The Spider Goddess

by Tara Moss

  Oh, this is silly.

  Here goes. I threw open the curtains of my room and looked at the fat, full moon glowing in the sky over Manhattan. I picked up Lieutenant Luke’s sabre, feeling the cool grip in my hand. The obsidian ring began to warm on my finger as soon as I touched it.

  I held the sabre aloft. ‘Luke,’ I said aloud. ‘Lieutenant Luke.’

  I waited.

  There was nothing. The sabre was heavier than I’d thought. My slim arm began to shake and I felt my heart shrink a little in my chest. Please?

  I closed my eyes and tried again. I held the sabre with all my strength. ‘Lieutenant Luke,’ I said, gripping the sabre firmly. ‘Come to me.’

  After a brief moment that seemed like an eternity, I felt a cool mist descend at my side. Just as Luke’s form began to materialise, there was a shocking flash of heat, and he appeared in full human form, clutching the sabre, his two large, masculine hands over my one small hand. We both seemed shocked to find ourselves together so suddenly, and for a time, we stood with our hands layered over the grip of his cavalry sword. Our eyes engaged. The bright blue of his eyes had not faded one bit. They didn’t seem to glow, exactly – not tonight – but they were so bright I felt I could see my own reflection. Finally we both let our arms relax, and I let go. My arm was tingling. Luke held up his sabre, and we watched it glint in the moonlight. He returned it to the metal sheath hanging from the leather belt around his waist. He seemed to wear it permanently now.

  ‘Welcome,’ I said, as my body thrilled at his closeness.

  He smiled at me with his eyes and I exhaled.

  I moved to the desk and grabbed a cup. ‘I’m not sure if . . . you know . . . you can drink . . . but h-here is . . .’ I stuttered. ‘I made this for you,’ I finally managed to explain.

  He took the cup and examined it for a moment. A smile spread across his handsome, clean-shaven face. He raised the hot apple cider to his lips and took a cautious sip. A long sigh of pleasure escaped from him. A century and a half was quite a long time between drinks, I supposed.

  ‘Thank you, Miss Pandora.’ He reached for the other cup and placed it in my hand. The handle felt warm. I brought it to my lips, and he raised his cup again.

  We drank.

  ‘Oh, goodness,’ I said. Apple cider tasted stronger than I’d expected. Much stronger.

  ‘That tastes . . . Heavens that tastes good,’ Luke remarked.

  ‘Doesn’t it?’ I gulped mine down eagerly. ‘I’ll get us some more. Don’t go anywhere,’ I said, and then found myself laughing.

  ‘I promise I won’t go anywhere, Miss Pandora.’

  I stopped in the doorway. ‘Good.’

  We talked and talked. It seemed almost as if I could not stop the torrent of words that poured out of me.

  I told Lieutenant Luke all about what had happened with the parcel on the steps of the mansion and the spider workers I’d seen at Arachne’s factory warehouse. There was little doubt in my mind that I had the poor, trapped souls of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire to thank for my escape. Factories were never the same after that landmark tragedy, and the safety measures that had been put in place since had saved my life. Even if no one had designed fire hoses to combat hordes of spider people. I told him how Vlad had mysteriously found me and driven me home, and how I’d hoped so badly that Celia was right about the full moon, and how worried I’d been when I’d woken up with only his sword. Luke was relieved I was okay, and once again he earnestly vowed to protect me. I downed cup after cup of Harold’s apple cider and the horrors I’d seen slowly began to feel distant. I found I felt a bit strange. My body was very relaxed, and my brain even more so. But that didn’t stop me from asking ever more touchy questions.

  ‘Luke,’ I said, leaning into his chest. ‘Do you think your uniform is downstairs in that trunk? Or even your . . . remains?’

  I hated to use the word, and as soon as I did, I had a horrible visual of what the word meant. Whether I liked it or not, Luke was a dead man, and somewhere in the world was a rotted and bare skeleton that belonged to him. Maybe it was buried in a grave, or perhaps it was waiting to be discovered in Barrett’s things. Either way, Luke had a discarded human body. And it wasn’t the lovely one I was looking at. It was a horrible thought.

  ‘That trunk held my sabre, but nothing else that belonged to me. Of that I am certain,’ he said, taking a deep breath – a wonderfully human-like, living breath.

  I wasn’t sure how he could be certain, but I trusted that he was, and frankly I was relieved to hear it.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I have to ask something else, too.’ I took another sip of apple cider. I thought of the look on his face when I’d asked about my powers. ‘My great-aunt said you would know something about the significance of the Seventh. Or what happened one hundred and fifty years ago?’

  He appeared hesitant.

  When he didn’t speak, I felt an uncharacteristic surge of impatience. ‘Luke, maybe you are trying to protect me, or trying not to scare me, but the fact is I was nearly torn apart by a woman with spider legs. A woman who can control thousands of spiders like a conductor can an orchestra. She knows what I am. I need to know. Tell me what I am, Luke.’

  Lieutenant Luke nodded stiffly and I felt the intimacy between us fade. He took a step back. ‘It is known that every one hundred and fifty years the forces of the Underworld rise up.’

  It is known? ‘The Underworld. You mean Hell? I can tell you, the press may talk about the end of the world every once in a while, but they certainly never talk about Hell rising up!’

  ‘Not Hell,’ he corrected me. ‘Not as they taught it when I was mortal.’

  ‘What is the Underworld then? Is it like with Persephone and Hades and Pluto and all that?’

  Luke shook his head. ‘Not exactly.’ He frowned and looked down at his drink. ‘I want to articulate it . . . but I can’t. I am prevented from speaking of some of these things.’

  ‘You are? Still?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Even though you are human right now?’

  ‘I am still bound by the rules of the dead.’

  Those darned supernatural rules. It was so unfair. I stuck my lower lip out, and then took another sip of the cider.

  ‘You may want to slow down with that,’ Luke said quietly, and looked at me with concern.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I replied, and took another large sip. ‘Do you know what my powers are?’ I demanded.

  Luke closed his eyes, and when he spoke, he sounded far away. ‘Every one hundred and fifty years there is a Seventh. She is the mediator between the living and the dead. She is a powerful agent for rebalance —’

  ‘A powerful agent? It makes me sound like some kind of cleaning product.’

  Luke didn’t laugh. He looked at me strangely. ‘There will be an agitation,’ he explained.

  Celia had used that word, I remembered. ‘The agitation has already started, hasn’t it?’

  He nodded soberly. ‘Yes. Dark forces are gathering. Beings, once content in the shadows, are starting to show themselves.’

  The Blood Countess. The spider goddess. And whom else?

  ‘Then comes the revolution. The Seventh has a very important role to play in the revolution.’

  ‘What revolution, exactly?’

  Luke looked down. The air between us seemed to be growing colder. My head felt strange. I had become a touch combative, but I couldn’t seem to help it. Was it the full moon? The topic? The lack of sleep?

  ‘It is the revolution of the dead. The rising up of the Underworld. The Seventh must stand between mankind and their destruction. But . . . it will never come to that,’ he said, still averting his eyes.

  ‘They won’t rise up?’

  He straightened his head and looked at me steadily. ‘It is not certain that . . .’

  ‘It’s not certain that what?’ I demanded. ‘What is it that you don’t want to tell me?’

  ‘I . . . I can’t,’ he s
aid. ‘I want to. But that is all I can say.’

  I thought of all the spirits I’d encountered or spoken to, and all the pain it had caused my parents. The child psychologists. The strange looks from the neighbours. Why hadn’t my mother told me that she understood? That she knew what it was about? I’d heard my mum and dad fight over me so many times when I was a child. Maybe if they were still alive they would have finally accepted the things that made me different? Maybe my mother would have eventually opened up about what she was – what I was. How much had she known? Had she known what my future held? Had she known about this prophecy?

  You will stand between mankind and their destruction . . .

  ‘Miss Pandora?’

  I had been quiet for a long time. I felt distant and overwhelmed. ‘This prophecy . . . will it come true?’ I finally asked.

  ‘No one knows if it will come to pass. But there are believers.’

  I watched Luke’s handsome face carefully. ‘What about you? Are you a believer?’

  Deep lines of tension appeared across his square jaw and sculpted cheekbones. ‘Miss Pandora, the dead and the living are opposing forces. Do you not see? The dead make way for the living to inhabit this world, and eventually some of the dead will want their old world back.’

  I blinked. ‘Is that what you want?’

  ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘No, I do not. It is not the proper way of things.’ He shook his head. ‘No, the earthly plane is for the living, and there should be peace for the dead when living is over.’

  But Luke didn’t have peace, did he?

  ‘There are those who covet the living realm,’ he explained. ‘There are those who will try to conquer the living. The revolution came one hundred and fifty years ago and failed. The living who witnessed it are now gone.’

  ‘Dead.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You were one of them,’ I guessed.

  He was still, but his gaze was steady.

  So Luke was there when the last Seventh was alive. Celia was right about that.

  Did that mean . . .?

  ‘The Civil War. Are you saying that the Civil War was a revolution of the dead?’

  He did not answer, but I could see from his face that I had hit on the truth.

  ‘That’s . . . that’s not possible. No!’ I protested. I backed away from him until my back was at the wall.

  ‘History books can be rewritten, Miss Pandora. Memories can be erased.’

  I knew that too well. I brought a shaking hand to my mouth. My eyes welled up. ‘No. You’re lying. It’s not true. It’s not!’

  I went to sit on the edge of the bed, trembling. Lieutenant Luke walked over to me and placed a strong, human hand on my shoulder. I shook it off.

  ‘I can see you are upset,’ he said. ‘I am sorry, Miss Pandora. These revelations must be troubling. You will need some time.’ He returned his cup to the Victorian writing desk and looked around uncertainly. ‘Thank you for the cider. And thank you for this,’ he said, looking down at his physical body. ‘However temporary it may be. I am in your debt.’

  Lieutenant Luke bowed his head to me, his cap held in his hands. And then I watched him walk out of my bedroom.

  I didn’t stop him.

  You will stand between mankind and their destruction, I thought, and felt my stomach roil and heave.

  The designers. This is what happened to them.

  I found myself back in Arachne’s factory, though I didn’t know how I’d got there. The walls and floor were white concrete, and beyond the stacks of boxes and racks of clothes I could see Arachne herself weaving great tapestries with giant black spider legs that reached to the ceiling. Her spider people were at work all around me, their deceptively human faces slack and expressionless. I recognised the face of Victor Mal among them. The designers. She turned them into her spiders. This is what happened to them, I thought. Brunette was there too, also a drone. Now that I knew what lay beneath the illusion of that superficial skin and bone I watched the creatures with trepidation as they moved back and forth, back and forth, some passing only inches from me, carrying the awful black and emerald parcels, destined for victims unknown.

  I had to get out before I was discovered. Before Arachne did the same to me. Before I became one of these awful, mindless creatures.

  What do I do?

  The fire exit was still there, but there was no fire hose. I didn’t have my satchel to knock them down. When they noticed me, I would be in terrible danger. Motionless and terrified, I stood stock-still amongst them, breathing quietly, as silent and invisible as I could manage. Slowly, I tilted my head and looked down at myself. I too was wearing one of the green aprons.

  No!

  A thunderous knocking came from the fire exit, and in seconds the heavy door swung open and Second Lieutenant Luke Thomas stepped through – Luke, my friend, my would-be boyfriend, the beautiful Civil War hero come to rescue me. I felt a rush of relief, and I tried to step towards him but my legs would not budge.

  What’s wrong with me?

  ‘Luke!’ I dared to yell across the warehouse floor, no longer fearing the drones, no longer fearing Arachne in his presence.

  Lieutenant Luke valiantly held his unsheathed sword aloft, a heroic vision, and the spider people stopped what they were doing and cowered, as if answering a silent command.

  ‘Luke! Help me! I can’t move!’ I called out to him. ‘I can’t move my legs!’

  And then he looked at me across the warehouse floor.

  It was then I saw his pallid complexion, the blood around his mouth, the awful, ropey blue veins that wove across deathly white skin. His uniform was tattered and blood stained, and worst of all, his eyes . . . his beautiful, bright blue eyes were beautiful no more. They bulged round in their sockets, bloodshot and terrifying. He had no eyelids.

  My pleas froze on my lips.

  The creature that was Luke marched towards me, parting the spider people like water with the end of his bloodied sword. Arachne’s workers fell to pieces around him, melting into pools of seething spiders, and I worried fleetingly that I might do the same at his deadly touch. He opened his mouth to speak and I realised with horror that Luke’s teeth were pointed and stained. How had I never noticed his sharp teeth? His lidless eyes? The menace of his glowing red glare?

  ‘Which do you choose, Pandora?’ he demanded in a booming voice. ‘Will you be one of them, or one of us?’

  And I saw his army. Behind him, wave after wave of bloody revenants appeared; a grisly army of dead Civil War soldiers gathering at his back in perfect, deadly formation.

  The Revolution of the Dead.

  I looked down and saw that my hands were made of spiders.

  I screamed.

  ‘Miss Pandora, wake up!’

  I sat up, rubbed my tired eyes and looked at the room through a foggy filter of sleep. I was in my delicate white linen nightie in my four-poster bed in Celia’s penthouse. My legs were caught in a bundle of sheets so I kicked them free. I’d been having an awful nightmare – something about spiders and dead soldiers – and I could see I’d been tossing and turning. Lace-edged pillows were scattered on the floor. It was still dark out but moonlight was streaming in from the half-open curtains of my bedroom windows.

  The Hunger Moon.

  ‘Luke?’

  ‘Pandora, wake up. Hurry!’

  I shook myself into a more wakeful consciousness. Luke stood by the edge of my bed, extending a hand to me. I took it in mine, feeling the blissful realness of it. Yes, he was still flesh. It felt good to hold his hand.

  ‘I tried knocking on your door but you didn’t answer,’ he said, sounding tense. Even with his brow furrowed he looked handsome in his blue uniform, his leather riding boots gleaming, his frockcoat open and shirt unbuttoned casually to reveal a glimpse of tanned chest.

  The Civil War.

  I recalled the horrible truths he’d told me. And how badly I’d reacted. ‘I’m sorry about last night, Luke. I don’t kn
ow what came over me. I guess I was a little overwhelmed.’

  Despite my words, Luke continued to look deeply concerned. And distracted. His jaw was set tight, and his eyes were troubled beneath pinched brows. ‘Miss Pandora, you must get up now. Quickly.’

  At his urging I finally slid out from between the sheets and let him guide me to the window. The hardwood floor felt cool under my bare toes. My body seemed to take longer than usual to get moving. My head ached dully. And now I remembered the apple cider I’d got from Harold’s Grocer. Had it made me a bit . . . tipsy?

  ‘Look,’ Lieutenant Luke said.

  He peered down the street and I followed his intense gaze. Something was different, very different, about the main street of Spektor. It took my eyes a moment to adjust under the cool light of the full moon.

  The street!

  The street was moving.

  When I saw what was causing the illusion, I gasped. Any remnants of sleep fell off me at once. My adrenaline kicked in.

  A seething army of eight-legged creatures moved down the pavement of Spektor, they rushed across the road and along the sidewalks, and poured over the street lamps, moving towards Number One Addams Avenue, towards us. I squinted and made out the shapes of thousands and thousands of spiders – black widows and wolf spiders, orb-weavers and tarantulas. They were all different sizes, some black and some with tiny markings, and they were all headed our way. Some were already climbing the lamp post outside my window, while others were climbing the buildings.

  Unfortunately, this was not all.

  ‘There,’ Luke said under his breath, and pointed. At the north end of the street the mass of spiders was at its greatest height. It rose a full, horrifying two storeys. Atop this seething blanket of arachnids was a robed figure. The spider goddess herself rode the wave of eight-legged horror, her hands held aloft, fingers splayed, as if she were a conductor.