Текст книги "The Spider Ring"

Автор книги: Andrew Harwell

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 8 страниц)

Ripping out of her bonds with a desperate burst of adrenaline, she ran, only daring a look back after she rounded a corner of antiques.

The Black Widow whipped out her hand as if she were throwing a dart, and Maria flinched. But the Black Widow hadn’t thrown anything at all; she had issued an order, and now her army was scrambling after Maria like desperate villagers fleeing a landslide. The glint of the mirror spiders newly under the Black Widow’s command shone through the masses.

Maria could feel the vibrations of the approaching swarm, and she could feel the desperate buzzing of her brown recluse friends as they hurried to surround and defend her. Maria could see that it wouldn’t be enough. She kept on running, crawling under a table and coming out in a crouch between two dressers. The floor was littered with shattered glass from where Arturo and Derek had battled not five minutes before. Her spiders surrounded her, awaiting her next instruction.

“Show yourself, girl. I grow tired of waiting.”

Quietly, carefully, Maria crawled over to a tall wooden wardrobe. She was so close to the stairs leading up and outside. If she made a dash for it, she might be able to escape and come back when she had more help.

Run, her spiders said. Run far and hide.

“If you don’t come out here right now, I’m going to start feeding your family and friend to my army. I think I’ll start with your mother.”

It was now or never. Fight or flee.

Flee, flee.

But she’d made her decision a long time ago. She’d promised her grandmother.

She got to her feet.

“You don’t scare us,” she called.

She stepped around the wardrobe. She could see the Black Widow in the center of the maze, waiting for Maria like the spider she was.

The swarm of enemy spiders scrambled up behind her. Her brown recluse spiders formed a circle at her feet, ready to defend, and her ring became hot with their wild energy.

The stage was set for a final performance.

“No, please,” Maria said to her spiders. “You’ve done so much to help me and my family already. I don’t want you risking your lives for me anymore. Thank you.”

And with that, Maria took off her ring.

“Is this what you want?” she said to the Black Widow. “Well, you can have it!” She threw the ring as hard and as far as she could.

“No!” the Black Widow screamed, darting after it.

Maria seized her chance, running to the corner where her family – and now Derek – were strung up in the web. Derek was still awake and aware, at least. His eyes darted frantically in every direction.

“I’m here, don’t worry,” Maria said, even though she knew there was no way she was getting them down. The web was too tough. But they were together now, and that was all she wanted.

She heard the triumphant cry of the Black Widow behind her, and she knew it would be over soon – that she’d found the last ring.

Maria hugged her brother, her mom, and Derek, as best she could.

“I love you,” she said. “I hope you know that.”

She turned. The Black Widow stood facing her, not fifteen feet away. Her transformation was complete, and the sight was so horrible, Maria could barely look. Spiders – now including Maria’s brown recluse friends – swarmed over and around her body, skittering at her feet.

“Now, my soldiers,” the Black Widow said, “it is time to feed.”

She pointed her terrible arms, and the spiders came at Maria in a streak like chain lightning. Maria closed her eyes, prepared for the end.

But then a second passed, and another.

Not only was she still alive, the room had gone silent.

Maria opened her eyes. The approaching army had stopped cold a mere two steps in front of her. Between the front ranks and Maria stood a single black widow spider.

Could it be —

Was it the spider from before?

“What are you doing?” the Black Widow snarled. “Feed, you fools! I gave you an order.”

But the spiders did not move. With a surge of hope, Maria wondered if the black widow at her feet might be the very same spider whose life she’d spared in Grandma Esme’s house. The same spider she’d let live in this very basement – the spider she’d saved in her house tonight.

Whatever this black widow was telling the others, it seemed to be working.

The brown recluse spiders broke away from the group, joining the black widow at Maria’s side.

“She’s just a little girl! Don’t tell me you’re afraid of her.”

Without her ring, Maria couldn’t know for sure, but she didn’t think this was fear. This looked more like an act of friendship.

“Fine, I’ll do it myself,” the Black Widow said acidly. She took a step forward, stomping on a cluster of spiders without even a flicker of remorse. She took another step – bam. And another. And another.

Maria gasped. The spiders were angry. She didn’t need a ring to see that.

The Black Widow went to take another step – the step that would bring her within striking distance of Maria – but the legion of spiders saw to it that her foot never hit the ground.

Like a cloud of locusts, they were upon her.

The last thing Maria saw, before she covered her ears and closed her eyes, was a poison-red hourglass on the Black Widow’s inhuman face.

Her time was up.

“Maria?”

It was Derek’s voice, cracked and scared. Maria opened her eyes. Only a fraction of the spiders from before remained. There was no trace of the Black Widow. The eight spider rings were in a cluster on the floor.

Maria turned to her friend and pulled at the webbing around his face. Derek had a gash in his forehead that didn’t look too deep, and a bite mark on his neck that was large and red. He was, to put it mildly, a little shaken up.

“Maria, I thought – And then when those spiders were coming at you, I was all – But then they went after my – after the —”

Derek couldn’t say anything else. He was too overwhelmed.

“It’s okay, Derek. It’s all over now. I’m going to get you down from there.”

One more time, Maria clawed at the web. But this time, the spiders – all the spiders – came to help her.

It was slightly terrifying. “Thank you,” she said delicately. She had a feeling they could understand her, even without her ring.

One by one, Maria and the spiders brought down Derek, Rafi, and her mother. Their heartbeats were normal. Their breathing was normal. Still, Maria knew she needed to get them an ambulance right away.

“Derek, can I use your cell phone?”

“What? Oh, yeah.” Derek fished out his phone and handed it to her. He was clearly still in a daze, and hadn’t entirely stopped crying.

Maria told 9-1-1 where to find them, and repeatedly exclaimed that she couldn’t fully explain what had happened. Then she handed the phone back to Derek. Surely, her mom would let her have one of her own after this.

“Maria, I still don’t understand what happened tonight. One minute, I was sitting in my room after Claire’s birthday party, and the next, I’m down here with a fire iron and there are spiders everywhere.”

“I’ll give you the full version later. For now, let’s just say your aunt was in a secret club with some really messed-up people.”

“Maria, I’m so sorry. I had no idea. And I can’t believe I yelled at you —”

“Derek, it’s okay. Really. I’m glad you were there to keep me from doing something even more wicked.”

Derek wrapped her in a hug.

“You’re the least wicked person I know,” he said.

Maria smiled. This was exactly the right response.

Derek cleared his throat in Maria’s ear, and Maria realized that the brown recluse spiders – along with the others – were standing there watching them. Perhaps they were waiting for their next command. Derek eyed them nervously.

“Do you … do you know what they want?”

“Nope,” Maria said. She nodded at the rings. “I would need those to know that.”

“You don’t think … I mean, they’re not going to … eat us … are they?”

“I don’t think so,” Maria said. “I don’t think they liked how Luellen had been treating them. You can use a ring to make an obedient animal, but only a friend will help you in the end.”

“Oh, yeah? So you’ll be there for me next time I get mixed up in an unspeakable evil?”

“Always,” Maria said. “I hope you know that.”

There was something wonderful about being on a boat.

The fishing pond in Falling Waters was no private lake, but the important thing today was that the Lopez family was here together, on their very own boat. Well, the Lopez family plus its honorary fourth member, Derek.

Their little boat rocked as Rafi’s line went taut on a catch. The sun beat down on them, focusing extra hard on Maria’s black jeans and T-shirt. She hardly minded. For one thing, she could see in a full circle around them, and what she didn’t see was a single shadow or spider.

“What’d you catch?” Mom asked as Rafi reeled in his line.

“Looks like a catfish,” Derek said.

“A tiny one,” Rafi said. “I’m going to let it go.” He unhooked the fish and threw it back in the water. He had done this five other times already, claiming that each fish was either too small to eat, too big to carry, or else too sad-looking.

Rafi had been acting different in the week since last Saturday. For one thing, he’d been noticeably nicer to Maria, which was all well and good. But he was also a little quieter, and a little jumpier, too. Maria hoped these changes would undo themselves in time. But it had been nice to hear him on the phone today, telling Rob that he didn’t have time to hang out because he was going fishing with his own family.

“You know, you haven’t touched your book since we got out here,” Mom said to Maria.

“I didn’t want to be rude. Besides, I only brought it out here because I thought fishing was supposed to be a silent activity. But you three have been talking nonstop since we stepped in the boat.”

This was Maria’s poor attempt at a joke. In truth, Mom had been a little quieter, too. Mercifully, neither she nor Rafi remembered everything about that night. But they remembered enough to know that Maria had saved them from something they weren’t entirely sure they believed in.

“There’s just something about still water that makes you feel like you have to whisper,” Derek said. “It’s like being in church.”

“That reminds me,” Mom said, “I’ve been thinking about how much I liked the people at Grandma Esme’s church. They were just so welcoming. What would you guys say if we started going to that one on Sundays? Maybe pick up the Meals on Wheels program?”

“Sure,” Rafi said.

“Sounds good to me,” Maria agreed. Mom had been suggesting all kinds of little changes in the past few days, from family game night to Taco Tuesdays. They’d bought this boat before they even had the money from Grandma Esme’s house, which they were definitely selling. Maria was fine with this, having finally decided that it was probably healthy to keep memories of a person in your heart, instead of in their objects. Then again, she was still wearing the purple pendant necklace today, and she’d placed the old anchor whistle on the same cord, deciding it was the exact kind of jewelry one should wear in a boat.

“So, um, Maria?” Rafi said. “The man … Arturo? He was our grandfather, but he wasn’t a Lopez?”

Maria nodded.

“His real last name was Antonescu. He told me so in a story. But I think Grandma Esme would have wanted us to stay Lopezes. Don’t you, Mom?”

“I do,” Mom said. “And I, for one, like that our name starts with our little family.”

The police investigation had finally ended this week when the wound on Arturo’s neck had tested positive for black widow venom. It was determined that Rafi and Mom had been saved by the age difference and Maria’s 9-1-1 call. Whatever the officials wanted to believe was fine by Maria. She had no interest in reliving the real details for anyone. Rafi and Mom hadn’t even asked how they’d come to be in the basement of Vic’s Antiques, which officially had been renamed Derek’s Junk Shop two days ago. They were celebrating the living.

“Rob’s parents said it was lucky the spiders at Claire’s party weren’t the same kind that bit us. She just had the regular scared-of-spiders kind of fainting.”

“Oh, Claire,” Derek said. “How long do you think it will be before she starts being mean again?”

“I think it might be a while this time,” Maria said. “I told her I was sorry for telling people she had followers instead of friends, and she said she was sorry for the locker thing.”

Derek flinched at the word followers, but Maria shrugged.

Maria reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of rings. The sight of them made everyone nervous. Rafi clearly thought they were real spiders at first.

“What are you doing with those, Maria?” Mom said.

“I think I’m getting rid of them,” she said.

“That’s probably for the best.” As soon as Mom had woken up in the hospital, she’d said to Maria, “Your grandmother warned us,” then immediately fallen asleep again.

“Are you sure?” Derek said. “Those rings could make you rich forever. I mean, after you sell them, of course,” he hastened to add. Mom and Rafi still had no idea that the rings had powers.

Maria shrugged. Money wasn’t everything. It certainly wasn’t worth the life that these accursed rings bought.

“Can I see them one last time?” Derek said.

Maria hesitated. She’d kept the rings hidden from everyone this week, locked in a trunk where not even the spiders could get them. They were just too tempting.

“Okay,” she said, handing him the rings. “But just for a second.”

Derek took them and looked at them. Each ring was a little different, in its own horrible way. Maria hadn’t spent much time examining them.

Then Derek put them behind his back and moved his hands around.

“Guess which hand the Brown Recluse is in,” he said.

“That’s not funny, Derek.” Maria reached out her palm for him to give them all back.

Her voice must have sounded awfully frantic, because right away Derek stopped and gave her back the rings. “I was just teasing you,” he said.

Maria took the rings in her hands, and brought her hands to her mouth. There were no spiders in sight, but she hoped, after everything, that they would be able to hear her.

Thank you, she thought. Thank you for everything. I don’t have much to give you, but I can give you this.

Without looking closely, Maria hurled the rings into the water.

Her mother gasped, and her brother gave her an odd look, but Maria didn’t care. She had all the gifts she needed right here, in this little boat.

The Orb Weaver

The Lynx Spider

The Crab Spider

The Wolf Spider

The Cobweb Spider

The Mirror Spider

The Brown Recluse

The Black Widow

Thank you to …

My editor, David – you gave me light.

My team at Scholastic, and especially Jana Haussmann – you made this all possible.

My friends Joe, Jess, Zach, Nathan, Adam, Dan, and Nick – the story came to life first in your voices.

My friend Annie Swank – you always set the metrics.

My wonderful family – you are my magic ring.

Andrew Harwell is a writer and editor living in Brooklyn, New York. After growing up in the woods, he isn’t scared of real spiders, but spiders in stories – from the giant ones in Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter to the Other Mother in Coraline – he finds absolutely terrifying. This is Andrew’s first book for young readers. Visit him online at www.andrewharwell.com.

Copyright © 2014 by Andrew Harwell

All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC PRESS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014942282

First edition, February 2015

Cover art by Peter Crowther Associates Ltd

Cover Design by Yaffa Jaskoll

e-ISBN 978-0-545-68291-6

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.