“I can’t hardly imagine him. How tall is he? Is his hair still black? Yes, of course it is. Tell me, is he a good sort of boy?”
Margaret glanced at Miss Quicke. Behind and below drifted the night mists of Whitechapel, halos of yellow gaslight, ghostly figures.
“The best sort,” she said firmly.
The young woman’s eyes glowed then, remembering the baby he’d been, and for just a moment in the near darkness Margaret saw her hard features soften and fill with an old and undimmed love.
24
THE SPIDER
The thing about Oskar Czekowisz, the thing no one ever seemed to notice, or understand, was that he was terrified of being alone. Maybe it was because of Lymenion, his flesh giant, that no one thought it; for when was he ever alone?
And so, despite his own dread of the Spider, on that night when the others crept out into the cold hallway to go to the island—candles in the wall sconces snuffed, Miss Davenshaw already done her rounds and retired to her bedchamber—Oskar and his flesh giant were there, waiting, too.
At thirteen years old, he was short for his age, with soft shoulders and plump pale wrists. Everything about him seemed leeched of color. His hair was blond white, like an old man’s, and very fine, and it fell straight over his ears and his forehead and into his eyes. Those eyes were large and trusting, but radiated fright.
Lymenion was his one companion, his true friend. He’d always been there, it seemed, as long as Oskar could remember, sturdy and quiet and watchful and loyal. Oskar could fashion him out of any dead thing he’d find in the ditches or farmyards or even out of the slabs of meat in a butcher’s; he could make him and dissolve him at will, but always when he fashioned him anew and the meat and sinews took shape, it was Lymenion, his same friend, his only.
Lymenion liked the new kids, too. But they have been through much, warned his giant, the words forming directly in Oskar’s mind.
“I just hope they like us back,” whispered Oskar.
He hoped, yes; but he knew, too, how most people felt about Lymenion, the repugnant smell, the strange meekness of him, the way he copied Oskar’s every gesture, like a meat shadow; and that was without seeing what could happen when he ran amok, when Oskar’s own fury was aroused.
The fact of it was, until coming to Cairndale, Oskar Czekowisz and his giant Lymenion had been savagely, ferociously alone; not just alone but lonely: lonely in Gdansk, picking through garbage in the winding streets while the dogs lurked and kept their distance; lonely in the crumbling stalls of the old stables, behind that old couple’s stone farmhouse, somewhere north of Lebork; lonely in the ruined tower above the windswept darkness of the Baltic Sea. He knew the locals feared him wherever he went; he knew the stories they told of a white-haired boy and his monster. So he kept away. Until one evening, when a stout man, red-faced, with auburn whiskers and a grim smile, came trudging up the long dirt road to the tower, oak staff in one hand, a windblown coat snapping sharply out behind him. He wore a bright yellow checkered suit and waistcoat, like a slash of color in that landscape. Oskar in those days spoke only Polish; he was ten years old; and the man, Coulton—for that is who it was—spoke only English. And so Coulton sat patiently outside the tower gate for three nights, waiting. And on the third night, when Oskar sent Lymenion to frighten him, Coulton just rolled his powerful shoulders like he was sore from sitting so long, and he stretched, and he smiled.
Now Oskar and Lymenion and the others crept quickly and silently through the manor, and out into the courtyard, and around the gatehouse and across the wet lawn. They were all wearing the same ghostly Cairndale robes, pale gray in color, thick enough to keep the chill out, and under these the white Cairndale nightshirts and nightgowns, woven of rough cotton.
A fog had descended. As they fanned out across the grass, they looked spectral and eerie in the gloom. They ran silent and swift and when the manor had receded back into the fog and its lights haloed and dimmed they slowed and, breathing hard, they walked.
Oskar was surprised to see Charlie fall in beside him. Lymenion struggled to keep up, his thick legs working, his stout arms swinging. He always had such trouble. Komako was out ahead across the grass, an apparition in her pale robe, Ribs’s headless nightgown and robe flapping emptily through the grass beside her. If the girls spoke, it was only to each other.
“You’ve been to see the Spider before, Oskar?” Charlie asked.
Oskar cleared his throat, suddenly shy. “Yes,” he mumbled. “I mean … no. Sort of? I mean, we all know what he is, we’ve all been to the island. But you don’t get to see the Spider when you go. He’s in a, uh, a different part.”