So Much to Lose
A shaman who speaks with spiders. A hunter they met knew of a man who spoke with lizards. A priest (looking around anxio
usly, worried about angering his god with such talk) whispered he’d heard of a boy who could speak to fire. And the days went by in this land where the past seemed more alive than the future. Jacob caught himself wishing they’d never find the spider shaman so he and Fox could just ride on and on to where nobody knew of Fairies or Alderelves.
He’d never been so happy.
Not even the thought of abandoning Will changed that. It felt so easy to finally indulge this love. Fox was the only one able to dampen the rage his father had stoked once more. If only it didn’t scare him how much he suddenly had to lose.
They slept with each other for the first time while waiting out a storm in an abandoned shepherd hut. The hours the storm granted them, surrounded by raw wool and rusty shears, felt like a month, a year, all the years they’d been waiting for this, full of fear of their kisses, of their too-familiar skins. So far from all their memories, it felt as if they were meeting each other for the first time all over again. The horse scraping around in the discarded fleece, the storm, the sound of rain, Jacob gathered it all, like jewelry he would put around Fox’s neck whenever they would remember this first time.
The next day they met a boy with an eagle that was almost as big as the shaggy horse he was riding. The boy told them about a holy man who lived in a tree and let spiders nest in his clothes.
No.
They still had only one horse, and Jacob could feel Fox’s arms tighten around him. They probably both felt the same: They should have stayed a little longer in that hut, so they wouldn’t have ever met that boy.
The boy described a remote valley and a forest of wild apple trees. They found the valley and the forest, but there was no sign of the shaman. Only when a murder of crows fluttered out of one of the trees did they spot the face among the branches, a face so weathered it barely stood out from the bark and leaves. The shaman ignored Jacob’s calls, but when he saw Fox, he climbed down from his tree. His coat was crawling with spiders, so many it looked as though a Baba Yaga had put living embroidery on it. He picked a spider off his collar, one with pale green legs. Without a word, he placed it in Fox’s hand, smiled at her, and climbed back up into his tree. The spider descended on her thread and began to weave a web into the grass.
It took a while until they realized she was weaving a map.
The white gossamer formed a mountain range, a river, the shores of a lake. But then the web began to tremble. The fine threads tore, and Jacob felt a warm breeze on his skin. So warm it felt like rage. And pain.
He should have turned back. He shouldn’t have listened to her.
Sixteen wasn’t wearing Clara’s face this time. She didn’t even try to look like a human. Her body mirrored Fox, the torn web, the grass, the wild apple trees, but her glass skin was so jagged in places that the images were broken into a thousand facets, and the bark striped her like a tiger’s fur.
The spider tried to flee, but Sixteen caught it and froze it into silver, throwing its body into the torn web. Jacob thought he heard a cry from the branches, but the shaman stayed out of sight. Smart.
“What are you doing here? My brother’s warning wasn’t enough?”
Jacob saw his fear reflected in Sixteen’s eyes. She pointed at Fox with the silver blades of her fingers.
“Seventeen says silver suits her. And that you drove it out with Witch magic.” She looked around. “But there are no Witches here.”
She smiled.
Jacob tried to stand in front of Fox, but she wouldn’t have it. She’d drawn her knife. It wouldn’t help. Nothing would help.
Sixteen eyed Jacob as though comparing his face to another’s.
“You really look nothing like him.”
Of course. His brother.
“He’s so beautiful,” Sixteen continued. “Even silver couldn’t make him any more beautiful.”
Jacob didn’t ask her whether she’d already stolen Will’s beautiful face. But maybe Sixteen could answer another question.
“Does he have human skin?”
The question didn’t seem to surprise her.
“Yes. It only turns to stone when he gets angry.”
Jacob tried to comprehend what that meant. Let it go, Jacob. What was it Dunbar’s telegram said? Damp earth. Water. He looked around. Trees. Nothing but trees.
Sixteen leaned down and picked up the silver spider. “My brother has started collecting them. Insects, plants, a mouse, a snake. I wish this whole filthy world could be turned to silver.”