The Waking Moon

Chapter Nineteen

My shoulder muscles screamed. The pain became a pulsing red light behind my eyes. The longer I studied my position in relation to the tray, the more certain I was that there was no escape. The massive tarantula was lethargic, showing no interest in finding a way off of me. It space-walked slowly up and down my chest, occasionally rearing back and paddling at the air with its front legs. Once it even crawled onto my face, its legs lazily prodding my mouth, the hairs tangling in my own hair like the bristles of bottlebrushes.

I tried to picture myself as a comic book hero, bulging with muscles, my jaw stiff and strong, mutated to endure great horrors. When that stopped working, I imagined I was a tree who adored spiders, and that my arms were naturally positioned branches that would never get tired. When that stopped working I imagined myself made of stone. Then putty. Then stone again. I hoped that Grounder would come back, that he’d decide I’d had enough, or that I’d passed some kind of test, and now could be freed. But no one came, and after a while, the only picture stuck in my head was that of my new acid washed face.

Even though I’d never particularly liked my face—it wasn’t perky and cute like Judy’s or smolderingly beautiful like Juliana’s—I was already overwhelmed with nostalgia for it. It was reasonably pretty. Now it would look like a plastic apple that had been left on a stove. A doll’s face picked from the ashes of a house fire. Children would stare at it in supermarkets. Adults would wince and avert their eyes. The more I thought about my revolting new face, the less I could bear to think about Jack.

Just as I was about to give in, there was a startling whisper behind me.

“Hold on, chickie.”

At first I thought it was some kind of aural mirage, a garbled sound from the throbbing pressure in my head. But then Chapel Bale slipped into my sightline. She was wearing a thick leather jacket and a black knit hat pulled over her head.

“You need a hand, maybe?” she whispered.

“Oh, my god, Chapel,” I said hoarsely. “Bring the shovel. On the floor, there. Bring it.”

She fetched the shovel and hovered over me, cringing with disgust at the sight of the tarantula, which had made its way over my shoulder and was crawling underneath my hair.

“Hold the chords still,” I said. “Be careful. Don’t let that tray tip. It’s acid.”

“Jesus,” she muttered. “The guy is off his rocker.”

She put down the shovel and, with great precision and care, took the chords and tested their weight until she found the point of equilibrium. Though my fingers felt arthritic from clenching for so long, I managed to carefully tie a knot with the two ends. Then I grabbed the shovel.

“Hurry up!” Chapel hissed. “They could be here any second!”

I eased the hook of the shovel into the loop. When I slowly released it, the weighted loop rose up several feet in the air and large tray drooped, but it didn’t tip over. I pulled Chapel clear of the acid range, my legs bursting with pins and needles. Something pricked the back of my neck, and I remembered the spider. I reached around for it, struggling to free it from my hair. With a newfound vigor, the tarantula sank her fangs into the soft flesh of my palm. I stifled a scream. Teeth gritted, I hurled it as far as I could, taking several chunks of my hair with it.

“Come on,” Chapel said. She grabbed my arm and hauled me toward the door. “Don’t make a sound. Don’t even breathe.”

I set my jaw and squeezed my wrist as hard as I could to slow the excruciating bloom of venom in my blood. All that mattered was getting the hell out of there. I tailed Chapel closely as she inched the door open and stood listening, her pale, freckled face set with determination. I could hear shouts and mocking laughter down the hall. She slipped through the door, gesturing with her head for me to follow.