Chapter 10
Chapter ten
Spinners & Silk
Never in my life had I been afraid of or disgusted by spiders.
Every spring, a large, yellow orb-weaver built a web in the top corner of my bedroom window, and I was perfectly content to let her stay as long as she liked.
But the woman in front of me now—gray-skinned and hunch-backed—was something else entirely.
Her form was more or less human, like some of the other fay I had met in the Hollow, but four pairs of yellow eyes blinked at me from her squat, wrinkled face, and she offered a black-fanged smile as I stepped over the threshold.
What truly disconcerted me, however, was the limbs sprouting from her back.
Eight of them. Long and black and shining, lined with tiny spikes, they moved independently of one another, but were still clearly controlled by the old woman, who used the largest one to shut the door behind me with a snap.
We were plunged into gloomy darkness, since the only window in the place appeared to have been made with smoky glass, filtering out the daylight.
“Oh dear, this won’t do at all,” said the Devil in a cheery voice. Light zinged down the tattoos on his arms, forming into half a dozen fist-sized spheres, which floated up to the low, root-bound ceiling and bobbed like acorns floating in a fountain.
“Hmmph,” the spider-woman snorted as she shuffled away from us.
“T’ain’t my fault ye daylight creatures cannae see in the dark.
” By the shape of her long, black skirt, I suspected that a spider’s abdomen grew out of her lower back.
Her apron-like shirt tied across the back, between the pairs of extra appendages, showing rolls of mottled gray flesh beneath.
I fought back a shudder and glanced at the Devil.
“May,” he said with a patient smile, “this is Madame Arachne, the finest spinner in all the Arden.”
“The only spinner in all Arden,” said Arachne with a click of her dark teeth.
She moved over to a broad table and the Devil’s floating lanterns moved with her, providing light so I could see all manner of fabric strewn along its length—chiffon, satin, lace, tweed, samite, brocade, calico, flannel, velvet, linen, gingham, moleskin, and boiled wool, in every color or pattern imaginable.
The table was so long, it ran back and vanished into the darkness of the hovel.
“Miss May will be attending the revelry with me tomorrow,” said the Devil, running his fingers over a swatch of bright red silk.
“She needs a gown. Something worthy of the occasion…and of her.” Arachne’s eight yellow eyes fixed on me and she drummed several of her spider legs on the tabletop.
I found the clicking noise extremely unnerving, but disguised my discomfort with a grateful smile.
“Oh, sly thing,” Arachne said to the Devil, grinning at him. “I dinnae think you’d have the guts to bring a human girl ‘afore Titania. This one must be special, aye?”
“She will be glamoured, of course,” the Devil replied evenly, “for her own protection. But yes, special is exactly the right word.” He smiled at me again, softer this time, and I ducked my head, pretending to examine a strip of brocade so he wouldn’t see the color rising in my cheeks.
“Best get startin’, then” Arachne sighed. She bustled around the table and took my hand, spinning me to face the rest of the dark room, then snapped her human fingers at the Devil. “Well, boy, put all that awful light to use and conjure us up a mirror, won’t ye?”
The Devil gave one of his crowing laughs and moved to stand in front of me.
Light pooled at his fingertips, and he began to manipulate it with a series of sinuous movements, like he was shaping molten glass with his bare hands, twisting and stretching it out, swirling and smoothing it, the glimmers playing off his face like a flickering torch.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away. After only a minute, he had fabricated what looked like a silvery shield, tall as I was, shimmering and clear in the center with a frame of golden bands running around the edge.
He held it up, covering the bottom half of his face, and I shifted my gaze to the image being reflected back.
There were no mirrors in Locksley Abbey.
As part of their vows, the Sisters swore an oath of humility and helpfulness.
Vanity was heavily discouraged, and they were expected to offer gentle assistance if a fellow Sister’s wimple fell out of place, or if she had food in her teeth.
But in the Abbey entrance hall hung a polished metal shield, which nearly every Sister used to covertly check her appearance at least once a day.
In fact, I had only ever seen one real mirror in my entire life, since none of my patients could afford to keep one at home either.
When I was six years old, Sissi had taken me with her on a visit to Nottingham’s Cathedral of Martyrs, which sat in the center of the city’s main plaza—a hub for festivals, markets, and other public gatherings.
Sequestered in the Abbey since birth, I had never seen the cathedral before, and was awestruck by the towering limestone spires and riotously colorful stained glass on the exterior.
While Archbishop Piers and Sissi talked quietly in his study, I’d snuck through a cracked door, eager to try on the tall Archbishop’s hat I spotted sitting on a wooden stand.
When I saw the mirror, however, I’d forgotten everything else.
It sat in the corner of his dressing room, large and ornate and shining.
But the thing that pulled me in was the sight of my own face.
I’d never seen myself before, save for distorted reflections in the water, or an amateur sketch Tuck had once done of the two of us weeding the Abbey garden.
The moment was fixed in my mind, not just as one of my earliest memories, but as the moment I truly began to understand who, and what, I was.
With only a child’s understanding of what it meant to be an orphan, Sissi and Tuck were the closest thing I’d ever known to a mother and father.
So when I’d looked into that mirror, and neither of their faces looked back, the terrible knowledge of it all came crashing down around me: I belonged to no one but myself.
The brown skin and wide nose, the brilliant green eyes and mass of dark curls had all come from people I would never meet.
People I would never share a meal or a home with.
Sissi had carried me, sobbing uncontrollably, back to the Abbey that day, her meeting with Archbishop Piers cut short by my mirror-induced crisis.
Since then, I had dodged my own reflection—in windows, in water, in the Abbey’s polished shield—desperate to avoid seeing the faces of strangers who had, in all likelihood, never wanted me.
To my horror, I realized that the tears I’d cried that day in the cathedral were about to make another appearance. I looked away from the Devil’s magyk light mirror, dabbing my face with the edge of my sleeve.
“Now,” said Arachne, brusque and business-like, “‘tis Arden tradition ye wear the likeness of a favored creature to the changin’ of the seasons. Which animal—”
“A Huntress moth,” the Devil answered before I could even draw a breath.
Arachne scowled at him. “Let the girl answer, ye good-for-nothin’ imp.”
But my mouth twisted involuntarily into a smile as I met his eyes, watching me over the top of the mirror. “I was…going to choose the Huntress moth anyway,” I murmured.
“Well, well, well,” Arachne clicked, “how glad I am to have consensus. We shall need to work quickly, aye.” From the pocket of her skirt, she pulled a long measuring twine, but recoiled when she nearly touched the iron medallion around my neck accidentally.
“Vengeful iron,” she hissed. “It curses and burns, it wants and it yearns for the death of all that is fay. Be wary, be sure, that you do not endure a touch from the metal of gray.”
“Take it off, please, May,” said the Devil calmly.
Arachne moved away from me as I slowly lifted the cord over my head.
He held out his hand and I passed the medallion to him, making sure to hold it out so he could avoid touching the iron.
He hung it on a protruding tree root behind him, then turned back.
As soon as the medallion was out of sight, Arachne moved in, wrapping the twine around various parts of my body while her spider legs sorted through bits of cloth on the table behind her.
I watched, simultaneously fascinated and disgusted, in the mirror as she worked.
When she finished measuring, she used the extra legs to hold eight different pieces of fabric up to my body at once, clicking her teeth and muttering under her breath.
“I have a suggestion or two,” said the Devil from behind his mirror. Vanishing it with only a snap of his fingers, he came and stood beside me—far too close, as usual.
“Ye might be able to weave that light, boy,” snapped Arachne, “but ye ain’t no spinner, so suggestions had better be sparse.” She went back to her table and continued talking to herself while she sorted through swatches.
“I am going to blindfold you,” said the Devil softly in my ear. “Is that alright?”
“Why?” I asked in a high voice.
“So you’ll be surprised,” he answered, then dropped his voice to a whisper, “and I can see that you do not like the mirror, though I won’t pretend to understand why.” I twisted my neck to look up at him, but was discomforted by his unusually soft expression.