She laughs. A head-back, hearty laugh. It stops abruptly. “You still want to be my friend?”
I don’t have to think about it. The answer is already there waiting patiently on my tongue.
“Yes,” I say. “Of course.”
She hides her face from me, lifting her hands to form a shield. I hear a single loud sniffle. She releases her hands, wipes her cheeks and smiles at me.
“I’m not going to cry,” she says. “I haven’t cried once in—I don’t know—a hundred years?”
A hundred years?!
I know, with what we literally just talked about, with everything I’ve observed and experienced, that things I’ve previously known as fantasy, as pure fiction, can exist within my reality. Still, hearing Sophie casually mention that she’s been alive for over a hundred years is jarring.
Jarring and distressing and . . . oddly thrilling? I don’t know what I’m feeling. At this exact moment, I’m watching a large, seemingly sentient spider offer Sophie a handkerchief for her to dry her eyes with.
Maybe I should be questioning my sanity, but how can I doubt what’s right in front of me?
I start to laugh again, my new default reaction to any information I don’t quite know how to process. Because how the hell else am I supposed to process this?
I can’t stop laughing. It’s cathartic. A strange, exhilarating release.
Sophie glances over at me and joins me in my laughter, though I don’t think she understands what we’re laughing at. I guess I don’t, either.
This makes it all the funnier.
Soon I’m hunched over the table, holding on to it to steady myself so I don’t fall to the ground in hysterics.
Sophie clutches her sides, her cheeks turning red.
Finally, she catches her breath for long enough to ask me, “What are we laughing at?”
I shrug.
This is also, apparently, hilarious.
We laugh until we’re both on the floor. Sophie’s spider and a few other spider friends who’ve emerged from under furniture and who knows where else congregate by her feet. They vibrate, their bodies bouncing, legs shaking. It’s like they’re mimicking her movement. Or they’re also laughing.
“You know,” she says, “I don’t really think I’m hungry at all. Are you?”
“No, actually,” I say, “I’m not.”
She pulls herself to stand. “I’m going to put this all away. You can have it another time.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
“I’m not hungry,” she says. “But I do want a slice of cake. Is that all right?”
She shows me a small iced loaf.
“Yes,” I say. “What is it?”
“Lemon cake,” she says. “I have some pomegranate seeds we can put on top. Would you like some?”
Ten minutes later we’re on the couch eating the lemon loaf with two forks. She has the tray on her lap, and I’ve got the bottle of rum between my knees.
“So, guessing you’re not actually in real estate?” I ask.
“Well, it is my land,” she says.
“The town knows?” Their reactions are starting to make a whole lot of sense now.
“Oh, yes,” she says. “Everyone in Rowan. No one outside. Well, there are rumors, I’m sure. Were rumors. Long time ago. Occasionally outsiders would show up at my hut. Throw stones.”
I laugh. “Yeah, your hut.”
“Oh, I’m not being funny,” she says. “Remember that hut in the woods? I used to live there! I’ve been in the house for—I don’t know—only about ninety years? The man who built it, a terribly arrogant railroad tycoon, outright stole my land. He did not much care for me bringing this to his attention. He did not much care for me. But as I’ve said to you before, things have a way of working themselves out.”
I decide not to ask how exactly things worked themselves out.
“No one bothers me anymore, really,” she says. “They know better.”
Not going to ask any follow-ups about that, either.
“Oh, pet! I meant to tell you! The pool is ready for you. You should come over this weekend and have a swim. I was thinking I’d make goulash. Do you like goulash?”
“Never had it,” I say.
“Settles it, then. Will you come tomorrow? Are you busy?”
“No,” I say. “Not busy.”
“Good! It’ll be fun,” she says. “I can’t eat any more of this cake.”
She takes another bite.