“We’re in a disused coal mine,” said Spider. “I saw a photo of this place in a magazine a few years back. Unless there are flocks of sightless finches who have evolved to take advantage of the darkness and eat coal chips, we’re probably fine.”
“That’s a joke, isn’t it? About the sightless finches?”
“More or less.”
Fat Charlie sighed, and the sigh echoed through the underground cavern. “You know,” he said, “If you’d just gone away, if you’d left my house when I asked you to, we’d not be in this mess.”
“That isn’t very helpful.”
“It wasn’t meant to be. God knows how I’m going to explain all this to Rosie.”
Spider cleared his throat. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that.”
“Because…?”
“She’s broken up with us.”
There was a long silence. Then Fat Charlie said, “Of course she has.”
“I made a kind of a sort of a mess of that part of things.” Spider sounded uncomfortable.
“But what if I explain it to her? I mean, if I tell her that I wasn’t you, that you were pretending to be me—”
“I already did. That was when she decided she didn’t want to see either of us ever again.”
“Me as well?”
“ ’Fraid so.”
“Look,” said Spider’s voice in the darkness. “I really never meant to make…. Well, when I came to see you, all I wanted to do was say hello. Not to. Um. I’ve pretty much completely cocked this all up, haven’t I?”
“Are you trying to say sorry?”
Silence. Then, “I guess. Maybe.”
More silence. Fat Charles said, “Well, then I’m really sorry I called the Bird Woman to get rid of you.” Not seeing Spider while they were talking made it easier, somehow.
“Yeah. Thanks. I just wish I knew how to get rid of her.”
“A feather!” said Fat Charlie.
“No, you’ve lost me.”
“You asked if she gave me anything to seal the deal. She did. She gave me a feather.”
“Where is it?”
Fat Charlie tried to remember. “I’m not sure. I had it when I woke up in Mrs. Dunwiddy’s front room. I didn’t have it when I got on the plane. I suppose that Mrs. Dunwiddy must still have it.”
The silence that met this was long and dark and unbroken. Fat Charlie began to worry that Spider had gone away, that he had been left abandoned in the darkness under the world. Eventually he said, “Are you still there?”
“Still here.”
“That’s a relief. If you abandoned me down here I don’t know how I’d get out.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
More silence.
Fat Charlie said, “What country are we in?”
“Poland, I think. Like I said, I saw a picture of it. Only they had the lights on in the photo.”
“You need to see photos of places to go to them?”
“I need to know where they are.”
It was astounding, thought Fat Charlie, how truly quiet it was in the mine. The place had its own special silence. He started to wonder about silences. Was the silence of the grave different in kind to the silence of, say, outer space?
Spider said, “I remember Mrs. Dunwiddy. She smells of violets.” People have said, “All hope has fled. We’re going to die,” with more enthusiasm.
“That’s her,” said Fat Charlie. “Small, old as the hills. Thick glasses. I suppose we’ll just have to go and get the feather from her. Then we’ll give it back to the Bird Woman. She’ll call off this nightmare.” Fat Charlie finished the last of the bottled water, carried here from the little square somewhere that wasn’t Italy. He screwed the top back onto the bottle and put the empty bottle down into the darkness, wondering if it was littering if no one was ever going to see it. “So let’s hold hands and go and see Mrs. Dunwiddy.”
Spider made a noise. The noise was not cocky. It was unsettled and unsure. In the darkness Fat Charlie imagined Spider deflating, like a bullfrog or a week-old balloon. Fat Charlie had wanted to see Spider taken down a peg; he had not wanted to hear him make a noise like a terrified six-year-old. “Hang on. You’re scared of Mrs. Dunwiddy?”
“I…I can’t go near her.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, I was scared of her, too, when I was a kid, and then I met her again at the funeral and she wasn’t that bad. Not really. She’s just an old lady.” In his mind she lit the black candles once more and sprinkled the herbs into the bowl. “Maybe a bit spooky. But you’ll be okay when you see her.”
“She made me go away,” said Spider. “I didn’t want to go. But I broke this ball in her garden. Big glass thing, like a giant Christmas tree ornament.”
“I did that, too. She was pissed.”
“I know.” The voice from the dark was small and worried and confused. “It was the same time. That was when it all started.”
“Well. Look. It’s not the end of the world. You take me to Florida, I can go and get the feather back from Mrs. Dunwiddy. I’m not scared. You can stay away.”
“I can’t do that. I can’t go to where she is.”
“So, what are you trying to say? She’s taken out some kind of magical restraining order?”
“More or less. Yes.” Then Spider said, “I miss Rosie. I’m sorry about. You know.”
Fat Charlie thought about Rosie. He found it peculiarly hard to remember her face. He thought about not having Rosie’s mother as his mother-in-law; about the two silhouettes on the curtains in his bedroom window. He said, “Don’t feel bad about it. Well, you can feel bad about it if you want, because you behaved like a complete bastard. But maybe it was all for the best.” There was a twinge in the general region of Fat Charlie’s heart, but he knew that he was speaking the truth. It’s easier to say true things in the dark.
Spider said, “You know what doesn’t make sense here?”
“Everything?”
“No. Only one thing. I don’t understand why the Bird Woman got involved. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Dad pissed her off—”
“Dad pissed everybody off. She’s wrong, though. And if she wanted to kill us, why doesn’t she just try to do it?”
“I gave her our bloodline.”
“So you said. No, something else is going on, and I don’t get it.” Silence. Then Spider said, “Hold my hand.”
“Do I need to close my eyes?”
“May as well.”
“Where are we going? The moon?”
“I’m going to take you somewhere safe,” said Spider.
“Oh good,” said Fat Charlie. “I like safe. Where?”
But then, without even opening his eyes, Fat Charlie knew. The smell was a dead giveaway: unwashed bodies and unflushed toilets, disinfectant, old blankets and apathy.
“I bet I would have been just as safe in a luxury hotel room,” he said aloud, but there was nobody there to hear him. He sat down on the shelflike bed of cell six and wrapped the thin blanket around his shoulders. He might have been there forever.