The Spindlers (17 page)

“Don't even think about it,” Liza whispered. “Now hush. I'm trying to concentrate.”

Back and forth, back and forth: The tension around her wrists let up a little more, and then a little more, and then—
snap!
—she was free. Liza contained a cry of excitement. She was far from safe.

“Mirabella.” She leaned over and pressed her mouth directly against the rat's fuzzy ear. “I've managed to get my hands free.”

“You what?” Mirabella's eyes flew open.

“Shh.” Liza reached over and clamped a hand over the rat's snout. Fortunately the Scawgs were engrossed in a heated argument about whether human went better with buttered potatoes or roasted squash, and were paying no attention to their captives. “We must be very quiet and very careful. I'm going to untie you, okay?”

Mirabella nodded, eyes wide.

Liza helped the rat roll over onto her side, so that her paws, and the rope tied tightly around them, were visible; then Liza began working slowly and carefully at the knots, keeping one eye on the scawgs at the front of the boat. The work was made even more difficult because the boat kept tipping and dipping, and sending Mirabella rolling back into Liza, squeaking with fear, so that it seemed she almost
wanted
the scawgs to hear her. And as soon as Liza did get Mirabella onto her side again, the rat's tail—released from underneath her—would begin whipping excitedly in Liza's face.

“For goodness' sake,” Liza said, “can't you control that thing?”

“I can't help it,” Mirabella whispered back miserably. “Nervous habit.”

But at last Liza was successful, and when the ropes came off Mirabella's paws, Liza once again leaned in to whisper to her. Her stomach was full of a thick, coiled fear; she was not looking forward to this bit, not at all.

“Mirabella,” she said. “We must swim for it.”

Mirabella looked even more frightened than when she had first woken up in the boat with the scawgs. She grabbed Liza's shirt frantically. “We can't! Oh no! That is a very, very bad idea.”

“We have no choice,” Liza insisted. And she knew it was true. “I am not going to be baked into a pie and eaten.”

Mirabella looked as though she thought that might be preferable. “But the river …”

“You've warned me about the river. But it's our only hope. I, for one, am going to swim for it.”

Liza sucked in a deep breath and sat up. At that moment a few things happened in very rapid succession:

One of the flowers began lashing its long stem crazily back and forth, whipping Liza in the face and sending her tumbling onto her back.

The scawgs, seeing the commotion, began to scream, and two of them rushed toward Liza and Mirabella.

The boat tipped dangerously to one side, and Liza rolled toward its edge.

Mirabella shouted, “I won't let you!” and made a dive for Liza, managing to get a claw around the second of Liza's sneakers.

The boat tipped;

The flower twisted;

Liza's foot came free of the sneaker;

And Liza went tumbling, suddenly, into the roaring, rushing River of Knowledge.

E
verything was noise and confusion—so much noise it made Liza feel as though her head was about to explode.

Liza fought desperately to reach the surface of the river, but she was so confused and terrified she did not know which way was up or down. This was unlike any water she had ever known. The river was full of swirling images, mixed together, jumbled up: dark stone that flowed like a river across the surface of a pale blue planet; a single drop of dew trembling at the edge of an enormous purple petal; stars racing across a pink sky; a child running through a luscious green field.

But there were terrible things too: faces that leered at her; galloping, snorting horses that reared above her and brought their enormous hooves driving toward her face; green creatures, covered in dark green algae, that grabbed at her ankles and tugged her downward.

Her chest was collapsing. She couldn't breathe. Her mouth was full of choking red dust: a tornado, in the center of the river, spiraling toward her. A baby was crying. A woman and a man, both wearing starched white gloves, danced in a room made entirely of gold, while an orchestra played. Then a bull, snorting, massive; she could feel its heat, she would be trampled, she would die.

More nightmare creatures, with mouths looped around with seaweed, like some horrible stitching, and long fingers, rotting.

Liza, Liza, Liza
, they chanted, in voices that were as soft as a snake's hiss.
Come join us, Liza. Live forever, Liza. Play forever, Liza
.

No
, she tried to scream; but the weight of the water was everywhere: the noise, the heat, the horrible faces and places and things. And the last of her air went; the pain in her lungs was huge. She swallowed, gulping a choking sand, a choking dust, choking—

She was choking—

Then suddenly, just like that, the creatures let go, and Liza was lifted; she broke the surface of the river and gulped in air, sobbing and grateful, as the swift currents released her. Mirabella, sopping wet, heaved her out of the water and onto the rocky banks. Liza was shivering and sobbing, coughing up water. Mirabella had lost her wig, her shawl, and the last of her skirt. The rat stood, skinny, naked, trembling.

The scawgs were nowhere to be seen.

“What did I tell you?” Mirabella cried shrilly, but before she could get any further, Liza had thrown her arms around the rat's shoulders.

“Oh, Mirabella!” she cried, clinging tightly to the shivering rat. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Mirabella's body went rigid: Remember that she had never, not once in her whole life, been hugged.

Liza's teeth were chattering, though not from the cold. Her mind was still clouded with the river's roiling visions; she was sure she would have died had she been submerged any longer.

“You saved my life.” Liza was too grateful to care about the taste of wet rat fur in her mouth. “You are the bravest, truest rat I've ever known. No. You are the bravest, truest
friend
I've ever had.”

A tiny spasm passed through Mirabella's body, but Liza didn't notice.

She didn't notice, either, the clicking sounds from all around them, the
tic-tic-tic
of tiny nails against the rocks.

She pulled away from Mirabella but kept her hands on the rat's bony shoulders, stooping just a little so she could stare the rat directly in her eyes. “And I want you to know, Mirabella, that you are beautiful. You are beautiful just like this, as you are, with no makeup or clothes or anything.”

Liza was not just saying this to be nice. The rat did appear beautiful to her just then, with her large black eyes and long silken whiskers, and curled gray fur, still dripping water.

Mirabella gave a short cry, almost of pain, and to Liza's surprise, tears sprang up in the rat's eyes.

Believing the rat must be overwhelmed, Liza moved once again to hug her.

“That's okay,” she said kindly. “You don't have to say anything.”

Mirabella gave another mangled cry. “It's not okay!” She broke free of Liza's arms. “Oh, Miss Liza. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.”

“Sorry?” Liza laughed. “What do you have to be sorry …” But the laughter, and the words, dried up in Liza's throat.

By then she had heard it: the unmistakable
tic-tic-tic
of the nails. Fear seized her, and her body went all at once to ice. She did not consciously think of turning around, but then she found herself turning; everything seemed to happen in slow motion.

“Well, well, well.” The voice behind her was no louder than a whisper, like the rustle of dry leaves in autumn. “We've been expecting you for quite some time now.”

Liza's heart stopped: spindlers, dozens and dozens of them, crowded black shapes massed along the rocks, watched her amusedly with their crescent eyes. The spindler that had spoken was the size of a large house cat and covered all over in prickly black hair. Even its hands were covered in hair. Its fingernails were long, sharp, and painted red.

“You have my brother,” Liza managed to croak out.

“Perhaps,” the spindler said. It had a wide mouth, and two long, curved pincers that made it seem as though it was constantly grinning. The spindler turned toward Mirabella. “You've done your job well, rat. Admirably well. The queen will be pleased. She will be sure to remember your services to us after we have feasted, when all the world Below is ours.”

Next to Liza, Mirabella was miserably chewing her tail. Liza felt a blackness rise inside her, a wave of cold fury.

“You—you're on
their
side?” She was shaking so badly she had to ball her hands against her thighs.

Mirabella let out a pathetic and hapless squeak, which was as good as a full confession of guilt.

“And all this time you pretended to be helping me, and really you were just leading me here to—to be
trapped
?”

The spindler let out a hollow laugh, and the other spindlers joined in, so the air was full of a low rustling: It made Liza think of rain pounding against black winter branches. “You didn't really think the rat offered to help out of the goodness of her heart, did you?” Contempt was obvious in the spindler's tone. “Don't they teach you
anything
Above?”

“I trusted you,” Liza said in a bare whisper. Mirabella groaned and clamped her hands over her ears.

“Everyone knows you can't trust a rat.” The spindler gestured for one of its many companions to come forward. “Give the slimy creature its reward.”

One of the other spindlers scuttled forward. In its two front hands it held a small mirrored compact made of cheap plastic, like the kind Liza's aunt Virginia got at department stores when she spent more than twenty-five dollars on face creams and perfume.

This was too much.

“A
mirror
?” Liza felt the heat rushing back; she found herself wishing, cruelly, that she still had her broom. Now she would gladly bop Mirabella over the head. “You traded me for a cheap plastic mirror?”

Mirabella still had her paws over her ears and was shaking her head back and forth. “Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad rat,” she muttered. “Can't trust a dirty, filthy rat. No good for anything.”

Liza took a step forward, and Mirabella squeaked with fear. She brought her paws defensively in front of her chest, as though worried Liza was going to attack her. But Liza could only say, “I wanted to be your
friend
. I thought we
were
friends. Do you understand that?”

Mirabella froze. Her mouth fell open, but no words or sounds emerged.

“All right, rat,” the spindler said, with unconcealed contempt. “You've done your job. Take your trinket, and be off with you. Unless you, too, would like to stay for the Feasts …?”

Again the titter went up from the other spindlers.

Mirabella took up the mirror, squeezing it tightly in both paws. But she kept her eyes on Liza, and her whiskers quivered. She closed her mouth and opened it again. Still nothing.