Under Snake Island, page 3
Killing Arachne removed every single spider from the face of the Earth. This wrench in the ecosystem started last harvest with crops overwhelmed by insects, to the latest nightmare: birds that had survived solely on spiders dying off in droves. The global food shortage worsened each day. And it all started with what they’d done under Bethel. The projections for this crisis were grim.
Malcolm said, “This is a crime we all share.”
“Fine,” said Elisabeth, biting back tears. “We. We did this. The food shortage is because of us.”
Duncan, in his usual soft voice, said, “We’ve talked about this, Lizzy. We couldn’t have known killing the queen would kill all the rest of the spiders.”
Elisabeth smirked and shook her head.
“Yeah. But it doesn’t change the fact that hundreds of thousands of people are going to die because of us.”
The British Museum
London
Three Months Later
Shortly after the altercation with Meredith Hancock, Elisabeth had been summoned to appear in court. Meredith had Samuel Garrison, one of the best barristers in all of London, by her side. But Elisabeth’s pockets ran deeper, so she called upon Bruce Knight, a legendary barrister who’d been paramount to several suits involving the royals and nearly every member of the Riversiders Football Club. He brought an end to what could’ve been a lengthy arbitration, leaving Elisabeth with having to pay a relatively small fine for pain and suffering—as well as sign a restraining order that hurt Meredith far more than her. She gave Meredith a wry grin as she walked past her on the courthouse steps.
With old unpleasantries behind her, Elisabeth could concentrate on brand-new unpleasantries. Like the opening night of the Bethel Collection at the British Museum.
It wasn’t open to the public yet—only special benefactors, board members, and British high society. Elisabeth, having approved this acquisition, was the guest of honor, only she stipulated there would be no formal recognition, no pomp or frills. She came to see the collection and snap a few photos, and then disappear back into obscurity.
She stepped out of her limo at the Montague Place entrance, hoping to avoid photographers, but they chased the car and surrounded it. The driver pulled open her door and did his best to shield her from questions—ranging from her charity work to combatting the world food crisis, to her assault of Meredith Hancock. Elisabeth ignored them as she entered the building. The museum security turned away anyone who wasn’t on the guest list.
A few moments later, her phone made two long buzzes with a space in the middle, the Morse code for M, meaning Malcolm had texted. She looked at the screen, cheeks burning with embarrassment.
Beautiful dress, lass. Brings out your eyes.
A moment later, a photo of Elisabeth in her crimson red ballgown popped into the chat window. It was from outside—less than three minutes ago.
Someone’s already posted it?
Yes, indeed. Everyone wants a piece of Lizzy Wingate. Just like old times.
They’ll be sorely disappointed, she tapped back. She climbed the steps to the ground floor, unsure of where to find the exhibit.
Are you sure you didn’t want us there?
Yes, she most certainly did. But Elisabeth also knew that in the coming months, they needed to separate themselves from Bethel. And for Malcolm and Duncan’s sake, she needed to separate from them.
What she wrote was: I’m sure. Why should all three of us be dragged through the mud when one of us will do?
She sensed his light-hearted chuckle through the phone.
Don’t stay out late. See you soon?
She slipped the phone back into her purse without responding and headed to the Great Court. Normally, this spot overflowed with tourists. It was indoors now, having been capped with an exquisite, intricate dome a few years ago. Right now, it all looked like an abandoned amusement park—cafes empty, giftshops closed, bathrooms cordoned off with caretaker’s tape. The only life in the entire place was the television on the wall.
It was Channel Four, muted, yet the crawl at the bottom said everything. They were talking about the same thing as all the other stations—the food crisis. Elisabeth paused a moment to watch, completely lost in the story. After all, she’d been the linchpin.
In the last six months, the food shortages had grown so much in eight African nations that the world had devoted aid purely to the continent. Ten years ago, they were starving because of conflict. Today, because bugs were overrunning crops since all the spiders died off. The trickle-down effect had left many countries to make tough decisions. Thousands had already died, and that number was projected to skyrocket after the next crop failure.
Elisabeth helped as best she could. She’d spent almost half her fortune in either humanitarian aid or in synthetic foods research. But as all the organizations told her: too little, too late. This crisis was here and there was nothing humanitarian aid could do on a large enough scale, nor was there enough time to research viable food alternatives. A wave of hunger and malnutrition loomed on the horizon, and it all started with Elisabeth.
“Just awful, isn’t it? Who would’ve ever thought the damned spiders would be so important?”
The voice, eerily close to her ear, made her jump back. A woman stood next to her, gazing at the screen. She looked slightly familiar, as did almost everyone these days—Elisabeth had spots on her brain from the drug use of her youth. Faces floated in and out of her memory, so she smiled and pretended she wasn’t confused.
“Yeah,” she said. The woman kept her eyes on the screen, so Elisabeth turned toward the lighted gallery to her left, now noticing the signs with arrows marked Bethel Collection.
She didn’t know any of these people besides Lucy Grant, who managed the handoff of the MacEwen collection on her behalf. Elisabeth and her friends had discovered artifacts from a thousand cultures right under the Scottish Highlands. The Bethel Collection was being hailed as the most significant archaeological discovery since the Rosetta Stone, which, funny enough, was behind a glass case just ten meters to Elisabeth’s left.
She had expected a contested argument over who owned the treasures. It was found beneath Elisabeth’s father’s land, but how far did that extend into the earth? The European Museum Collaboration yielded when they discovered Elisabeth had no interest in money, recognition, and certainly no treasures of her own.
The only thing she cared about recovering was the artifacts from the MacEwen Clan. That had been Lucy’s late husband’s life’s work, and she wanted to build a collection at Inverness Hill College that would make him proud. A museum in Glasgow wanted the MacEwen artifacts, but Elisabeth offered the EMC two million pounds—something Lucy would never know if she could help it—for the clan’s items to be displayed at Inverness Hill in Alistair’s honor.
Before entering a throng of reporters, she stopped by a trashcan when no one was looking to catch her breath. She spat in the can, hoping she didn’t vomit, then checked her lipstick. She’d been battling some illness. Or maybe it was the lining of her stomach or lungs coming up. With the way she partied in her youth, she expected it. Still, it was inconvenient coughing up blood.
Photographers seemed to spring from the woodwork, but she figured anyone permitted inside the museum tonight had little interest in running hit pieces or publishing photos that showed her in mid-stride, thus revealing the color of her underwear. A story of that caliber dominated the news for an entire week when she turned eighteen. These gents represented upscale magazines and top editorial newspapers.
After twenty minutes of photos and a dizzying array of spots before her eyes, she inspected the Bethel Collection for herself. Much larger than she expected, it was housed in a vast gallery, a temporary exhibit, before it would be diced up and shared across Europe.
The curator had tried to group the artifacts by cultures, with a heavy emphasis on Greek antiquities. That made sense, considering the monster that hoarded it all hailed from ancient Greece.
Most of what she saw was new to her eyes. Arachne and her minions had no sense of organization, so they threw it all into a pit like a dragon’s trove.
She cared little for museums. She didn’t like old artifacts, no matter how interesting the history. Elisabeth passed rows of coins, armor, weapons, musical instruments, and books. Some of it looked dated. Some of it was clearly new—in a case called Contemporary Finds, she saw a copy of The Catcher in the Rye smashed between a set of headphones and a snow globe from somewhere called Huntington, West Virginia. Arachne had no pattern for what she collected, there just happened to be a few priceless things mixed in with the trash.
At the rear of the exhibit hung tapestries. This did interest Elisabeth. She had a passion for textiles, as she had founded her entire business upon high-quality clothing. The tapestries in the Bethel Collection were the ones she and her friends didn’t burn. These hung from the ceiling, forming a gauntlet to draw her to the rear.
Arachne had a fondness for weaving and Elisabeth had seen her creations firsthand. They possessed magic, as silly as it sounded. But there was no other explanation. With one of Arachne’s tapestries, you could walk through it and enter the place it depicted. She’d made portals out of thread. Sadly, they ceased to function shortly after the monster died.
The gallery seemed quieter the closer she drew to the tapestry at the rear. Everyone else was too busy gawking at the shiniest baubles—the gold coins and the jewelry. A lot were surrounding a glass case with something she heard referred to as the lost Eagle Diamond. None of them realized a half-woman, half-spider weaved these creations.
The tapestry at the end was massive—at least ten meters long and five high. All of it was bordered by gold and silver stitching in the shape of coins. In the middle, there were three scenes.
The first sent a shiver down her spine—it was a field of corn, all rotten, bent, and broken right on the stalk. A dark, dreary sky hung overhead. This one, as the saying went, hit a little too close to home.
The second one interested her most—a king bowed his head in front of Medusa. Her wicked hair of golden snakes all pointed in the kneeling king’s direction, perhaps angry, or perhaps relishing in such an important man taking a knee. Her body hovered high above him because she didn’t have legs. Much like Arachne and her spider half, Medusa’s human body ended at her navel. Below that, she was a long, green snake, the tail reaching several meters.
But the third panel of the tapestry resembled the first, only the crops were thriving. A blue sky and golden sun shined light down on beautiful, vibrant plants. Two statues stood in the middle of the field—one man, one woman. Vines covered them both.
The longer she stared, the more she realized they weren’t statues, but victims of Medusa. This story she remembered from primary school. The Gorgon sister, cursed by Athena, capable of turning anyone who stared at her into stone. It was a farfetched myth.
But so was Arachne . . .
“It’s quite something, isn’t it?” said a patron next to her. Elisabeth barely acknowledged her.
Speaking more to herself, she said, “I’ve never seen anything like this. Medusa . . . allowing a king to worship her. I thought she just turned all men to stone.”
“Eh, not the ones she can use, I’m assuming.” Elisabeth caught a wisp of dark hair from the corner of her eye.
“You act like she’s a real person.”
Just now, Elisabeth realized it was the same lady who stood by her in the Great Court, looking up at the television. She wore a short black skirt, hair pulled back, makeup flawless. Elisabeth had never seen a more attractive woman—and it had been her business for years to befriend the prettiest society offered.
The lady fixed her with a piercing stare and said, “I believe in monsters. And I’m pretty sure you do, as well.” She winked, a tiny smile pulling at the edges of her mouth.
“Sorry?” said Elisabeth.
The woman looked around to make sure they were alone, then stepped uncomfortably close to Elisabeth. She said, “I believed your story, you know. The story you brought out of the Hole? Arachne, giant spiders?”
Elisabeth felt like she’d been punched, as if someone had thrown a bag over her head and flogged her. It made her cheeks burn. Was this lady making fun of her?
“I . . . need to go,” she said, and turned away.
“Oh, gosh, I’m so sorry, Miss Wingate,” said the girl, now putting an icy hand around Elisabeth’s arm to hold her. “I haven’t introduced myself.”
Elisabeth relaxed and turned back, feeling this wasn’t the average nutter. The lady’s eyes had gone from playful to horrified.
“I’m Clara Foster, the curator of the museum. I’m the one overseeing the handoff from Lucy Grant. Surely Lucy has mentioned me?”
“Right, of course,” said Elisabeth. “I’m sorry.”
In truth, Elisabeth didn’t remember if Lucy had mentioned this lady or not, but again she thought she looked vaguely familiar. Elisabeth tuned out a lot of bureaucratic nonsense. She met so many people, shook so many hands, took so many photographs with strangers. Sure, what was one more?
“It’s fine,” Clara said. She moved close again, now that she was certain Elisabeth wouldn’t run off. “And don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me. I wouldn’t want anyone else to know that monsters roamed the world.”
Elisabeth had no words for this, so she returned her attention to the tapestry. “So tell me about this king.”
“Certainly. That’s King Epilogas and this is the Kingdom of Lydia.” She bumped Elisabeth against the shoulder affectionately. “Which, I might add, was Arachne’s homeland. As the myth goes, Athena destroyed it shortly after she cursed the weaver. Withered the crops and filled the soil with brimstone.”
“How do you know this is Lydia?” Elisabeth found the story intriguing, as she’d seen this place through Arachne’s eyes when the spider queen had nearly turned her into a monster. One more story the world wouldn’t believe.
Except maybe this woman . . .
Clara pointed to the border. “Lydians were the first ones to create gold and silver coins. The first ones to have retail stores. Artwork from the region often feature coins like this.”
“So why is King Epilogas bowing at her feet?”
Clara smiled and raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t it clear? Because she helped return prosperity to the land. And to Arachne’s homeland, no less. It’s almost as if she did the spider a favor.” Clara chuckled, revealing for the first time her true age—probably mid-forties, if the laugh lines and wrinkles that the makeup hid were to be believed.
The story confused Elisabeth. She looked at the third panel where crops grew thick and tall and the sun beamed, and where a pair of Medusa’s victims watched over it all, like silent sentinels.
“And how exactly did she return prosperity?”
Clara grinned and spun on her heels, then started back down the gauntlet of tapestries. “Come with me.”
“Where?”
The curator stopped and turned back, the wry smile still plastered on her face. “I want to show you why I believe in monsters.”
*****
Beneath the museum was the staff area, a few classrooms, and an amphitheater for lectures. This was where a lot of the restoration work took place. Clara guided Elisabeth through vacant offices and into a large laboratory room.
There were long workstations littered with bits of rock and metal that looked like debris, but were probably more important than she realized. Most of the room was glass, looking out to a few other workstations that held larger exhibits earmarked for repair or transfer. A giant statue of a cat-headed Egyptian goddess dominated the next room. Elisabeth felt the history here.
But the trio of stone statues in the center of the room drew her attention. One depicted a man, the other two women. Their clothes were too pristine to be handcrafted. Her first thought was they were made of blown plastic, like those large, gaudy Christmas decorations the Americans were so fond of placing on their lawns.
“Go on, you can touch them,” Clara said, sliding into a chair and turning to her computer.
Elisabeth brought her hand up to the man’s shoulder and touched the rough stone. She didn’t think she could move him if she tried. His face gave away nothing, as if he were watching a boring movie.
The women, however, looked terrified. One with wide eyes, another in mid-scream and wrinkles on her cheeks. Unlike the figures in the tapestry, these wore contemporary clothes—Elisabeth recognized the Urban Aussie patch on the man’s shirt pocket.
The statues stood in a raised planter, only there was no dirt. Morning Glory vines wrapped around their bodies, an odd juxtaposition given the ladies’ frightened looks. The flowers’ roots were fused to the base of the statues.
“I’m guessing that bloke didn’t see her coming. But the gals did.”
“What?” Elisabeth asked.
“When Medusa turned them to stone.”
She laughed and waited for Clara to join in, but she only sat there with those piercing eyes. It wasn’t a joke—at least not to Clara.
“Well, interesting garden gnomes,” said Elisabeth, hoping this attempt at humor would dissolve some of the tension.
“I agree,” Clara said.
“Why do they look like this?” She ran her hand along the man’s back. Each ‘statue’ had a concentric band of lines, alternating darker and lighter, running from top to bottom.
“We see it in pottery when either the clay gets too thin or dries too quickly. If you flash heat in a kiln, you’ll likely see this pattern. Since these things have held up well, I’d say it’s not a thinning issue.”
“And the flowers?” She lifted one of the Morning Glories to her nose and sniffed its lovely fragrance.
“There’s some sort of residual energy inside the stone. We can’t identify it. It’s just . . . there. They make plants grow without water, soil, or sun. They also repel pests and mimic whatever conditions the plants need to grow.”
“I don’t get it. How do statues do all that?”
