smell? Is it. .’
Hannah realised that her knapsack was underneath her. Her back felt wet and cold and she smelled the antiseptic tang.
‘Oh
She wrenched around and shrugged off the pack, zipped it open. The bottle of methylated spirits had split. Her backpack smelled like the doctor’s surgery.
‘Bum!’ she swore, and started pulling out the other items. The newspaper was soggy, which wasn’t a bad thing, but the matchbox fell apart in her fingers.
‘Yeah, bum,’ muttered the man, frowning as he watched her produce the knife and the can of insect spray. She gave it a test squirt — it still worked.
‘Well, that’s something,’ she said quietly. She looked up at the man. ‘Are you here for the spiders, too?’
He blinked.
‘Spiders?’
Nicholas’s first instinct was to lie. ‘What spiders?’
Hannah pursed her lips, annoyed.
‘Okay, for whatever
Nicholas felt another gust of unreality. Of all the people he could use beside him, the fates had sent him a ten-year-old girl.
‘You should go home, Hannah. You don’t know-’
She stared at him. He hadn’t seen much of her eyes two days ago: she’d been unconscious for most of the time in the car and at the church, and she’d been puking and sobbing for the rest. This was a different girl. Her tears over the fall had dried suddenly, and she was shaking her head, watching him through eyes that were a strange, dark blue as hard as sapphire.
‘I’m not going home,’ she said flatly.
‘You don’t know what you’re getting into.’
‘So, tell me. Spiders took my sister two nights ago and now she’s dead. Whatever got her wanted to kill me. They said the man on the TV news did it, but I don’t think it was him. Not really.’ She seemed to remember something. ‘I know it tried to get me the other day on the path. And it would have, if you hadn’t. .’
Her voice trailed off. She looked at the ground and then stuck out her right hand.
‘I’m Hannah Gerlic. Thank you for saving me the other day.’
For the third time in two minutes, Nicholas was amazed by this tiny person. He took her hand.
‘I’m Nicholas Close.’
‘Were you there by accident or on purpose?’ Hannah asked. The civility that had been in her voice was gone. This was short, sharp interrogation. He no longer felt the need to lie.
‘You found a bird. A dead bird,’ he said.
‘I
Nicholas stared away into the gloom of green and brown.
Hannah watched him.
‘Mr Close?’
He nodded to himself. ‘What a fucking bitch,’ he said.
Hannah blushed. ‘You shouldn’t swear.’
‘People swear, Hannah, get over it.’ He stood and brushed clean his knees. ‘I found a bird just like you did when I was a kid. And she nearly got me. She got my best friend instead. You said spiders?’
She nodded. ‘They came for me, but I wouldn’t let them in the room. They got Miriam though.’
Nicholas stared at the girl.
‘You’re some kind of a freak, are you?’ he asked.
She stared at him coolly with those dark eyes. ‘You’re rude. I don’t think I like you.’
‘Yeah, that’s going around.’ Nicholas picked up the shotgun. ‘Go home, Hannah.’
He began climbing back up the slope. Hannah quickly stuffed the pungent wet things back into her pack and hurried after him.
Nicholas looked down at her. This kid was brave.
‘This old woman. She kills children.’
‘I know. It got my sister,
‘It’s a she. And she’s. .’ He shrugged. ‘She’s been around a long time. She’s dangerous, Hannah. You really gotta go home.’
‘I have to go home.’
‘Yep,’ he agreed, relieved to be finally getting through to her.
‘Yes.’
But she kept following him. Then the penny dropped.
‘Are you correcting me?’ he asked.
‘Yes. You don’t speak well,’ Hannah replied, shouldering her backpack. ‘I don’t want to go home. But since I don’t have anything to
‘Good.’
‘-I’ll help you.’
She struggled to keep up with him. Trickles of blood ran down her thin legs from cuts on her knees and shins. He checked his watch. It was nearly three. If he took her back, it would be after four by the time he returned, leaving less than ninety minutes of light — if you could call this murky gloom light. He stopped and took her by the shoulders and knelt to look her straight in the eye.
‘She cuts their throats, Hannah. I don’t know if I can protect you. She’s probably expecting me. I have a shot, but I don’t honestly like my chances. I can’t be responsible for you, too. You should go home, and put your energy into convincing your parents to move somewhere safe and dull. Suggest Canberra.’
He rose, turned and started walking again.
A moment later, he heard her footsteps behind him.
A quarter of an hour later, the water pipe loomed above them like a glacial wave of rust red. Nicholas realised the steel flanks were the exact colour of dried and crusted blood. Rainwater flowed out of the twin tunnels below the pipe; the forest floor was still weeping out the heavy rainfall. They had followed the creek up the gully to the pipe, but it had been Hannah who’d pointed at the water.
‘Look.’
Small creatures floundered in the cold, tea-coloured stream. Spiders. Spindly, fat-bodied orb weavers; squat jumpers; spiny, coal-black widows; platforms; broad huntsmen; chunky imperials — all scrambled to escape the cold, mumbling waters, clutching at twigs or knotted in groups to crawl over each other. Some floated with their crablike bellies in the air, curled like dead fists, drowned.
‘This could be bad,’ said Nicholas.
It was.
The tunnels under the water pipe were so thick with web that there were no circles of light at their far ends. The mass of silk was so dense that it overflowed the pipe and the water carried it like an obscene caul some three metres downstream. Thousands of spiders made the silk shimmer darkly.
Hannah turned away and vomited up her lunch.
Nicholas watched, not sure whether to help her or leave her. He shifted awkwardly. ‘You all right?’
She nodded and wiped her mouth.
‘I think she knows we’re coming,’ he said.
Hannah dragged her eyes to the tunnels. ‘You went through there?’ she whispered.
‘It wasn’t as. . bad as this.’
She looked at him, as if appraising him afresh.
