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Tony DiTerlizzi, "WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOUR?" SAID THE SPIDER TO THE FLY...
#00 Venomous
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"Will you walk into my parlour," says a fifteen-year-old Scout DeWitt, her voice a birdsong that refuses to break, even over the sound of her mother's frantic packing and her sister's endless tears. "says a spider to a fly. 'Tis the prettiest little parlour that you ever did spy."
Entranced by her sister's voice, Spencer—barely eleven—stops crying. Scout looks down to her, forcing a smile as she wipes a tear from the girl's cheek. What Scout has in common with her father is brutality; what Spencer has is blood. She looks far too much like Dexter DeWitt for Scout's liking. Spot the difference—you couldn't. They had the same mouth, the same nose.
If they had the same look of fear, Scout did not know. She had never seen her father with the emotion Spencer wore on her face. She had never seen her father with any emotion at all.
Perhaps, except, anger.
"The way into my parlour is up a winding stair, and I have many pretty things to show when you are there." Taking her sister's hand, Scout leads her away from the living room, where their mother kneels by the bookshelf. For the past four years, Shiori Sato had been collecting valuables, stockpiling them within the cut-out pages of her books and hiding them in the many nooks and crevices of the apartment. It didn't matter what it was she hid, as long as it could be sold—necklaces, bracelets, rings, the various artefacts and trinkets her husband brought to her in lieu of love. She did not care for these presents nor for their attached sentiment; she cared only for what they could bring her and her daughters.
In this case, it was a new life. A new life far, far away from Dexter DeWitt, one that would be bought and sold in the halogen-lit front room of a pawn shop on the edge of town.
That was the plan. Raid the apartment of all that could be resold and get the fuck out. Start running and never stop—never look back.
"Oh, no, no! said the little fly, to ask me is in vain. For who goes up your winding stair—"
