Silk

“Open the fucking door, Byron. Open it now,” and she flashed back to Walter, two hours before, the same words, the same desperate, useless insistence.

“I am trying, goddammit, so please just shut the hell up,” and the last key slid in cocksmooth and the dead bolt clicked back, gunshot loud. A sudden gust tossed the naked limbs like puppet arms and legs, set every shadow dancing, perfect diversion, and Robin turned and pushed, shoved Byron through the half-opened door, out of one cold and into another drier arctic, certain that something rushed liquid smooth toward them across the yard on jointed spindle legs. She slammed the door behind her, turned the bolt in the same frantic motion, and they both heard it, both thought they heard it: the softest thump against the other side of the door, the ragged, heavy breath, panting dog sound, and then nothing at all but the wind.

“What…?” he started to ask, his sweatcool palm finding hers; she shook her head, stepped back from the door.

“Nothing,” she said. “Nothing at all.”

She felt along the wall until she found the old iron switch plate, switches for the porch and foyer, and flipped both up, but the dark stayed put, no electricity, the lines down from wind or the weight of icicles, more likely that last transformer explosion.

“The power’s out,” she said, and Byron’s grip tightened around her hand.

“I can’t see for shit,” he said.

“It isn’t that dark, pussy,” and it wasn’t, really, her eyes just begi

The room where Trisha Baxter had died and Spyder stored the junk there wasn’t space for on the porch.

“Do you have your lighter?” and she heard the cloth rustle as Byron rummaged through the pockets of his frock coat.

“Yeah, it’s right here.”

“Then we can light candles,” and she led him by the hand, little-brother tow, deeper into Spyder’s house.

6.

They had sat together on Spyder’s bed, surrounded by the glint of aquarium glass and the web-painted windows, and watched Spyder make the dream catcher by the soothing light of rose-and ci

And with the same knife, tiny thing but razor sharp, she’d taken locks of their hair. Robin’s first, emerald in the candlelight, then Byron’s, dyed jet-black and slick as mink, and Walter next, dirty, unwashed tortoiseshell. Had saved her own for last, sliced colorless strands from a place near her right temple where one of the dreads was coming loose. And then she’d laid each lock out on the quilt, four fraying streaks against the cotton patchwork.

She had bent the branch carefully while they watched (all but Walter, who’d pretended to read from a thick book on fossil arachnids while she worked), bowed pliant wood into a perfect hoop, near-perfect mandala six or seven inches in diameter, and tied it closed with white nylon kite twine from a box beneath the bathroom sink. And then she picked up the pocketknife again, brass handle and stainless-steel gleam, had passed the blade slowly through the flame of the red votive candle burning on the table beside Lurch and Tickler’s tank.

Spyder cut herself in the soft bend of one elbow, had drawn the cooling blade quick across her skin, severing tattooed lines and the vein hiding beneath. Dabbed her fingers in the wound and slicked the hoop with her blood.

And no one had said anything, not one word while she wove their hair with certain, patient fingers, tied the concentric rings and irregularly spaced radial lines ru

“It’s just a simple orb web,” she said when she’d finished, almost dawn, and Spyder had pointed to the design on one of the windows. “A snare, like garden spiders make.”

Last of all, she’d used more of the twine to tie a couple of musty old mockingbird feathers to the rim.

Robin had held it while Spyder stood and stretched, wiped at her jeans and a few stray hairs sifted to the floor.

“Now, we put it someplace safe,” she’d said and had taken the dream catcher from Robin, lifted the lid off one of the bigger tanks, twenty-five gallons of air, mostly, a few sticks and rocks strewn across the bottom. Robin didn’t have to read the sloppy writing on the yellowed strip of masking tape stuck to one corner of the tank, didn’t have to know the correct pronunciation of Latrodectus mactans to understand: the shiny black bodies like living vinyl, crimson hourglass bellies. Spyder brushed several clinging forms from the underside of the lid with her bare fingers, mother-voice whispered to calm them all-the widows, Robin, Byron half asleep on Robin’s shoulder, Walter still staring at the pages of his book. She slipped the dream catcher inside and replaced the lid, weighted it down with a lump of shale.

“Nothing’s go

“Yeah,” she’d lied. “Yeah. Everything’s go

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 fu

“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.