Anansi Boys

I’m hallucinating, thought Rosie with a wild certainty. I’ve been locked up in a cellar for two days and now I’m hallucinating. There is no tiger.

By the same token, she was certain that there was no pale woman in the moonlight, even though she could see her walking down the corridor, a woman with blonde hair and the long, long legs and narrow hips of a dancer. The woman stopped when she reached the shadow of the tiger. She said, “Hello, Grahame.”

The shadow-beast lifted its massive head and growled.

“Don’t think you can hide from me in that silly animal costume,” said the woman. She did not look pleased.

Rosie realized that she could see the window through the woman’s upper body, and she backed up until she was pressing hard against the wall.

The beast growled again, this time a little more uncertainly.

The woman said, “I don’t believe in ghosts, Grahame. I spent my life, my whole life, not believing in ghosts. And then I met you. You let Morris’s career run aground. You steal from us. You murder me. And finally, to add insult to injury, you force me to believe in ghosts.”

The shadowy big-cat-shape was whimpering now, and backing down the hall.

“Don’t think you can avoid me like that, you useless little man. You can pretend to be a tiger all you like. You aren’t a tiger. You’re a rat. No, that’s an insult to a noble and numerous species of rodent. You’re less than a rat. You’re a gerbil. You’re a stoat.”

Rosie ran down the hall. She ran past the shadow-beast, past her fallen mother. She ran through the pale woman, and it felt like she was passing through fog. She reached the front door, and began feeling for the bolts.

In her head or in the world Rosie could hear an argument. Someone was saying,

Pay no attention to her, idiot. She can’t touch you. It’s just a duppy. She’s barely real. Get the girl! Stop the girl!

And someone else was replying,

You certainly do have a valid point here. But I’m not convinced that you’ve taken all the circumstances into account, vis-à-vis, well, discretion, um, better part of valor, if you follow me—

I lead. You follow.

But—

“What I want to know,” said the pale woman, “is just how ghostly you currently are. I mean, I can’t touch people. I can’t really even touch things. I can touch ghosts.”

The pale woman aimed a serious kick at the beast’s face. The shadow-cat hissed and took a step back, and the foot missed it by less than an inch.

The next kick co

The corridor was filled with the sound of a dead woman laughing, a laugh of exultation and delight. “Stoat,” said the pale woman’s voice again. “Grahame Stoat.”

A cold wind blew through the house.

Rosie pulled the last of the bolts, and she turned the lock. The front door fell open. There were the beams of flashlights, blinding-bright. People. Cars. A woman’s voice said, “It’s one of the missing tourists.” And then she said, “My God.”

Rosie turned.

In the flashlight’s beam Rosie could see her mother, crumpled on the tiled floor and, beside her, shoeless and unconscious and unmistakably human, Grahame Coats. There was a red liquid splashed all around them, like crimson paint, and Rosie found herself, for a breath, unable to work out what it was.

A woman was talking to her. She was saying, “You’re Rosie Noah. My name’s Daisy. Let’s find somewhere for you to sit down. Would you like to sit down?”

Someone must have found the fuse box, for at that moment the lights went on all over the house.

A large man in a police uniform was bent over the bodies. He looked up and said, “It is definitely Mr. Fi

Rosie said, “Yes, please. I would like to sit down very much.”

Charlie sat beside Spider on the edge of the cliff, in the moonlight, his legs dangling over the side.

“You know,” he said, “you used to be a part of me. When we were kids.”

Spider put his head on one side. “Really?”

“I think so.”

“Well, that would explain a few things.” He held out his hand: a seven-legged clay spider sat on the back of his fingers, tasting the air. “So what now? Are you going to take me back or something?”

Charlie’s brow crinkled. “I think you’ve turned out better than you would have done if you were part of me. And you’ve had a lot more fun.”

Spider said, “Rosie. Tiger knows about Rosie. We have to do something.”

“Of course we do,” said Charlie. It was like bookkeeping, he thought: you put entries in one column, deduct them from another, and if you’ve done it correctly, everything should come out right at the bottom of the page. He took his brother’s hand.

They stood up and took a step forward, off the cliff—

—and everything was bright—

A cold wind blew between the worlds.

Charlie said, “You’re not the magical bit of me, you know.”

“I’m not?” Spider took another step. Stars were falling now by the dozen, streaking their way across the dark sky. Someone, somewhere, was playing high sweet music on a flute.

Another step, and now distant sirens were blaring. “No,” said Charlie. “You’re not. Mrs. Dunwiddy thought you were, I think. She split us apart, but she never really understood what she was doing. We’re more like two halves of a starfish. You grew up into a whole person. And so,” he said, realizing it was true as he said it, “did I.”

They stood on the cliff edge in the dawn. An ambulance was on its way up the hill, lights flashing, and another behind that. They parked by the side of the road, beside a cluster of police cars.

Daisy seemed to be telling everyone what to do.

“Not much that we can do here. Not now,” said Charlie. “Come on.” The last of the fireflies left him, and blinked its way to sleep.

They rode the first minibus of the morning back to Williamstown.

Maeve Livingstone sat upstairs in the library of Grahame Coats’s house, surrounded by Grahame Coats’s art and books and DVDs, and she stared out of the window. Down below the island’s emergency services were putting Rosie and her mother into one ambulance, Grahame Coats into another.

She had, she reflected, really enjoyed kicking the beast-thing that Grahame Coats had become. It was the most profoundly satisfying thing she had done since she had been killed—although if she were to be honest with herself, she would have to admit that dancing with Mr. Nancy came in an extremely close second. He had been remarkably spry, and nimble on his feet.

She was tired.

“Maeve?”

“Morris?” She looked around her, but the room was empty.

“I wouldn’t want to disturb you, if you were still busy, pet.”

“That’s very sweet of you,” she said. “But I think I’m done now.”

The walls of the library were begi

Her hand crept into his. She said, “Where are we going now, Morris?”

He told her.

“Oh. Well, that will be a pleasant change,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to go there.”

And, hand in hand, they went.