Silk - Caitlin R. Kiernan [151]
Bitch, I’m not done with you, bitch, her father said, mocking, laughing behind the closet door. What you’ve told her, what she knows, and she’s still going anyway.
“I figured you out, too,” she said and then didn’t say anything else, nothing to be gained from talking with ghosts or voices that weren’t there, remembrances like broken toys she couldn’t put away, talking to herself and answering herself. Spyder dug down into her jeans pocket for the last ball bearing, the one there hadn’t been time for before the bedspread ripped open and spilled her life onto the floor. The one she’d written Niki’s name on, and she held it in her fist. Held it tightly, and Niki stirred, eyelid flutter and she pushed back the covers, rolled over so Spyder could see her breasts, perfect, small, firm, the silver ring through one nipple and the scar across the other.
If you died now, it wouldn’t matter. And her father was trying hard to sound like he had before he’d started seeing angels. If you’d died when you were supposed to, we’d have both gone up to Heaven a long time ago. But if you die now, at least no one else will get hurt.
She won’t get hurt.
Spyder opened her hand and held the ball bearing up so he could see it through the closet door. Faint steel glimmer in the candlelight and a sound like autumn crumbling or the smell of tears, and he hissed, They won’t let me come without you, Lila; when she answered, Spyder spoke low, trying not to wake Niki, just as careful to find the threat.
“Does it scare you, Daddy?” and she grinned at the cringing shadows on the walls. “It should. It should scare the fuck out of you.”
And when she was sure he had gone, had slipped like cold air back between the cracks, sifted down through termite rot and dust and rusting nails, Spyder laid the ball bearing on the windowsill, making sure it wouldn’t roll off.
Like a totem animal, Niki had said, like something Robin would have said, something Robin had understood. And it didn’t matter if it was factual, because it was true, whether she’d chosen them or they’d chosen her. Somewhere all those fine distinctions had been lost, her and them, enemy and friend and lover, past and present, no difference anymore and no one holding on to the leash.
I love you, Spyder, she’d said, and It’s not what Iwant. The last straw in that contradiction, the last silver ball before the bedspread had torn, and the rage was coming, rage that had imprisoned Robin and Byron and Walter in her hell under the floor, the rage that swirled around her, storm rage, virus rage, and she knew it had touched Keith Barry, too. And now there was no distinction, the rage and the world, and soon it would touch the girl sleeping on her bed, the girl who hadn’t run yet, never mind what she might do someday. Spyder’s rage like the vengeance of her dead father’s god, as bottomless, as all-consuming, as blind, and it would take Niki apart, body and mind and soul.
Spyder got up from the stool, went to the bed, and she kissed Niki lightly on one cheek, careful not to wake her. And then she began to unbutton her jeans.
3.
Mort drove slowly to the dead end of Cullom Street, pulled the shitmobile into Spyder’s dirt driveway, and then they sat in the van, watching the dark house, motor still running, headlights shining off the rusty ass of the old Celica. Unsteady glow from a front window, and Daria couldn’t help that it made her think of one dull eye open, sentinel eye of something with many eyes but no need to open more than one on their account.
“They’re already in bed,” Theo said, and Mort looked at Daria, tired what-next resignation on his face, too tired to argue. “I’ll be right back,” she said. “You guys wait here. There’s no need for us all three to go tromping up there.”
“Are you sure, Dar? You messed her up pretty good. I expect she’s still pissed off.”
“I’ll be right back. I’m just gonna talk to Niki and apologize.”
Mort switched off the headlights, left the engine idling in neutral, and Theo grunted, disbelief and indignation. “Daria, if you go apologizing