“We didn’t listen to his warnings, Maria. We thanked him, and said we would be more careful about whom we showed our rings. But we refused to cancel our performance that evening. He left us the book, hoping it would change our minds, and begged to see us again before our show. But that afternoon, we learned that Mr. Eberly had fallen from the tower of the castle of Tourbillon. Even then, we accepted the story that he was a madman who had suffered a terrible accident. We couldn’t see it for the portent it was.”
“Hang on,” Maria said, jumping to her feet. “Where did you say this performance was?”
“In Sion. It’s a mountain town in the corner of Switzerland, near Italy.”
“And the Black Widow was there?”
Arturo nodded.
“She’d been following us for days — the Orb Weaver was just a bonus. That night, she was at our performance, waiting in the audience to spring her trap. Esmerelda’s lion, Cocoa, saved our lives. Unfortunately, we couldn’t save his.”
“Wait. You mean the Black Widow …”
“I’m afraid so, Maria. The Black Widow had us surrounded. We wouldn’t have stood a chance had it not been for Cocoa’s sacrifice. He knew right away who was commanding the spiders. He leaped at her from the ring, and managed to take a piece of her with him.”
As Arturo said this, he touched his right ear, and Maria gasped. The feeling had been building inside her ever since the funeral, when Luellen had held her hands as if she was searching them. A jewelry appraiser who wore a hat like a mask — Maria must have been grieving indeed not to have noticed it before.
“I think I know who the Black Widow is,” she said. “I think I’ve met her.”
Arturo grimaced, but he didn’t look surprised. So he knew the Black Widow’s real identity, too.
“It’s Derek’s aunt Luellen, isn’t it? She told me at the funeral she’d seen you and Grandma Esme perform in Switzerland. I almost didn’t believe her.”
“Luellen chased us relentlessly in the years after that horrible night. Our lives became a nightmare game of cat and mouse, moving from one abandoned building and false identity to the next, never feeling like we could trust anyone we met.”
“Why didn’t you just leave the rings somewhere?” Maria asked. “Put a big sign on them that said, ‘Here you go, now leave us alone’?”
“The thought did occur to us. But we knew too much. And the legacy of the rings is one of fear and distrust. The reason the Black Widow always kills her victims is that she doesn’t want anyone left to oppose her. She only has power while she has the rings. She can’t risk having an army rise up against her to take that power away.”
That Maria had been in the same room with this woman, while her grandmother’s casket had been resting less than ten feet away, made her want to scream.
“So what happened?” she asked Arturo, trying to piece together a complete picture of her grandmother. “I mean, one minute you and Grandma Esme are on the run together, the next minute, she’s going to yoga on Tuesdays and Thursdays and organizing church functions on Wednesdays and Sundays.”
Maria couldn’t keep all the bitterness out of her voice. Maybe the anger rising in her chest was keeping her mounting fear at bay, or maybe it was just building alongside it. Either way, there was the fear, and there was the anger. Why had Grandma Esme left the ring for her? Why had she let Maria get trapped in her story, instead of taking it with her?
Arturo looked stricken. “You think I abandoned her, is that it? You think I left her here for Luellen to find? I’m the only reason she had a life here for as long as she did. I’m the only reason that —”
He broke off with a gutteral sound between a snarl and a sob. This was clearly a case he had made before, if only to himself. It wasn’t as convincing as he wanted it to be.
Arturo took a deep breath and tugged at the sleeves of his suit coat. He really did look like an old little boy, if that made any sense. It was like after so many years in hiding, he had stopped growing up. He was Peter Pan’s lost shadow.
“I knew the only way the Black Widow would leave Esmerelda alone was if she thought she was dead. And I knew the only way Esmerelda would let me go was if she thought I was dead. So I gave her a passport and an address in a small American city I hoped would remind her of Cahul, and I told her I’d meet her after a short detour.”
“And that was the last time you saw her?”
“No,” Arturo said. “But until last week, that was the last time she saw me.”
It was strange how so many things could finally make sense at the exact same moment that suddenly nothing made sense. It was like Maria had spent hours putting a puzzle together based on the picture on the box, only to get to the end and realize that the box didn’t match the puzzle at all.
She continued to question Arturo. “Mom always said that Grandpa Lopez passed away before Dad was even born. I’m starting to think there was no Grandpa Lopez. Is that right?”
“You’re a smart girl, Maria. Just like your grandmother.”
“She knew Luellen was after her. She told me a week ago, ‘The other spiders are back.’ I thought she meant real spiders, the kind she collected. I had no idea she meant other people with rings.”
“I came to her as soon as I knew Luellen was on her trail. I tried to get her to leave with me, to run. But she wouldn’t.”
“You tried to get Grandma Esme to leave us?” Maria asked, horrified.
“If she had come with me, she’d still be alive.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t sound like much of a life to me. You can’t just keep leaving your family behind whenever things get scary. That’s not how it works.”
As soon as she said it, she felt a stab of guilt. It was one thing to say this, and another to believe it. Her shoes were still caked with mud from her own late-night escape.
“Oh my gosh,” she said, connecting the last of the puzzle pieces. “Luellen knows about the rest of my family, too. She even met them at the funeral.”
Maria thought of how cruel she’d been to Rafi earlier, not to mention the way she’d yelled at her mom. They’d only been looking out for her, when here she was, putting both of their lives in danger.
“Why hasn’t the Black Widow tried to kill me yet?” Maria asked.
“I’m sure she is hoping to catch us both at once. I’ve eluded her for over seventy years, and she’s growing impatient. If we are lucky, her impatience will make her careless.”
“What do you mean, ‘if we’re lucky’? What do you plan for us to do?”
“Run away, of course! Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? The Black Widow is here, and you are fortunate to be alive. Especially after your extravagant choice of mourning clothes and your little temper tantrum at the birthday party. Honestly, Maria, I’ll grant you your grandmother didn’t fully explain the nature of the rings, but the way you’ve been broadcasting your powers this week —”
“Has been no worse than what you and Grandma Esme did back in the day,” Maria said, cutting him off. She stood to her full height and brushed off her dress. She crossed her arms so that the Brown Recluse ring glittered against her skin. “Now, thank you for all your help, but I am not running away. My best friend says that if something makes you nervous, it just means that you’re thinking about it too much. And he is one of many people whose lives are in danger if we don’t stay and fight the Black Widow.”