The Spider Ring

by Andrew Harwell

  “I th-thought you were dead,” Maria stammered.

  “If it was up to me, you would still think that,” he said.

  “Are you going to kill me now? The way I bet you killed Grandma Esme?” She wasn’t sure where this sudden boldness came from. She should probably be pleading for her life instead of giving him ideas about ending it. But the thought that this man had double-crossed Grandma Esme, had killed her over some stupid ring with stupid powers, made her so angry she didn’t have any energy left to second-guess herself.

  “What?” the man said, his frown giving way to surprise. “You think I killed Esmerelda? You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I know that these rings help people do things they later regret. I know these rings can get in the way of friends.”

  Arturo sighed. “Well, you’re right, there.” He slumped down onto one of the boxes, planting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. He reminded Maria of Rafi when Rafi was pouting. They had the same stormy eyes.

  Maria inched her body to the left. Arturo looked just distracted enough that she might be able to slip past him and run. The rock steps would be tricky — Maria could already picture him grabbing her ankle as she tried to climb — but that seemed better than being killed in this forgotten cave.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” Arturo said. Had he read her mind with his ring? She’d have to be more careful with her thoughts. “I wish you hadn’t found my hideout,” he continued, “but now that you have, and now that you think I … murdered Esmerelda — well, I suppose I had better explain a few things.”

  Maria wasn’t sure. “How can I trust you?” she asked.

  “You can’t, obviously. But at least you’ve got the right questions. Keep your distrust. It will serve you well.”

  He looked so sad as he said this, Maria felt that she could … not trust him, exactly, but safely lean against this cave wall and hear him out. The second he tried to get up from that box, though, she was out of here.

  “So if you didn’t kill Grandma Esme, what are you doing here in Florida?”

  Arturo tilted his head to the side, as if he was listening to something Maria couldn’t hear. Maybe he and his spiders spoke at a different frequency. He said, “How much of that book did you read?”

  “Enough to know that this isn’t the only spider ring.”

  “Very good. There are eight rings — one for each of the members in the Order of Anansi.”

  “The order of a what?”

  “Anansi. The spider god, trickster god, god of all stories. Perhaps you have heard the tale of the time he rescued stories from the sky god, only you forgot his name. You would not be the first. His name is as slippery and treacherous as he is.”

  “And you’re saying this … Anansi … is real?”

  “In a sense. When you tell a story enough times, it has a way of coming true, whether it was true in the first place or not.”

  Maria could see that. She doubted she herself could have become the shadow queen if she hadn’t first known the stories about what shadow queens were.

  “In any event, whether or not Anansi himself is real, the Order of Anansi most certainly is. And, as you have seen yourself, their powerful rings are quite real, too.”

  Maria looked down at the ring on her finger. For so long it had been Grandma Esme’s ring, “a gift from a friend.” The idea that it was actually an ancient relic that had been passed down through the years, like the book, made her a little dizzy.

  “So you’re saying you and Grandma Esme were part of this Order, and I never knew it?”

  Arturo glanced around the cave, as if there might be some prop or picture that would help him explain. “How much did your grandmother tell you about her past with me?”

  “Well, she said that she used to be a lion tamer, and you were a magician. And she said that you two used to travel around Europe doing your performances. I even found a poster from one of the shows. That’s how I knew who you were.” She half expected him to congratulate her on this point, as if she’d made some brilliant deduction. He hardly nodded. “Anyway, that’s all.”

  “So she never told you the story of how we met?”

  “No,” Maria said sheepishly, like she’d gotten the answer wrong on a test. She felt silly and even a little embarrassed. Her grandmother had led a fascinating life, and while Maria had certainly appreciated her stories, she had never bothered to ask her for more.

  “Then that’s where we’ll start. You might want to sit down.”

  Maria still didn’t trust Arturo completely. If anything, she was even warier now. She knew that telling a story was like spinning a spiderweb. A good storyteller could lure you in, and before you knew it, it was too late — you were trapped. Maria would listen to Arturo’s story, but she wouldn’t let herself get lost in it. She was lost in too many stories already.

  “All right,” Arturo said. “Many years ago, in the city of Cahul …”

  ARTURO’S STORY

  The sun had barely crested the hill on Strada Denoir when Arturo came bounding down the stairs and out the door to his bicycle.

  The tiny house they shared with the Marandici family had such pitiful insulation, it hardly protected them all from the winter cold, let alone from the echo of footsteps and arguments. When one person in the house got up for the day, everyone did. Which meant that if Arturo had woken up just a few minutes later, or if he had taken longer to get ready, Nadia and Alec Marandici would have beaten him out here, and he and his bicycle would have been stuck for hours.

  Arturo stuffed the brown paper package with the lamb shank in his basket, then placed the brown paper packages with the cotton shirt and the lace gloves on top. He’d learned the hard way what happened if he got the order wrong, when he’d pulled out the socks for Mrs. Saguna and found them covered in beef juice. His family had eaten poorly that week.

  Today, two of his three deliveries were going to the same place. The Ionescus had been one of the first families willing to pay for their meat and their stitching to be delivered, and they were still some of Arturo’s best customers. He liked riding his bicycle to their house because Mrs. Ionescu always gave him a piece of candy. The Ionescus never ate poorly.

  Because he’d left his house so early, Arturo still had a few hours left before he and his packages would be welcome. He rode through town, where the rising sun on the stone pillars and archways always made him feel like he was somewhere else, somewhere magical. Somewhere where war hadn’t planted its deep roots in the ground.

  Once, when he was little, and Cahul was still a Russian city, Arturo had seen a parade of soldiers march down this very street. The display had been meant to inspire the city’s citizens, but Arturo had been more afraid than moved. Today, the city’s history of territorial disputes still peeked out everywhere in Cahul. There were even soldiers from the Great War in the city hospital, some of them on the mend, some of them only biding their time.

  As he rode by the hospital now, Arturo saw a girl about his own age leaning out of the window. She was emptying a bedpan, but the sight of Arturo on his bicycle left her slack-jawed and gaping. Arturo was used to that. Bicycles were rare in Cahul, especially among kids. He was only allowed to have one because his parents couldn’t make the deliveries themselves.

  Not wanting the lamb to spoil, Arturo decided it was time to stop dawdling. As always, the Ionescus’ sprawling brick house took his breath away. Arturo left his bicycle on the sidewalk and went to knock on their door.

  “Arturo, good morning,” said Mrs. Ionescu. “Come in. Would you like a candy?”

  “Yes, please,” Arturo said, and she smiled. It was always easier to show good manners when he wasn’t around his own family. He followed Mrs. Ionescu inside with a brown paper package in each hand.

  “Dimitri is just getting up, but I’m sure he would be happy to see you as well. He was just asking me yesterday when you were coming again …”

  When Arturo left the hous
e nearly a half hour later, already wondering when he would get to come back, he saw right away that his bicycle was gone. How could he have been so stupid! Of course someone had taken it. Wouldn’t he have done the same thing?

  After he’d searched the whole block, Arturo finally gave up. He’d just have to make the deliveries on foot. Either that, or his family would starve.

  About a week or so later, after Arturo had endured punishment from his father, two calloused feet from his deliveries, and one insufferable day of gloating from Alec and Nadia, a girl appeared at their door. She had his bicycle in tow.

  “I found it near my house,” she said, looking Arturo right in the face. “I could tell from the shirt that it must belong to you.” She handed him a brown paper package with a shirt tucked inside.

  “You found me from one cotton shirt?” Arturo said.

  “It’s not many people who deliver cotton in butcher paper.”

  Arturo wrapped his fingers around his handlebars, recalling the wonderful feeling of power and speed. But the girl hadn’t let go yet.

  “Why do I feel like I’ve seen you before?” Arturo asked.

  “Because you did see me. I didn’t think you’d remember, though. I work at the hospital with my mom. She’s a proper nurse. I just clean the rooms and keep people company.”

  “Well, thanks for bringing my bicycle back. You don’t know how much I needed this.”

  “Yes,” the girl said, picking at a hole in the sleeve of her threadbare dress, “I do.”

  That was the day Arturo and Esmerelda became friends. It was years before Esmerelda admitted she hadn’t found the bicycle at all. In fact, she’d stolen it, and returned it only when she heard from Nadia Marandici that the Antonescu boy had lost his bicycle and been punished for it.

  They rode their bicycles to the mineral springs for months, ignoring the swiftly changing tides of the world. It wasn’t until Esmerelda’s tire caught on a rock one day that they discovered the cave.

  “Your knee is bleeding,” Arturo said, running over to help her back to her feet.

  “It’s just a scratch,” Esmerelda said, taking his hand.

  Once again, they’d been going too fast. That’s what happened when Arturo let Esmerelda get in front. Seventeen years old, and still she was no closer to acting like a young lady than she had been when they met. Now her front wheel was bent beyond function, and they were stranded on the far side of the lake just as raindrops were starting to fall. It would take them many hours to walk home.

  “Let’s take cover in there,” Arturo said, pointing to an opening in the rock beside them. Ferns and grass grew almost completely over the entrance, as if no one had been in the cave for a long time.

  “How far back do you think it goes?” Esmerelda asked, leading them in without waiting for his answer.

  Fortunately, the cave wasn’t very deep at all. They could still see by the light trickling in from outside when they reached the back. And what they saw there was surprising indeed. Uniforms, weapons, wooden chests of supplies — all of it buried under a thick layer of cobwebs. It looked like they’d found a military outpost.

  “Do you think these are from this war, or the last one?” Esmerelda said, brushing away a web and picking up a sword that still looked sharp.

  “Neither one,” Arturo said, though he suspected she’d been joking. “I think this is all much older. Just look at this map.” He angled the crumbling parchment in his hands so that she could see it over his shoulder. The map depicted the Ottoman Empire, a place Arturo only knew about from history class.

  “How are we ever going to get it all back?”

  “Back? You mean, you want to take this stuff? I guess once a thief, always a thief.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you I’m sorry about that?” Esmerelda asked. She didn’t sound very sorry anymore.

  “I just worry about what will happen when the owners of this stuff come looking for it. What if they’re pirates? Or killers? That’s how it would go in a story.”

  “Well, this isn’t a story. And no one has been here in ages, clearly. Unless you count the spiders.”

  Arturo wasn’t convinced.

  “Fine. What if we each just take one thing?” she said.

  “One thing?”

  “Just one. I already know what I’m picking.”

  Esmerelda grabbed a necklace with a purple stone pendant and placed it over her head. The necklace looked stunning on her.

  “All right, then. You win, as usual,” Arturo said, laughing. “What about this?” He grabbed an old officer’s coat from one of the chests. When he pushed his arms through the sleeves, he was amazed to discover that it was a perfect fit.

  “You were meant to find it,” Esmerelda said.

  Arturo smiled. The past few months had been so full of uncertainty, it was wonderful for something to feel like it made sense.

  “Now come on,” she said. “The rain has stopped, and I can ride back on your handlebars. We’ll come back here later with a tool to fix my bicycle.”

  They left the cave then, giddy with their discoveries. But they would never see this cave, or Esmerelda’s bicycle, again.

  A few nights later, in the quiet of his room, Arturo put on his coat once more, imagining that he really was a storied officer and not a boy about to become a pawn — either for the Germans or for the Russians, it hardly seemed to matter.

  He felt a knot poking him in the ribs, and at first, he thought it must be a stray button. But when there was no button in sight, Arturo realized there must be something inside the lining of the coat. Knowing that his mother could always sew it back up, Arturo retrieved a knife from the kitchen and cut into the fabric. Inside, he discovered a hidden pocket made from a fine, white silk that seemed awfully extravagant for something not meant to be seen. He turned the pocket over.

  Two rings fell into his hand.

  They were rings unlike any Arturo had ever seen. In place of jewels, each ring had a large, lifelike spider. One had long, thin legs and a kind of plate armor on its back; the other had tiny legs but a large glass body.

  Arturo couldn’t imagine why these rings had been hidden away in the secret pocket of this coat. He finally decided it was so that he could discover them — that just like the coat itself, he had been meant to find them.

  Arturo knew what these rings were for. It couldn’t wait. He had to see Esmerelda.

  “I just don’t understand why we have to leave like this, in the middle of the night, without a word to our parents.”

  “Fine, we can leave them notes.”

  Esmerelda crossed her arms. Her eyes darted to her bedroom door, as if her parents might be on the other side listening in.

  “You know what I mean,” she said.

  “I don’t think you understand how serious this is, Esmerelda. In another week, I could be off fighting, and then it won’t matter how much we love each other or whether we have our parents’ blessing.”

  Esmerelda bit her lip and scowled. It was the face she often made when she was reading a book and came to a part she didn’t like.

  “This all sounds very dangerous, Arturo.”

  “That’s exactly why I thought you’d be excited.”

  “It is sort of exciting, isn’t it?” she said, cracking a smile. Then she seemed to remember where she was. “But how will we make any money? What will we do?”

  “We could sell these rings,” Arturo said.

  Esmerelda looked down at the ring on her left hand. Arturo had taken his mother’s ash-wood box — the one in which she stored needles in one end and thread in the other — and placed the ring that looked more like Esmerelda in it. In the other end, he’d written her a note, so that she could read, rather than hear, the question: Will you marry me?

  “I don’t want to sell the ring,” she said finally. “I only just got it.”

  “Then we’ll figure something else out. Esmerelda, you have to trust me.”

  Neither of them coul
d imagine the web that had drawn them in from that night onward. A web as old as war and as deadly, too.

  In accepting these rings, Arturo and Esmerelda had forever changed the course of their lives. They believed they were embarking upon a new story, when in fact they had been drawn into a story already long in place.

  “For that is the blessing and the curse of youth, you must understand,” Arturo told Maria now. “Believing that no one else has lived your story before, and no one else will live it again. But I have been where you are now, Maria. I used my powers without regard for the consequences, and I was found out, just as you have been.”

  “Found out by you?” Maria asked.

  Arturo sadly shook his head. “I wish it were only by me. I am not your enemy. But the Black Widow — the Black Widow knows you have the ring. She killed Esmerelda … and now she is after you.”

  She’d held off through his entire story, but now, at the end, Maria finally sat down.

  “So you and Grandma Esme were married?” she said.

  Arturo didn’t respond. He spun his ring around his finger.

  “I still don’t understand. Who is the Black Widow? A person?”

  “In most senses, but not all. The Black Widow is the most powerful and treacherous of all in the Order of Anansi. For years, she has been hunting down the other members of the Order and killing them for their rings.”

  “Why?”

  “The rings all draw their power from the spiders, but they each have their own special qualities, as unique as their species. A person who has more than one ring increases her or his power exponentially. According to legend, a person who collects all eight rings will have power to rival that of Anansi himself.”

  “‘Legend’ meaning that book?” Maria said, nodding toward the leather tome.