His father had been wrong about a lot of things.
He was talking himself into a state of panic. Hedidn’tbelieve in ghosts or moving shadows or mysterious dooms: he was just letting his imagination run away with him, as it so often did. All the same, he had to force himself to turn the corner.
And he did, and the corridor was empty. Of course it was. Zeblet out a long breath, gave himself a shake, and headed briskly for his room, where he would be perfectly safe. And would lock the door, and sleep with a light on if he wanted, even though he wasn’t superstitious, because he was a grown man who could do as he pleased.
He threw the door open. It was pitch dark inside. He groped for the matches and lit the gas.
The light bloomed. The shadows leapt, and moved, and kept moving. Zeb stared into the room, his heart seizing.
There were spiders everywhere. Spiders on the walls. On the ceiling. On the bed, making their way over the pillow and quilt with their dreadful mindless angular motion. Huge black spiders, their legs jointed and pointed, creeping and crawling in his darkening vision, hundreds, thousands,spiders.
He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream, couldn’t move, could only stand, shaking and sweating, for the longest seconds of his life, and then a thing of legs dropped abruptly from the ceiling and Zeb broke.
He didn’t even realise he was running, still less where he was running to, just away,away, frantically down the corridor, whimpering in fear, and when he turned a corner and collided with someone, he screamed.
“Zeb?”
“Oh Jesus,” Zeb said, and clung on to Gideon as though he was salvation.
“Zeb? What the blazes? Are you all right?”
He was not all right. He wanted to crawl up Gideon andbalance on his shoulders so no part of his body was touching any part of Lackaday House. “Spiders,” he managed. “My room.Spiders.”
He felt Gideon’s breath hiss out in a ‘for God’s sake’ way, but he didn’t let go. “All right, don’t panic. I can deal with a spider for you.”
“There’s hundreds of them!”
Gideon’s hug tightened. He’d always been ridiculously kind about Zeb’s childish fear. “I very much doubt that. Come on, deep breath. I will deal with it, all right? Let’s have a look.”
He led the way back to Zeb’s room. Zeb trailed behind, feeling more and more infantile and absurd. If there were three spiders and he’d imagined the rest in a fit of panic, he was going to look like the world’s most hysterical fool.
Gideon opened the door. “All, right, let’s—Jesus!”
Zeb was not going to look. He stood at the other side of the corridor at a safe distance from crawling horror. “There are a lot of them?”
“JesusChrist. Oh, I am not having this. Oh, no. Enough. What do you need me to get from in here?”
Zeb was strongly inclined to suggest throwing a lit match and some kindling in there, rather than taking anything out. “Clothes? Toothbrush? Oh God, my satchel! What if they got in it?”
“I will examine every inch of everything,” Gideon said. “Stay there, wait for me, and for goodness’ sake,don’t look.”
He went into the spider room as if it was just a room. Zebsagged against the wall, trying to make his heart beat normally.
Gideon emerged with the leather satchel over his shoulder and a pile of clothes. “Come on,” he said shortly, almost angrily, and Zeb followed.
Fourteen
Gideon’s room was some distance from Zeb’s, up a flight of stairs and towards the back of the house. Zeb collapsed onto the single chair while Gideon made a performance, greatly appreciated, of shaking out everything he’d brought, including emptying Zeb’s satchel, riffling through the paper it contained, and checking the pockets. He found two spiders and disposed of them out of the window with a tumbler and a book. He could pick them up in his fingers if he wanted, being possessed of impossible courage, but he never had after Zeb had expressed his feelings at being touched by spidery hands.
“Clear,” Gideon said at last. “All gone. I absolutely promise you.”
“Thank you.” Zeb felt suddenly tearful, and aware of how cold and sweaty he’d got. “I know it’s contemptible.”
“Zeb.” Gideon dropped to a knee in front of the chair and gripped his hand. “The room was seething with spiders: theremust have been a hundred of the things. Of course you were terrified. That was one of the cruellest things I have ever seen.”
“What?”
“Cruel,” Gideon said. “Unbelievably so. Someone emptied a box of spiders into your bedroom, for what, entertainment? What in the devil’s name is going on here?”
