Caitlin Kiernan - Silk

“I figured you out, too,” she said and then didn’t say anything else, nothing to be gained from talking with ghosts or voices that weren’t there, remembrances like broken toys she couldn’t put away, talking to herself and answering herself. Spyder dug down into her jeans pocket for the last ball bearing, the one there hadn’t been time for before the bedspread ripped open and spilled her life onto the floor. The one she’d written Niki’s name on, and she held it in her fist. Held it tightly, and Niki stirred, eyelid flutter and she pushed back the covers, rolled over so Spyder could see her breasts, perfect, small, firm, the silver ring through one nipple and the scar across the other.

If you died now, it wouldn’t matter. And her father was trying hard to sound like he had before he’d started seeing angels. If you’d died when you were supposed to, we’d have both gone up to Heaven a long time ago. But if you die now, at least no one else will get hurt.

She won’t get hurt.

Spyder opened her hand and held the ball bearing up so he could see it through the closet door. Faint steel glimmer in the candlelight and a sound like autumn crumbling or the smell of tears, and he hissed, They won’t let me come without you, Lila; when she answered, Spyder spoke low, trying not to wake Niki, just as careful to find the threat.

“Does it scare you, Daddy?” and she grinned at the cringing shadows on the walls. “It should. It should scare the fuck out of you.”

And when she was sure he had gone, had slipped like cold air back between the cracks, sifted down through termite rot and dust and rusting nails, Spyder laid the ball bearing on the windowsill, making sure it wouldn’t roll off.

Like a totem animal, Niki had said, like something Robin would have said, something Robin had understood. And it didn’t matter if it was factual, because it was true, whether she’d chosen them or they’d chosen her. Somewhere all those fine distinctions had been lost, her and them, enemy and friend and lover, past and present, no difference anymore and no one holding on to the leash.

I love you, Spyder, she’d said, and It’s not what I want. The last straw in that contradiction, the last silver ball before the bedspread had torn, and the rage was coming, rage that had imprisoned Robin and Byron and Walter in her hell under the floor, the rage that swirled around her, storm rage, virus rage, and she knew it had touched Keith Barry, too. And now there was no distinction, the rage and the world, and soon it would touch the girl sleeping on her bed, the girl who hadn’t run yet, never mind what she might do someday. Spyder’s rage like the vengeance of her dead father’s god, as bottomless, as all-consuming, as blind, and it would take Niki apart, body and mind and soul.

Spyder got up from the stool, went to the bed, and she kissed Niki lightly on one cheek, careful not to wake her. And then she began to unbutton her jeans.

Mort drove slowly to the dead end of Cullom Street, pulled the shitmobile into Spyder’s dirt driveway, and then they sat in the van, watching the dark house, motor still running, headlights shining off the rusty ass of the old Celica. Unsteady glow from a front window, and Daria couldn’t help that it made her think of one dull eye open, sentinel eye of something with many eyes but no need to open more than one on their account.

“They’re already in bed,” Theo said, and Mort looked at Daria, tired what-next resignation on his face, too tired to argue. “I’ll be right back,” she said. “You guys wait here. There’s no need for us all three to go tromping up there.”

“Are you sure, Dar? You messed her up pretty good. I expect she’s still pissed off.”

“I’ll be right back. I’m just gonna talk to Niki and apologize.”

Mort switched off the headlights, left the engine idling in neutral, and Theo grunted, disbelief and indignation. “Daria, if you go apologizing to that bitch, I ought to kick your ass, on general fucking principle.” But Daria’s door was already open, the cold getting into the van and she said, “I’d like to see you try sometime, girl’o,” and the door banged closed again.

So much different than the last time she’d stood in Spyder’s yard, that day in the snow and everything so vanilla-icing white, that day with Keith; a sprawling shadow garden now, bare-tree shadows and unkempt shrub shadows, a million weedy shadows crowded around her feet. Standing at the edge of the porch, she looked back but couldn’t see Mort, nothing but more dark behind the windshield. And at the farthest corner of her vision, sudden movement, and she faced the porch again, stared into the junk shadows waiting for her and nothing else.

Christ, I’m still wasted, and that was almost reassuring, almost sufficient, and Daria took the steps one at a time.

Back in the parking deck, she’d thought about trying to find Walter, finding him and letting him talk out whatever he’d wanted to tell her. I’ll wait a day or two, he’d said, and then I’ve gotta leave. If you want to talk, so maybe they could’ve found him, if they’d tried. And she’d decided it was a lot sillier than just having a look for herself. Seeing that Niki was all right and getting some sleep, and later they could talk about Spyder and the marks on Niki’s arms. The marks that had looked like someone had tried to copy Spyder’s tattoos onto Niki’s skin with a soldering iron.

Loud and woodsy porchboard complaints, and Daria stepped over the spot where she’d sat with Keith, between the broken machinery and cardboard rags to the door. Raised her hand, cold knuckles, and then the movement again, subtle disruption somewhere past the corner of the porch, something big, there and gone again before she could turn to see. A rustle in the bushes, and she knocked hard, so hard it hurt.

But no one answered. No sound of footsteps coming to open the door, nothing but the van grumbling unevenly in the driveway, and so she knocked again, harder. “Come on, guys. I’m freezing my butt off out here,” and that was true, the cold and her teeth beginning to chatter, but she knew it was also a surrogate, a shoddy excuse, not the real reason for the way her heart was beating or the dryness in her mouth, the dizzysick surge of adrenaline.

“Get a grip, chick,” and she hammered at the door until her hand ached and little flakes of paint had peeled away and fallen at her feet. “Fuck this,” reaching for the doorknob and the movement, again, closer this time, as she turned cold metal in her hand and the door opened.

The house was full of light, silver-white light strung in shimmering garland strands or floating lazy on the air, lying in tangled drifts on the floor. And Daria opened her mouth, to call for Niki or just in amazement, and she heard the scrambling, the hurried noises at her back, coming up the steps, crash as something tumbled over, and she didn’t look this time, stepped across the threshold and slammed the door shut behind her.

Mort watched Daria cross the short space to Spyder’s porch, waved when she paused once and looked back, but Daria made no sign that she’d seen him. And then she went up the steps and was lost in the deeper night shrouding the porch. Theo had climbed into the front, sat beside him now, holding his hand across the empty space between the bucket seats.

“This is so stupid,” she said, and he nodded in agreement. No doubt about that. He strained to catch a glimpse of Daria, a hint of her reflected in the faint yellow-orange light from the window.

“I can’t see her anymore,” he said. And Theo said, “It’s too goddamn dark to see anything out there. You’d think they’d put a streetlight up here.”

“Theo, I’m gonna go see if she-” and a flash of light from the porch, painful bright, Daria silhouetted there, paper doll cutout in the brilliance. And then it was dark again, twice as dark as before. Theo whispered, “Jesus, Mort.”