Something flashes in Jade Green’s eyes. “I will tell him,” she whispers.

Jade White shakes her head, and says, “Oh, sister. This is foolishness. Your human will break your heart.”

But nothing will change Jade Green’s mind and she returns to her young man. He kisses her but can tell that something is different.

He whispers, “What is it, darling?”

Jade Green looks at him without a smile. “I carry your child,” she says. Then, more quietly, “So I wish to show you who I am.”

Her young man smiles softly and pulls her closer, not understanding. “Oh? And who are you, precious Jade?”

His eyes widen as she shows him. Then he screams. He looks into his lover’s face, but now her teeth are fangs and her eyes are glass jewels. Glittering, cold snake-scales encase a body that emerges from a human torso and wrap around him in a loving, powerful embrace. She can taste his fear in the air, and then his hate.

“Demon! Witch!” he shrieks.

He loosens himself from her coils and backs away, his hands raised and shaping the signs to ward away evil. Heartbroken, she wants to say “I still love you,” but can’t. She flees. In the forest she avoids Jade White and weeps. The warrior monk soon comes.

“Demon!” he cries. “I have been sent by the unfortunate man whom you seduced. I have seen the human bones that litter your foul den. Your deeds of wickedness shall now be put to an end!”

Jade Green stares at this little man with his shaved head who dares challenge her, and is overcome with rage. Fueled by anger, she will kill him and crush the life from his frail human lungs and heart; she will feast on his still-warm flesh. She lashes out, a viper.

But she takes his skill too lightly, overestimates the strength in the snake body that carries another. She screams, holding up her arms to uselessly ward off the demon-killing spells that the monk has begun to chant, his fingers moving quickly in the motions of the mantra. Pain like fire races through her body; she rolls in agony, trying to escape. She is sure she is going to die, but doesn’t.

Jade White strikes from behind, crushing the monk’s throat with a mere tightening of her slender fingers even as blood blooms from the steel blade that pierces her chest through the monk’s swift hands. They fall, the monk’s head twisted unnaturally as it buries itself in the earth, the snake-woman into a growing pool of crimson blood. Jade Green races toward them, screaming and crying. She cradles her sister’s head in her lap with Jade White’s dark hair spreading out like a halo. Even with blood around them and death’s heavy scent in the air, Jade White is still Jade Green’s beautiful marble-lotus goddess, her heaven’s dragon. Jade Green clutches her sister close to her chest, screaming curses at the spirits that would dare take her sister away.

“I promised I would protect you, that I would never leave you, never leave you ever!” she cries.

Jade White smiles sadly at Jade Green and shakes her head, her face crumpled in the pain that she cannot hide.

“I’m sorry, sister,” she whispers. “But never ... is quite a promise.”

When Jade White dies, it is like the breath has been stolen from her lungs, the fire extinguished within her veins - but nothing she could ever do will bring her sister back. She embraces her one last time.

And then she lets go.



Similar Articles

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 39 comments.


on May. 11 2011 at 9:16 pm
ninjajump BRONZE, Harrisonburg, Virginia
3 articles 0 photos 13 comments

Favorite Quote:
life is the greatest gift, but it is also the heaviest burdon

that was great..  i really liked it

on May. 11 2011 at 4:41 pm
Gingeriffic BRONZE, Helena, Montana
4 articles 0 photos 8 comments
I like that a lot! Very karmatic . . . if that can be an adjective :) keep up the good work.

Wilde29 said...
on May. 11 2011 at 8:07 am
Wilde29, Prai, Other
0 articles 0 photos 4 comments

Favorite Quote:
*Slams Oscar Wilde's works on table*

Nice.... Really epic. Loved it. 

on May. 7 2011 at 5:26 pm
A.PaigeTurner, San Antonio, Texas
0 articles 0 photos 125 comments

Favorite Quote:
You think that everybody hates you. You should really stop that.- A Good Friend

Whoa!  That was quite a story.  I liked it.

on Oct. 7 2010 at 10:18 am
mudpuppy BRONZE, Orangeburg, South Carolina
2 articles 0 photos 475 comments

Favorite Quote:
Life is like a box of cheese and flower petal sometimes it's soft and sweet, sometimes it just plain stinks. - M.J.

How do I describe how much I like this? Jade Green and Jade White. Whoa, what a title. This story is different from anything I have ever read on TeenInk. I'm glad it went into the magzine, it is certainly deserves to be. :)

on Sep. 11 2010 at 5:26 pm
passion.fable14 SILVER, Fort Collins, Colorado
8 articles 0 photos 29 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Life is like a cup of coffee. You gotta...dive right in and drink it fast before it cools. Because coffee sucks when its cool. And it tastes like crap. Do you want your life to taste like crap Sam? I don't. That's why i don't drink coffee."
~~Carlt

Oh my God that was amazing! That was really fantastic! You have such an intesnse voice and write with this obvious passion....that was amazing!

on Jul. 25 2010 at 1:36 pm
DiamondsIntheGrass GOLD, Martinsville, New Jersey
14 articles 1 photo 278 comments

Favorite Quote:
Worry is simply a misuse of the imagination.

really good.

on Apr. 10 2010 at 5:08 pm
MusicIsLife013 SILVER, New York, New York
6 articles 0 photos 43 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Light, like the flutter of wings, feel your hollow voice rushing into me
As you're longing to sing" -AFI

"Here we go again, I kinda wanna be more than friends, so take it easy on me I'm afraid you're never satisfied." -Neon Trees

this is sooo good! check out some of my work please :)

on Apr. 10 2010 at 10:27 am
NeverFallTooHard PLATINUM, Hartford, Wisconsin
24 articles 5 photos 98 comments

Favorite Quote:
Reason is powerless in the expression of Love.~ Rumi
Realisim, in painting, is what one wants to see, not what they really see. ~ Janet Fish

AWWW! I heart ur story! it's so sad at the end... what happens to the child? Never mind, I know the answer, i just don't like it... still love ur story!!

ColeK said...
on Feb. 3 2010 at 6:30 pm
ColeK, San Augstine, Texas
0 articles 0 photos 4 comments

Favorite Quote:
"We have doomed the Wolf not for what it is, but for what we have deliberately and mistakenly perceived it to be.. the mythologized epitome of a savage, ruthless killer.. which is, in reality no more than a reflexed images of ourselves." -Farley Mowat

Wow That was wonderful yet sad

Schubster said...
on Jan. 12 2010 at 9:19 am
Very creative piece of work. Fantastic job.

on Dec. 21 2009 at 9:45 pm
montana PLATINUM, Parker, Colorado
41 articles 2 photos 93 comments

Favorite Quote:
cliche quotes I have are.....
I know, right? and..... Are you kidding me?

Wow sorry when I wrote my other one I was speeclhess...

on Dec. 21 2009 at 9:33 pm
montana PLATINUM, Parker, Colorado
41 articles 2 photos 93 comments

Favorite Quote:
cliche quotes I have are.....
I know, right? and..... Are you kidding me?

Nice. I would love it if u commented on my work. Thx

ashnk4 said...
on Dec. 21 2009 at 1:26 pm
i could definitely read more of that. (:

on Nov. 29 2009 at 8:54 am
TemptedFiction, Grayson, Georgia
0 articles 0 photos 75 comments

Favorite Quote:
A hard part in life is pushing yourself to perfection. Whats even harder is realizing that it's an impossible goal to reach. -created by me-

This is amazing!! Great Job. Just wondering if you could read, rate, and comment my story Rewind please.

on Nov. 9 2009 at 3:50 pm
SonOfApollo GOLD, Katy, Texas
13 articles 0 photos 40 comments
you sure can write!!!!!

on Jun. 16 2009 at 1:38 am
Blue-eyed_Hippy-chick, Barry, Texas
0 articles 0 photos 20 comments
Wow! It is really deep. I fell in love with the characters. Beautiful and heart braking. Love it!

on Jun. 15 2009 at 7:35 pm
pinksage33 BRONZE, Woodstock, New York
4 articles 1 photo 211 comments
This story is Amazing!!!

Mary said...
on Jan. 9 2009 at 1:09 am
I love your story! It's so beautiful, and it almost made me cry. The detail is awesome, and your plot is fresh and interesting. Keep up the amazing writing!