by Tobias Wade
The creature stood and watched until Grandpa and the arms vanished. Then as suddenly as it appeared, it turned and walked back into the darkness.
The moment it was gone, so too was the calm that had blanketed my body and mind.
The 911 operator could barely understand me when I finally got my legs to work and made it to the house phone. I was sobbing and hysterical, and mostly all I could say was, “Grandpa’s in the ground!”
Cops and firefighters and paramedics filled the front yard. They thought my grandfather might have had a heart attack or a stroke, and I was too young to know how to explain it properly. It took some time to make them understand that I meant what I said: Grandpa was in the ground.
They dug up the freshly tilled earth of the garden where I’d last seen grandfather. They had to go down almost six feet before they found his body. It was covered in deep fingernail scratches, his limbs nearly torn off at the sockets, buried amongst six others in a mass grave.
I knew the way to Grandpa’s by heart.
An hour up the highway, another on small country roads; and then you start seeing signs for the Native American reservation off to the right. A reservation that nine women had gone missing from in ten years.
A reservation that had been ignored when it sought help from the local police department after the first two women vanished while hitchhiking down those small country roads.
A reservation that had been ignored by the media when its council asked for coverage detailing the disappearances.
Then it’s just past the same three billboards, one for a missing person; a Native American woman named Dana Young. She was 21 when she left home to catch a ride into the city after her mom couldn’t give her a lift. Her family and friends searched for years, without any real help from surrounding authorities. Every year, they paid to keep that billboard up in the hopes someone would see it and recognize Dana.
They didn’t know that she was just twenty minutes up the road.
They didn’t know she was lying beneath a vegetable garden that had expanded six times over.
They didn’t know the friendly old man, whose house they had stopped at with fliers, who had smiled in sympathy while promising to call if he saw or heard anything, was the same one who had taken her.
Two of the women were never found, but jewelry belonging to them—a wedding ring and a necklace—were discovered in my grandfather’s safe. They were the first two to go missing.
The ninth and final woman, who had disappeared only three days prior to my visit and who received nothing more than a small blurb in the local paper, was found. She was clinging to life in a cellar dug beneath the old barn behind the cornfield Grandpa never let anyone near. He said it was unsafe, that it was where he stored his old tools and machinery. He said he didn’t want someone walking in and hurting themselves.
No one had ever questioned him.
The woman, Pauline Smith, had carved a single word into the wooden beam she’d been shackled to using only her fingernails and blood.
Airsekui
The cops didn’t know what it meant, nor did they care much. They were too busy being baffled over Grandpa’s death and my version of events that led up to it. That was their biggest concern.
Not why those women had been murdered.
Not why no one had investigated more.
Not why nothing had been done by anyone off the reservation.
All they cared about was the strange way my grandpa and all of his farm animals died.
I had nightmares for years afterward. The screams I’d heard, the waving arms sticking up out of the ground, and of my grandfather, the murderer who had fed me vegetables grown from the bodies of his victims.
I never had nightmares about the bear-headed man, though. I only ever saw him when my dreams grew too dark and I was so afraid that my own heartbeat pounding against my ribs threatened to wake me. He would appear to me then, just on the edge of my vision, and I would hear those same words I’d heard that night. I would feel the same peace.
You do not need to be afraid. You are an innocent.
It took many years before I was able to look back at that night, at those deaths, and start to piece together what I had seen. I had to dig deep, to go through tons of old articles, to re-read all the horrible things about Grandpa that I’d been trying to forget. I found the answer in a single word that a desperate woman had broken her nails off to spell out in wood.
Airsekui
There wasn’t much information, but enough.
It was a name that belonged to a being almost lost in the internet age. From what little I could find, there was debate over exactly what had originally been—a god of fire or a god of war—but his later place in his pantheon was clear. He had been a great spirit, one that was called upon in times of peril.
Pauline Smith, knowing that she was part of an often overlooked and ignored group, had kept her faith. Not in the police, or in the authorities who tossed those smiling photos of others like her aside. Not in the media, who gave her a single paragraph at the bottom of a newspaper page. Not in a billboard that hundreds of people drove by every day without ever really seeing.
She had had faith in something greater, and she had cried out.
And Airsekui had listened.
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Spider Girl
When my daughter was young, she liked to make up silly rules for our household. On Wednesday evenings, we all wore a sock on our right foot, but nothing on our left; if someone sneezed, the only polite response was “Godzilla nights”; if you dropped something you were carrying, you had to leave it on the floor for at least ten seconds to see if the gnomes who lived under our fridge wanted it. They were silly things that made sense only in Melody’s toddler mind.
My husband, Felix, and I thought it was cute and creative, and we played along since there was no harm in it.
We always knew when a new rule was coming because she would take us both by the hand, regardless of what we were doing, and lead us to the couch. She would sit us down and squeeze herself between us.
“What’s up, Sprout?” Felix asked one evening after our four year old dragged us to the living room.
“New rule!” she practically shrieked.
We nodded, solemn and expectant.
“No killing spiders,” she said.
“But you don’t like spiders,” I replied, trying to suppress my smile.
“I do!” It was certainly a change of tune from the last time she’d seen one. She’d cried for hours, even after Felix disposed of it.
“Oh yeah? Since when?”
“I like them ‘cos they like me.” She glanced up at us, daring us to question such sound logic.
“Ok then.” Felix nodded. “Spiders are our friends.”
“Yeah!”
After we tucked her in, my husband and I shared a quiet laugh.
“They must be covering Charlotte’s Web at daycare or something,” I said.
“Must be.”
As far as the rules went, it really wasn’t such a bad one. I didn’t enjoy killing things to begin with, even creepy, eight-legged crawlies, and logically I knew they were good for deterring other pests. Still, I made Felix handle the actual removal from the house. Melody was very careful to oversee all spider extractions (from behind the safety of Daddy’s legs), and made sure they were always placed gently in the bushes at the front and back doors.
She even started naming them.
“The biggest is Buttercup; she’s black and has long legs and big eyes and likes to sit outside my window. Then there’s Spaghetti and Blue and Tomorrow…” she explained from her booster seat while I drove her to daycare.
“There’s a spider named Tomorrow?”
“Yup. He’s little and stays away
from Buttercup ‘cos she’s the queen spider and he’s not allowed near her.”
“Right, right, of course.”
Most little girls played with dolls or begged for a puppy. Mine named spiders and made up a hierarchy for them. Lucky me.
Sometimes I’d find her outside in the fenced backyard, crouched beside the bushes, talking to Buttercup and her loyal subjects. Melody told the spiders about her day in a long, rambling monologue, and then ask them how their day was and what they’d done. She never tried to touch them, never disturbed the delicate webs that were woven in the depths of the bushes. She just talked to them.
It was such an abrupt change from the wide-eyed terror she used to experience. About a week after she set the new rule, I had to ask her where her newfound love of arachnid kind came from.
“Buttercup,” she said.
“Buttercup? The queen spider?”
“Yeah. She’s nice. She protects me.”
“She...what? Protects you?” I couldn’t stop the baffled frown from crossing my face.
“Yup. From the not-nice.”
“W-where’d you get that idea, Sprout?”
“She told me. The not-nice watch from outside, but they’re scared of Buttercup. She keeps them away.”
“The spider talks to you?”
Melody shrugged nonchalantly. “Sometimes. I wanna go play.”
“Yeah, sure. Dinner’s soon though.”
I watched her scamper off down the hall to her room with a chill in my gut. I wasn’t worried about Melody thinking she could talk to animals or even that she picked spiders. Kids did weird, goofy stuff like that all the time. What worried me was that she felt like she had something to be afraid of.
“She called them not-nice,” I said to Felix after we’d gone to bed that night. “She said they watch her from outside and the spiders keep them away.”
“Kid’s got one hell of an imagination,” Felix replied sleepily.
“Where would she get that kind of idea from, though? Is she scared of something?”
“You’re over thinking it, babe. She’s four. She just...says stuff.”
While Felix drifted off to sleep beside me, I stayed awake. I stared into darkness, wondering how such a young child would even be able to come up with those kinds of ideas.
Melody didn’t seem phased, though, nor did she seem afraid. She was the same happy wild child she’d always been, just with more spiders. I kept an extremely close eye on her, actively searching for any signs that someone might be watching her from a distance. I kept all the doors locked even when we were home. Felix thought I was overreacting, but I couldn’t shake that initial chill I’d gotten.
I started following Melody into the backyard when she went out to play. I’d sit with an open, but unread, book in my lap, and I’d watch her. When she wasn’t talking to the spiders, she’d bring toys over to the row of bushes and busy herself with playing pretend, completely unbothered by the glossy webbing and its inhabitants lurking only feet away.
Sometimes I’d even catch sight of Buttercup out of the corner of my eye. For how large she was, about the size of my fist, she was an expert at staying hidden.
“Mommy,” Melody said one afternoon while we were sitting in the yard, “Buttercup says you don’t have to be afraid.”
I jumped slightly and looked at my daughter, who was kneeling next to the bushes as usual. Beside her, almost invisible in the shadows, I thought I saw the outline of a very large spider.
“She says that the not-nice won’t hurt me while she’s here.”
Melody was back to her games before I had a chance to respond. I swallowed the tight ball of anxious fear in my throat. I tried to tell myself that it was just make believe, just my daughter and her crazy imagination. That didn’t stop all the little hairs on my arm from standing on end.
It also didn’t stop me from staring at those bushes and feeling countless little eyes staring back.
Felix tried to be understanding when I broached the subject with him again, but I knew he was still convinced it was just a little kid’s nonsense.
“You weren’t there. You didn’t hear her,” I said, struggling to control my frustration.
“I know, I know,” Felix sighed. “Can I be honest, babe?”
I stiffened, but nodded.
“I think you’re stressed out. Between working and being an awesome mom, you’re fried. I think you and I should take a day, just us two, and go out.”
“But Melody—”
“We’ll call my parents; they’ll be thrilled to watch her.”
“I don’t know…”
“C’mon, Keira, we haven’t had real us time in ages! It’ll help you relax, Melody will get to spend time with Nono and Pop Pop; we all win.”
He playfully poked and prodded, hugged and cajoled until I relented. I still had my doubts, but I also thought that Felix could be on to something. Maybe I’d been letting my anxiety get the best of me. We made plans for an afternoon river boat ride, followed up with a nice lunch and a visit to the beach. All nice, stress-free things to help take my mind off the fact that my daughter was conveying creepy messages from a spider.
We made arrangements with Felix’s parents for the following Saturday, and I spent the rest of the week convincing myself I had nothing to worry about.
“Is it ok if we order pizza for lunch?” Felix’s dad asked when they arrived to babysit.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Dillon. I brought stuff to make sandwiches!” Felix’s mom replied. “Honestly, a pizza.”
Pop Pop winked at Melody, who giggled, and shrugged. “I tried.”
“Thanks for watching her,” I said, giving them both a hug and kiss. I almost mentioned not letting her go outside by herself, and keeping the doors locked and watching for suspicious behavior, but the pleading look from Felix stopped me. He just wanted one nice afternoon; I had to try and give him that.
And I tried, I really did. We sat, hand in hand, on the slow moving river boat, admiring the view. We talked and laughed over a delicious lunch, but Melody was always in the back of my mind. I could just hear her little voice talking about Buttercup and the not-nice.
Felix sensed my continued unease.
“My parents are with her. She’s fine,” he said as we paid the restaurant bill.
“I know, you’re probably right.”
“But you want to skip going to the beach and head right home anyway.”
I thought about denying it, but then sagged in my chair. “Yeah,” I admitted at last.
“At least we got lunch.”
“I’m sorry, babe.”
“Not your fault. I know you can’t turn off Mommy Brain.”
I smiled guilty at him and he rolled his eyes. He leaned over to give me a kiss.
“If only I hadn’t encouraged our kid to be so weird,” he said.
I actually did feel a bit better during the drive home. Knowing Felix didn’t hold my concern for Melody, as silly as he might think it was, lifted a large weight I hadn’t even realized I’d been carrying. We talked about how to start distancing Melody from the spiders to make things a little more normal for us all the way home. When we pulled into the driveway, we shared another smile, another kiss, and then climbed out of the car.
We could hear Melody screaming long before we got into the house.
We burst through the door, asking over each other what had happened. Melody was sitting in the middle of the floor, her face red and wet with tears, screaming. Her grandparents were trying futilely to comfort her.
“There was a spider near her outside,” Pop Pop said helplessly. “A big one. I thought it might bite her so I—”
“Oh no,” I groaned, “you didn’t.”
While I tried to soothe Melody, Felix explained that the spider Pop Pop had stomped on had been Melody’s kind-of pet that she had been very fond of. Pop Pop and Nono were very apologetic, but Melody was inconsolable. Sh
e cried for hours, even after they’d left and Felix had sprayed Buttercup’s remains away with the hose. She only fell asleep when she was too exhausted to continue.
Melody refused to go outside for a good week after that. She would argue and sob if we tried to make her, yelling that the not-nice would get her because Buttercup was gone. I didn’t know what to do. She was so upset, and nothing we said made a difference, even when we tried to tell her that it was all in her imagination. We were all at our wit’s end.
Until Felix came home with a paper bag. He put it down in front of Melody and told her that Buttercup II was inside. Our daughter eyed him furiously, but reached in. She came out with a large, stuffed spider with a friendly smile and googly eyes.
“She’s going to protect you,” Felix said with a great deal of seriousness. “Just like Buttercup did.”
Melody seemed uncertain, but after a bit more convincing from Felix, she was hugging the stuffed animal. She told it that she was so glad to have her Buttercup back.
“Think you wanna go outside and show her to the other spiders?”
“No,” Melody said. “They all left ‘cos Pop Pop squished the queen.”
“Oh,” Felix said. “Well, what if you bring it out and show them their new queen? Maybe they’ll come back.”
“They will?” The prospect sparked a joyful light I hadn’t seen in Melody’s eyes since Buttercup’s untimely end.
“Sure!”
With Buttercup II tucked under her arm, Melody darted outside, calling for Spaghetti and Blue and Tomorrow.
I sank into Felix’s arms and hugged him tight. “Thank you.”
“Sometimes all it takes is a little Daddy Brain to solve a problem.” He grinned.
We laughed and he went to get changed out of his work clothes while I went to start dinner.
I chopped up two potatoes before the silence hit me. No jabbering monologue. No giggles, none of the usual noises I usually heard when Melody was playing in the backyard. I wiped my hands on the front of my shirt and went to the window, expecting to see her crouched in front of the bushes.