And I’m sitting here staring with my mouth open. “Is there any hope for saving him?” I blurt out.
She doesn’t answer. Just places the mug and bottle on the table before taking another slurp of tea. After a moment she uncorks the bottle and leans down to peer inside it with one eye. “Uh-huh. Just like I left it.”
I watch her tip it over and a sledge of black liquid flows from it down into the cup. I frown. The bottle she’s holding is see-through and empty, but the ick keeps dripping out as if the thing is full. She recorks the bottle and swirls the mug to mix it.
She carries the cup over and thrusts it in front of my face. “Drink.”
That’s it? That’s what we’ve sat here waiting for? I sniff. Ugh. What in the name of—? It smells worse than the tea and when I peer over the mug’s rim, the liquid is bubbling. Boiling.
She tips it near my lips and I lean back because maybe we should take a second to be certain this is the right stuff and also to let it cool. “Wait—”
My words are cut off as she crams the cup to my mouth and jerks my hair back so my jaw opens. I gasp and choke as suddenly the sledge is slipping between my teeth and down my throat.
Dear hulls, what kind of plague is this stuff?
But it’s not burning. In fact, it’s cold and bubbly and it tastes of honey. Even if it smells like death warmed over. I swallow it down until it’s gone, and once she pulls the mug away I’m thinking the chances are fairly good I might vomit. My stomach feels swollen and the honey is sticking oddly to the back of my tongue. The woman doesn’t seem to care—she just sets the cup on the table and pulls her stool over to sit and wait. And hum.
I’m not sure what it’s supposed to do or how it’s supposed to work, but I suspect she mixed something wrong. Abruptly my stomach is on fire and my bones are icing over—as if all the heat from my body and blood is being pulled into a whirlpool made of the potion.
My head starts vibrating first. The rest of me follows quickly—shaking, shivering, flailing, my wrists and ankles chafing at their restraints as my muscles lose control of themselves. The old woman’s got me by the back of the head and she’s stuffing a dusty cloth in my mouth.
That’s when I begin screaming.
Because my entire body is being frozen alive and my veins are turning to powder as the cold sears through my bones and skin. Then I’m screaming because the woman is morphing, changing into a hideous black beast, a spider the size of a ferret-cat. It’s coming closer and Myles is merely standing there watching, staring at it. What’s he waiting for? What’s he doing?
The spider-lady shuffles forward.
Clack, clack, clack.
Her legs tap on the floorboards as she scuttles for me, humming her song that now sounds like a chanting death knell. I squirm and gag on the dirty cloth. I try to lift my hands, my legs, but the straps are too tight—they’re cutting my skin.
The spider talons dig into me as she latches first onto my leg, then jumps to my stomach. She begins crawling, clawing, scratching her way up my bones, my flesh, onto my chest until suddenly I can’t breathe. She’s suffocating my lungs.
“Help me!” I try to yell, but no sound emits through the rag.
Clack, clack, clack. The legs move along my chest up onto my neck, my throat. The spider’s hundreds of eyes twinkle down at me as her hideous coarse-haired body leans into my chin. She puts two legs on my lips. I shiver, but she yanks out the rag and is clawing, forcing my mouth to stay open.
I shake my head and writhe, trying to throw her off, but the talons cut deeper and suddenly she’s crawling inside my mouth and forcing her way down my throat. Her bristly legs scratch up every inch of it as they scuttle down into my chest, my heart, my blood.
Next thing I know someone’s pulling the rag from my mouth just as I begin vomiting into a pot placed in my lap. And when I look up, the spider’s sitting in front of me but she’s re-formed back into the old witch.
CHAPTER 20
Crisscross, back and forth, the spider spins her web, while the carved-in bird on my arm flutters and whimpers and chirps out a song that sounds very much like one I used to know. There’s something beautiful about it really—the way the spider weaves to the music, strumming my veins onto her loom, like an intricate dance of sinew and flesh. Leaning down every so often to bite and push her venom further into my blood.
Clack, clack, clack, her legs scratch. Transforming the thrum in my veins into pockets of cold, swirling energy.
Until she looks up with those glittering eyes, and I swear she scowls. Her scratching legs pause, then suddenly she’s skittering for the carved-in bluebird on my arm. I try to brush her off, but my fingers are heavy and cumbersome and by the time they twitch she’s pounced. A horrid chirp is followed by a broken note, and the last of the melody is replaced by the crunch of bones and chewing.
Vomit bubbles up. What has she done?