Tell him to let go! Intuition insisted.
“Let go,” she repeated.
There was another slight movement from the bundle, then the faun’s voice came whispering out. “No, Lucy, I can’t.”
He must, or we’re all dead, said Intuition. He has to let go. He has to let it out.
What are you talking about? Let go of what? Let what out? Lucy asked.
Moonlight, you dullard, he snapped. Just get him to let go!
“Talbot, please, let go,” she pleaded again, even though she had no idea what she was asking.
A dark scuttling sound approached from the tunnel entrance.
“I can’t,” said Talbot.
Make him do it, said Intuition.
“Talbot!” Lucy screamed, as the dark, hulking shape of Miss Redd clawed her way into the room.
Her bulbous body only just squeezed through the tunnel entrance. Her scuttling legs scrabbled and scratched upon the larder walls, as her eight, arachnid eyes scanned the room. A noxious stench of rotting blood and filth, followed her through the passageway, spewing into the larder.
“Are we wakenings, little wanderer?” asked Miss Redd, through her chattering maw, as her eyes alighted on Lucy.
The giant spider crossed the larder with frightening speed until she was nose to nose with Lucy. Her front two spider legs, each ending in a cruel talon, stabbed into the wall on either side of Lucy’s head.
Miss Redd’s eight, black eyes stared at Lucy with an alien menace. It would have made Lucy shiver if she hadn’t been bound. She tried to pull away, but the silken threads were far too tight.
“Don’t froth so, dearie,” chittered Miss Redd. “You make blood boil. No good, no good, all clotty-clot. Soon is time for dinner-drinkings. My children drain your friends, then I slurps you, yes? Won’t that be nice? You be a meal fit for a queen. Fit for Queen Redd.”
The spider laughed in a thick phlegmy voice, which made Lucy think of blood flowing down a drain. The cankerous, sanguine stench of the spider’s breath wafted up her nose. She could see, within the spider’s eyes, eight bound and helpless Lucys, each with panic etched upon their faces.
Get Talbot to let go now! screamed Intuition.
“Talbot!” Lucy yelled, as one of Miss Redd’s cruelly curved claws caressed her cheek.
There was a tearing sound, like wet cloth being ripped.
Miss Redd paused in her gloating. The giant spider-queen turned curiously to view the bundle. She chittered and her front legs gave a little wave of agitation.
“What is?” asked the arachnid queen.
More ripping and cracking noises came from the beating cocoon. There was a cry of pain, which Lucy recognised as emanating from Talbot, except it didn’t sound like him. The noise was deeper and yet she understood it was him.
When it happens, get ready to run, said Intuition.
When what happens?
You really are an idiot, Gayle, said Intuition. Moonlight—just like your father said, apparently. This larder is lit by moonlight coming in through that crack up on the side wall, over there.
A shaft of moonlight illuminated the larder to an eerie half-light.
And, Talbot is a werewolf, concluded Intuition.
Her mind made the connection but there was no more time. The cocoon of silk, which held Talbot split, spilling the faun to the floor. His skin was pale and bubbled like a warming soup as the change took over.
Lucy wanted to turn her head away, but she couldn’t. She was trapped by her own silken prison. She watched in horror as Talbot’s face cracked and the wolf inside burst forth.
There were the familiar sounds of snapping sinew and crunching bone as the wolf-Talbot rearranged its limbs into a lupine configuration.
It sat upon its haunches—a great brown wolf. Its fur was matted with excess fluids, and its muzzle snapped and snarled, showing rotting, yellow teeth.
“Wolfen!” the spider-queen cried. She scuttled away back up the wall as ice-cold eyes fixed on her.
“Wolfen! It an wolfen. Nasty, bitey chit-chit. Wolfen in my house!” screamed Queen Redd as she reversed up the wall, her bulbous abdomen knocking the cocoons of her victims as she passed.
The wolf-Talbot stalked the spider. Its shoulders hunched and angular like the archways in a Gothic cathedral. A growl, slowly seeping from its throat, steadily grew in menace. Inexorably, the werewolf edged closer to its prey.
“Away, wolfen,” gibbered Queen Redd, waving her front limbs at the advancing predator. “Stay back or I use the ice fire on you. Burn you good.”
“No,” growled the wolf. Lucy could just hear the edge of Talbot’s voice inside the husky drawl. “There’s no magic left, spider. You used it all up. It’s as dry as a bone-yard around here.”
A small spiderling dashed from a dark corner.
One moment the werewolf was focused on the spider-witch, the next it had leapt across the larder, pounced on the spiderling and gnashed it between its yellow teeth. Thick black ichor dribbled from the wolf’s mouth as the last of the legs disappeared down its throat. A large red tongue lapped the nigrine juice from its muzzle.
“My baby!” screamed the witch, two of her legs raised above her head in horror. “You eats my baby!” The arachnoid sizzle in her voice crackled and whined like an out-of-tune radio.
Another spiderling made a dash for the doorway.
The wolf’s paw shot out and trapped the small spider by a leg.
It chittered and screeched as the wolf brought pressure down on the trapped appendage.
Queen Redd snapped. With a last cry, half of anguish, half of rage, Queen Redd charged the wolf. The wolf-Talbot ducked between the massive spider’s legs and leapt at an exposed flank. The two of them dissolved into a blur of pitching motion as if they were a tumbleweed caught in a hurricane. Wolf and spider formed a continuous ball of teeth and legs, hair and hide, eyes and claws.
Now, is our chance, said Intuition, as the two monsters slashed and nipped at each other. Pop your shoulder. Move it out of its socket. That way, you can get your arm free and up out through the gap below your neck.
What are you talking about?
Escaping from a straightjacket, come on, get on with it, said Intuition. Pop your shoulder, get your arm free and reach over to the little ball of silk. Inside the ball is your backpack and inside that is your knife.
But, I can’t. Wait! You planned all this from “moonshine?”
Gayle, get on with it, he sighed. I know you can do this. You know you can do this. Even your dead father knows you can do this. You’ve read all about straitjacket escapes in your prestidigitation books. This is even easier than that. You hardly have to do anything at all. Just pop your right shoulder out of its socket.
I can’t do that. I’ve never been able to do that.
Fine, be like that. Just hang and die. You asked me for a way out. Here it is. Pop your flippin’ shoulder, or I’ll pop it for you, finished the spell, menacingly.
I can’t pop my shoulder, you idiot, she snapped. Shoulders don’t pop just like that. You have to smash it against something, or, something has to rip it out of the socket first. There has to be some sort of trauma to cause it to dislocate in the first place, and I’ve never had that.
Shut up, Gayle, said Intuition. I don’t know why you can’t remember it, but you have dislocated your shoulder, and recently too. The cartilage hasn’t even begun to heal.
Something tickled at her mind’s rear. Hot, sour sweat and rancid breath on the day she met the wizard. She’d met Bechet and gone into his study. She’d been given the key, and then there was an explosion, and she’d been blown out of the study door. Had she hurt her arm at that time?
Hot, rancid breath. Hot, rancid breath and blood trickling down her inner thigh. The explosion went off, and she’d felt like she had been in a fight because of the explosion—that is what she had convinced herself of. She hurt her arm in the explosion at Bechet’s door? Had she popped it then? She couldn’t re
member that, but it was certainly a possibility.
Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Rancid breath, and blood on her inner thigh, and syphilis, oh my!
Wait—what was that? Was that true? Was that what awaited her as a final truth in a world of make believe? She couldn’t think of it. It was too horrible, but a coal-black germ of terror began to grow within her brain.
I’ll prove it to you, said Intuition. Don’t fight me on this, Gayle, you’ll only end up hurting yourself more.
Why? What are you going to…
Her right arm moved on its own. Her hand twitched. Her forearm tensed and then crack! She felt the shudder of her shoulder popping. The sensation flew up her collar bone and down to her stomach at the same moment. Pain, unbelievable pain, and a sick sloshing sensation in her guts as spiny tingles ran along her arm.
There, said Intuition, triumphantly, told you it came out.
Lucy didn’t reply as the awful sensation of her own disembodied hand began to crawl across her belly and slowly finger its way up her side. Memories from the day with Bechet flooded her mind. Her hands spread upon the floor, gravel digging into her palms, digging into her knees. Huge, coarse hands all over her body: pulling, ripping, crying, tension, thrusting. Stark light, bright light. Her childhood crashing around her.
No! She shook her head. That wasn’t true. Lucy’s brain spun with this new possibility as the monstrous wolf and spider tumbled before her eyes. She pushed the memories to the back of her mind, but it kept resurfacing, like a grotesque corpse in a river.
Lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my!
Thrusting, and crying, and syphilis, oh my!
No, it’s impossible, I’ve never, oh my!
She stamped on the thought. She couldn’t, didn’t want to, deal with it—not now, not ever.
The germ of her fear grew larger. The dark voice, not Intuition, but her own dark-self, crept through her mind
I told you I would be back. You will have to deal with it, sooner or later.
A numb tingling feeling flowed through her arm as it reached the hole in the cobwebs just below her neck. She saw her own hand reach out to the bundle containing her backpack.
This is a lot harder than it looks, said Intuition, as the fighting pair of monsters detached from each other.
Blood and ichor dripped freely from each of them. The wolf-Talbot’s fur was matted with blood and foaming sweat. Saliva and blood in equal measures dribbled from the large gash in his muzzle. One ear was torn off. Only a tiny bloodied stump remained like a vandalised gravestone. Where its fur wasn’t matted, it stood straight up in electric heat. Its eyes glowed with an icy fire.
Queen Redd was no better off. A cut crossed her face, blinding her in three of her eyes. She held one of her legs at an awkward angle as if it were broken. Her bulbous carapace was lacerated with scratches and bites each seeping the stinking ichor which passed for her blood.
“Go away, wolfen,” spat the spider. “You stay. We fight. At least one dies. Leave now, wolfen. No come back.”
“Can’t leave,” panted the wolf. “Both of us must die.”
“Why?” asked the spider, with a firm set to her remaining eyes.
“We’re both monsters. Monsters can’t be allowed to live,” snapped the werewolf, as it leapt at the spider again.
He really is an idiot, said Intuition, rummaging through her backpack with her disembodied arm.
Why? asked Lucy, fighting down another wave of nausea.
He was never going to run. He’s being an idiot because he wants to die. Where is that flippin’ knife? Why is your bag so untidy?
He wants to die?
Yes, he thinks you won’t love him if he’s a werewolf and, since there’s no cure for it, he wants to die.
Wait…what? she said in surprise.
Oh, yes, of course. You haven’t figured it out. Talbot is in love with you. Has been since the beginning. Ah ha, got it! Now, I just cut the silk, and we’re good to go.
Lucy was stunned.
Talbot is in love with me?
Yep. Messy, isn’t it? Talbot is in love with you, and you, well, you have convinced yourself you have feelings for a boy named Ravi, someone you’ve never even spoken to. Messy, messy, messy, and everyone is going to be disappointed. Sounds like love to me.
Talbot is in love with me? she repeated.
Oh, come on, Gayle, I know you have some self-esteem issues, but is it really that surprising? Of course, he’s in love with you. In this world you’re someone important, someone with a lot of power and purpose. You’re a hero for flip’s sake. Is it really that odd that a backward, idiot, farm faun would have a crush on you? Yes, it’s sad and tragic, doomed to failure and is the plot of a bad Jane Austin rip off aimed at a tween audience, but it’s not important right now. Come on, struggle. We have to escape. Help me break these bonds.
Intuition cut with the knife and Lucy wriggled. There was a tearing sound, like bedsheets being ripped. She oozed from her sack sprawling upon the floor like a Caesarean birth.
She heard and felt the crack as Intuition popped her shoulder back into place. Her own cries of pain were echoed by a shrill ululation from the spider. Lucy raised herself to see the wolf-Talbot staring down the tunnel through which Queen Redd had entered.
Well, look at that. The idiot werewolf actually won.
Lucy could just see the retreating legs of the giant spider-queen as it backed away down the tunnel.
Talbot paced at the maw, blood dripped down from his lacerated flanks and pooled in an infectious puddle. He panted heavily. His tongue lolled out, but his eyes still burned with a wild fire.
Finally, as though satisfied that the spider would not return, Talbot turned. His eyes caught Lucy’s. There was a split second of pain. It travelled between them like electricity, and she saw the hope die in Talbot, as a rose lost to a sudden frost.
“Not like this,” growled the wolf. “Don’t see me like this!”
Then, in a splash of fur and blood, Talbot was gone, running up and out of the spider’s hole, out and out into the moonlight. Lucy wanted to follow him, to shout at him, to make him stay.
Let him be, Gayle. Logic won’t work here, this is all messy feelings and French poetry. Let him alone. You’ll only hurt him more, counselled Intuition.
He was right. Lucy couldn’t get Talbot back. She couldn’t force him to return. Even if she could find him, what could she say? Besides, she still had Poppy to find and free from the spider-silk, and she didn’t know how long before Queen Redd worked up the courage to return.
He’s gone. Her own thoughts echoed within her head, small and meek as a church mouse’s plaintive squeak.
Come on, Gayle, let’s get out of here.
All right, which one of these bundles is Poppy?
Poppy? Poppy? asked Intuition in surprise. I didn’t just plan the escape route so you could waste time rescuing that little girl. Come on, it’s possible that, with my help, you can get out of here and live a long life away from the Dimn and everyone else.
That’s not going to happen. Which one is Poppy?
I don’t care about Poppy, he snarled. I only care about keeping myself alive and as you so cleverly pointed out, that means keeping you alive. Let the little brat die.
I’m not leaving here without her.
Not only could she not leave someone to die at the claws of Queen Redd, but Poppy was important to the quest. Poppy was the third helper, or so Lucy’s father had said. If that were true, Lucy needed her to finish this whole strange adventure.
Don’t make me take you over again, Gayle, Intuition threatened. I could if I wanted to.
No, you couldn’t. You’d have already done that if you could. You may be able to take over little bits of me—but the whole thing? Conscience could only do that when I went to the other bodies and I’m betting you’re no better. So, you may be able to make my arm move, or make me throw up, but those little things won’t do you any good. I’ll fight you all t
he way and all you’ll be able to do is cripple me and let us get eaten by something. So, who’s in charge now?
There was a sullen silence from Intuition as he flipped through all his options.
Finally, in a huff, he said, Poppy is in the large bundle by the exit.
Lucy scrambled over to the bundle and slashed at the silk. Poppy’s chubby, slightly glazed face finally made an appearance, and Lucy extracted the little girl from the cocoon. She draped the limp girl over one shoulder, and they made their way out of Queen Redd’s cave.
The moon was high and filled the wood with an eerie half-light. Lucy scanned the trees for signs of life, but Talbot was gone. She knew he had fled, but some little part of her had hoped, and now those hopes were dashed. She would have to continue the quest without him. It felt awful, like a sick, gut-wrenching hole, to face the reality of the rest of the journey without Talbot.
Which is the way to the falls? she asked Intuition.
There was only stony silence from the spell.
Come on, no point sulking. Wandering around in this werewolf infested wood is not going to help either of us. Get me to the Falls of Wanda, help me defeat the Dimn and, who knows, maybe you can live inside my head forever.
Out the gate and left, came the sullen reply.
Lucy hefted Poppy up, and the pair of them walked out into the night.
I wonder if there will ever be a point when I don’t have to mother this girl? thought Lucy, as the cool air blew on their faces.
Chapter 26 A Knight on the Plains
“All of us search, search for love, search for acceptance, search for great deeds. All of us search for something.”
General Thrax, Year After Ice 11956
The answer was no. No, there was not a point when Lucy would not have to mother Poppy. The little girl dragged her feet behind Lucy as if she were a human anchor. She mentally, and occasionally physically, had to drag the girl every begrudging step of the way. And Poppy, in return, had sulked, screamed, been sick, huffed, kicked and bitten Lucy’s wrist.
The dark forest eventually broke and gave way to a huge expanse of plains covered in hip-high switchgrass, bluestem and Indian grass. The whole picture made Lucy think of a John Ford western. She half expected to see buffalo lolloping over the horizon. She didn’t have buffalo. Instead what she had was Poppy.
Ravens and Writing Desks: A Metaphysical Fantasy Page 34