worry about the spiders, Alicia. Max will kill them.’
‘There’s no need to kill them; they can be collected and put outside in the garden,’ said the watchmaker. ‘They’re nature’s creatures and deserve their day in the sun like the rest of us.’
‘I always end up with the heroic missions,’ murmured Max. ‘Can the extermination, I mean, relocation, wait until tomorrow?’
‘Alicia?’ his mother pleaded.
‘I’m not sleeping in a room full of spiders and goodness knows what else,’ Alicia declared. ‘No matter how deserving they are.’
‘Oh, you’re so dainty,’ said Irina.
‘And you’re a monster,’ replied Alicia.
‘Max, before this escalates into a war, will you get rid of the damned spiders,’ said Maximilian Carver in a tired voice.
‘So, shall I kill them, or just threaten them a little? I could twist their legs and hand them an eviction notice…’ suggested Max.
‘Don’t start,’ his mother cut in.
‘Do as your mother says,’ his father warned.
Max stood and gave a military salute, then went inside the house, ready to wipe out its previous lodgers by all means possible. As he climbed the stairs to the upper floor, he saw the glittering eyes of Irina’s cat watching him steadily from the top step. It seemed to be guarding the upper floor like a sentinel. He stopped for a second, then resumed his climb. He was not going to be afraid of a stray cat; he would not give it the satisfaction. As soon as Max went into one of the bedrooms, the cat followed him.
*
The wooden flooring creaked softly under his feet. Max began his spider hunt in the rooms facing south-west. From the windows he could see the beach and the sun descending towards the horizon. He examined the floor carefully in search of small, hairy, fast-moving creatures. After the cleaning session, the room was reasonably dirt free and it took Max only a couple of minutes to locate the first member of the arachnid family – a fat spider marching from one of the corners in a straight line towards him, as if it were a thuggish ambassador sent on behalf of its species to negotiate a truce. The creature must have been about three centimetres long and had eight black, bristly legs, with a golden mark on its body. No wonder Alicia had panicked. There was no way in the world he was going to pick up that thing and provide it safe passage to the garden. So much for his father’s humanistic view of mother nature.
Max reached out his hand to grab a broom that was leaning against the wall and got ready to catapult the arachnid into kingdom come. This is ridiculous, he thought as he brandished the broom like a deadly weapon. He was steadying himself for the mortal blow when, all of a sudden, Irina’s cat pounced on the bug, opened its jaws and devoured it, chewing vigorously on the spider’s body as Max let go of the broom and looked at the cat in astonishment. It threw him a malicious look.
‘That’s some kitten,’ he whispered.
The animal swallowed the spider and left the room, presumably in search of its next course. Max walked over to the window. His family were still sitting on the porch. Alicia gave him an enquiring look.
‘I wouldn’t worry, if I were you, Alicia. I don’t think you’ll be seeing any more spiders.’
‘Just make sure,’ Maximilian Carver insisted.
Max nodded and went to the rooms facing north-east at the back of the house.
He heard the cat prowling nearby and assumed another spider had fallen prey to its lethal claws. The rooms here were smaller than those at the front. Max looked at the view from one of the windows and saw a small backyard with a large garden shed that could be used for storing furniture or as a garage. In the middle of the yard stood a mighty tree, its top reaching high above the attic windows. Max imagined it must be at least two hundred years old.
Beyond the yard, behind the fence that surrounded the house, was a field of wild grass, and about a hundred metres further on was what looked like a small enclosure bordered by a wall of pale stone. The vegetation had invaded the grounds, transforming the enclosure into a jungle from which emerged what seemed to be figures: human figures. In the twilight, Max had to strain his eyes to make out what he was seeing. It appeared to be an abandoned garden. A garden of statues. Max was hypnotised by the strange vision of the figures trapped in the undergrowth, locked inside a walled garden that reminded him of a village graveyard. A gate of metal bars capped with spearheads and locked with chains secured the entrance. Above the spearheads Max could distinguish a shield with a six-pointed star. In the distance, beyond the enclosure, was a thick forest that seemed to extend for miles.
‘Made any discoveries?’ His mother’s voice dragged him from his reverie. ‘We were beginning to think the spiders had got the better of you.’
‘Over there, next to the wood, there’s a walled garden full of statues.’ Max pointed towards the stone enclosure and his mother leaned out of the window.
‘I can barely see a thing. It’s getting dark. Your father and I are heading into town to get something for dinner, at least enough to keep us going until we can do a proper shop tomorrow. You’ll be on your own so keep an eye on Irina.’
Max nodded. His mother gave him a peck on the cheek and set off down the stairs. Max peered again at the statues in the walled garden, their outlines slowly fading into the evening mist. The breeze had grown cooler. Max closed the window and went off to finish the spider hunt in the other rooms. Irina met him in the hallway.
‘Were they big?’ she asked, fascinated.
Max hesitated for a second.
‘The spiders, Max. Were they big?’
‘As big as my fist,’ Max replied solemnly.
3
The following day, shortly before sunrise, Max heard a figure wrapped in the nocturnal haze whispering in his ear. He jumped up, gasping, his heart racing. He was alone in his room. The image he had dreamed of, that dark shape murmuring in the shadows, had vanished. He stretched out a hand towards the bedside table and turned on the lamp his father had repaired the day before.
Through the window, he saw dawn breaking over the forest. A thick mist was moving slowly across the field of wild grass but now and then the breeze opened up gaps through which he could just about make out the silhouettes of the statues in the walled garden. Max took his pocket watch from the bedside table and opened it. The smiling moons shone like plates of gold. It was six minutes to six.
Max dressed quietly and crept down the stairs, hoping he wouldn’t wake the rest of the family. He went into the kitchen, where the remains of last night’s dinner still lay on the wooden table, then opened the door to the backyard and stepped outside. The cold, damp air of early morning nipped at his skin. Making no sound, Max crossed the yard, went through the gate in the fence, closing it behind him, then made his way through the mist towards the walled garden.
*
The path turned out to be longer than he’d expected. From his bedroom window he’d estimated that the walled garden was about a hundred metres from the house, but as he walked through the wild grass Max felt as if he’d covered at least three times that distance when, suddenly, the gate with the spearheads emerged out of the mist.
A rusty chain was fastened around the blackened metal bars, with a corroded old padlock which time had stained a deathly hue. Max pressed his face against the bars and looked inside. The weeds had been gaining ground for years, so that the enclosure now looked like a neglected greenhouse. Nobody had set foot in that place for ages, thought Max, and whoever the guardian once was, he had long since disappeared.
He looked around and found a stone the size of his hand next to the garden wall. He picked it up and pounded at the padlock that linked the two ends of the chain, until at last the old lock snapped open. The chain broke loose,
