Silk - Caitlin R. Kiernan [85]
“Nothing’s gonna fuck with it in there,” she said, and then Robin asked, “We’re safe now?”
“Yeah,” she’d lied. “Yeah. Everything’s gonna be fine now. No more nightmares.” And after she’d blown out the candles, they’d followed her back out to the kitchen.
7.
“It’s still closed,” Byron said, hushed awe and relief, and she wanted to hit him. Standing close together in the hall, flickering candlelight on their faces and the wallpaper, hot wax dripping onto her fingers. Of course it was closed, the basement door, hidden underneath the moldy old Turkish carpet she and Spyder had found cheap at a junk shop months ago, had beaten with brooms but still there was as much crud as color to the thing. But she didn’t hit him, because she’d been afraid, too, afraid for no sane reason that the carpet would be rolled back and the trapdoor would be open. So she made him go first this time, held his hand and they stayed close to the wall until they were past the spot, until they were standing at Spyder’s bedroom door. It was closed, always closed whether she was in there or somewhere else.
“Did you hear something?”
But she was already turning the cold brass knob, the metal like dry ice in her hand, and it took everything she had, nothing left over for Byron or anything else. Even through the fear, the thickening hum behind her eyes, she felt like a thief, like a rapist; Spyder had always asked them here, had always trusted them…
So she made herself remember what she’d seen in the parking lot outside Dr. Jekyll’s, and she opened the door.
“There, ” he said. “Something on the roof.”
Robin stepped across the threshold, but Byron lingered behind for a moment, looking up at the high ceiling like an idiot. She set her candle down on a tall and listing stack of magazines on Spyder’s dresser, The Web and Blue Blood and Propaganda; wax-scabbed hand, maroon blobs like some bizarre skin disease. She picked them off and stood staring at the utility shelf that sagged against one wall, the shelf that held most of the old aquariums and jars, that held the only one that mattered, that biggest tank on the center shelf.
“Hurry,” Byron said, so she knew he wasn’t going to do it, should have known that all along. Robin crossed the room alone, laid her hand on the rock that held the plywood lid in place. Inside, she could see the dream catcher leaning forward against the glass, matted in funnel silk and here and there, a few of the spiders hanging like black and poison berries.
“Do you remember what Spyder said about the widows?” she asked him, setting the ash-colored stone down on the next tank over, smaller tank and nothing in there but harmless wolf spiders.
“What did she say?”
“That black widows aren’t aggressive. That they hardly ever bite people.”
“Oh. Yeah, yeah,” and he almost sounded like he did remember, but she could tell he was just playing the game, knew that Byron never paid attention when Spyder talked about her bugs.
“That’s what she said, that they’re very shy, and usually nobody ever gets bitten unless they fuck up, like, if they step on a widow or lay their hand on one so there’s no way for it to escape.”
She lifted the lid slowly, and at least there was enough light from their candles that she could see there was nothing clinging to the underside of the board.
“You practically have to make them bite you.”
“Be careful, Robin,” he said, “Please be careful,” but she was already slipping her hand between the aluminum rim of the tank and the wood, her fingers already inside.
“And even if you do get bitten,” she whispered, words so far away, like someone else’s and her heart too fast, head too light, “hardly anyone ever dies.”
Her hand in past the wrist now, and the dry crape myrtle pinched gently between thumb and