The snake was an odd-looking specimen. Not the usual greenish-brown garter snake so common in the Pacific Northwest (and that Mama Grande always talks to while puttering in the garden), but instead a mottled buff and brown—desert camouflage colors—dotted with tiny flecks of brilliant turquoise. I’d never seen anything like it. Maybe it was one of the multitude of strange new creatures mutated by the magic of the Awakened world.