Curse of the Spider King Read online

  Tommy hesitantly walked down the half-lit hall. Something small darted out from under one of the classroom doors. Tommy swerved to the right side of the hall. Get a grip, Bowman! he chastised himself. It’s only a spider. The quarter-sized, brown and black arachnid stopped about two feet from Tommy’s left foot. A myriad of tiny black eyes stared up at Tommy. Small or not, Tommy didn’t like spiders. He lifted his foot to squash it, but it skittered back under the classroom door.

  Tommy hastened up the hall to the school’s library. He turned the corner, walked out into the cavernous book-filled room, and called out, “Hello?” There was no one there. He reached into his jacket pocket for his cell phone and flipped it open.

  He never dialed.

  There was a book that caught his eye from across the room.

  The room was full of books, of course. But, in the exact center of the third shelf of the middle bookcase on the far wall, one book stood out. It was as if a bright spotlight shined upon its golden binding, and all the other books dimmed.

  Tommy put his cell phone away, dropped his backpack on the floor, and strode slowly over to the bookcase. When he touched the book and felt it slide into his palm, he had a strange nostalgic feeling, as if he were about to open an old family photo album. He could almost smell the years of memories on the pages.

  He turned the book and held it so that he could see its title. The History of Berinfell. And beneath it, in smaller script: The Chronicles of the Elf Lords and Their Kin.

  From behind came a powerful voice: “Well done!” Tommy spun around, and there was Mrs. Galdarro. Only . . . she looked different. Gone was her normal librarian garb: the plaid skirt, ruffled cuffed blouse, and thick glasses. Instead she wore a long, dark hooded robe. It might have been deep purple or blue. In the shadows, it was hard to tell, but it was not black. Embroidery that bordered the hood and the sleeves shimmered, even in the dark.

  “Mrs. Galdarro?” Tommy looked at her.

  “Yes, lad.” She lowered the hood, gave a warm smile, and nodded. “. . . and I say again, well done! You found your gift . . . or, perhaps I should say, it found you.”

  Tommy looked down at the book and back up to the librarian.

  “All who come to the meeting get a gift,” said Mrs. Galdarro. “Isn’t that what I told you, Tommy?”

  Tommy nodded again.

  “The book you hold . . . is your gift. Though I must confess, it is not a right regular gift since it was yours to begin with.”

  “I don’t understand,” Tommy said, feeling like he might have blown a fuse in his brain.

  “Of course you don’t, my boy,” Mrs. Galdarro replied. “I know that it is all very sudden and confusing for you. Why don’t you come sit down?” She gestured to the round table on her right. Upon it lay a platter laden with piles and piles of cookies.

  Tommy wondered how Mrs. Galdarro entered the library and put the tray on the table without him noticing. He shrugged. He wasn’t about to turn his nose up at the cookies. Still hugging his book to his chest, he took a seat. Mrs. Galdarro sat across the table from him, and the cookies waited between them. He looked at her, the question forming on his lips.

  “Go ahead, Tommy, have one.”

  Tommy picked one up. “It’s still warm.”

  “Yes,” she replied. “Just took them out of the oven.”

  The smell was delightful, sweet and fruity and something else Tommy couldn’t quite put his finger on. Tommy took a bite, a big one, and began to chew. The flavor was so rich, so intense that it seemed to melt into his tongue as he chewed. Tommy took another bite and mumbled, “These are . . . mmph . . . these are . . . mm, mmph, delicious. I’ve never had anything like it.”

  “No,” said Mrs. Galdarro, “I don’t imagine you have.”

  Tommy was into his third cookie when it finally dawned on him that none of the other kids had shown up yet. “Mrs. Galdarro . . . um, where are the other kids?”

  “Let me put it as simply and directly as I can. You are the only one in this . . . this meeting—for now—though others will come in due time. This gift is yours to explore. Oh, I do wish I could be with you when you read page 17. Yes, yes, and page 77 is wondrous, too. And I mustn’t forget page 140 . . . ah, those were amazing days.”

  Tommy stuffed another cookie in his mouth and, forgetting his manners, mumbled, “Sounds like a cool story.”

  Mrs. Galdarro smiled. And for a moment she was lost in deep thought, staring beyond Tommy.

  “Mrs. Galdarro?”

  She blinked and looked back at Tommy once more. “Ah, yes, it is a cool story . . . but not yet finished.” She paused. “Now, lad, listen to me. Reading this book will be quite an experience. Unsettling at first, I should imagine. Just remember, you will be safe. If it becomes too much, you simply close the book.”

  “Uh . . . okay.” Tommy had read creepy books before. No way this elf book was going to scare him. “No problem.”

  The librarian raised an eyebrow. “I wonder.”

  “So are we going to meet at lunch to talk about the book? I mean, how much do I have to read? I’m not going to get quizzed on this, am I?”

  “When the time is right,” she replied, “we will indeed sit and talk about this special book. You have a birthday coming up, don’t you, Tommy?”

  “Ah, next month . . . November twelfth, why?”

  “That’s what they told you, is it? Of course, they wouldn’t know, would they. Hmm.”

  “What who told me? Wouldn’t know . . . huh?”

  “Let’s just say”—she paused and consulted a small notebook—“let’s say we’ll need to talk again in two weeks.”

  “Okay,” said Tommy. “I’ll read as much as I can by then.”

  “So clear now,” Mrs. Galdarro muttered to herself. Tommy felt like she was staring at the side of his head. “This is a new haircut, isn’t it, Tommy? Last year in sixth grade, you wore your hair long, over your ears.”

  “Yes, ma’am. My mom got tired of it and made me cut it off.”

  “Hmm, that was fortunate,” she said. “I might not have noticed otherwise.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing at all, Tommy.”

  “Oh.”

  Mrs. Galdarro stood up. “This meeting is hereby adjourned. Your parents should be here to pick you up soon.”

  “Over? Already?”

  “Yes, dear boy. I called them and suggested they come right back. Wouldn’t want you stuck here with the bad weather coming in, you know.”

  “But I kind of liked being here. It kind of . . . well . . . feels like being at my grandma’s house.”

  “I understand,” she replied kindly. “Why don’t you take a few more cookies with you?”

  “Okay!” Tommy selected three of the largest cookies and then looked down at his new book. “So this book is for me? I can keep it, right?”

  “As long as you live,” she replied. “It’s a gift. Now I think it is time—”

  “Mrs. Galdarro?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you still think I have talent?”

  “I don’t think, Tommy, I know.”

  “Why me?” he asked finally.

  “Read, dear boy,” she replied as she walked with him from the library into the hall. “The book holds all the answers . . . even to the questions you have yet to ask. Now go. Your parents will be along shortly.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Galdarro. For the book, the cookies, and . . .”

  “You are quite welcome, lad.” She put up her hood once more. Tommy started to walk away.

  “Tommy,” Mrs. Galdarro called to him, “there is one more thing. When you come to the section called ‘Red Dusk,’ page 277 I believe, wait until daylight to read it.” Muted thunder rumbled outside. The few lights that were on flickered.

  Tommy didn’t know what to make of that. Red Dusk. He gave a half wave and walked up the hall toward the main office. As he turned the corner toward the school’s front doors, he could still hear Mr. Charlie whistling a tune from somewhere in the quiet school.

  As soon as Tommy left the building, he realized the thunder had not been an empty threat. Great waving sheets of rain rode gusts of howling wind. Tommy wiped a few spattered raindrops out of his eyes and immediately knelt on the sidewalk beneath the awning. He didn’t want anything to happen to the unusual book Mrs. Galdarro had given him. He unslung his backpack and swiftly put the gift inside. He stood and swung the backpack up over his shoulder and took a bite of one of his cookies. Then he looked out into the school’s parking lot and stopped chewing.

  The black sports car was still there, parked under the same streetlight by the curb, and leaning against the side of the car was a tall man. A curtain of rain fell between them, and the man wore a wide-brimmed hat, so Tommy could not see the man’s features. The collar of his dark gray trench coat was turned up, his hands were buried in the coat’s deep pockets, and he stood very still and seemed content to wait. Rainwater ran off the brim of his hat and down his shoulders.

  Tommy didn’t see his parents’ car anywhere in the school’s parking lot. He felt panic rising up inside like a bubble. Though the strange man made no movement toward him at all, Tommy felt such an overwhelming sense of impending doom that his knees started to buckle.

  Suddenly, the man in the dark gray coat stood up straight as if he’d just been startled awake. He spun around before Tommy could see his face, clawed at the car door, got it open, and leaped in. The sports car roared to life, fishtailed once on the wet pavement, and sped out of the parking lot.

  “Good riddance, Mobius,” came a musical voice from behind. Tommy wheeled around and found Mr. Charlie standing by the door right behind him. He held a mop in one hand. His smile was broad . . . almost triumphant.

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; “Do you know that guy?” Tommy asked the school custodian.

  “I’ze just came to make sure you was safe,” said Mr. Charlie.

  “But that man—”

  “I didn’ see no man.” Mr. Charlie turned to go back inside. “Looks like your folks is here,” he said over his shoulder as he and his mop disappeared back into the school.

  3

  Blue Girl

  KAT SIMONSON had colored her hair the night before. It was the fourth time she had changed her hair shade since school began—and it was only the second month of the school year. Kat Simonson stood in front of her floor-to-ceiling mirror and played with a few of the long pink strands near her ear. She twisted them restlessly around her index finger. The truth was that no hair color went with poly.

  “Whatever,” she half spoke, half sighed. She opened her drawer and searched among the boxes of dye anyway.

  “Kat, let’s go!” her mom shouted from downstairs.

  “Right there, Mom,” she replied as she closed the drawer. Maybe next she’d try natural medium ash blond. She grabbed her backpack, slipped out of her room, and began the winding trek though the house.

  Kat’s home—a sprawling compound of windows and terracotta—rested on an exclusive bluff in North Hollywood overlooking Los Angeles, California. Her friends could scarcely contain their jealousy whenever they came over. They were fascinated with the voice-activated, house-wide stereo system, the plethora of HD flat-screen TVs in multiple family rooms, and her 1,500-square-foot game room. Kat’s parties were not to be missed and they rarely were . . . by anyone.

  But the gatherings were never her ideas, always her parents attempting to get their reclusive daughter to “connect” or “nurture relationships.” But Kat knew better. She saw the looks from her so-called friends. She knew they were the same ones who talked about her when her back was turned, called her Blue Girl and Smurf. They just liked her house. Her stuff.

  After navigating the halls and the three flights of stairs, Kat set the alarm code on the keypad by the front door and went outside. She threw her bag in the backseat of their Escalade—the green one—and jumped in.

  “You can sit up front, you know,” said Mrs. Simonson.

  Kat slammed the door. Silence from the backseat at first. Then a hesitant, “Thanks, but I like to spread out.” Then silence from the front seat. The huge SUV crawled down the driveway.

  “Kat, I was thinking—” Too late. Kat slipped in her earbuds, hit play, and bass-heavy rock blasted away at once.

  Mrs. Simonson heard the static buzz of the music. So loud, she thought. That can’t be good for her ears. But she wasn’t going to tell Kat to turn it down. It would just be another negative thing to say . . . another few inches of distance between her and her daughter. She glanced in the rearview mirror.

  Mrs. Simonson remembered the first time she saw her daughter, just a photo at the adoption agency. She’d fallen in love right there and then. And when she first got a chance to hold Kat, they seemed to bond in such an immediate, powerful way. She just never thought things would turn out as they had.

  The poly had come out of nowhere when Kat was seven. Her skin turned blue. Polycythemia vera was the doctors’ diagnosis. Her body carried too much blood, limiting its oxygen-carrying ability and giving her skin that otherworldly blue tone. Once the poly hit, Kat was never the same. Withdrawn. Sullen. Combative. Her mom winced and stared straight ahead. Kat seemed so unreachable now. Every reply was clipped. Every suggestion shot down. Every compliment ignored. Mrs. Simonson wished they could go back to the easy rapport they shared, especially on those blessed vacations to the beach house. She sighed. Melancholy washed over her like waves over a sandcastle.

  Kat stared through the side window. She tried to keep her mind numbed by the blare of distorted metal guitars and thunderous drums. But just before the scene was swallowed by palm trees and gated communities, Kat glimpsed a flicker of sunlight on the Pacific Ocean. Her mind went to her parents’ summer cottage in Newport Beach. Despite their incredible wealth, the Simonsons’ “escape home,” as they liked to call it, was much smaller than most on the shore. But that was why Kat liked it so much. Simple. Picturesque. Little more than a two-room bungalow with kitchen and attached dining room—but a broad view of the ocean from every room.

  On its quaint patio, Kat and her parents used to sit and have endless conversations about memories and dreams. From the house, it was only a few strides into the surf and the vast expanse of ocean—Kat’s favorite thing in the entire world. She would spend all her time there wading, swimming, snorkeling, and surfing. It was the only place, in fact, that she really felt at home.

  She wished she could go there now. Any place but here, she thought, glancing up at her mother. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her mom. She wished she could spend more time with her the way they used to before the poly. Kat’s feelings stemmed from the fact that, no matter what Kat did, she always felt like she was a disappointment to her mom. Kat wanted her mom to approve, to applaud, to accept her, but Kat always felt like she had let her down . . . like she wasn’t the daughter her mother wanted her to be—even though her mother often said she was proud of Kat.

  Kat caught her mother glancing into the rearview mirror and then giving Kat a longing stare and a heavy sigh. She’d been doing that kind of thing a lot lately: sighing, staring, shaking her head. Kat knew why. I’m a failure, she thought. I don’t get the grades. I’m not in any clubs. And I don’t have any good friends. Kat turned up the music.

  Mrs. Simonson reached over the seat and tapped Kat on the knee. “You ready for your American history test?”

  Kat frowned and took out one earbud. “What?”

  “I said, are you ready for the American history test?”

  “I guess,” Kat said, watching one mansion after another pass by. They’d be getting on the highway in a few more blocks.

  “Did you need help studying? We’re still early. We could pull over at Starbucks and just—”

  “No, Mom. Thanks. I’m good.” Kat stuffed the earbud back in. Kat growled at herself internally. She knew she’d been rude. How can I tell her how I’m feeling? She won’t understand. Kat laughed with exasperation. Besides asking for things and quick yes-and-no stuff, did she even know how to talk to her mother at all anymore? Kat stole a glance at the rearview mirror and saw her mother’s furrowed brow. One big, happy family.

  They rode the rest of the way without talking, Kat engrossed in her music and Mrs. Simonson tuning to a satellite talk-radio station. When they finally arrived at Sierra Valley Middle, Kat turned off her music, slipped out of the SUV, and showed a weak smile to her mom.

  “Don’t forget, Dad will be picking you up from school today because—”

  “Because you guys just fired the third housekeeper this month.”

  Her mom sighed. “Honey, she made some serious mistakes.”

  “I guess our family rubbed off on her.”

  “Oh, Kat.” Her mom looked down and fidgeted with the steering wheel. She looked up. “I love you.”

  “Thanks. Can I go now?” Kat watched her mother’s shoulders sag as the tinted window went up. Mom says I love you, and what do I do? I kick her to the curb. Real nice, Kat.

  Kat turned to walk away, then suddenly stumbled. Disorientation came on so fast she almost got sick. She doubled over. Her vision blurred. A loud ringing came to her ears and slowly faded. Voices came next. No, it was one voice. It came in and out like a radio station not quite in range. It sounded like her mother’s voice, but just snippets. Oh, Kat . . . why . . . so much . . . I can’t . . . anymore.

  Kat could almost feel her mother gripping the steering wheel harder and harder. She could almost feel the tightness in the muscles of her mother’s neck and shoulders. She could almost feel the wetness of tears on her mother’s face. Kat reached up to her own cheek. No tears at all. What’s happening to me?

  It passed as quickly as it had come on. Feeling like she’d just awakened from a strange dream, Kat continued up the school’s front steps. She refrained from looking back as she jostled between other students and squashed through the school’s front door. She ignored the whispers: