“Well, I put it back, didn’t I? I weren’t goin to just take it with me, like.”
“You put it back.”
“Yep.”
“Okay. Yes, good. And there was no sign you were ever there?”
“Nope.”
But something in the way Ribs said it made Komako suspicious. “Charlie? What isn’t Ribs saying?”
“What?” said Charlie. “Oh, uh, there was blood. Some of it might have got into his carpet.”
Komako wet her lips. “Your blood?”
He nodded, distracted.
“Old Berghast won’t notice,” said Ribs quickly. “An even if he do, he won’t know who it’s from. Charlie ain’t got a scratch on him. An what would any of us be up to, in his study? It ain’t a problem, Ko. We was like wind in the branches of a tree.”
“How poetic.”
Ribs’s freckled face crinkled into a grin. “It’s a gift.”
Shyly, Oskar cleared his throat. He was staring hard at his finger and the string on it. “I don’t like the—the—the Spider,” he mumbled. “He scares me. But Miss Davenshaw says it’s like a—a web. She says everything’s connected. The Spider, he, he can feel when something on the web moves. The—the vibrations of it. That’s how he finds the talents. When he’s sleeping. Maybe he can find Brendan and Wislawa and all the other disappeareds?”
“Sure. In his stomach.”
“Ribs—”
“I mean, that’s what he—he does, isn’t it?” Oskar went on. “He finds things? Kids, like us? He’s the one who found Charlie and Marlowe.…”
“Mr. Coulton found me,” said Charlie.
“Yeah, genius,” said Ribs. “But how’d he know where to look?”
“Oskar’s right,” said Komako firmly, tugging at her braid. “Even if the Spider isn’t involved, maybe he could help us. If we knew even just where to look, we could get some answers. None of us are safe here. That’s what the journal means. It means all those we’ve noticed gone missing, they’re all connected somehow. We’re not wrong. And if they can disappear, so can we. We need to go talk to the Spider.”
“Isn’t that exactly what Miss Davenshaw told us not to do?” said Charlie, coming back to himself.
“Yep,” said Ribs. She raised one hand. “So. Who wants to go?”
Komako raised her own. Then Oskar, Lymenion a moment later.
“Charlie?” said Komako.
“Charlie,” whispered Ribs. “Charlie…”
Charlie blew out his cheeks, his face troubled. “You really think the Spider’ll even talk to us?”
“We just got to ask nice, like.” Ribs winked. “An he knows loads of stuff.”
“When would we go?” he said.
“Tonight,” said Ribs.
“Tomorrow,” said Komako.
Near the fire, Oskar was staring at his lap. In the facing armchair, his flesh giant stared at its lap too, its oozing shoulders slumped in mimicry.
“Tomorrow?” whispered Oskar, miserable. “Isn’t that a bit … soon?”
It was then a voice piped up from across the dim room. The coffered door was open; little Marlowe stood in his nightshirt, watching them, his face spookily pale, eyes deeply shadowed. “I want to go too,” he said.
“Aw,” muttered Ribs. “Where’d he come from, then?”
“Mar?” said Charlie. “How long you been standing there?” He got up and went to the boy and closed the door and kneeled in front of him. “What’re you doing here anyhow? You get one of those dreams again?”
The boy nodded. He peered past Charlie, right to Komako, and he met her eye, and she looked away without being able to say why.
The thing was, Marlowe was so small, it nearly broke her heart. She looked at him and knew what she was seeing was her own little sister, Teshi. It didn’t matter that Teshi would be twice as old by now, if she’d lived. She still felt Teshi’s hand in hers, remembered how she’d hold out her arms to be picked up, and how Komako would hoist her up onto one hip, and how she’d sit some mornings behind Komako and run her little fingers through her hair, softly, like a warm wind. The way she’d smile before she even knew what Ko wanted. The way she’d yawn, with her whole face, her tiny little teeth exposed. All of it.
“I want to go with you, to see the Spider,” Marlowe said again. He set his jaw, stubborn. “Don’t leave me, Charlie. You said you wouldn’t.”