Swan’s eye twitched slightly as she watched my reaction. I was surprisingly calm, although numb and in shock might be more appropriate terms. Over the last few days, my definitions for my life, the people in it, and reality in general had all been expanded and twisted to the point of ripping. I only had some remnant sanity left because I was trying to just roll with things as they came. Accept that I wasn’t in control and couldn’t take anything at face value.
As the fog lifted from my brain, it became easier to accept that I wasn’t Theresa and that Jenna wasn’t my sister Sharon. But as dread and fear pooled into the vacancies left behind by that life and identity, I found myself pining for the simplicity of an evil father and his cult that wanted to kill me. At least that, as confusing and terrifying as it had been, made a kind of sense. But all of this? How could these people do everything they were doing? Just with a set of pills?
It didn’t seem possible, but the whys and wherefores didn’t really matter either. We were trapped here. If only I could just get us out of here one more time, maybe we could go far enough away that they couldn’t find us. I’d take Jenna and we’d lose ourselves in the old world I’d always known, in a world that was familiar and made sense. Even if that world was a lie, it was preferable to whatever this horror was. I just had to stay calm and try to figure out how we could escape.
Swan had begun giggling softly under her breath. “John, that’s what I like about you. What I’ve always liked about you. You’re so resilient. You may not be cut from the same cloth as your wife, but I have no doubt you will contribute for many, many years to come.” I saw Jenna flinch out of the corner of my eye. Swan either didn’t see it or chose not to react, as she went on without pause. “Jenna’s…indiscretion in giving you the Rasa pill…well, some of us have had real concerns if it would damage your progress permanently.” She tipped me a quick wink. “Not me, of course. I always kept the faith. And lo and behold, you’ve gone through the persona transition and regression swimmingly.”
I frowned, slowly shaking my head. “I…okay. Um, can I…can we go now?” I looked over at Jenna, and she was giving me the same sad stare as before. “Let’s get out of here, honey, okay?” I could feel the question buried in my words like a tumor—not just the question of was she ready to leave, but did she want to? Because I had started developing a sense of something being different than before, and it wasn’t just that Jenna had been part of my latest “experience”. It was the feeling that she was in on the joke in a way that I wasn’t.
Swan let out a small snort of laughter. “You two really are cute. I can see a lot of potential here.” I glanced back at her to find her expression becoming more serious again. “But to answer your question, John, the answer is no. You’ve passed the threshold into becoming a permanent member of our little family, and I’m afraid that means you won’t ever need to go home again, because you’re already here.” Her cheek trembled as she gave me another small smile. “Someone will be along to collect you shortly, but try not to worry. We will keep you in pleasant enough accommodations, and aside from your…periodic adventures, you’ll find your time with us much more pleasant that Jenna has no doubt described.” She favored my wife with something bordering on a glare. “Her position was unique. When we find one with such potential, we have to be very harsh at first or it only makes things more difficult in the end. Cruel to be kind, as they say.”
Turning back to Jenna, I reached out and touched her arm. “Jenna, what’s she talking about? I want to go home. I want us both to go home.” Seeing her look at me so dejected and silent, something broke free in the chambers of my heart. They had kept her prisoner for years, torturing her. They had likely killed or imprisoned Ruby and George too. And now they were saying we had to stay? No. I stood up, towering over Swan in her chair. “Fuck that. Fuck all of this. We’re going, and I’m not swallowing another Goddamn pill, so if you try to stop us, I’ll snap your fucking neck.”
The woman’s expression didn’t change, but oddly enough, I saw ripples of movement under her clothes, as though her body was spasming or shifting beneath the fabric. Pulling back with a shudder, I let out a yelp as a hand fell on my shoulder. It was Jenna.
“Let me take him to where he’s staying. We can talk some and I can try to make him understand.” Looking between the two women, I could almost feel the low buzz of some invisible communication between the two of them, a small struggle of wills born out on some unknown battlefield. After a few moments, Swan looked away and gave a small shrug.
“Very well, but straight to the men’s wing, you understand?” She smirked at me before cutting her eyes back to Jenna. “No field trips.”
When we left the room where I’d awoken with Jenna and Swan, I felt another moment of disorientation. I’d expected to be in the office building I’d gone to with George and Ruby, but instead, we walked out into an ornately dilapidated hallway that smelled of mildew and disuse. This was a different hall, perhaps even a different building, but I had little doubt that we were back at Greenheart Home. Shuffling along with Jenna, I asked her if I was right, and she nodded.
“Yes, this is an upper floor of the main building. The men’s wing can be accessed on the floor below and three floors up, but…” she glanced around before whispering, “we’re not taking that route.”
I stopped dead, my hands clinched at my side. “No, fuck this. For all I know, you’re not you and this is just another trick. Either way, I’m not fucking moving until you or someone tells me what the fuck is going on.”
Jenna reached back and grabbed my arm, pulling me forward with surprising strength. “No, not here. Not now. Let’s get outside and then I’ll tell you what I can quickly. It’s a risk to tell you anything, but maybe it’ll help keep you safe or at least help you accept everything.” I tried to pull away, but I couldn’t break her grip. Her hand softened on my arm slightly, and when she looked at me again, I saw tears in her eyes. “Please. It’s me, and I’m trying to fix it the little bit that I can. Just trust me this one last time.”
I went to respond, but I couldn’t find any words. There was something so hopeless and forlorn in her voice…it broke my heart to hear it, and there was nothing I could say that would make it any better. So instead I just nodded and, touching her hand gently, I took it in mine as we went downstairs and out onto the overgrown midnight lawn of Greenheart Home.
We'd gone out the front door, the same one Chomp and Champ had led me and Ruby through…when was that? Time seemed so muddy now. I was still worried this might be some kind of trick, or that at the very least, Jenna wouldn’t tell me anything despite my protests. But as she led me across the shadowed grounds of the estate, I heard harsh whispers from beside me in the dark. It was Jenna, explaining more than I ever wanted to know.
These things…they aren’t people. I don’t know what they are really—not because I don’t understand them, because I think I do. But because they can be and are so many things. I know they have been around, well, either always or close to it. There have been times when people have named them or even worshipped them, but they’re not gods. I…I’m doing a bad job of this, I know. I can see a lot of it now, but it’s hard to put into words.
People…some people in the past have called them Anansi. They were a basis for legends and folklore about tricksters, and I suppose in a way that's true. But that’s not really what they are any more than they are gods. No, what they really are...is storytellers.
The way they have explained it to me…the way I can see it now…is that they are weavers of reality. They inspire and create ideas and emotions through stories, and those stories are woven together to make and strengthen the very fabric of reality. That may sound very strange and grandiose, but it’s also very important. There are things, very bad things, that are trying to weaken our reality all the time. Trying to eat away at it, working to create holes they can slip through. In some ways, the Anansi are like a force of nature or…maybe an immune system. Constantly trying to fight off these influences by strengthening the structure of everything.
Because their stories aren’t just stories. They are the stories. The stories that all other stories spring from. The source of the funniest jokes, the heart of the tenderest romance. And the staring eye of the bleakest horror.
Like a mother spider filling her egg sac with hundreds of tiny pearls, these stories are all waiting to hatch and find their own ways out into the world. I…I’m sorry, John. I know my manner is strange. I am strange now…different than what I was. But I only have these few moments with you, and I want to try to help you understand while I can.
These weavers, these Anansi, they don’t just dream up stories, they weave them into reality. They find places in the world—abandoned places, places of forgotten power, and they spin and spin and spin their webs until they have a world within the world. A place where they have the power of death and resurrection, of immorality and limitless change.
That’s how they do what they do. How you can be dead and then alive again, in one place and then another—none of it is a trick, not really. You really do burn, you really do drown. You really can become someone else entirely. It’s just that in their special places, they can reset and alter things as they like. Whatever the newest story calls for.
They have taken over this place, and over time they have drawn people in like flies. Most are just cattle to them—extras, they call them. Their roles are short-lived. Others, the rarer and more resilient ones, they keep around for a long time. Use them over and over in countless stories. They are the actors.
And then…well, as old as they are collectively, they don’t live forever. And so from time to time, they find someone that is not only suitable for being an actor, but has the potential to be enured. To be prepared to become one of them. It takes years, but…
“This isn’t the way to the men’s wing, Jenna.”
We spun around to find Swan was standing behind us, her body half in shadow. I’d expected to feel fear at her presence, but all I felt now was anger. A rat was gnawing at my belly, whispering that what I guessed was true, that what terrified me the most was lying just around the next bend in Jenna’s story.
“Fuck off and leave us alone. You don’t own us.”
Swan let out a tinkling laugh at my words. “Us. Which us would that be? We hand you paper masks to wear and you are fool enough to think they are your true face. For all you know, you’ve already been here for hundreds or thousands of years.”
Jenna stepped between us. “Shut up. She’s lying, John. You’re not fully under their control yet, and it pisses them off. Because they’re used to being in control and they know you can still escape.” Swan’s darkened form seemed to be shifting, getting longer and bigger. “The pills? It’s made from their venom. They use it to make extras and actors more compliant to the weaver’s form of reality. It only takes a few doses before they can alter you however they want.”
My mouth was dry. I had a million questions, but at the moment, only one really seemed to matter. “What about what ,you gave me? When you kissed me…where did that pill come from?”
She lowered her head but wouldn’t turn back to look at me. “It came from me, John. It came from what I’ve become.”
I felt as though a black hole had formed at my core, pulling me down, crushing me in until all that was left was a single, breathless singularity of pain. If this was true, if this wasn’t another trick, another story, then they had taken Jenna’s life from her. Had taken her away from me. Working for air, I tried to speak, to ask another question, but then I saw the thing that wore Swan slowly walking toward us.
It was still the woman in some ways—I could see her short blond hair and pale skin, and she still wore the same fashionably professional outfit as before, though it was now ripping in places as she moved. In fact, every part of her was ripping as she moved. Her skin was being pushed and stretched in unnatural directions as she lurched towards us, like taffy or putty being pulled taut to the point of breaking. I’d expected to see blood, but instead there was just trickles of white dust tumbling from each new tear. I had the panicked thought that it was like watching a wild animal trying to escape a bag.
That’s when I saw the first leg poking out of the woman’s flesh.
Long, black and bristly, it waggled in the air for a moment before disappearing back inside the woman’s chest. A moment later, another leg stabbed its way out of her groin. She was still a few feet from us, but she had managed to keep moving forward during her shambling transformation, and I felt my mind shuddering at the thought of one of those dark legs reaching me. That would be it, I thought. That would be the thing that finally finished driving me insane.
It was in that moment that Jenna finally turned back to look at me, her face a mask of sorrow. “Go, John, now. Keep going until you get to the last building. There’s a service road behind it. Follow it until you find something you know and can trust.”
“I’m not leaving you! I…”
“There’s no time for that. I’m…I’m like them now. But what I gave you…you can get away. I’m strong enough that it will protect you I think. But either way, it's your only chance.” When I still hesitated, she screamed at me, her voice cracked and tearful. “Please! Just go.” She turned back to face the Swan-thing that was almost to her now. “And just know that if weavers dream, I’ll always dream of you.”
With that, she grabbed hold of the writhing thing, pushing it back into the dark as it began to yell and squeal. I wanted to go and help, to convince Jenna to come with me, but I knew there was no hope to be found there. Either this was a trick and she was lying, or she was telling the truth and I should trust her. Either way, I needed to try and escape this hell while I could.
So I ran, tears streaming down my cheeks as I made my way closer and closer to the broken giant that lay ahead. Even in the limited moonlight I could make out the uneven profile of its fallen-in roof, and as I grew near, I realized that an entire side of the building had collapsed in some long-forgotten fire. Not trusting the uneven rubble inside, I planned to go around the long way until I found the road.
That’s when I saw twin silhouettes up ahead of me.
I dove into the shadows, my heart thudding with the certainty that Chip and Chomp had seen me already. Holding my breath, I focused all my thought on being still. On being invisible. They didn’t see me. The twins drew closer. They won’t see me. I could hear their footfalls crunching dead grass underfoot. I won’t be found. They were passing by and was this actually working? Suddenly they both stopped, turning in unison to stare at my hiding spot against the broken wall. The closer one broken into a toothy grin.
“You trying to hide from us, sport?”
A moment later, a white brick wall appeared between us, spotless in the moonlight except for the single red word emblazoned across its length in ten-foot tall letters: RUN.
I darted around the corner into the rubble of the burned out building, fumbling my way across a dark ruin that was somehow still haunted by the smell of that past smoke and flame. I had a moment of panicked desperation when I couldn’t find an open door on the far side, but when I looked again, I realized there was a broken window I’d either missed before or…Wiping my face, I climbed through it and felt a surge of relief when I saw the service road Jenna had told me about.
I ran for what felt like hours, and every shadow and errant sound made my heart stop with the certainty that Swan or one of the twins or some new horror was going to leap out of the bushes or drop down from the webbed trees lining the sides of the road. But nothing ever came, and eventually the trees, and the world, began to seem normal again.
It was after dawn before I hit a highway, and another hour before I got someone to stop and help me. The man kept asking if I needed to go to the hospital, but I kept politely refusing his offer. To just drop me at the courthouse parking lot if it wasn't too much trouble.
Sure enough, my car was there waiting, the keys laying in the seat as though left behind by a forgetful valet. It was a miracle that the car hadn’t been stolen, security cameras or not, but I wasn’t much in the mood to feel grateful. For all I knew, it hadn’t been stolen because that wasn’t the way the story was supposed to go. For now I didn't care. I was exhausted, and all I wanted to do was go home.
That was a month ago. I spent the first two weeks terrified that I’d wake up in a strange place, a strange life, a strange me. Or that the twin cops or something worse would drag me from my bed in the middle of some night. I thought about running, but if they could get me, if Jenna’s…if her magic couldn’t protect me, then what difference would it make if I moved to another state? Did I honestly think they couldn’t find me if they wanted?
So I stayed. I went over everything in my head a thousand times. Every day I almost went back out to try and find Jenna again. Every day I thought about checking myself into a hospital or killing myself. Every day I mourned losing my family, my friends, my life. And it would be a lie to say it has gotten any easier, but it has become more predictable. Routine has worn the rough edges off most of my fear and loneliness, making it something I can live with, if just barely.
But the thing that I couldn't live with was worrying about what might have happened to Jenna. Even if she had become like the things that she’d described, how would they react to her helping me escape? What if they killed her or were torturing her? I had no way to know or to find out other than seeking them out again, and the idea of that terrified me. I hated the worry and guilt, but I told myself that if I went back I’d just be throwing away all that Jenna had sacrificed to free me. It was probably true, but that didn’t stop me from hating myself. Jenna had been the best part of me, and now she was gone. I…I’d abandoned her.
My grief made me strange in the following days. I’d gone down to the Owls’ computer, and after some poking around more on instinct than clear memory, I found a folder with a handful of saved videos inside. It was the nights I had watched of Chomp and Chip coming and taking Jenna away. I hated seeing the videos—the sights of the twins pulling her away again and again was almost more than I could bear—but at least I got to see her, and if it hurt, well I guessed it was no more than I deserved. As the days went on, I took to watching the clips over and over for hours until I'd finally fall asleep.
Two nights ago I woke up just past midnight, my neck painful from sleeping crooked in the old computer chair. The video player had finally given up without any user input and had gone back to showing the live feed from the backyard owl. The yard was dark and still, and I was too tired, too broken, to watch any more. I was reaching to turn off the monitor when I froze. There was one large shadow moving among the others.
The dark shape of a spider.
It moved slowly across the yard toward the house, easing up to a window and looking in. After a few moments, it moved to another window, another room, as though it was looking for something or someone. I should have been terrified, and my heart was pounding in my chest as I ran upstairs, but it was beating with an odd strain of excitement and joy.
“Jenna! Jenna!” I looked out the windows I’d seen it at last, but saw nothing but my own reflection. Running to the door, I threw it open before calling out again into the night. “Jenna! I’m here! I’m here!”
I thought I glimpsed movement out of the corner of my eye, but when I turned and looked, it was gone. Frantic, I searched the outside of the house and then the inside. Finally, thinking maybe I had scared her away, I went back down to the basement and the video feed. I sat there for hours, but there was nothing. She was gone.
Jenna told me once that the only real problem people had was that they liked misery. They hungered for violence, they lived off of conflict, and if they ever found a reason to be happy, they’d work until they had ruined it somehow. She said that if people could just appreciate all the good things, focus on the things that really mattered, most of their problems would be a lot lighter. I'd laughed and told her that if people started focusing on the things that really mattered, they wouldn’t really be people any more.
My Jenna was the best person I’ve ever known. That I ever will know. She had this strength, this light, about her that just made you feel better. I miss her so fucking much, and I every day I wonder how I’ll continue on now that she’s gone. But somehow, I will. Not for me, but for her. Because I know she’s out there somewhere, and I want her to see that knowing her, loving her, has made me better and stronger too.
I don’t fully understand what Jenna is now. How her and those like her do what they do. But there’s one thing I know for sure. Whatever stories she weaves will be good ones, with light and joy to balance the dark times that always come. And just like her, they’ll make the world a better place just by being in it..
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Credits
