She checks her watch as she navigates the dark, winding streets. It’s almost two o’clock and she must hurry. Turns right on Toulouse, her boots uncomfortably loud on the wet pavement. A rare cold spell that has gripped the city for the past week has also emptied its streets, and even the Quarter is unusually deserted. Left on Dauphine, slowing down now, catching her breath. She ducks in a narrow alley under a dim light, and — before she can change her mind — raps on the small basement door.
“Yes?” a low voice just on the other side of the curtained glass.
“It’s me,” she says. “It’s Ophelie. I’m here for…”
The door creaks open. Madame Labeaux, Queen of the Quarter; fortune teller, mistress of potions, high priestess of tourist entertainment. The wizened face studies her for a few long moments, eyes like dark embers.
“You taking your sweet time, child,” Madame says, stepping aside, waving her in. “Come in, come in; lively now. Catch a death out there.”
The room looks just as it had last time, but darker, illuminated by thick, sputtering candles. Tables and shelves cluttered with grotesque sculptures, feathers, animal skeletons; their shadows dancing uneasily across the low ceiling. Thick, cloying incense chokes the air. And, behind it, another smell: deeper, visceral, like rotting wood, or — dare she think it — flesh.
Madame shuffles to a low table with large red-and-gold cushions on opposite sides. Settles on one with surprising grace; waves Ophelie to the other.
Ophelie sits, shrugging off her coat. The old crone is still; studying her.
“Did you fast, like I told you?”
“Y-Yes” Ophelie says. “Since Thursday.”
“And you’re still sure you want to do this?”
“Yes,” she says, voice trembling.
“It’s dangerous business,” Madame says. “Powerful forces. Even if we do everything right, that’ll just open the door. No telling what’s on the other side.”
“My husband and I want a child,” Ophelie says. “We’ve tried everything. You are my last hope.”
“This husband… He know you’re here?”
Ophelie’s face darkens. She shakes her head.
Madame studies her for another long moment. “Probably better that way,” she says. She holds out a rough-hewn mug. “Drink this.”
Ophelie inspects the clear steaming liquid. “What is it?”
“Magic,” Madame says, chuckling. “Windex for the soul. To help you see clearly.”
Ophelie brings the cup to her lips.
“You’ll want this, too.” Madame slides a cheap plastic bucket over. “Now, drink, child. And no more questions.”
Ophelie lets the liquid spread on her tongue, pour down her throat. Bitter. So bitter. She gags. A wave of heat rises inside her, roils her stomach. She doubles over, scrambles blindly for the bucket. Vomits, violently. Again, and again, and again. The world fades around her, taking her with it.
The music reaches her first. A strange orchestra, strings and brass, near-cacophonous, yet compelling, inviting. Ophelie’s eyes flutter open. She is standing at the door of a large banquet hall. A crowd of several-dozen fills the space. Women in jeweled crowns; gowns like parade floats. Men with enough epaulets to outfit Austrian cavalry. Everyone laughing, dancing, weaving a complex waltz around the room. She steps through the door.
“Your invitation, miss?” she hears a raspy voice say. She turns, and is confronted by a strange figure. The tuxedo is impeccable, and the eyes are human, but the face is long, pointed, covered in dense fur. Behind the polite smile, a row of sharp teeth. A predator’s teeth. Flesh-tearing teeth. She gasps, takes a step back.
“I…I’m sorry?”
“Your invitation.” A slight nod this time, indicating.
Looking down, she discovers that she is, indeed, holding an envelope. Luxurious stationery, black, trimmed in gold. She surrenders it to the creature’s expectant hand.
“Thank you, miss,” the unlikely doorman says, stepping aside. Then, clearing his throat: “Welcome. To the Black Ball.”
Ophelie takes a few hesitant steps, pauses, looks back. The doorman has returned to his post beside the entryway; neutral, disinterested, the transaction complete.
She walks further, circles the edge of the crowd. A trio of dancers whirls past her, their bodies convincingly human, but their heads smooth and finely feathered, their faces beaked; sparrows. They catch her staring, regard her coldly with dark, avian pupils. Scanning the rest of the strange gathering, she notices quite a few human faces, but also: owls, a bison, an alligator, bears, panthers. A giant hooded cobra glides past her, fangs exposed, hissing menacingly. Ophelie steps back, stumbles, almost falls.
A strong hand catches her arm, steadying her.
“Well, hello, little one,” a voice says; coarse, gravelly. She turns.
He is tall, his face rough, handsome, ageless; a scruffy top hat on his head, a yellowed animal bone through his nose, full lips twisted into a mischievous smile.
“Oh, sweet Ophelie, did the monsters scare you?”
He comes closer, his long threadbare coat parting over bare skin. She finds herself staring at his broad chest, his flat stomach. For a moment, she forgets the menagerie; her breath catches in her throat.
“Don’t worry,” the tall stranger says. “You’re my guest here. Papa Anansi takes good care of his children.”
Nancy? Anansee? The name sounds familiar, but she cannot place it.
“Where are we?” she asks.
“Welcome,” he says, with a grand sweep of one arm, “to the Black Ball. Where once every century the Ancient Ones gather to celebrate the world. To celebrate life. And death.”
“Here, tonight, any wish can come true,” he says, turning to her. “Have you come to make a wish, little one?”
He is standing so close to her now, smiling, eyes glittering. She can feel the heat rising from his body. And, God, he smells good, like smoke, like sweat, like…feathers? She gathers herself.
“I want a child,” she says, and something inside her cracks open, the words coming in a rush. “I want to feel a life growing inside me. To nurse it, to feed it from my own body.” She pauses, takes a deep breath “I want to be a mother.”
She watches him watch her. Sees his smile soften, kinder, gentler. She catches a hint of her own sadness in the corners of his eyes.
He understands this, Ophelie thinks. He understands. She feels a sudden need to be held. She leans into him, and he takes her in his arms.
“May your wish be granted,” he says, and kisses her, a first little graze. An ancient knot inside her melts, begins to unravel…
She wakes to cloying incense, a warm towel gently swabbing at her cheeks, her forehead. She opens her eyes. The sputtering candles, the strange shadows dancing across the low ceiling. She is lying on the familiar cushion, Madame’s creased parchment of a face regarding her with equal parts curiosity and concern.
“Are you with me, child?”
“I, I think so,” Ophelie says, and tries to rise.
“Easy, now,” Madame says and helps her sit up. She places a cold glass in her hand. “Water,” Madame says. “Just water. You’ll need lots of it.”
Ophelie drinks, feels the last bits of her consciousness click back into place.
“What happened?” she says. “I was in a strange…”
“Hush, child,” Madame interrupts. “What was offered was for you, and you alone.”
Ophelie looks at her, puzzled.
“OK,” she says hesitantly. “So, what now?”
“Now,” Madame says, leaning back, “you compensate me for my services, and you go home to your husband.”
As Ophelie steps out of the narrow alley, the sweep of a new day is flooding the eastern sky. The morning breeze is soft, moist, warm. The cold spell has been broken. She hurries home.
“Honey, look at this!”
She is leaning on the door-frame, holding several color swatches, her other hand cradling her swollen belly. Five weeks till the due date, and the nursery is not yet finished; all two-by-fours and rough drywall. Of course, if anyone could build a nursery in a month, it would be Charlie. And, of course, he had insisted on doing all the work himself. As the most popular contractor in all of New Orleans, it would not suit to pay another man to build a room for his child.
“I need you to, like, actually look,” Ophelie says.
High up on a ladder, her husband steadies himself on a rafter, grins at her through a mouthful of carpentry nails.
She holds up the swatches. He blinks at them, squinting, wiping away sweat.
“The darker one,” he says finally.
She flips the swatches over, examines them in the bright August sunlight.
“I like the ‘Fern’ myself,” Ophelie says. “But at least we’re definitely into green territory. Now if you would only finish the room in time…” She beams a sly smile at him, and ducks under the plastic sheet, back into the house.
Under the vaulted ceiling, Charlie shakes his head, mutters: “It’s a good thing you’re cute.” Turning back to the job at hand, he pauses to clear a cobweb from a roof beam. He’s never seen so many spiderwebs on a construction site. But then, aren’t spiders a good omen? With an easy, practiced stroke, he drives another nail home.
Ophelie knows pregnancy dreams can be vivid, even disturbing, but hasn’t experienced one until tonight.
A tunnel, low, like a mine shaft, torches burning along the walls, oily smoke drifting through the air. On a large wooden throne, a woman sits cradling an infant, like an icon of the Virgin Mother. Her skin is black as night.
Behind the throne, something stirs in the shadows, unfolds. A long chitinous leg extends from the darkness. Then another one, and another. A slender thorax. A dark, swollen abdomen. The giant spider comes into full view, towering above the throne, large fangs glistening, dripping with venom. It leans over, sinks its tusks into the sleeping infant.
The Black Madonna is crying, her tears dark and viscous, like fresh tar.
Ophelie wakes in a cold sweat, her heart racing. Gradually, the familiar bedroom settles in around her; safe, quiet. Next to her, Charlie snores lightly, ears plugged, eye-mask on, peaceful, oblivious. Details of the nightmare are slipping away, but she can feel the memory of it in her body; a deep tension, like a scream begging to be released.
Softly, quietly, she shuffles out of bed, out of the bedroom. The creaks of the hallway floor are familiar, reassuring. Passing under a cooling vent, she pauses, lets the dry, chill air wash over her head and neck, pulling away the last of the anxious sweat. She continues down the hall, past the nursery — finished now, freshly painted in fern-green — to the kitchen. The clock on top of the stove glows a soft green — 1:50 AM. She sighs, stretches against the habitual ache in her back. Puts the kettle on.
The chamomile is calming, grounding. She wanders slowly through the house, nose buried in the warm mug, the fragrant steam softening her face. Passing again by the nursery, she pauses, steps inside, turns on the light. She loves this room. It’s perfect; a perfect little den for a baby boy. After finishing the nursery, Charlie had built the crib, added a diaper-changing station, a nursing loveseat, and even put up cute pastel-colored shelves. “So I can read to him my favorite stories,” he had said. Already, he’d filled the shelves with the picture books and fairy-tales of his own childhood: Pippy Longstocking, Dr. Seuss, The Little Prince, Dolittle, Fairy Tales From Around The World. Ophelie pulls the latter off the shelf, clearing yet another fresh cobweb — what is it with cobwebs in this room? She carries the book to the love seat. Settles in, takes another sip of tea, opens to a random page. An African fairy-tale: “Anansi Does The Impossible.”
A whimper rises in Ophelie’s throat. She shudders. The heavy mug slips out of her hand, clatters to the floor. Her heart clenches like a fist. The Black Ball…Papa Anansi…Anansi the spider…Anansi the trickster. She thinks of the cobwebs in this room, invisible, all around her. Memories of the nightmare flood back, and suddenly she is hyperventilating; she can’t control it, can’t call out, can’t breathe.
She falls to the floor, awkwardly, heavily, cries out in pain. The fall does something; a knot twists open inside her. An angular shape is wriggling under her skin. She cries out in pain and terror, hikes up her shirt. Her belly is impossibly distended, a sharp point stretching her from inside, pushing, pushing. The skin tears with a soft rending noise, blood instantly pooling around her. A dark, chitinous leg reaches out. And then another one. And another. A slender thorax, a swollen abdomen. The head that follows is almost human. Almost. All except the monstrous mouth, which is filled with sharp teeth, like needles. Rows and rows of them; like a meat grinder. Flesh-tearing teeth. A predator’s teeth. Her son’s teeth.
The creature raises its head and emits a shrill cry. In that sound, Ophelie recognizes a pleading, desperate hunger. The jaws open wider, dislocating, inconceivable. With a shriek, the creature sinks its teeth into the soft flesh of her stomach, tearing through muscle, through viscera.
Now the pain comes as if from a great distance. She is losing a lot of blood, and her consciousness has become an abstract thing, like origami unfolding. With her last breath, she surrenders to the pain, and offers her body; lets him feed. Just like a real mother.