Chapter 18

I sat on the stone rim and extended my cane into the soft white abyss, wondering how far down it went. In shock, I gasped when the cane bounced back, like whatever was emitting the light was a thin, pillowy substance right below me.

I pulled my cane back and reached in, hoping it wasn’t a terrible mistake as my fingers skimmed through a warm, cottony material, like cobwebs but denser. Making sure I was properly gripping the stone rim of the well, I tangled my fingers in the material and pulled. Almost immediately, the whispering erupted into a cacophony of voices.

I stilled, but none of the voices paused, seemingly unaware of my presence. The cotton tore away with a tickling sound, and I noticed a sort of ladder protruding from the stone.

With a long, shaky breath, I swung my legs in and descended into the well, convinced I was making a mistake but not willing to backtrack.

Lowering myself into the hole, I came into a massive—or at least exceptionally bright—room. The pale cottony material coated everything from the walls, desks, and even the people. Because, yes, people were down there—if you could still call them that.

Their heads hung from the wall over their desks, eyes obscured by the same white thread holding them aloft. The only part that moved was their mouths, all of which spoke in a nonstop, nonsensical flow of words.

. . . Mum says I’m not smart enough to . . .

. . . It doesn’t matter how you tie your shoes, what an asshole . . .

. . . Cows aren’t very nice—the male ones, whatever they’re called, I don’t remember . . .

. . . Robbing a bank is essentially pointless these days because the . . .

The rest of their bodies were facing away from me at desks, arms suspended by the white strings like marionettes. In front of them sat mountains of crisp white paper. As one hand wrote in quick jerky movements, the other was poised to replace the page with a fresh sheet. The violent twitch of their arms made me flinch, and as I got closer, I realized the roughness had taken its toll. Some arms weren’t even attached to torsos anymore, just hanging by threads of tissue as they worked.

I immediately froze, worried I’d accidentally stumbled across Rigel without recognizing him. Most heads were so obscured by the white webbing I might not have been able to pick him out of the line-up.

I stepped back toward the stairs, already gripped by the need to flee, but I was stopped by a rustling overhead. Looking up, I found a whole body encased in the webbing. But it was moving, and I was sure I recognized the lanky shape.

Using the end of my cane, I tore at the material, revealing a familiar face. He was conscious, but his eyes were rolling around in their sockets.

“Rigel,” I hissed, jabbing him in the belly and finally getting his eyes to focus on me. He blinked in surprise, as though he was hallucinating, but then a familiar grin spread across his face.

“I knew you’d miss me.”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t make me regret this.”

In my relief, I’d said the words at full volume, making him flinch in fear. He shook his head wildly.

“What?” I asked, dropping my voice so low I was essentially mouthing the word. He nodded, and I pointed at the spliced-up people at the desks. “Those guys are a little tied up at the moment.”

He looked around nervously. “They’re not the only thing down here.”

Rigel might as well have been a different person. His voice didn’t sound the same when he was afraid.

I hacked at the white webbing with my cane, but as soon as I freed his upper body, he tumbled out faster than I could catch him, and I ended up flattened beneath him with a surprised grunt.

The thud of the impact rippled out, silencing the room and making us both freeze in terror. Then there was a low groan from somewhere beyond the desks, and from the white abyss emerged a tangle of massive translucent spider legs, unfolding to reveal a naked female torso at their apex. The clicking spider limbs seemed to burst unnaturally from her, as if her ribs had ripped through her skin and started dragging her around.

She rose high above us, shifting from the size of a car to nearly the size of the cathedral by bending space around herself. Her body was milky and translucent, and within the soft mound of her belly, something moved, pulsing and spinning with life.

Before I could even react, Rigel was on his feet, grabbing my cane and hoisting me up. “Let’s boogie.”

The spider woman seemed to consider us, stars dancing in her eyes. But instead of lunging in our direction, the massive creature ran the delicate ends of her long legs across the webbing overhead. All the disembodied heads came to attention, their mouths moving in sync, creating one voice directed our way.

“Do you not wish to stay? Do you not want to watch over the universe?”

In stunned confusion, I paused as Rigel dragged me toward the well.

The unified voice came again, monotone and droning, as if only mimicking the vague idea of speech. “Do you not wish to know? Everything that’s been done? Everything to come?”

“Agnes, I’ll rip off your other leg if you don’t start moving it,” Rigel hissed, grabbing me around the waist and throwing me over his shoulder.

As he ran, my eyes met the spider woman’s again, the dancing stars nearly pulling me in. I almost forgot where I was until I collided with the ladder.

“Move!” Rigel demanded, literally picking up my hands and slapping them on the nearest rung.

I began climbing, my foot flopping around uselessly as I tried to scramble up. Rigel grabbed the loose foot and pressed it upward for me, helping me maintain the momentum.

I was close to the top when he screamed and let go, causing me to fumble with the step. Looking down, I found a headless body dragging him back down by his pant leg. He was so fixated on trying to kick off the thing he seemed to forget that the closest thing we had to a weapon was tucked under his arm.

Balancing on only one arm and leg, I reached down and pried the cane free, wielding it against the headless man. He had one hand knotted in Rigel’s clothes, while the other spun wildly, trying to fight off my attack despite not being able to see me.

“Kick it in the stomach,” I hissed to Rigel as I brought the cane done on the meaty neck stump.

He did as he was told, much to my surprise, and the impact was enough to throw the headless man off balance. As he fell, his grip stayed firm on Rigel’s pants, and I gasped in fear, worried I’d accidentally doomed him. But instead of pulling him down, the headless man’s arm ripped free at the shoulder. The rest of the body fell, and neither of us hesitated before continuing our ascent.

We scrambled out of the well together, landing in a panting heap on the stone floor. The arm still attached to him seemed to have lost its motivation and released him without much fuss. So, I chucked it back down the well before it had the opportunity to change its mind.

The spiral room was so dark compared to the well we had to sit in silence for long, nervous minutes while our eyes adjusted. But no one followed us up, and when we looked back down, the cobwebs had formed back over the hole.

In silent agreement, we ascended the steps back into the archive. Even though nothing was chasing us, neither of us wanted to linger.

“Holy shit,” I panted, once we were finally in the familiar safety of the tunnels.

“I’ll say.”

“What the hell happened?” I wheezed.

He picked up the books and replaced them on the shelf to disguise the doorway. “While I was looking, I heard someone talking and ran headfirst into a headless body, pun intended. I almost assumed it was Professor Faun, except he’s never struck me as a teacher who would consider physical restraint as a viable teaching method.”

My stomach squeezed at the sound of the professor’s name, and something clicked in my head. “Did you see what they were wearing? They were school uniforms. I don’t think we’re the first students to end up down here. I just don’t get why.”

Rigel winced, sliding the final book back into place before straightening up. “From what I could construe, some of them chose to be down there. I think they can see things on Earth.”

We both turned toward the tunnel, beginning the long walk back to the surface. “Would that seriously be enough of a draw to being slowly torn apart by a giant spider woman?”

“Not for me.” His face tightened, as if the next words required physical effort to say. “So . . . thanks.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Don’t hurt yourself, Rigel. I think I saw a vein in your eye burst.”

“I’m out of practice.”

“Well, don’t try too hard. If you get too good at it, people might actually find you tolerable.”

He grimaced dramatically. “A truly terrible fate. To be personable is to be miserable.”

“Are you saying you’re never personable to Lindy?”

His eyebrows waggled. “Not in so many words.”

“Sorry I asked,” I said, putting my hand up to silence any following bits of unwelcome information. “Speaking of her, I do have some kind of unfortunate news.”

His eyes went wide in genuine worry. “Oh no, she hasn’t moved on already, has she? How long have I been down here?”

“Only a week maybe, and no.”

“Then what’s the problem? Is she okay?”

“She’s fine,” I assured him. “It’s just that . . . I told her you were down here and that something might have happened. And she sort of . . . didn’t care.”

“Oh, that’s it? That’s fine.”

I turned my face to him, not believing his laissez-faire attitude. “That’s fine?”

“I mean, I wouldn’t want her putting herself in danger for me. It’s best she stayed where it’s safe.”

“But I was a risk you were willing to take?”

He laughed. “I wasn’t banking on you to show up, either.”

“You think so little of me?” I asked, surprised to find myself genuinely stung by the implication.

To his credit, he seemed surprised by my reaction. “It’s not like we’re best pals, Tits.”

“So? I wouldn’t leave you to be dismembered.”

“Well, that’s very adorable of you, but I wasn’t exactly going to bet my skin on your sentimentality. I wouldn’t have done it for you.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“I’m realistic.”

“At least do me a favor and don’t go back.”

“Of course I’m going back.”

The shock stopped me in place, and it took a few moments before he realized I was no longer keeping pace with him. His face was still nonchalant, but I was gaping at him. “You’re a madman.”

“I have a job to do.” He waved off my horror. “It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

I shook my head. “You’re a bumbling, mindless fool.”

“Last time I checked, I’m the one with all my limbs.”

“And yet you still needed me to limp down here and save your ass.”

“I didn’t ask you to do that.”

“What does she do that makes you risk so much to give her what she wants? I don’t understand.”

He grinned wickedly. “Do you really want to know? Because I can describe it in gory, vivid detail if you want.”

“Stop deflecting my questions with innuendos. I don’t care what she does with your dick. Nothing is worth going back down there.”

“That’s exactly what someone without a dick would say.”

I brought my cane up and thwacked his shins, making him stumble. When I assumed he would devolve into anger with me, he only laughed.

“Someone’s being humorless,” he said, dodging my cane as it sailed for him, knocking a row of books off a shelf.

“There’s something about risking my hide for someone who hates me that brings it out, I suppose.”

“You think I hate you?”

“You said you wouldn’t have bothered to save me from a giant spider, so maybe I inferred a few things from that.”

He shook his head. “Oh, right. Well, I guess I do hate you, then.”

The words were clearly mocking but still stung.

Swallowing the bitterness, I began walking again, not waiting for him to catch up. When we finally emerged from the archive, it was morning, and the other students were milling about campus on their way to class.

This allowed us to blend in, more or less, though I couldn’t help but wonder if the stink of terror was still clinging to our uniforms.

I was surprised when Rigel followed me all the way to my dorm until I realized he was going to Lindy’s room. We didn’t acknowledge one another as we went to our respective destinations to savor the hour before Object Manipulation.

I laid on my bed and closed my eyes, feeling like I could sleep away the whole day. But with the staff already on edge, I’d probably have Ephraim personally busting down my door if I missed a class.

I heard a sound from the other room and groaned audibly, shocked that even after everything, they wouldn’t take a breath before diving back into one another. But the longer I listened, the more the sound became more stilted and, oddly, weak. It almost sounded like crying.

I dragged myself through Object Manipulation before returning to my bed and passing out for the rest of the day. Next morning, before Transparency, a note appeared under the door, officially lifting the curfew, so I assumed someone finally realized Rigel was safe.

I was nervous heading to class. While I was sure Rigel had made up a reasonably believable lie, I had a feeling Professor Faun wouldn’t buy it. He knew Rigel hadn’t been lost in the hedge maze or locked in one of the empty rooms in the cathedral. He also knew the only other student who might have bothered to save him. But I’d learned something as well. I knew how his head got removed.

When I got to the classroom, our eyes instantly met, and I knew I was in trouble. He always made a point of avoiding me at all costs. But the anger flashing in his eyes seemed to have won out.

Despite the negative connotation, my heart trilled with excitement as I walked to the edge of the room to set down my bag.

We’d gotten to where most of us could hold on to Stage 4 Transparency for at least a moment. Since then, each class period became an amusing and highly competitive game of hide and seek. Students who evaded discovery the longest received points displayed next to their name on the blackboard.

Rigel had missed enough classes to lose his leading spot, and my performance was dismal. Somehow, I always lost focus the moment Professor Faun got too close.

When everyone finally arrived, Professor Faun set his head on the revolving tray and grabbed the large hourglass.

“You’ll have until the count of ten to get into your positions and reach full transparency,” he reminded us, though I could have sworn his words sounded harder than usual.

He reached down and covered his eyes before he began counting backwards, and everyone scrambled into position. I tried to get into a decent spot early on, since my cane made noises I didn’t know how to silence yet.

When he reached zero and turned over the hourglass, everyone was invisible, though he caught someone immediately who’d accidentally forgotten their fingernails.

“It’s all right,” Professor Faun insisted as the dejected student went to take a seat on the edge of the room. “The parts of our bodies that we can’t feel are the hardest.”

More people were found in quick succession, for either standing in front of the window and bending the light or accidentally clouding themselves with chalk dust near the blackboard.

“Remember, everyone, location matters. Part of this class is learning to identify the best places to avoid detection,” the professor announced. “Make the environment work for you.”

A floorboard creaked near me, and his arm shot out, narrowly missing my head as another student popped back into reality with a surprised gasp.

“Damn,” she said, stomping over to the row of chairs against the wall where the other losers from that round were waiting. “I might have been able to concentrate had someone not been standing super close, breathing on me.”

It was generally considered unsportsmanlike to give away the position of another classmate, but people still did it.

Professor Faun scanned the air where I stood blankly, but it almost seemed forced, like he knew exactly where I was and was simply playing dumb. Just when I thought I was safe, he extended his arm, fingers so close I could almost feel them brushing my clavicle. But he didn’t come any closer.

It was all I could do to hold myself together. He was so close his smell was almost overwhelming. But when I looked down, my eyes landed on his wrist, where the sleeve had ridden up just enough to reveal a cross-hatching of scars.

The recognition was so strong I gasped. While I’d already known the truth, seeing the actual scars on him made me feel ill.

I popped back into view, trying to hide my horror with faux defeat.

He let his arm drop, tugging the sleeve back over the scars. “So close, Agnes. But it seems you’re not quite as sneaky as you think.”

Everyone on the perimeter of the room chuckled.

“I recommend extra practice,” he said before his body turned to finish the game.

I tried to keep my face neutral as I made my way to a seat, but my head was swimming. There was a chance my assumption was wrong, but his words had almost sounded like an invitation.