Irregularity

by Nick Harkaway

  She knew it would be waiting. Crouched in the space under the bed, occupying the emptiness. The crumbs were still scattered across the floor — the housemaid had been too lazy to sweep under here, a fact Eva had been counting on. But the spider had not touched the crumbs.

  It must have been waiting all day.

  For her.

  “Spider,” Eva whispered. She rolled a crumb towards it, watching in fascination to see what it would do.

  The spider inched forwards, leg by leg. It reached the bite of bread. One foot settled lightly upon the crumb, and Eva waited, breath caught in her throat. Then the leg withdrew. The spider retreated.

  It was no good. This was the wrong food.

  Eva felt the spider’s disappointment as a physical presence, as if strands of its web had settled upon her hair, enclosing her head in its fine meshing. She understood that the spider had given her a gift, but she had not been able to reciprocate.

  The next afternoon there was no expedition. Eva’s mother had a visitor. Birgitte coaxed Eva into her best dress — one so tight around the chest she could barely breathe — and brushed her hair until Eva’s scalp tingled. She could feel the tingling all the way down the stairs and into the guest room, where Eva’s mother was perched on the edge of her chair and a gentleman was standing by the window, admiring the view. There was something odd about the scene.

  “This is Herr Gustafsson, Eva,” her mother said brightly. It was her hands. They were the source of the oddness. They were not twisting around one another, as they usually did. They lay calmly in her lap.

  The gentleman turned.

  “So this is the little one.”

  Unlike most of the (recently declining) visitors to the house, Herr Gustafsson was not wearing a military uniform, but he was smartly-dressed in the fashions Birgitte liked to admire around the wealthier parts of Stockholm. His powdered hair and heavy face gave him a serious, rather lugubrious look.

  “Say hello, Eva.”

  “Hello, Herr Gustafsson.”

  She sensed her mother’s approval, her burst of pleasure at this exchange, an introduction that was going well. She tried to ignore the itching of her scalp.

  “Herr Gustafsson is a man of science,” said her mother.

  Eva stared at Herr Gustafsson with renewed interest.

  Gustafsson coughed and said it was so. He was interested, he said, in the butterfly collection of the tragically late Captain Lindberg. He, Gustafsson, was working at the Royal Academy with a great man, Carolus Linneaus. Perhaps — there was a small chance, he thought — they would have heard of Linneaus?

  “No,” said Eva’s mother. Then, perhaps fearing this could jeopardize the fragile success of the visit, added in a flood of anxiety, “But tell us of him!”

  Encouraged, Gustafsson spoke at length. Linneaus was a great man, a great — he straightened his lapels, a little self-consciously — man of science. He was about to publish the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae, a revolutionary classification of the animal, plant, and mineral kingdoms, and there was much excitement amongst society members across Europe. Gustafsson was especially interested in the insecta class, and that was where the butterflies came in. He had hoped it might be possible to have a glimpse of Captain Lindberg’s collection. He would be all discretion. Indeed, they would barely know he was here.

  Eva’s mother said that she was pleased that Captain Lindberg’s collection was of such importance. She would be delighted to show Herr Gustafsson the butterflies. She rose from her seat, and Herr Gustafsson made as if to rise in response before noticing that he was already standing.

  “Does the book have spiders?” asked Eva.

  “Spiders?”

  “Why do you mention spiders?” Eva’s mother cried.

  Herr Gustafsson said it was a reasonable question. In fact, spiders came under the same category as butterflies, although they were not his speciality, or even Linneaus’s speciality. Spiders, he said, had been thoroughly examined by Carl Alexander Clerck in a publication just last year. Herr Gustafsson would go so far as to say it was the most comprehensive study of a single creature yet undertaken. Truly, they were living in an age of scientific discovery, and Sweden was its hub.

  “But it’s unusual, to find a little girl interested in spiders.”

  “Do you know what they eat?”

  The gentleman said that spiders were hunters and used their webs to catch flies. They ate meat, “Just like you or I.”

  Eva could see her mother’s mounting anxiety as she tried to steer a course between the pleasure of going well, Eva evidently having sparked the gentleman’s interest, and the impropriety of her child, a female, wishing to discuss the habits of arachnids in the guest room. In a heroic effort to rescue the situation, the mother offered Herr Gustafsson tea. He refused at first, then seemed to realize his error, and said on second thoughts a cup of tea was exactly what he wished for.

  “Did you know there are over sixty kinds of spiders in Sweden?”

  Eva shook her head. She worried now that she had endangered the spider by mentioning it.

  Eva’s mother told Herr Gustafsson that Captain Lindberg had collected over a thousand samples of butterflies, and by some unseen cue, Birgitte appeared and escorted Eva from the room, to the relief of all.

  That night when Eva checked under the bed, there was a second spider. This one was smaller-bodied, a mottled shade of brown. The black spider edged forward hopefully.

  “Spider one and spider two,” said Eva softly. “I will find you flies.”

  Eva.

  Her dream was more of a nightmare, a ghastly vision of the Black Death sweeping across Stockholm, with children dropping dead house by house, mothers running screaming into the street, and a man with a cart piled high with bodies. The bodies were human, but they each had eight limbs.

  In the morning, Birgitte told her that a terrible thing had happened. The Jensson’s youngest boy had died in the night. A sudden fever. Birgitte said they should not speak of it in the presence of Eva’s mother. Eva could hear, several rooms away, the rising tide of weeping, and thought that it was already too late.

  Eva glanced under the bed. She knew she should be frightened, but her knowledge was exhilarating too.

  The spiders had seized hold of the possibilities in the emptiness. They had the power to make things happen.

  Every day a new spider arrived. Some were as small as Eva’s fingernail, others as large as her hand. The spiders had specialisms. They told her about births and deaths, weddings and funerals, accidents and abrupt changes in fortune. Sometimes the events were small. Eva was able to help members of the household with mysteries they had thought unsolvable — such as the time Birgitte lost her hairpin, an heirloom that had belonged to her mother, and her grandmother before that. Where did you look? Eva asked, and instigated a second search during which she was able to recover the pin from the exact location revealed to her in the previous night’s dream. Birgitte was delighted.

  “You are a lucky child.”

  Eva woke each morning full of itchy anticipation, and could not rest until the truth of her dream had been revealed. Once or twice she could not resist baiting the maid.

  “I have the strangest feeling, Birgitte. I have a feeling that an old lady died.”

  Birgitte choked and crossed herself.

  But Eva had to be careful. The prophecies were a secret between herself and the spiders. It was a delicate balance.

  In exchange for their omniscience, Eva had to feed the spiders. Flies were hard to find, until she learned to check the house before the housemaid had done her tasks. She found dead ones then, dried up on their backs around the edges of the rooms. She took to keeping a wooden box in her pocket and filled it with the fly carcasses. The spiders shared these offerings amongst themselves.

  At night she brought her candle down to the floor and she lay on her stomach, marvelling at the work of the spinning spiders, the flame of her candle illuminating the intricate pa
tterns of their mysterious creations. How did they do it? How did they know the exact length of the thread required, where to send it, how to attach it so that they might cling to any surface, however impossible?

  “What will you tell me tonight, spiders?”

  If she closed her eyes, she thought she heard their voices.

  Eva Eva Eva Eva Eva.

  Still she did not have names for them. She had thought of many, but none were suitable. Sometimes she thought she had hit upon exactly the right name for one of her collection, and went to sleep chanting it to herself, but come morning it would have vanished from her memory. They remained numerical: Spider One, Spider Two. Spider Three, the finder of lost things. The one who had made her lucky.

  On his next visit Herr Gustafsson took Eva aside.

  “There’s something I want to tell you. But —” he hesitated. “Perhaps we might not mention it to your mother.”

  Eva said she could keep a secret, and Gustafsson said he did not doubt it. He had been, he said, to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, to take a look at Svenska Spindlar. He had noted some facts which he hoped might interest Eva. Would she care to hear?

  Eva would.

  True spiders had not only eight legs, but also eight eyes, and two palps (the word Clerck used for arms, Gustafsson explained).

  Every type of spider had a particular name. The first part of the name was always the same: araneus. The second part of the name defined the spider. As an example, the first spider to be described in Clerck’s famous publication was labelled araneus angulatus.

  Eva repeated it eagerly to herself. Araneus angulatus. At last, she was learning.

  That night Eva did not dream. Her sleep was as blank as an unwritten letter. She woke in a state of panic, her nightgown damp and sticky with sweat. She tumbled from her bed and looked for the spiders. There they were, each spider crouched at the heart of its web, the webs set at angles to one another like a set of mirrors in a store. The webs emanated a soft, phosphorescent glow. Eva counted them quickly, terrified that one might have been lost.

  “Spider one, spider two, spider three...”

  They were all there.

  “What did I do, spiders?”

  They were offended, she thought. She had failed to ask about their names. The opportunity had been there, to describe them, and she hadn’t taken it! After all, the spiders knew her name. She had profited by their gifts but she had not made enough effort to understand them.

  Over the next few days Eva undertook a careful study of the spiders. She drew pictures, making sure to include the eight eyes, the little palps, as well as the markings on their backs. She hid the drawings under her pillow. Her dreams returned. Eva located the cook’s missing delivery of sugar and warned her mother not to go out for tea until after two o’clock, because there was going to be a rainstorm. Her mother looked perplexed.

  The spiders spun and seemed content.

  Upon Herr Gustafsson’s next visit (the butterfly collection appearing to be more extensive than either Eva’s mother or Gustafsson himself had originally anticipated) Eva managed to smuggle the man of science one of her drawings.

  “I would like to know the name of this spider.”

  Gustafsson promised he would investigate.

  Eva overheard Birgitte say, when she did not think Eva was listening, that it would not be a surprise if Herr Gustafsson were to ask for the hand of Eva’s mother in marriage.

  Birgitte’s acquaintance said it was for the best. Someone was needed to run the household. And then there was the child, without a father. But it was the same for many in Stockholm. The wars...

  Birgitte sighed and nodded. The wars.

  It never seemed to occur to anyone that Eva’s father had not been there to be without. Had they forgotten about the emptiness, or had they never known it was there? The spiders offered greater company than any of the rare, stilted exchanges between Eva and Captain Lindberg. Eva could not bear to think of a time before the spiders.

  Eva had to wait some days before the return of her drawing. Days which passed in a whir of impatience. She could hardly sleep, and her dreams were broken and restless, the spiders unable to speak to her with their usual fluency. They too, were waiting. She needed Gustafsson to return. What if Birgitte was wrong? What if he had finished with the butterflies, and there was no other reason for his visits? Eva could not let down her friends.

  When he finally returned she submitted to Birgitte’s ministrations in silence, surprising the maid into comment.

  “See how nice your hair shines up when you don’t wriggle so!”

  Eva did not care about her hair. She wanted her drawing back.

  She had to sit through her mother’s insistent proffering of tea and cake before there was a chance to speak to Herr Gustafsson alone. He handed her the folded piece of paper with a private wink. In exchange, she presented him with her second study.

  When she unfolded the paper, her hands were trembling so much she almost tore the drawing. A chance to redeem herself. She had waited so long for this!

  Above her drawing of Spider One, Gustafsson had written two words in his ornate script.

  Araneus diadematus.

  “Araneus diadematus,” Eva whispered. “Araneus diadematus.”

  A glow of pleasure warmed her body from head to toe. Araneus diadematus. She knew the name. She had succeeded. She rushed to tell the spiders the news.

  Her dream was death. It was not bold and dramatic, the way the ship had burst in an explosion of gold. It was still and noiseless. There was a garden. At the end of the garden, a glut of blackberry bushes, and spread across the bushes, a vast web, as tall as Eva, as wide as a door. There was a spider at the centre of it, but as Eva approached, premonition sank her heart like a stone.

  The spider was dead.

  She woke sobbing, stricken with grief. Not wanting to see, but knowing she had no choice. For many minutes she lay in her bed, sensing the emptiness beneath her with a weight that had not been present for months. When she finally gathered the courage to crawl from the sheets and look at the space below, it was exactly as she had feared.

  Araneus diadematus was dead in its web, legs curled in on its body as if in a hopeless defence against some unseen foe.

  The others remained. She felt their eyes upon her, eight-fold. In accusation, they were one.

  They knew what she had done. They had known it before she knew herself.

  She prayed that Gustafsson would never return. She repeated the prayer to herself, over and over. If he doesn’t come back, the others are safe. They still gave her dreams, as though they had no choice, in the way that they had no choice but to keep spinning their webs, ever thicker and closer in the space under the bed until there was barely room for Eva’s hand. But Eva could take no pleasure in her foreknowledge, overshadowed as it was by the death of diadematus.

  Autumn advanced again, and the waterways of Stockholm were thick with fallen leaves. Birgitte had no more talk of marriage. Eva dared to hope.

  He won’t come back. He won’t.

  If he doesn’t come back, the others are safe.

  “This was a good one!” said Gustafsson. He was delighted with himself, unable to conceal his enthusiasm. He had no idea of the horror his revelation had unleashed.

  Eva held the paper tightly. She was resolved: she would not open it. If she did not open it, she would not see the name, and the spider would be safe. As soon as she had left the room she could destroy the drawing. Rip it to pieces. Set light to it with her candle. She would burn the evidence to ash.

  Eva’s mother was at the window, commenting on some calamity in the street below.

  “Quick,” whispered Gustafsson. “You can take a look now.”

  She shook her head. Gustafsson withdrew, clearly puzzled by her response. Then his face cleared.

  “Of course, my writing. It’s not very clear. I’d better read it for you. This one is araneus quadratus, the female variety, judging by—�
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  “No!”

  Silence.

  Eva had spoken loudly. She had shouted. Her mother turned, stared at her, shockwaves permeating the serenity of her face.

  “What is the matter, Eva? What excuse do you have for such rudeness?”

  Eva could not speak. The words stuck in her throat. She clamped her hands over her ears, trying to block the name from her memory.

  I won’t remember —

  Dimly she was aware of speech from those around her.

  I won’t remember —

  “So very, very sorry—”

  “Please, it’s of no consequence—”

  “Birgitte!”

  I won’t —

  The maid’s hand was on her shoulder, steering her from the room, into the hallway, up the stairs.

  “What’s got into you then? Don’t you push back, young lady!”

  Eva resisted with all her remaining strength. She did not want to go upstairs. She did not want to go into her room. Tears streamed down her face as Birgitte propelled her firmly, inescapably upwards.

  The housemaid was in her bedroom, cleaning. On the floor was a smear of bloody pulp.

  Quadratus.

  Eva screamed.

  The housemaid had killed quadratus. Stamped on its small round body with her shoe. Birgitte and the maid did not understand. It was a spider, they said, over and over again. It’s dead now. It can’t hurt you. It’s dead.

  You don’t have to be afraid.

  The girl had been acting strangely all morning, said Birgitte. Perhaps she was getting sick. A sleep would calm her down.

  The two of them pressed her into the bed, cocooning her in the sheets, bringing a hot brick to warm her feet. Birgitte prised the sweaty piece of paper from Eva’s hand and unfolded it. A creeping numbness had overcome Eva’s limbs, making her powerless to protest. Birgitte showed the drawing to the maid.