Part 5 (1/2)

And then his teacher noticed, and she rushed over to reclaim the boy, a strained, unapologetic smile for Niki, and she pulled the boy away, tucked him into line with his restless cla.s.smates. But he glanced back at Niki over his shoulder and stuck his tongue out at her.

What you waiting for now, Niki? Too afraid of what you're going to see in there?

”Leave me alone,” she said, talking to no one at all, or herself, to the boy or the muttering, colorless thing nestled somewhere inside her. ”Just leave me the h.e.l.l alone,” and she walked past the children, up the stairs, into the museum.

Eight dollars and fifty cents to get through the door, past guards and docents and into the Tyrannosaurus-haunted atrium. The skeleton loomed above her like a sentinel out-

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side the ebony gates of Hades or Mordor or Midian, something that might lunge from its pedestal, loud clatter of bones and steel rods, to snap her apart in those petrified jaws, those long stone-dagger teeth.

”I'm not afraid of you,” she whispered confidently to the dinosaur, not even a real fossil, remembering the first time she'd come here with Daria, and the Tyrannosaurus was only a clever replica, nothing but molded fibergla.s.s and plaster and paint. d.a.m.nation's scarecrow wired together to impress the gullible, and Niki glared defiantly up at its empty eye sockets, and the skeleton stayed right where it was.

”Can I help you find something, miss?” a girl asked her, a very polite girl wearing a plastic name tag with the museum logo printed on it, and Niki turned her back to the phony Tyrannosaurus. The girl's name was Linda, and she had a smile that reminded Niki of an airline stewardess.

”Do you have spiders?” Niki asked her. ”I need to see the spiders, if there are any.”

”Yes, ma'am,” the girl said and pointed at the other side of the atrium, behind the tyrannosaur. ”They're located in the Hall of Insects,” and she smiled again and handed Niki a colorful, glossy pamphlet with a map of the museum.

”Thank you,” she said, but the girl was already busy asking if she could help someone else.

Niki Ky sat alone in the Hall of Insects, sat on a long wooden bench in front of a big display case of spiders and scorpions, mites and ticks and less familiar creepy crawlies; a hundred minuscule corpses, minute crucifixions for the curious to gawk at, sideshow for the squeamish or a nightmare for arachnophobes. Beneath the sweats.h.i.+rt rag her hand had begun to itch, and she concentrated on the display, trying not to scratch at it or mess with the bandage.

Niki had read all the labels before she sat down, read them three times through because she was afraid of missing the one thing that was most important. But none of it seeming any more or less significant than the rest. Now she 46 just sat there, waiting and thinking about the tiny bodies, about the spiders, mostly, the spiders the reason that she'd come here, after all. As if she'd ever need so obvious a reminder, about as tactful as d.i.c.kens' Christmas ghosts or a lead pipe across her skull. She reached into the pocket of her coat and took out the first bottle that her fingertips en-countered, the Klonopin, and she opened it.

”Of course, they aren't insects, you know,” Dr. Dalby said, and she hadn't even noticed him standing there in front of her, leaning on his silver-handled walking stick and peering at the exhibit through his bifocals. ”They're actually members of the Cla.s.s Arachnida.”

”I know that,” Niki said, interrupting him, and she put two of the pills in her mouth. They tasted faintly sweet and made her tongue tingle, faint and not unpleasant numbness as they started to dissolve. ”Spyder told me that.”

”Yes,” the old man said. ”She would have, wouldn't she?”

”I guess no one wants a Hall of Arachnids,” she mumbled, and Dr. Dalby nodded his head.

”No, I don't suppose they do. But it does seem a shame, don't you think? Says here there are more than . . .” and he paused, reading one of the labels again. ”More than thirty-eight thousand species of spiders, and only about four thousand species of mammals. And, it says, arachnids were the first terrestrial animals, with scorpions dating back to the Silurian, over four hundred million years ago.”

”I read it already, Dr. Dalby,” and Niki dry swallowed the two half-dissolved pills, put three more in her mouth. ”I read it all, three times.”

”But that little lady there, she's a gem, isn't she?” and he pointed at a dead black widow. ”Family Theridiidae, genus Latrodectus, species mactans. I wish I remembered more of my Latin. I'd tell you what the heck all that means.”

”Spyder knew,” Niki said. ”But I don't. She told me once, but I can't remember anymore. There are five species in North America,” and then Niki shut her eyes and recited them for the psychologist: ”Latrodectus mactans, Latrodec-

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tus variolus, Latrodectus geometricus, Latrodectus hesperus, and Latrodectus bishopi, ” and he smiled at her.

”That's impressive, Nicolan.”

She opened her eyes, and ”You're not really Dr. Dalby, are you?” she asked the old man. ”You don't smell like him.”

”Right now, I'm who you need me to be.”

Niki laughed, louder than she'd intended to laugh, and several people in the Hall of Insects turned to stare at her.

”Sorry about that,” she said, though she wasn't, and took two more Klonopin.

”This isn't what you think it is,” the man who wasn't really Dr. Dalby said and he sat down on the bench next to her and touched her gently on the shoulder. ”It's not just phantoms and hallucinations. It's so much more than that.”

Niki didn't look up, stayed focused on the prescription bottle because she didn't want to see the things in his eyes and certainly didn't want him to see the things in hers.

”I don't care,” she said. ”I've had enough of everything for one f.u.c.ked-up lifetime.”

”You know, Niki,” and then she was sure it wasn't Dr.

Dalby because he'd never once called her Niki. ”Some people say spiders connect the world of the living with the world of the dead. They guard the underworld, and sometimes they even spin webs that connect the earth and Heaven.”

”Oh, is that why you're here? To take me to Heaven?”

He didn't say anything for a moment, rubbed at his mustache like it itched and arched his eyebrows.

”No,” he said, finally. ”I can't do that.”

”Then f.u.c.k off,” and she shook four more pills out into her bandaged palm.

”There's no way to ever finish the story without you,” he said, but not his voice now, a woman's voice instead, and the air around Niki grew suddenly cold and smelled like dust and Old Spice aftershave, sweat and a skunky hint of marijuana smoke. Niki watched the Klonopin bottle slip 48 from her fingers and the blue pills spill out and bounce away across the museum floor.

”You put this G.o.dd.a.m.n thing inside me,” she said and swallowed. Anger rising slow, swimming against and through the honey-thick tide of benzodiazepines clouding her brain, and she wouldn't turn to see if it was really Spyder or if it was only another ghost, something pretending to be Spyder so Niki would have to pay attention. ”That's a cheap trick,” she said. ”That's a really cheap f.u.c.king trick.”

A thirsty sound like wind in dry autumn leaves then, or thunder very far away, and Niki knew that whoever had been sitting there beside her was gone. She glanced up at the spider display one more time, Plexiglas coffin for widows and tarantulas and granddaddy longlegs, and then she bent down and started picking up the scattered pills.

C H A P T E R T W O.

The Wolves We All Can See Almost noon, and Daria has lost count of how many cups of strong black coffee, how many cigarettes, since she and Marvin came downstairs, leaving Niki alone to sleep and dream beneath the painting of Ophelia.

They're sitting together in the big kitchen, and the air smells like tobacco smoke and coffee. There's a sandwich in front of her that she hasn't even touched, the sandwich she let Marvin make for her even though eating was the very last thing on her mind. Sprouts and low-fat gouda cheese, thick slices of ripe avocado on whole wheat, a perfect, healthy sandwich on a cobal blue gla.s.s saucer. And it's times like these Daria wishes she'd never become a f.u.c.king vegetarian; something else that she did for Niki, in-dulging Niki's guilt, and the sandwich looks about as appetizing as a field of gra.s.s.