Fist of the Spider Woman (10 page)

Setting the book on the nightstand, Kate made her way to the bathroom and pushed the door open. The lamplight from her bedroom spilled into the narrow room. One of her candles was also burning on the counter. She could not remember lighting it. Kate saw Gracie's silhouette and was about to flip on the lights when she saw the reflection of a dark figure in the room. Her head jerked to the right. Nobody was there.

She looked back to the mirror. The dark figure was still there, in the shadows from the glare of the light. Kate's eyes shifted from reflection to nothing and back again. Panic and confusion tightened her chest, and her hand froze above the light switch. Each second lasted minutes, but flew. She was suddenly nine years old, feeling superstition accompanied by terror and its thrill.

A sound. She did not want to look away from the figure, but the sound distracted her briefly. Enough to see that Gracie was lapping at a trickle of dark liquid that ran down the side of the mirror. One thick line, almost black. Movement caught her eyes, and Kate watched as the figure moved forward, not into the light from the bedroom but into the light of the candle. Sodden clumps of hair framed a thin face and body. That was all that Kate saw before she reeled back and shot out of the bathroom. She was running into the parking lot outside before she realized that she had left her purse, keys, and phone back in the apartment. She whirled around, looking for someone who might let her use their phone. But it was not a safe neighbourhood, and Kate realized she did not know any of her neighbours.

She dropped onto the curb and hugged her knees, looking at her front door. She needed to go in. She needed something. She could not leave with nothing. Her thin silver watch clicked slower than her pulse, and ten minutes passed before she could move.

Did she see a figure or did she create the figure? Was she just tired, jumping at shadows because of the news? She was probably in more danger in the parking lot than in her own apartment.

Glancing around, she made her way back into the building. Kate shut the door behind her but didn't lock it, leaving herself an easy exit.

Gracie was sitting on the couch, licking her paws as though nothing had happened. The normalcy soothed Kate. Because Gracie was usually terrified of strangers, then surely there were no strangers here. But she grabbed a kitchen knife anyway, holding it defensively as she edged back into her bedroom. The bathroom door was still half open, the candle still flickering. For a moment, Kate saw nothing in the mirror. She crept into the bathroom, raising her knife and looking into every corner. There was nothing but the line of dried liquid on the mirror, the sway of the curtains, and the dark mass of her towels hanging on the wall.

And then the bathroom door slammed behind her. She screamed and almost dropped the knife. Her free hand clutched at the knob, slipped in sweat, but the knob refused to budge. Kate looked up into the mirror and the figure was there again, peering at her over her shoulder.

In the darkness Kate could see the figure more clearly. Her clothing was nondescript, ankle-and wrist-length, soaked and stained. She was thin. But everything paled beside the blood, black in the candlelight. There were gouges in the woman's face, bald patches where hair used to be, and blood trickled like tears, cutting through the tacky clots and knotting beneath the wounds. The woman's eyes were bright and glistened wetly in the mirror.

There was a tap, tap, tap, tap, and Kate could not tear her eyes away to notice that her hand was shaking so violently that the knife was tapping against the sink counter.

The woman cocked her head to the side. Her face was expressionless, but the gesture made her seem almost compassionate. Some still place in Kate's head thought the woman was almost beautiful. Kate felt a hand in her hair, stroking it lightly.

“I always come when I'm called,” the woman in the mirror said. “If only you are patient.”

The voice was unremarkable. Kate looked over her shoulder. There was still no one there. But she could
feel
the pressure of fingers on her scalp. The rhythmic stroking and the voice calmed her in spite of herself.

“What do you want?” The words were out of her mouth before Kate even realized that she could speak.

The woman shook her head. “What do
you
want?” she asked.

Kate hissed between her teeth when the pressure on her scalp increased as the woman curled her nails into the flesh and drew down. Kate thought of an apple peeler. A finger traced the side of Kate's face. Kate could see it in the mirror, she could feel it, but it was not there. She tried to move away from the woman's hands, but her feet seemed frozen in place. The woman just leaned with her, her warmth seeping through Kate's clothing.

“Do you want me to leave?” the woman asked, no louder than a whisper. Kate could hear every word, every breath.

“Who…?” Kate could not finish. The woman's nail split her skin from forehead to jaw, and Kate watched the woman smile and bring her finger to her mouth to suck.

“You know who I am,” the woman said. Her breath felt clean and cold where blood welled into the furrow lining Kate's cheek.

The knife fell to the floor with a clatter, and Kate felt a tongue, wet and hot, slide up the cut along her scalp. The woman pressed her moist lips to Kate's temple where the heartbeat raced.

“Do you want me to leave?” the woman asked. But she seemed to already know the answer.

If she could have, Kate would have worn a scarf close around her face or called in sick the next day. But she did not want to stay at home, and everyone would have asked about the scarf as much as they asked about the cut along the right side of her face. She explained that Gracie got a little crazy and scratched her, but she didn't think most of her co-workers believed her.

The cut was too deep and a little too wide for a cat's claws, and repeating Gracie's name in response to concerned queries only reminded her that she'd left the cat alone in the apartment with that woman.

“You look like hell,” Lila said, leaning on the receptionist counter and almost toppling a pile of manila folders.

“Thank you.”

“No, really,” Lila said. “It's not just that cut. You did clean it, right?”

Kate raised an eyebrow. She'd bought hydrogen peroxide on her way to the Holiday Inn, along with a bottle of Simply Sleep.

She covered the mirrors in the hotel room with sheets from the other bed and slept with all the lights on. It had taken her an hour in the shower and a cheap hand mirror to make sure that all the blood was out of her hair. In spite of the medicine, she still woke up around 5:30. Unwilling to linger alone, she came to work early.

Even now, she wasn't sure whether it had been a nightmare or a hallucination. She would swear in court that she had seen what she saw and felt what she felt, but if working in a psychiatric ward taught her anything, she knew that what people saw and felt could not always be trusted. She remembered the woman behind her in the mirror. She remembered the nails in her scalp and watching her cheek open like ripe fruit. She remembered the woman's hands heavy on her shoulders then slipping under the slight curve of her breasts as though reluctant to let go while her image faded. She remembered tenderness in the pain. Once the woman disappeared completely, Kate still stood there, in that familiar position, staring at herself in the mirror as black blood trickled down her face.

It took all the strength left in her arms to reach for the bathroom door. It wasn't locked anymore, and the light that spilled in reminded her that there was indeed light in the world. She stumbled out, unaware that she was hyperventilating until her vision blurred and darkened. She rested her head against the doorframe and gathered herself. As soon as she could walk, she ran, grabbing the things she needed this time.

Lila was still looking at her.

“Yes, I cleaned it. I'm not stupid,” Kate answered. “Stop staring at me, it's creeping me out. Don't you have work to do or something?”

“That's what I'm doing,” Lila said. She pulled a file from under her arm and tossed it on top of Kate's keyboard. “Check out your new patient up here, honey. You won't believe it.”

“Marlene Davidson, thirty-seven years old,” Kate read, “lacerations, possibly self-inflicted, possible Post Traumatic Stress Disorder … holy shit, this is the woman who—”

“Survived the Surgeon,” Lila finished, grinning. “One and the same. Her family isn't letting her talk to the press, but yours truly knows why she's being transferred up here. It's not just to get her away from the public eye and give her counselling to help her adjust.”

Kate's eyes sped over the file. And froze when she read the initial doctor's concluding evaluation.

“Yep,” Lila said, seeing that she had reached the juiciest information. “She actually said that the Surgeon was Mary Worth.

Isn't that just sad? Imagine, Bloody Mary. Did you ever play that game when you were a kid? I was always afraid to try.”

What Kate was doing was not permitted. She was neither a nurse nor a doctor; she had no business entering any patient's room unless she had someone else present or there was an emergency.

She stood outside the door, her hands gripping her sleeves. Finally, when the coast was clear, Kate unlocked the private room and slipped inside. It was a small room without much in the way of decoration except for flowers in a plastic vase. The bed was propped up, and Marlene was reading a book. Her right hand trembled violently as she turned the page. She looked up at Kate as she came closer and waited for Kate to explain herself, her ragged expression troubled but almost trusting.

“I'm sorry to bother you,” Kate murmured. She tried not to stare. She knew that disfigured patients never liked it. But it was hard not to. “I don't mean to …”

Marlene's face immediately changed. “I see. You're here because you think I'm crazy.” She had a slight lisp because of her missing lips, but Kate could understand her perfectly.

“No, no, no, nothing like that.”

“Or you want to see what she did to me.” Marlene's voice was rough and accusing, but underneath was a note of self-deprecation.

“Do you think you're crazy?” Kate asked.

“Bloody fucking Mary nearly killed me. I was there. It's not the sort of thing you just forget.” Marlene carefully rested her head against her pillow and exhaled at the ceiling. “Of course I think I'm crazy.”

Kate pulled a chair closer to the bed and sat down, hugging Marlene's file to her chest. “Do you … do you mind telling me about it?”

Marlene did not move her head, but her eyes turned to look at Kate. In the midst of her mutilated face, they looked particularly bright blue. Kate was once again struck by the odd thought that the face—like that of the woman in the mirror—was beautiful. Kate's arms pebbled with goosebumps.

“You're not a doctor, are you? You're not even a nurse,” Marlene said.

Kate shook her head.

“Why do you want to know?” Marlene asked quietly. “Are you going to run down and tell the damn media every sordid detail?”

“I'm not a plant,” Kate said.

“Are you
different
?” There was a sort of nastiness to the question. Kate held the file closer.

“Excuse me?”

“Do you keep secrets?”

“What?”

“Your face,” Marlene said. “That cut. She likes them different.”

“What are you talking about?” Kate felt herself constrict, pull inward. This was what she had wanted to hear, yet the whitewashed walls of the room seemed too close.

“You've looked at my file or else you wouldn't be here. If you didn't notice it the first time, look again. I'm not …” she paused. “… typical. I was born female. I'm still a woman. But I guess some people might not think I am. She likes that.” Marlene's voice shook, but not from shame. “She likes the ambiguity because it makes a real difference when she changes us. You know the legend, right? When she was alive, she killed young women and bathed in their blood to stay beautiful.”

“That's not the way I heard it. I heard that she killed children after her daughter died,” Kate said.

“It's different wherever you go,” Marlene said, shaking her head. “She's still killing women. She wants women. But you have to understand something.” Marlene bent forward, those bright blue eyes coming closer, her mutilated face filling Kate's vision.

Kate wanted to lean away, but the back of her chair kept her from doing so.

“She wants women who will want her back. She has her own little collection of freaks that have kept her here. She may not be alive, but she exists. She's existed all this time. And she can't be stopped.”

By now, Marlene's bandaged hand was clutching Kate's wrist, and Kate could see blood seeping through—she must have pulled some stitches. Kate was beginning to think this was a terrible idea. The more she looked at Marlene, the more she looked like Mary.

“You have no idea. But you will. She did that to you, didn't she?” Marlene said.

“It was my cat.”

“Bullshit,” Marlene spat. “What does she want with you?

What's wrong with you? It doesn't matter where you go, she's in the mirrors. Do you see any mirrors in here? No, I told them to take them out. But I still see her, wherever there are reflections.

She wants to finish the work done on me. And then she'll get you. There were three other women. You've probably seen them on the news. At least one of them looks like she's different. But we're all women. And that's what she wants from us. Don't you understand? She
wants
women.”

“I should go,” Kate said, standing and trying to extricate her wrist, but Marlene clutched at her as though she was falling.

“No! You have to listen,” Marlene hissed. She twisted in her bed. “She'll make you wish for death. Please, they won't believe me, but you do, don't you? You've seen her. She's touched you. Don't let her fool you. Don't let her take you. She'll kill you like all the others. She takes what makes you a woman. And she emasculates you.
Yes
. You believe me now? How else would I know?”