The Spider Thief (18 page)

Ruins

“I want to call her,” Ash said as the Galaxie climbed the cracked blacktop road. “I need to know that she’s okay. I need to know what she’s thinking.”

“She’s thinking you’re a felon.” Mauricio sat with his arm sunning on the door, his fingers drumming on the chrome trim. “And somehow I ended up here with you. How do I get myself into these situations?”

“Because I’m irresistible in my pursuit of the next big score.” Ash gave him a lazy smile. “Relax. Everything’s worked out so far.”

“Oh, yeah. Everything’s coming out lilies and lollipops.” Mauricio held out his forearm with the spider web tattoo. “What do you call this?”

“An absolutely awesome bar story waiting to be told.”

Mauricio rolled his eyes. “Explain to me again why we’re going back to the old house?”

“To be honest, because I’m completely out of other options.”

“Oh. Fantastic. What if Andres is there?”

Ash shook his head. “He’s not there.”

“How do you know?”

“Educated guess.”

Mauricio sighed. “Seriously, there’s nothing left of the old house. The whole place burned to the ground.” Mauricio kept drumming his fingers. “You would know that already, if you’d ever come home again. To take care of things.”

With an effort, Ash avoided that topic.

“What are you looking for up there?” Mauricio said.

“Just one thing. If it’s not there, we’ll leave.”

“I told you. There’s
nothing
there.”

“There’s never nothing,” Ash said, more to himself than Mauricio. “There’s always something, if you look hard enough.”

“Well, tell me this. Why would Prez want us to burn that money? That doesn’t make any sense. If he doesn’t want a million dollars, I’ll take it.”

“A lot of things about Prez don’t make any sense.” Ash gave him a meaningful look. “Schlitz beer. Seriously?”

Mauricio finally cracked a smile. He reached around behind him and petted Moolah. “So let me ask you something. When Andres called looking for the spider, you said you knew where it was?”

Ash stared off into the distance. “I guess I must’ve. Because I figured it was still at the preacher’s house.”

“And you said you’d hand it over for a cold million dollars.”

“Apparently.” Ash chewed that one over. “But I don’t think I was planning to. I think I was planning all along to double-cross Andres.”

“Why? What do you care about the gold, if you’ve got all that cash?”

“Because the gold isn’t why Andres wants the spider.” Ash glanced over at him. “The spider means a lot more than wealth. It means bliss, invulnerability, an unbreakable connection to everyone around you. It means
power
. Over everything and everyone.”

Mauricio stared out the window for a long moment. “It means a lot of things we don’t have.”

Ash nodded.

They rounded the old familiar bend in the driveway and pulled up in front of the remains of their childhood home.

The fireplace still stood, and the cinder-block chimney rose up from it like a grave monument. It was the only thing still standing. Everything else had fallen into a charred jumble. Blackened timbers poked up between yucca and wildflowers.

They sat in the car, staring, neither one of them saying anything. Ash got out first, then let Moolah out and shut the car door. The sound was like a gunshot across the silent ridge. Mauricio followed him to the edge of the ruins.

Ash stepped up onto a timber and tested his weight. “Years ago, you told me you never found dad’s safe after the fire.”

Mauricio shook his head. “No, I told you Dad didn’t
have
a safe.”

Ash gave him a sad smile. “We just weren’t supposed to know about it.” He stepped down into the rubble where it formed a shallow pit. His boots crunched on old ashes.

“So Dad did have a safe, and you never told me?” Mauricio stood on the edge of the rubble, fists clenched at his sides.

“I asked you about it, didn’t I?” Ash found a fairly solid piece of lumber and used it to poke and pry around him.

It would have been more heartbreaking if he could recognize much of anything. But it was all so jumbled together, so out of place or burned beyond recognition that it seemed like he was digging through the remains of someone else’s life. A life with only a coincidental similarity to his.

It was possible that some scavenger had already found the safe and made off with it. But even the most desperate thief would have had to work hard to get anything useful out of these remains. It didn’t take long until Ash was sweaty and short of breath. He looked over at Mauricio, standing motionless at the edge of the ruins with his arms folded.

Ash wiped the sweat out of his eyes and went back to work. He didn’t have much to say.

Eventually, Mauricio changed his mind and gingerly picked his way through the rubble, as if it was still smoldering. “So you found this gold spider in the attic when we were kids. Right?”

“Right.”

“And Cleo and I touched it and we passed out. Which I don’t remember.”

“Also true.”

“How do you hide something like that?”

Ash thought about it, breathing hard in the thin mountain air. “Dad told Cleo’s parents that she’d hit her head. Freaked them right out.”

“I bet.”

“And Mom took the spider over to the preacher’s house to, I don’t know, to exorcise it. Break the curse. Whatever preachers do.”

“Except he didn’t.”

“Except he didn’t,” Ash agreed. “He got hooked on it, somehow. Like a drug. Him and his wife.”

Mauricio studied him, obviously trying to decide something. “How could anyone get hooked on it?”

“I don’t know.” Ash leaned on the charred length of timber, thinking about the red blood of sunset that had spilled through the trees the day he’d bicycled down the dirt road to the preacher’s house.

He swallowed the lump in his throat. It was finally time to tell Mauricio the whole story.

*

At school, Ash had heard rumors about the preacher. That the church had replaced him with a young man from the city. That he’d barricaded himself in his house, never answered the phone, and refused to talk to his former congregation. That he only came into town at night now, unwashed, unshaven, buying his groceries without a word and then scurrying home.

People whispered that he was a drunk. A drug addict.

Ash harbored his own suspicions, thinking on them in the dead of night until he couldn’t take it anymore. After school, he pedaled through the dying light down long sandy roads and up over rocks to the preacher’s house. Even then, it had already looked abandoned.

He left his bike by the wood pile and peeked in the dirty windows, but nothing showed in the darkness inside. All the lights were off. The front door was unlocked, but the ground floor was empty.

He’d stood in the front hall, eyes wide, heart pounding. He knew something terrible was happening here, but he couldn’t just walk away. He had to know. But his feet wouldn’t obey. He couldn’t take another step inside, and he couldn’t simply leave. Every moment he stood there, the sunlight faded and the night crept in.

He could feel a presence in the house, silently tugging at him. Something drew him to the foot of the stairs, a prickly feeling that he couldn’t ignore. It called out to him, irresistible, in a silence so loud he could hear himself swallow.

He took the stairs up, one wary step at a time.

Upstairs, the bedroom door was open, dim light spilling out into the hall. The preacher’s wife, bone thin, lay silently on the floor, wrapped in a faded nightgown. Her limp white hair hung over her face. Mottled red rashes covered the length of her arms, some of them so old they’d faded and been covered with new welts. She stretched out one emaciated arm, cooing to the gold spider that sat inches from her fingertips.

The spider statue crouched like a living thing. It didn’t move, but it had the motionless energy of a predator ready to pounce. Its emerald eyes gleamed with an inner light, an insatiable hunger.

Ash drew in a sharp breath.

She stroked the spider’s full abdomen and her whole body instantly stiffened. She let out a shuddering gasp and then went limp. Her eyes rolled back.

Ash stood frozen. A tortured scream built up in his throat, but it wouldn’t come out.

So this is what had happened to the spider. Instead of destroying it, the preacher and his wife had given in to it. They’d come to embrace it. Worship it. The thought overwhelmed him with nausea.

And yet, in the ensuing stillness, there was something oddly compelling about the spider statue. The way it shimmered in the light, a rich beauty, painfully exquisite. Alien power glowed in its eyes, alluring, full of promise. Full of the answers to ancient mysteries, the wisdom to unlock secrets that lurked just out of reach. A sick sort of fascination drew Ash closer, one slow step at a time.

A gnarled hand seized Ash’s wrist. The preacher loomed over him, eyes wild and bloodshot. His cheeks were sunken, his hair unwashed and stringy. His lips curled back from yellowed teeth. “What are you doing here?” he demanded, shaking Ash.

With a yell, Ash twisted free. He raced down the stairs and fled blindly through the house, the preacher’s booted feet thumping close behind him, his rank breath wheezing on the back of Ash’s neck.

Ash grabbed his bike and ran alongside it. The blood pounded in his ears, drowning out the preacher’s shouts. Mindless with terror, Ash scrambled onto the saddle and pedaled as hard as he could, not daring to look back. He sped home through the darkness and cold, sliding in unseen ruts, ducking tree branches that clawed at his face. He dumped his bike in the front yard and ran inside to dial the sheriff’s department with shaking fingers. His words came out in a tumbled stream. The preacher, crazy. His wife, dying. Send the sheriff. Send him
now.

Ash hung up and peered around wide-eyed at the silence of the house. His parents had gone to town with Mauricio. He sat trembling by the phone, wondering if he could call Cleo and tell her what had happened. Would she believe him? How could he even begin to explain, without sounding as crazy as the preacher?

An eternity later, Cleo’s dad pulled up in his cruiser, lights off. When he came to the door, he was stern and none too forgiving. He stood on the porch and spiked his lecture with terms like
breaking and entering
and
juvenile delinquent
.

Apparently the innocent preacher, despite his and his wife’s failing health, was kind enough not to press charges.

“Listen to me,” Ash insisted. “There’s a gold spider. It’s cursed. I’m telling you.”

“Son.” The sheriff’s voice was low and firm. “I don’t believe the preacher exactly agrees with your version of events. I saw his wife, and she’s a sight short of healthy, but she’s certainly alive. You best think very carefully about what you want to say to me next.”

Ash swallowed and thought about it, and decided not to say another word. He watched Cleo’s dad leave, tail lights burning red in the night, and wondered what would happen to the preacher and his wife.

He never went back to find out. He always meant to, but somehow he just never did. He didn’t think of it as being afraid to. More of a matter of being smart. Besides, after that night, everyone in town said that the preacher had moved away.

But they were wrong.

*

“You never told me any of that,” Mauricio said quietly, when Ash was finished.

“Yeah, well.” Ash let out a long breath. “I’m big on filling in the blanks. It’s a talent of mine.”

“Why keep me in the dark all this time? And what about Cleo? You went to prom with her, man, you didn’t even tell her about that?”

“Didn’t exactly want to bring it up again.” Ash looked him in the eye. “More than anything, I wanted to believe it was all over. That the curse was gone. There was nothing I could do about it, anyway. Right?”

Mauricio pursed his lips and looked away.

Ash kicked at the rubble. This was useless. If the safe hadn’t been destroyed in the fire, somebody must have found it by now and made off with it. He threw down the length of wood he’d been digging with.

Just as he turned to go, the sun came out from behind a cloud, warming his skin, changing the shadows around him from blue to gold. In the space between two boards at his feet, metal flashed in a crack of light. He bent closer. The scorched steel handle of his dad’s safe gleamed up at him from the darkness.

Lost City

Clearing away the blackened boards, Ash uncovered the safe. It was small, barely a foot square. The handle and dial were covered in soot and mud, but they still turned. The combination was Ash’s birthday, but he decided not to share that fact with Mauricio.

The lock clicked and he pulled on the handle. As dirty and heat-discolored as it was, it turned easily. He lifted the thick door and the hinges squealed. Inside the soft darkness was a bundle of envelopes and an old book, all held together with twine. Carefully, he felt around the cold confines of the safe to make sure there was nothing else. Only then did he stand up and lead Mauricio out of the ruins.

Ash sat down on a rock and worked at the knotted twine. Without a word, Mauricio sat down on the grass next to him. As if summoned, Moolah loped across the ridge and nuzzled up against Mauricio, tail wagging.

The wind died down across the mountainside, leaving them in silence beneath the hot sun. With unsteady fingers, Ash undid the knot and threw the bristly twine aside.

The stack of envelopes felt slippery in his hands. They were full of black and white photos of people he didn’t recognize. He handed them to Mauricio, who pulled the photos out one by one.

The book was a worn leather-bound journal with a gap in the middle. The paper was yellowed and loose in the binding, threatening to break free at every turn of the page. His dad’s flowing handwriting, tough to read even in the best circumstances, was made worse by cheap ink that had faded to faint brown scrawls.