while the black stars burn (2 page)

“How is she?” Her father stood in the doorway, drying his hands on a dishcloth. Graveyard mud stained the knees of his grey silk trousers.

“Much the same,” Adira replied, feeling an ache in her chest. “I tried singing her favorite song, but it didn’t help.”

Her father moved to the head of the bed and gently lifted her mother’s eyelids and peered down at her constricted pupils. With a sad shake of his head, he stood up, tugging on his long black beard as he always did when he was upset.

“Is it bad?” Adira asked, feeling herself tear up again.

“It is,” he replied. “Losing Mama was a terrible shock to her soul. When Mama hatched, she first bonded to your great-grandmother, who was a girl no older than you. Spinwebs live so long that they are accustomed to losing their people, but for your mother to lose her Mama? It’s a dire thing. Your mother surely felt it as keenly as if she herself had died.”

He cleared his throat. “I can make an elixir that might revive her, but I need a quantity of tutsan, and the hills are barren of flowers.”

The girl sat up straighter, thinking. There was a plan. She could
do something
instead of just sitting helplessly. “Won’t the apothecary have powdered herbs?”

Her father paused. “Fresh would be best, but I
could
use dried petals....”

“Dalia could stay with mother, and I could go fetch them for you?” Adira loved the apothecary shop with its colorful glass bottles and exotic smells and mysterious compounds. She immediately felt a little guilty for wanting to be there instead of at her mother’s side. But not guilty enough to take back her suggestion. “It’s not far. I wouldn’t be gone long.”

“All right.” Her father sounded reluctant. “I suppose it
is
only a mile away. But take Moshe with you. And a knife. And mind the eggs! Do not let anything happen to them. I have harnesses for both of you....”

*

Their father went through his chests and found egg harnesses made from thick sheepskins, leather straps and shiny brass buckles. He helped them put on the harnesses and strap the eggs inside the cozy sheepskin cradles. He gave Adira one of his hunting knives, and she secured the sheath to her belt.

Moshe giggled when she buttoned her long blue padded silk coat over the harness. “You look like you ate a barn!”

“So do you!” she replied, which did nothing to stifle his laughter.

“Children, be serious.” Their father drew them in close. “Your mother would skin me if she knew I was letting you go out with the eggs. I should send one of the weavers or dyers, but the truth is that I cannot spare them from their work. I am terribly afraid that we won’t get a good price for our cloth, so we need to make twice as much to ensure that we have the tax money when the soldiers come next month.”

He paused, and Adira knew his unspoken fear: that if they waited to get the ingredients for the elixir, her mother would not recover.

“We will be fine.” She squared her shoulders, determined to stay as brave as she could. “We’ve been there a hundred times! And there are so many soldiers on the road that nobody has seen a bandit in months.”

Her father frowned at the floor when she mentioned soldiers. “I suppose that’s one silver lining.”

Then he looked at Adira: “Are you ready?”

She stuck her hand in her right coat pocket, turned it out, and ripped a hole in the seam so she could draw the knife if she needed to. “I’m ready.”

*

Just inside the city wall, Adira and Moshe encountered a group of older boys in black students’ robes clogging the road, laughing and shoving one another. Her heart beat faster; big boys were trouble. She tried to lead Moshe around the gang, but one, the tallest boy, noticed them and threw out a gangly arm to block their way.

“Ugh,” he said, wrinkling his nose at them in exaggerated disgust. His blond hair fell in fashionable ringlets around his face. She could tell from the cut of his tunic beneath his robe that his parents were wealthy burghers.

“You stink of spiders,” he said, stepping aggressively close.

Adira squeezed Moshe’s hand and gave him a quick, meaningful glance.
Say nothing.

Moshe gave her a quick nod in reply and stared down at his boots.

Another boy stepped up. He had close-cut brown hair and the wispy beginnings of a beard. “Spiders are an
abomination
. We shouldn’t allow people who live with
abominations
.” He pronounced it as though it was the first really long word he had learned in school and he’d been dying to try it out.

Adira tried to swallow her anxiety and aggravation. She wanted to tell him that comparing her family’s spinwebs to common house spiders was like comparing humans to field mice, but she knew he’d never understand.

“Spinwebs made your robes and your mothers’ fancy dresses,” she replied. “Maybe you should all go naked if you think they’re so bad.”

The second boy blushed and stepped back, but the first boy scowled down at her.

“My father dines with the prince, and he says foul daggles like you have no place in our kingdom. Your days here are
few
,” he whispered.

“I’m sure that’s true.” Her nerves sang with fear and anger. The feeling made her a little sick, but it felt good, too, like she was finally really alive. Her own emotions scared her even more than the boys did, so she tried to push all the fear away. She slipped her hand into her pocket, feeling the smooth knob of the knife’s pommel, wondering if the bully was the sort of soft boy who would panic at the sight of his own blood, or if he would fly into a murderous rage. Either way, the guards would surely come. And then what? Her mind flew over a hundred different scenarios, and they all seemed bad or catastrophic. The guard and townsfolk would rally behind the boys, not her and Moshe.

Her spinweb kicked inside its shell, reminding her of her duty. No. She couldn’t resort to the knife, not here.

She forced a meek, unassuming smile. “But since our days are numbered, can we please go about our business? Surely the prince will expunge us and you will never have to see us again.”

“But I have to smell your stink
now
.” He eyed her as if she was a bit of cow dung that refused to be scrubbed from his shoe. “Ugh, I can’t see how you live with it! Is it coming from your clothes? What have you got there under your coats?”

Adira gave Moshe’s hand another squeeze, and neither of them spoke.

“What have you got?” the blond boy demanded. “You better tell me, or I’ll call for the guard!”

She couldn’t think of a good lie, so she told the truth: “Spinweb eggs.”

He frowned. “What?”

“Eggs. Our mama spinweb is having babies, and we’re keeping them warm for her,” she said.

“Nasty,” the second boy hissed, and he and the others backed away a bit, staring at the egg bulges as though they might suddenly hatch and swarm the boys.

The blond boy didn’t budge. “Maybe we should take those eggs and smash them.”

Everyone fell silent. Her heart was pounding so loudly she was sure the boys could hear it. Her spinweb trembled against her belly as though it had understood the threat.

Adira’s thoughts raced. What could she say now? This bully was either a predator or fancied himself as one. She remembered what her father told her about wolves:
Don’t run, or they’ll think you’re prey. Don’t show fear.

“Well.” Adira spoke slowly, trying to seem calm, trying to still her heart and steady her voice. “You
could
do that. But if you think we stink now? Imagine what the inside of a broken egg smells like. Even
we
can’t stand it.”

She gazed up into the blond boy’s eyes and let her smile go mad. “If you break the eggs, the stink will be on you
forever
. And Mama Silklegs will know you killed her babies. She will sniff you out and find you in your bed at night when you’re asleep. She’ll inject you with a poison to paralyze you, but you’ll still feel everything. She’ll cut a hole in your belly and pull your intestines out and eat them like noodles while you’re still alive. And you’ll want to scream and scream, but you won’t be able to. She’ll take her time, and it will take you hours to die. But when she’s done, you’ll be good and dead and your own mother won’t recognize what’s left of you.”

Everyone stared at her, horrified.

“You’re lying,” the boy stammered.

“You sure?” She smiled wider.

Blanching, the boy stepped back and joined his comrades, clearing the cobblestone path to the apothecary’s. Adira pulled Moshe forward and they marched on.

“That was a good lie,” Moshe whispered when they were out of earshot.

“What makes you think I was lying?” she whispered back, feeling elated that her bluff had worked.

“But Mama Silklegs is dead!”

She stared down at him. “Do you think death would stop her from avenging her children’s murder?”

Her baby spinweb kicked inside its shell.

Moshe shivered. “But Mama was kind and gentle. She’d never hurt anyone like you said she would.”

“Maybe not like that,” Adira admitted. “She
was
kind and gentle. With
us
. But do you remember the bandits who kicked in the door and tried to carry mother away?”

Moshe nodded uncertainly. “Mama chased them off?”

She shook her head. “She ate them. Swallowed them down like goats. We told you they ran so you wouldn’t have bad dreams.”

*

When they got home from the apothecary, Adira gave her father the tin of powdered flowers.

“Did you and Moshe mind your eggs?” he asked.

“Of course.” She unbuttoned her coat to show him.

His eyes widened. “What has happened to it?”

She looked down. The egg had turned a deep scarlet, red as roses and blood.

“I—I don’t know,” she replied. “It didn’t get so much as a bump.”

“Did it get too hot, maybe?” Her father put his ear to the top of the shell and listened for several minutes.

“The baby is moving fine,” he finally said. “I have never seen an egg turn this color, but I certainly have not seen everything in the world. Take care of it, and I’ll take care of your mother, and we’ll both hope for the best.”

_*

It took her father most of the evening to brew the elixir. Adira had high hopes when he brought it into the sickroom, but even after he got a whole teaspoon down her mother’s throat, nothing happened.

“Well.” Disappointment was plain on his face. “Don’t lose hope, child. Sometimes it can take the elixir a while to work. I’ll give it to her every few hours; in the meantime, keep watch and let me know if her breathing changes.”

Adira spent most of the next three days in her mother’s sickroom, alternately singing songs to her mother and silently petting the scarlet egg, hoping both of them would be all right.

On the fourth day, the egg nearly jerked out of her hands when the baby gave a very strong kick. And the shell had cracked!

“Father! Father, come quick, I think it’s hatching!”

Her father and Moshe and Dalia rushed into the room.

“Mine’s not hatching; when does mine hatch?” Moshe complained.

The baby spinweb kicked again, and a hairy crimson leg poked through a fracture in the shell.

“Help it come out,” her father encouraged. “Carefully!”

Adira began to pull bits of loose shell and tough membrane away, and the baby spinweb kicked mightily with all eight legs until the hole was big enough to struggle through. The newly-hatched spinweb was damp, but his fur was soft as dandelion fluff and so very bright, a much braver red than any dye she had seen. His four eyes were the brilliant blue of a cloudless winter sky.

From the corner of her eye, Adira saw her mother stir on the bed.

“Guardian...” her mother whispered. Her crackling voice was filled with awe.

“My lord!” her father breathed. “He
is
a guardian! Our family has not seen one in over a century.”

“A guardian?” Adira wondered aloud. “Will he make a different kind of web?”

The baby touched her face with one long leg, and she met his gaze. A strange warm buzzing filled her mind, and for a moment she was dizzy.

No webs. I only...protect. You protect. We save family.

Just as Adira realized she was hearing the hatchling’s voice inside her own head, a quick succession of prophetic images flashed through her own mind, images of the royal guards kicking in the door just as the bandits had, of her unarmed father falling beneath vicious sword blows, her mother weeping over Moshe’s bloodied corpse. And most of all, fire, fire everywhere, and the spinwebs wailing as flaming roof beams rained down upon them.

The prince will bring terror,
the guardian said, his voice stronger and clearer in her mind.

“Why? Why would he do that?” The images he’d put in her mind were so terrible she wanted to vomit.

Hatred. It has hatched in the town. They need someone to blame for the troubles the prince is causing, and he has chosen us. I saw the boys’ minds, saw the foulness their parents and priests are teaching them, and I knew I had to alter myself. You and I can stop the future I have glimpsed.

“How?” It was hard to talk, hard to breathe. “How can we stop it?”

Distantly, she heard her little brother ask, “Why’s she saying that?” only to be shushed by their father.

You can change, too. There is time before the prince’s mind-poison spreads so much that the townsfolk abandon their own religion’s teachings and turn to violence against us. We will both become warriors for our peoples before that happens. If you are willing.

In her mind, she saw herself traveling to a kingdom in the south where strong men and women rode proudly atop mighty armored spinwebs. She saw herself training her body and mind, learning to fight with her hands and a sword and a lance atop her scarlet spinweb. But most of all, she saw herself sitting with an old priestess, learning to use words and her wit to douse the fire of an angry opponent’s violence. It was a vision she liked better than any of her own daydreams.