The Spider Goddess Read online

  ‘Oh, now. Look at that,’ I muttered and shook my head.

  High above me, the large chandelier was askew again. Last week, I’d made an attempt to fix it, but already the old fixture was back to its former position. Cobwebs had even begun to re-form between the dusty crystals. I shook my head again. Despite the apparent futility of it, I wanted to clean the place up again for my great-aunt. She did so much for me, the least I could do was dust a few cobwebs.

  The lobby was decorated with majestic tilework and gilded wall sconces, now both in a state of disrepair. A circular staircase snaked up towards the sealed wooden door of a mezzanine floor, and an old lift sat in a cage of elaborate ironwork, including spiked fleurs-de-lis – one of which was missing. Not a month ago I’d used that missing fleur-de-lis to stab a vampire . . . sorry, Sanguine (vampire is a very negative term, apparently), hence my new-found paranoia about the undead. My staking attempt had been a literal and metaphorical mess, however. In direct contrast to the rules of all the novels I’d ever read, my undead aggressor survived the staking, and I’d had to scrub the lobby floor of blood until it was clean enough to perform heart surgery on. Which is almost what I’d done, come to think of it. Despite all that, the lobby looked just how I’d first seen it when I’d arrived in Spektor almost two months before – a bit like a crypt, yet, in its way, a magnificent space.

  But now was not the time to dwell.

  After dark I had friends within these walls, but also enemies. Some of my . . . well, housemates, were not terribly pleased with my presence. Especially since the staking incident. With that in mind, I removed a rice bag from my satchel and held it in my hand, ready for use. Those enemies of mine were much more affected by what was in that bag than by any karate move I might produce. Or my new-found tarantula, for that matter.

  I hurried across the tiles.

  ‘S-s-h-r-a-a-a-ak . . .’

  I paused for only a moment. I’d often heard sounds like that, as if the building was settling. But I’d never heard a building settle quite like this one. By some trick of acoustics, the strange noise sounded like it came from beneath the floor. With little delay, I traversed the lobby, jumped in the old rattling lift, and began my ascent to the penthouse. I silently watched the other floors pass, keeping an eye out for movement on the landings.

  When I arrived home to Great-Aunt Celia’s penthouse I knocked on the midnight blue doors before I entered. This was one of her rules. After a moment I used my key to let myself in. ‘Hi, Great-Aunt Celia. I’m home,’ I called out. I hung up my coat on the mirrored Edwardian hatstand, and slipped off my flat shoes.

  Celia was the reason I was in New York. She was my mother’s mother’s sister and one of only two living relatives I had. (The other was my Aunt Georgia in Gretchenville – my late father’s older sister, and I’d lived with her for eight years after my parents were killed.) I’d never met Celia before I moved to New York, but I had gratefully accepted her offer to have me stay. Who wouldn’t trade Gretchenville for Manhattan? Leaving my stifling little hometown was an exciting and much needed change. At the time, of course, I’d had no idea just how much of a change it would be.

  Great-Aunt Celia’s elegant penthouse was quite unlike any other place I’d seen. The floors were polished wood and the domed ceilings were crowned with a sparkling chandelier at the highest point. The large main lounge room, which I now looked upon, was lined with rows of impressive bookcases filled with tomes to make an antiquarian weep with envy. Glass-fronted sideboards housed curious artefacts, objets d’art, exotic plants and antiques – a Venus flytrap, a carved tusk, a fertility statue, a tiny art deco nymph, fading photographs and art prints, and strange butterflies and moths displayed in small glass domes. Everything seemed both beautiful and intriguing. In keeping with the era of the mansion, the penthouse rooms were elegantly appointed with polished and carved furniture from Victorian and Edwardian times, mixed with some art deco touches. Yet, unlike the rest of the building, there were no cobwebs, no wear and tear, no dust. Celia’s rooms were immaculate. Tonight the curtains were open over the tall, arched windows, letting in the faint bluish light of a waxing gibbous moon. The famous Manhattan skyline was visible in the distance through a faint fog, the Empire State Building a black silhouette speckled by lit windows.

  It still astounded me to know I was really in New York, the city I’d always dreamed of.

  ‘Darling, how was the photo shoot?’ came the familiar voice.

  My great-aunt was in her usual spot, reclining under the halo of her reading lamp in the little alcove to one side of her palatial lounge room. Her shoes were off and her feet were up on the hassock, ankles crossed elegantly. I could see the thin casing of her black silk stockings, and the little seam across her manicured toes. Great-Aunt Celia was an impeccably stylish woman, as one would expect of a former designer to the Hollywood stars. Lined up next to her chair was a pair of fluffy heeled slippers decorated with ostrich feathers. This was one great-aunt who would never, ever own pressure stockings and sensible shoes.

  Celia placed a long feather in the pages of her book to mark her place, and rested it on the wide arm of her leather chair. She shifted and faced me. She was, as always, a vision of pale 1940s glamour – high cheekbones, arched brows, alabaster skin and red lips, her dark hair set in movie-star waves beneath an omnipresent black widow’s veil that fell delicately to her chin. She had a slim, hourglass figure built for the couture of her day and tonight she wore a black silk dress with a waist-cinching leather belt. Decades after the death of her photographer husband, Roger, the widow’s veil seemed an eccentric habit. It suited her, I thought. The thin mesh only partially obscured her peculiarly youthful beauty – peculiar because she was, in fact, at least eighty years old.

  There was much I didn’t know about my great-aunt.

  ‘Now, what have you got there?’ she said, eyeing the styrofoam cup. ‘It’s not like you to bring home a takeaway coffee.’

  Celia was a staunch tea drinker.

  ‘Oh, it’s not coffee.’ I felt the creature inside the cup shift. ‘It’s kind of a weird story actually . . .’

  ‘A weird story? I always have time for one of those,’ my great-aunt quipped, and smiled from beneath her veil. She took her silk stocking clad feet off the hassock, inviting me to sit with her.

  I left my satchel at the door and popped the bag of rice back inside. I wouldn’t need it now that I was safely ensconced in Celia’s penthouse. The others who lived here were not invited into the penthouse, and could not enter.

  ‘It was the strangest thing, Great-Aunt Celia,’ I explained as I perched on the edge of the hassock. ‘The knitwear shoot was going on forever, and I’d just been sent on yet another coffee run, and when I got back there was this spider in the middle of the studio. The model bolted immediately, and no one else did a thing. You should have seen the photographer and his assistant, completely frozen with fear. The makeup artist was on a chair . . .’

  The corners of Celia’s mouth turned up slightly.

  ‘It’s a tarantula, I think. Quite odd considering tarantulas aren’t native to the area,’ I said.

  ‘Odd indeed,’ she agreed.

  ‘Well, I just emptied this cup and popped the spider inside,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t leave it there and I didn’t know what else to do. So, here I am with a tarantula, or whatever it is.’

  ‘Were you not afraid?’ she asked me.

  I frowned. ‘I guess not. I’ve never seen a big spider like that before but I’d read about tarantulas and I just . . . acted on instinct.’

  This seemed to please Celia. ‘Good. You should trust your instincts more.’ She nodded to herself. ‘And how was the shoot? Did you take note of which knitwear labels they were using?’

  ‘I didn’t think to check,’ I said, trying to remember the names. Perhaps Celia would be displeased that I wasn’t as interested in designs as she was, despite the fact that I was attempting to start my writing career at a fashion magazine.
Some fashionista I was.

  ‘That’s okay, darling. So . . .’ She grinned slightly. ‘What would you like to do with it? You haven’t brought it home for dinner or something like that?’

  I gaped. ‘The spider?’

  ‘Fried tarantula is a delicacy in Cambodia. It’s apparently quite delicious, though I’ve never tried it.’ She paused, watching the blood drain from my face, and then leaned forward to pat my knee. ‘But I am only pulling your leg, darling. Of course we won’t eat it.’

  I took a moment to recover from her wicked sense of humour.

  ‘I don’t know what to do with it,’ I said. ‘I just couldn’t leave it there. They were going to kill it, and that wasn’t right. And I can’t leave it on the street outside. It’s winter. It will freeze to death.’ I paused. ‘Tomorrow I’m going to look up pet shops in SoHo. It must have escaped from one of them.’

  ‘You do have a great deal of compassion, Pandora. I can’t think of a lot of young women who would care what happened to a spider on the winter streets of New York, so long as . . .’ She looked at the cup in my lap. ‘So long as they didn’t have to hold it,’ she finished.

  ‘My mother said that spiders are misunderstood.’

  ‘Indeed they are.’ She paused. ‘We’ll put it in a jar for now, if you like. And maybe Harold will be able to get us a nice spider cage, or whatever such creatures are meant to be housed in.’

  Harold owned the nearby grocer in Spektor. He was an odd fellow – very nice, but peculiar. ‘A vivarium is what people keep them in, I think. But I don’t think I’ll have the spider long enough to need one.’

  I’d heard that people kept tarantulas as pets, but honestly I couldn’t imagine why. It wasn’t quite the same as having a dog or cat.

  There was a noise and we both looked up. ‘Oh, there you are,’ Celia said. Right on cue, Celia’s cat had arrived. She was named after a Norse goddess who was often depicted in a glorious chariot pulled by cats. She was pure white – an albino – with eyes the colour of pink opals. Sometimes she liked to sneak into my room at night for a cuddle. Strangely, though, this evening she stopped several feet away from me and sat with her ears back.

  ‘Hi, Freyja. Hi, kitty,’ I said in a sing-song voice.

  She let out a low feline growl.

  ‘I don’t think she likes your new friend,’ Celia remarked.

  Friend? I thought of that odd moment on the studio floor – the moment of connection. It wasn’t friendly contact. It was something else. Some sense of recognition, perhaps? I had no idea what it might mean, or if it was indeed only my imagination, but I tried to trust my gut feeling the way Celia had been teaching me.

  My great-aunt leaned forward. ‘Do you think it knew who you were? That it was trying to tell you something?’

  I blinked. ‘The spider, you mean? That’s crazy.’

  She smiled. ‘Yes, of course it is. Crazy.’

  I was in my long, delicate white nightgown, standing on a grassy hilltop. A breeze blew against me, bringing goose pimples to my arms. I’d thought it was night, but above me was a radiant blue sky. The sun felt warm and gentle, and I tilted my face up to receive its rays. I closed my eyes and breathed in. The air smelled of wild flowers.

  I did not know this place, but it was beautiful.

  I searched the horizon, and in the distance saw a man on horseback riding towards me. He rode a pure white stallion, and I made out his dress as he approached – leather riding boots and a sharply tailored uniform of blue, the frockcoat long and fitted across his broad shoulders and slim waist. He wore a sword in a scabbard on his hip, and a cap on his head.

  He pulled up his magnificent horse at my side. It neighed and panted, standing tall. Its muscles shivered and I smiled. It was the most beautiful beast I’d ever seen. I wanted to reach out and touch it.

  ‘Miss Pandora,’ the man said in a formal tone.

  I looked up. The man was handsome and familiar. Lieutenant Luke, I tried to reply, but the words would not come.

  He reached down to take my hand. ‘Join me,’ he said in a deep, masculine voice, his bright blue eyes seeming to glow with a strange intensity. I did not hesitate, yet as I reached out to accept his hand I found that I could not touch him. His hand, though it looked like it was right there, was somehow untouchable; my own moved through it.

  What’s happening? I tried to ask, but found that I could not speak.

  I felt a rumble under my bare feet. Something was coming. Something terrible. The ground shook. I retracted my hand, as did he, and my gaze fell to the crest of the hill. We both felt it. We both heard it – the grunts and curious moans, the hundreds of running feet.

  What’s happening?

  And then we saw.

  Corpses. Thousands of reanimated corpses ran towards us, mouths open, tongues lolling, their eyes blazing red. Some had no arms, some no head, but still they propelled themselves up the hill towards us with remarkable, unnatural speed. Revenants. Zombies.

  I reached again for Luke but, to my horror, my hand went right through his again. It was me, I realised. I was the ghost. I couldn’t touch him because I wasn’t real. He couldn’t take me away from all this.

  Luke’s white horse moved restlessly, inching sideways and throwing its head up and down. ‘Easy now . . .’

  The ghoulish creatures were nearly upon us. I stumbled backwards as the magnificent white stallion reared up, and Luke unsheathed his shining sword.

  ‘Luke!’ I finally managed to yell, my voice returned to me. ‘Luke!’

  But he was gone.

  Some sound or sense woke me from my nightmare.

  I ran a hand over my clammy face and opened my heavy eyes. I was in the four-poster bed in my room at Great-Aunt Celia’s. It was a beautiful room with a high ceiling, and everything in it seemed wonderfully old and ornate. Even in the low light I could make out the mirror on the oak dresser, and the tall antique wardrobe next to it. My dress for the next day – for later this morning, in fact – hung from the front of the wardrobe, waiting for sunrise. It was another outfit Celia had designed in the forties, this one black, with an elaborate gold belt and a white collar. I could also make out the sloping Victorian writing desk under one of the two tall, arched windows that faced on to Addams Avenue outside. One of the windows was open just a crack, as usual, to let air in. The curtains were only partially closed, just as I’d left them. They swayed slightly in the night breeze. Even in my sleepy state, I could see that everything was in its place. I was safe. There were no rushing hordes of rotting revenants. Not yet, anyway.

  ‘Miss Pandora?’

  I wondered if I was still dreaming. I blinked and looked around me.

  ‘Miss Pandora. I heard you cry out.’ My eyes rested on a white, nebulous form materialising near my bed.

  Lieutenant Luke.

  He appeared at the foot of my bed, wearing a dark blue cap emblazoned with a pair of crossed gold swords, his long frockcoat neatly fitted on his masculine form, the polished buttons done up to the neck. The coat fitted his broad shoulders impeccably and tapered at his slim waist, cinched with a leather belt. He was dressed as he had been in the dream, just as he always was – in the Union soldier’s uniform of the Civil War. A war in which he’d fought and died.

  I’d first met Lieutenant Luke in my bedroom at Great-Aunt Celia’s two months ago. I’d only just arrived and he’d given me quite a shock at the time. I thought that some crazed New Yorker had broken in to burgle the place or do me harm. It was funny now to think of it – Luke had been trapped as a spectre in this house for decades, I was the interloper here.

  Since moving in with Great-Aunt Celia one of the many things I had learned about was the existence of ghosts. Well . . . I’ll admit I’d had a few rather enormous hints while I was growing up. Even when I was young I could sense the dead, but my parents had strongly disapproved of my fanciful tales. After I foresaw the death of the local butcher when I was just a little girl – and then told several people that I
’d conversed with him after the accident that killed him – people stopped coming around to our house. (Except a few tiresome child psychologists. They came around.) And although I was reasonably smart and not unattractive, I had the ‘weird kid’ tag tattooed to my forehead after that. I was never going to be popular in school. And I suppose it didn’t help when my mother and father died in an accident in Egypt, where my mother had been working on an archaeological site. I was eleven at the time. I was at my Aunt Georgia’s house when the news came, and there I stayed. Georgia is the maths teacher in Gretchenville. It’s not a popular subject, and she is not a particularly popular teacher. So it was books instead of boys for me, and that was my life up until recently. A life spent with my head in novels and fashion magazines. (Everyone was so popular and so glamorous in those magazines. I wanted that life.) Now here I was living in a suburb of Manhattan that didn’t appear on maps, and conversing with a handsome ghost.

  Shows you how much those child psychologists know.

  Naturally though it had taken me awhile to come to terms with these aspects of my new life in Spektor. Lieutenant Luke certainly helped in that regard. Truthfully, Luke was . . . Well, he was rather dreamy.

  ‘Are you okay, Miss Pandora?’ he asked, looking as diligent as ever. He was clenching his magnificent jaw – a jaw that always brought to mind an anvil, for some reason. Luke was twenty-five, or had been when he’d died in 1861 at the start of the Civil War. He had a lean, tanned, clean-shaven face with the sort of sideburns that were popular in his day, and sandy hair worn a bit long around the collar. He also had the brightest blue eyes I’d ever seen. They seemed at times to even glow slightly in the dark.

  Luke moved slowly from the foot of my bed to stand just next to me. Some lingering feelings from my dream were still upon me and I felt an urge to reach up and kiss him.