The Stone House

by Patrick Ness

  ‘Weeeeiirrrd,’ he says, holding on to the middle of the word like it could protect him.

  ‘I’m going upstairs to hit something,’ the first man says. Danny nods. He waits till his friend has gone up then points at the dust. ‘Got my eye on you,’ he says.

  ‘What just happened?’ Amira asks.

  ‘Sometimes the dreams turn to dust and sometimes they don’t. You shoved the girls who bullied me out of the way, but they didn’t turn to dust, and yet Charlie could turn his own nightmare self into ashes. It made me wonder if you can only get rid of something if it was your own nightmare. So, as I’d dreamed about being suffocated by ivy, I thought it might work.’

  ‘And it did,’ Amira says. She pauses. ‘But why was I able to touch Yana? She’s in my dreams, my life, not yours. I didn’t turn her to dust.’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s because she’s your good dream,’ Tanya says gently. ‘You don’t need to get rid of her.’

  Amira just sits there, a smile growing on her face. ‘She is. She’s my good dream,’ she says.

  Tanya stands, brushing herself as best she can but the dust clings to the webbing. Noticing them, Danny the builder runs for the door. ‘Ghosts!’ he shouts.

  Upstairs, a sledgehammer finds wall. Wailing fills the house. It’s been wounded.

  The scuttling goes off upstairs. It’s accompanied by a scraping sound, like teeth against bone.

  A man screams. There’s a thud. He sprints down the stairs. ‘Get out,’ he screams. ‘GET OUT NOW!’ His arm is bleeding heavily. Workers emerge from different rooms, carrying tools or furniture.

  ‘What is it, mate?’ one asks.

  ‘Can’t say,’ he says. ‘Wouldn’t know where to start, mate. I’m off—you can stay here if you like, but I wouldn’t advise it.’

  He leaves at a run. Another follows. Shouts come from upstairs, followed by a man half-falling down the stairs. He doesn’t even stop to say anything before running out of the front door.

  Tanya moves towards them, drawing their attention. She waves to them. She must look like a walking, waving dust statue.

  If they notice her, it only confirms their worst suspicions. The builders run and carry on running. Mr Oliver is going to have to find more staff.

  Tanya runs to the dining room. Miss Quill is still lying on the floor. Tanya kneels down, feels for a pulse. It’s faint.

  ‘We should leave,’ Amira says. ‘The door’s wide open but the house won’t be distracted for long.’

  ‘You go,’ Tanya says. ‘Call for an ambulance but get out of the house. Miss Quill will be OK until the paramedics arrive. I’m going up there.’ She points up the stairs.

  ‘You’ve been trying to get out all night!’

  Tanya brushes more dust and webbing off. ‘There’s something in this house, other than the nightmares it makes. If I don’t find out what it is, I’ll keep coming back here, even when it’s demolished. I’ll be like Alice, with a face but without a stone house.’

  ‘You could get injured,’ Amira says, grabbing her hand and pulling her towards the door. ‘Please. We can come back with other people later.’

  Tanya resists, taking her hand away. ‘Call an ambulance and the police. Get the neighbours, anyone, tell them we’re here.’

  She turns and walks up the stairs. She doesn’t look back. Time to see what the stone house is hiding.

  FORTY

  THE ANSWER

  Tanya grips the banister as she climbs. The house is quiet, listening to her every step.

  On the top floor, she waits. Listens back. TAP TAP TAP. Scuttle.

  It’s in Amira’s bedroom.

  You can do this, Tanya tells herself. She opens the door. Something is in the centre of the room.

  It’s huge and white. Curled up like a skeletal fist that takes up most of the room.

  It raises its head. A cluster of eight white eyes holds her gaze. It’s a spider. Made of bleached bone. Unlike other spiders, it has eyelids. They close with a bone tick like a myriad china dolls’ eyes. Its legs click out, one by one, until all eight of them stand high above her, slightly bent at their knees, ready to pounce.

  Downstairs, the front door slams. Amira must have left. Tanya’s alone. She wishes she wasn’t.

  The bone spider’s fangs appear. Bright bone chiseled into sharp points. The creature screeches, rearing above her.

  This wasn’t her nightmare before. It is now.

  Tanya runs.

  FORTY-ONE

  WAKING UP

  Miss Quill opens her eyes. Alan is crouched down next to her, panic on his face. ‘I thought I told you to stay where you were,’ she says.

  ‘I saw Amira here running out. She told me you needed help,’ he says. Amira is standing next to him; she steps forward.

  Miss Quill tries to get up. Her whole body aches.

  ‘You should take it slowly,’ he says. ‘I don’t know how long you were unconscious.’

  ‘Where’s Tanya?’ Miss Quill asks.

  ‘She went upstairs and sent me to get help,’ Amira says, walking towards the staircase. ‘I shouldn’t have gone.’

  Something crashes into a wall upstairs. Tanya’s yell for help echoes round the house.

  Her footsteps sound like she’s slipping down the top stairs. She appears on the first-floor landing, stumbling.

  ‘Don’t come up,’ she shouts down to them. ‘It’s coming,’ she says.

  ‘What’s coming?’ Alan asks.

  And then it appears. Two long, thin legs climb down the last stair onto the landing, followed by six more, attached to a large spider-creature made out of bones. It throws a loop of web around Tanya’s running feet.

  Tanya crashes into the banister. Some of the spindles are already missing, but more fall onto the hallway floor. The banister makes a cracking sound. The spider moves towards her. Miss Quill looks around for anything they can use to stop it. There’s nothing.

  Tanya manages to stand, swaying on her bound feet. The spider pounces on her.

  Both of them crash through the railing, falling towards the hallway floor.

  ‘No!’ Amira cries out.

  Silk threads hit the walls of the hall, a metre off the ground. The spider lands upon it, balancing on the threads as if on eight tightropes. It’s wrapping Tanya up, mummifying her.

  It stares down at Tanya’s body. She isn’t moving. Her face is frozen in terror.

  The spider’s blinks sound like a camera shutter—as if it’s taking a photo of its paralysed prey. It raises one spearlike leg and holds it above Tanya’s heart.

  Alan runs towards it. The creature turns from Tanya and hisses. It comes towards them. The spider’s bone feet tap on the floor as if impatient. Alan picks up part of the broken railing and, raising it high, his arm shaking, he moves towards it. It flicks him away as if he were an insect.

  He hits the wall. Miss Quill and Amira rush to help him up. ‘I’m fine,’ he says. ‘We’ve got to stop it.’

  The spider climbs back to Tanya in the web. Its fangs are out. Its bone feelers turn Tanya’s head so that her neck is exposed.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Amira asks desperately.

  Miss Quill looks again around the room at the resources to hand. ‘We’re going to wrap it in its own web,’ she says.

  FORTY-TWO

  ARACHNOPHOBIA

  ‘How?’ Alan asks. He is still shaking. A bruise is already developing on his cheekbone.

  ‘We need to make it into one long rope,’ she replies. ‘Alan, you bring the spider over here to distract it, and Amira and I will cut the web from the walls and twist it into one strong strand.’

  ‘Do you think it’ll work?’ Alan says.

  ‘If it doesn’t, then you’ll be the first to be eaten,’ Miss Quill says calmly.

  ‘That’s reassuring,’ Alan says, blinking. He claps his hands. ‘Hello there, um, spider,’ he says, moving backwards very slowly.

  The spider twists its head, watching him. The
bone spider grabs Tanya under one leg and slowly steps off the web. It places her on the floor and stands in front of her, rearing up.

  ‘That’s it,’ Alan says, his voice quavering. ‘This way.’ Miss Quill hacks through where each strand of web is attached to the wall. When they all lie on the floor, Miss Quill and Amira roll it into one rope then hold an end each, like a game of tug-of-war where they’re on the same side.

  ‘Walk behind it, then we’ll cross over, being careful not to get tangled up ourselves,’ Miss Quill says to Amira. ‘The aim is to immobilize it by wrapping the web round its lowest knee joint. Keep back as far as you can.’

  Amira and Miss Quill walk round and round the spider’s back legs, crossing under each other’s arms. Around them, the nightmares of the stone house form a circle. The spider is directing them, flicking its front legs like a general ordering an attack.

  Miss Quill and Amira do their best to ignore them. Alan, though, hasn’t seen his nightmares walking. An elderly man stands next to him. He’s rasping, trying to talk.

  ‘Dad?’ Alan says, reaching towards him.

  ‘Don’t listen, Alan,’ Miss Quill says. ‘It’s trying to distract us, which means we’re winning.’

  Alan nods, his eyes full of pain. He keeps glancing over to where his dad has slumped, clutching his chest.

  ‘It’s working,’ Miss Quill says. The spider turns round and round to see what they are doing, getting itself further wrapped up. They work quickly until all eight legs have been wrapped several times. ‘Now pull tighter,’ Miss Quill says to Amira. Alan joins her to help.

  The spider tries to rear up but can’t lift its front legs off the ground. It surges forward, but Amira and Alan pull tighter and it’s forced into a corner, stuck fast in its own web. Its front legs buckling, it falls onto its knees. Lowering its head, it begins biting through the silk binding.

  Miss Quill forces the web she’s gathered into its mouthparts, twisting the gag into a sticky knot behind its head. It blinks at her rapidly, click, click, click, as if remembering her face for a later attack. From behind the gag comes the sound of a strangled scream.

  Amira runs to Tanya. ‘You’ve got to help Tanya,’ she says. ‘Her face is turning blue.’

  They crouch down next to Tanya’s still body. ‘Her circulation has been cut off,’ Miss Quill says, sawing through the threads as quickly as possible.

  ‘Wake up, Tanya,’ Amira says, tears falling onto Tanya’s face. ‘Please. Wake up. This can’t happen again.’

  Miss Quill finishes cutting. Tanya lies motionless in her opened cobweb cocoon.

  ‘Time to get up now, Miss Adeola. Break time’s over,’ Miss Quill shouts, slapping her face.

  Tanya’s eyelids flutter, ever so slightly.

  ‘Breathe, Tanya,’ Amira says. ‘Please.’

  The spider scratches at the floor behind them. Miss Quill checks. It can’t move.

  Tanya whimpers and tries to wriggle. She’s stuck to the web. They peel the clinging silk from her clothes and skin. She sits up. ‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘I thought that was it. Everything went fuzzy and dark.’

  Amira leans over and hugs her tightly.

  ‘I’m alright,’ Tanya says. ‘Really.’

  Amira wipes away tears. She looks over to the spider. It’s making a strange sound, like a chirrup, and trying to move its front legs. Above it, an image is forming.

  ‘We need to wrap it up tighter,’ Miss Quill says, ‘it’s trying to conjure more nightmares.’ She places the penknife in her jacket pocket and gathers more webs from the walls.

  Tanya walks slowly towards the spider. Above it, the faint image of another bone spider is forming. ‘It’s making another spider,’ she says.

  ‘If it can’t attack us, it’s sending a dream version,’ Miss Quill says. ‘As if it wasn’t enough of a nightmare by itself. You’re attacking the wrong people,’ Miss Quill shouts at the spider.

  The dream-spun spider is throwing a ball of web and scuttling after it. It fades in and out. Without free movement, the original bone spider doesn’t seem able to sustain it.

  The image of the dream spider is fading. The bone spider gives a muffled cry. Miss Quill wraps web around her open hands like a sticky cat’s cradle, making a rope to keep the bone spider secured.

  The bone spider blinks quickly. The dream version scuttles near, reaching out a leg to its creator. They touch.

  Tanya walks behind Miss Quill and takes the penknife from her pocket. She runs to the spider.

  ‘What are you doing? Get away,’ Amira says.

  ‘You can’t kill it with that,’ Miss Quill says.

  ‘I’m not trying to kill it,’ Tanya replies, taking the penknife towards the spider. She begins to cut through the web. ‘I’m letting it go.’

  ‘Stop it. Now!’ Miss Quill shouts.

  Too late. The front legs of the bone spider are free. It waves them in the air.

  The image of the dream spider crystallises. It ticks across the floor on tiny bone legs, gathering its own thread into a larger ball. Throwing it into the air, it wiggles its abdomen and jumps on the ball as it lands.

  ‘It’s only a baby,’ Alan says, his eyes wide.

  It then picks up the cobweb ball and stands on its back legs. A larger dream spider appears, identical to the real one in front of them. It gathers the tiny one up. Their bones scrape together.

  ‘It’s a parent and child,’ Tanya says. She points to the real bone spider in the corner. ‘I think that’s her child.’

  The image fades and is replaced by the hall they’re standing in. In the centre of the room is a rectangular black box. The baby bone spider scuttles up the side, making a squeaking sound, and drops down into the box. Two men in black come in and close the box. They carry it out on their shoulders. It’s a coffin.

  The bone spider reaches towards the coffin. The vision turns to dust, covering the spider.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Tanya says.

  ‘It lost its baby?’ Alan says.

  ‘Maybe,’ Miss Quill replies, inclining her head and staring at the bone spider. ‘Maybe it’s making the nightmares as retaliation.’

  Tanya moves to within touching distance of the bone spider.

  ‘Get away, Tanya,’ Miss Quill calls.

  The bone spider raises its front legs and places them on either side of Tanya’s neck.

  ‘Don’t anyone move,’ Tanya says. Her voice is tight and breathless. She holds herself stiffly.

  The spider’s bone legs turn Tanya around. Its eyes scan her. It blinks, sounding like eight teacups chinking on their saucers. Its legs fold back and one dips below the other as it lowers its head.

  ‘Did that spider just bow?’ Alan says. He’ll need years of therapy for all this.

  ‘I don’t think it’s trying to hurt us,’ Tanya says, turning round.

  ‘How can you say that?’ Miss Quill says, so angry her voice comes out even more sharp and pointed. ‘It practically threw you off the landing.’

  ‘Or I fell and it caught me, wrapping me so I wouldn’t hit the floor,’ Tanya says. ‘You said it was attacking the wrong people. I think we’ve got it wrong.’

  The bone spider curls up as best it can in its own web.

  ‘It was trying to comfort itself with a dream of its child that then turned into a nightmare,’ Tanya says. ‘What if it does the same to anyone who comes here? It could be trying to comfort scared children like me. It might even see us all as children.’

  ‘Or it’s luring people into its web with dreams in order to wrap them up and eat them,’ Miss Quill says, folding her arms. ‘If you let it out and it attacks, then I’ll hold you responsible.’

  ‘If I let it out and it attacks, then we’ll all be slowly decomposing in a cobweb coffin,’ Tanya says. ‘“I told you so” is hardly going to be the worst thing. On the other hand, we could be detaining a harmless creature.’

  Outside, a motor starts chugging. Alan peeks through the window. ‘Uh-oh,’ he says.<
br />
  ‘What is it?’ Tanya asks.

  ‘I don’t suppose any other houses in the road are up for demolition?’ he asks.

  ‘Not that we know of,’ Miss Quill replies.

  ‘Then it looks like the wrecking ball is for us,’ he says.

  FORTY-THREE

  THE BONE SPIDERS

  ‘What’s going on?’ Tanya asks.

  ‘According to Mr Oliver,’ Miss Quill says, ‘the demolition begins this afternoon. Clearly they’re getting ready.’

  ‘Mainly by eating sandwiches,’ Alan says, still looking out. ‘And drinking tea.’

  ‘I thought we’d scared them away,’ Tanya says.

  ‘I’ve met Constantine Oliver,’ Miss Quill says. ‘He’ll have forced them back or hired new workers. He wants this place knocked down today.’

  ‘We can’t let them knock it down,’ Tanya says. ‘It lives here.’

  ‘We don’t know what it does or why it’s here,’ Miss Quill says. ‘You came here to find Amira, you found her; I came here to find you, here you are. Now we go. If I’m found here, I’m in significant trouble.’

  ‘But it’s lost its baby. We can’t leave it like this.’

  The bone spider gently touches Tanya’s shoulder with its front legs. Without thinking, she puts out a hand. They touch. Warm flesh and cold bone. She starts hacking through the rest of the web that ties its legs together.

  ‘It’s not our business,’ Miss Quill says.

  ‘Not our business?’ Tanya says. ‘Do you think we’ve found a new Earth species here, or do you think it could possibly have fallen through the Rift at some point?’

  ‘Of course it isn’t from Earth,’ Miss Quill says.

  ‘Then do you think we should let a nightmare-creating alien loose in London when its home has been destroyed?’ She frees another of the spider’s legs and stares at Miss Quill.

  Miss Quill stares back. There’s a glint in her eye, as if enjoying the challenge. She looks down at her watch.

  ‘Then we’d better start looking for its offspring, I suppose.’ Tanya slices the spider out of the last of its cuffs. It bows again. She finds herself bowing back.