Scots terms
Helheim – This isn’t actually a Scottish term. It’s from old norse mythology and is the name they gave to the underworld where everyone who wasn’t a warrior went after they died. It’s mostly referred to as Hel, but can be called Helheim, which I chose here because it sounds exactly the same as the Christian hell. I might’ve been playing God of War 2018 at the time of writing this script, as the game refers to the realms with the suffix of “heim”.
Roasters – idiots, ne’er do wells.
Script
Are you afraid of spiders? I feel like it’s one of the fashionable phobias to have. Heights, spiders, and flying. Everyone has at least one, don’t they? I don’t mind heights, it’s the falling off them that bothers me. Flying isn’t fun, but it beats hours in a car or on public transport across long distances.
As for spiders, it’s the ones with the disproportionately long legs that raise the hairs on my arms. The way they put a leg out at a time, as if feeling their way along the wall, slowly crawling from one corner to the next. Don’t even get me started on their acrobatic performances hanging from the ceiling, always in front of your face, or right on top of your head, almost like their wee pals dared them to go as close to the human as possible.
I usually leave the wee ones, you can barely see them anyway, but if it’s any bigger than a nail I usually find something to kill it. Some of my flatmates think it’s cruel; they should be let outside. My Grannie always used to say there were two kinds of spiders: house and outdoor. Neither could survive in the climate of the other. Putting indoor spiders out of the window was the same as killing them, it just prolonged the process. No to mention, the wee bastards might try and find a way back inside. Better to put them out of their misery.
Do you know I’ve never seen a spider in the shop. I never thought it was strange, never thought about it at all. You’d expect something in a place like that, a spiderweb in the corner, or pulled like a tightrope between two pieces of furniture, waiting for you to walk face first into it. Yet, I’ve never seen a silky thread glistening in the sunlight, never seen an eight-legged creature moving over its web to catch the poor fly that’s been caught.
I’d never given it a second thought until I saw one skittering across the door of a wardrobe. At first, I thought it was just a mark in the wood, the grain or whorls that ran like watermarks from one side of the door to the other. Then it began to move, to crawl slowly across the polished surface.
But wait a wee minute. I feel as though I’m forgetting something, forgetting to mention something. When’s the last time I recorded?
SFX: Sound design of a mouse and keyboard
Oh, I have missed something. Madam Anora. We were in that derelict house. It feels like that happened so long ago now, and so much has happened since.
Let’s catch up.
Madam Anora cornered me in the house, offering me a way out of my apprenticeship. All she wanted in return was a wee bit of my life. A few decades or so, perhaps? She never named the price at the time, but more fool her, if she had it might’ve swayed me. Anora wasn’t letting me go until I gave her an answer. To take the deal, or refuse.
Looking back, I’m pretty sure she would’ve killed me, or at least trapped me in some Helheim dimension where I couldn’t escape, if I’d refused. I had the sense to realise, at the time, that refusing her deal wasn’t going to turn out well for me.
I started to think at the time, to become curious. There were many things she wouldn’t answer, but perhaps I could turn that to my advantage. I couldn’t stop thinking of the why? What did it matter to her that Madam Norna had an apprentice? Was my existence such an irritation that she’d offer me a deal just to get rid of me? There had to be a reason, something I wasn’t or couldn’t see.
I gambled and asked. What was in this deal for her?
A shadow of irritation, as though she were dealing with a brat in the shop having a tantrum, moulded her features for a brief second before she smothered the feeling. She wasn’t used to being questioned. I’ve thought about her next expression so many times I’m beginning to feel I imagined it. I swear she was about to tell me, like a villain revealing their master plan. A flash of triumph, of arrogance, like I was the last piece in her puzzle. Then it vanished, her face a mask of nonchalance. She refused to answer my question.
Stalemate.
I took another gamble, one that makes me sweat even now. I gave Madam Anora a taste of her own medicine. I offered her a deal. When she answered my question truthfully, then I would truthfully give her an answer about her deal. It’s tempting to make it seem as though I knew what I was doing, like I knew this would work. I didn’t, not entirely. I knew that Madam Norna couldn’t force people to make deals with her, but I wasn’t sure if that rule applied to Anora.
But confidence is half the battle.
So, I walked towards the door like I knew I was right. And she didn’t stop me.
I’ve thought about that deal a lot since. What I would’ve done if Anora hadn’t been bluffing. Or what I’m going to say to her if she appears and answers my question, tells me her evil plan. There are times when I don’t like being an apprentice. The thought of becoming the Madam one day makes me feel nauseous. The thought of living a longer life than any person should, of watching as the world leaves me behind, as everyone I’ve ever known or cared about passes on, whilst I’m stuck, stagnant, at the beck and call of forces beyond my control. Giving up my name, giving up my life. I still don’t know if I’m willing to do it.
But what’s the alternative? I’d like to believe Anora could’ve given me all the things she showed me, but it sounded too good to be true at the time, and I’ve just become more convinced. Nothing, if it has to do with Fate or the shop or the Madams, ever neatly works out happily for everyone. There’s no easy way out of this for me.
Besides, I’m Scottish. I’ll probably only live until I’m 40 anyway, and if Anora wanted half of my life, then I’d be dead as soon as I’d made the deal. Let’s just hope she doesn’t come back and answer my question.
Speaking of things that do come back, let’s talk about that spider. There was nothing special about it, nothing distinctive. It was dark, a dark brown or black, it had eight long, thick legs, and a body that looked like it would make a mess if I squashed it on the wardrobe door. It was minding its own business. But it was also in the shop, and I liked that the only cleaning I really had to do was the floor. I didn’t fancy having to clean up spiderwebs as well.
I don’t really know why I had the urge to get rid of it. I just couldn’t stand the sight of it crawling over the furniture and clothes, leaving its glistening web behind it. I also wasn’t really in a great mood that day. Fionn was gone, Chronos was up the stairs with the Madam, and the bell above the door hadn’t rung all day. The shop was empty. Bad empty. And whenever the shop became silent my mind started to reminisce about the times when it wasn’t, when the two roasters would bicker and squabble, and I would complain, not realising I preferred that to the stillness.
It felt like an age ago that I’d told Reid to leave, but it could only have been…what…a fortnight? The looking up at every ring of the bell had passed in the first week, the hope that he’d come marching in dour faced and angry being dashed every time it was a curious customer. I know it’s for his own good. I know that. But why does it not make me feel any better?
I killed the spider. I waited until it had scuttled across the wardrobe, following it from shelf to rail, to wall, before I swept it onto the floor and crushed it beneath my feet. I picked up the shrivelled corpse with a tissue and threw it in the bin, having to face the silence once more with very little to occupy my mind.
The next day and at least there were a few customers. One even bought something, and whilst I was putting the order through, they told me there was a large spider on one of the bookshelves. What were the odds of that? Almost a year without seeing a single spider, and there were two on consecutive days. There was probably a bloody clan of them, and I’d killed the breadwinner, forcing the others to go and fend for themselves.
After the customer had left, and to fend off the heavy silence and heavier memories, I went in search of this second spider. It wasn’t hard to find. It had crawled halfway down the bookshelf by the time I arrived. It looked exactly like the one from the day before, down to the bulbous body and furry legs. It stopped when I came near, as though hoping I hadn’t seen it.
I killed this one too.
I then spent the next few hours searching for places where spiders often hide. Small holes in the skirting boards, high corners where no one can reach, hollow spaces under chairs and between boxes. But there was nothing. I still hadn’t even seen the glint of a spiderweb.
This pattern continued for days. Every time I was in the shop, I’d either see the wee shite myself or a customer would tell me where it was. Every time I killed it, either with my shoe or something else. If I spent as long as an hour in the shop without seeing one I went in search of it. I just couldn’t let it lie, didn’t like the thought of it just crawling all over everything. I even started to think it was the same spider. It was the Messiah of spiders, resurrecting itself after I’d killed it time and time again.
I started having dreams, started seeing a glimpse of it on the wall in my bedroom, climbing over the cereal boxes in the kitchen, hanging in the corner watching as I brushed my teeth before bed.
I had Fionn kill it one day, thinking maybe I was the problem. I could tell by the way he was looking at me that he was worried. I’d become almost frantic, fidgeting, always on the prowl for this spider. It didn’t work, and the next day the spider reappeared.
Chronos was outraged I even asked him to kill it, as if it were beneath him. I suppose going after this spider so doggedly was probably beneath me too, so I couldn’t be angry at him. I never told the Madam because I think I knew what she’d say. Or perhaps it was some kind of sacred spider that only crawled out of storage once a year for some freedom before returning.
Days after it’d all began, I ended up trapping the spider in a jar. It used to hold coins, a mixture of discoloured and polished, worn and faded symbols, Latin, and profile heads on their surface. I’d tipped the contents into something else and brushed the spider into the glass.
I felt bad as it tried to climb up the walls, scrambling to get out. Perhaps killing it was actually the kinder thing to do. I ended up sitting on the ground down one of the aisles of the shop, staring down at this spider in a jar on the floor with me.
The shop was empty, again.
I missed Reid. Even though he never said much, he was just…there. He had a presence, he found interesting items in the shop, he played cards or chess with Chronos, bickered with Fionn and I in equal measure. He was as much a part of the shop as any of us, and now he was gone it felt emptier than it ever had. I’d been in the shop without him before, but I couldn’t remember those days well. It was as if Reid had always been here somehow. Except now he wasn’t, and I fucking hated that.
I’d tried to distract myself, with the spider, with the customers, with Fionn, with anything else just so I wouldn’t wallow. But I’m tired of trying to pretend I’m not hurt that he just left. I know I let him go, I know it was the right thing to do, but after all of that time, did I really just imagine that we were close to being pals? Even though I didn’t know much about him, his family, his background, I still knew him. How I’m convinced he actually liked bickering with Fionn, or how he got secretly frustrated every time he lost to a creature that had no opposable thumbs, or how excited he got when he found something in the shop, or how arrogant he’d get whenever I didn’t know something.
I may have let him go. But I was hoping he’d come back. And he didn’t.
My eyes started to sting. That hot feeling you get when the world becomes blurry through the tears building in your eyes. The glass jar where the spider sits still has gone out of focus. I don’t hear the bell go. Something that’s becoming a habit. I hear floorboards creak and presume it’s Chronos or the Madam. Someone sits down opposite me, on the other side of the jar, and asks me what I’m doing.
I recognise the tone, the voice, the frown that it’s said with.
“I cannae kill this spider,” I say to what I presume is a hallucination of Reid.
“Why kill it?” He says, “Why no’ just keep it around? It’s no’ doin’ any harm.”
Reid reaches out and tips up the jar, and as I watch the spider crawl as fast as its legs will take it under the nearest set of drawers, I realise that my hallucination picked the jar up in the first place. He put it back on the floor between us. I resist the urge to reach out and pinch him.
He stops me when I start to speak, saying that he has something he wants to say. He’s frowning, as always, eyebrows drawn in, but he’s not angry. His tone is steady, calm, as he tells me that I’d never asked him what he wanted. I’d assumed for him; I’d made the decision for him. He claimed he was pissed at me for that, and that’s why he’d left, why he’d stayed away for weeks. He’d convinced himself that I didn’t like him, and just wanted to get rid of him. Which he wasn’t having.
He offered to be my familiar again, to return everything the way it was before. I refused. I didn’t want what we had before. A connection that wasn’t equal, one I’d always wonder was the reason he was around. I told him that Fionn was my familiar now, and went to show him the dragon head on the ring, only to find there was now a fox’s head there too.
Madam Norna later explained that there’s varying degrees for familiars. The connection can be like we had before, mutually beneficial, weighed heavily in my favour, or it can be like it was now, with both Fionn and Reid. Equals. Friends. Allies. The ring nothing but a symbol, and in certain circumstances a beacon in the dark.
I never saw the spider after Reid returned. I’m still convinced it was the same spider returning day after day. Perhaps it learned its lesson after being trapped in a jar, a fate worse than death and resurrection. I’ll never really know, and I don’t want to tell the Madam in case I’ve been killing some kind of ancient deity or something worse. I think this one’s best left unanswered. Just this once.
Warning: I’m about to explain what the spider was. If you either don’t care or are ok not knowing, then you can skip this part. This is the first explanation, and hopefully only, I’ll have to add to the end of episodes, but I just felt it was a bit clumsy to add into the episode itself. The spider was real, and to me the spider really represents the emotions that Maya isn’t allowing herself to deal with regarding Reid’s departure. She becomes so annoyed with the fact that she can’t kill it because she also can’t get rid of her grief at losing Reid. And she gets to caught up, or obsessed over killing it, because it’s also serving as a distraction. Obviously she doesn’t know that it’s connected to her, which is why I couldn’t have her telling the Madam because obviously she would’ve told Maya the truth. She tells herself multiple times through the last few episodes that she did it for his own good, that it was for him, but by doing that she kind of prevents herself from exploring how sad she is about the whole thing. Obviously, Reid’s been around since the beginning, since she started, and everything she’s learned, everything she’s seen about this new world, he’s been there. Tot really hand holding, but just being there, usually to explain. He goes from being such a big part of shop life, to not being there at all, and as she says in the episode she wanted him to chouse to stay, and obviously at the time he didn’t. This kind of compounded the fear that she had that she was just using him, and that he was there because he had to be, and that was it. So she’s spent weeks trying not to think about that, trying not to get bogged down by this sadness, I suppose it’s loss of some kind, although obviously he’s not dead. The spider is meant to be a manifestation of that, and it’s also why she can’t kill it, nor can anyone else in the shop. The only way to solve a problem, or in this case killing an immortal spider, is by acknowledging it as a problem and working through it, which obviously Maya hasn’t really done.
Anyway, I just thought there might be some listeners who would be annoyed I hadn’t actually explained what the spider is. I will try to avoid this in the future, although I would be curious as to how many of you thought it might be something like that, or how many of you were ok in not having an explanation for this one? I quite enjoyed writing it, I thought difficulty with that kind of emotional range, but I think everyone knows what it’s like to ignore a problem or ignore emotions until something forces you to confront them. Maya obviously has it easier than the rest of us in that the shop will quite happily manifest people’s problems.
Script – Scots
Are ye afraid ae spiders? I feel like it’s one ae the fashionable phobias tae have. Heights, spiders, and flying. Everyone has at least one, don’t they? I dinnae mind heights, it’s the fallin’ aff them that bothers me. Flyin’ isnae fun, but it beats hours in a car or on public transport across long distancees.
As fae spiders, it’s the ones with the disproportionately long legs that raise the hairs on ma arms. The way they put a leg oot at a time, as if feelin’ their way along the wall, slowly crawlin frae one corner tae the next. Dinnae even get me started on their acrobatic performances hangin’ frae the ceilin’, always in front ae your face, or right on top ae your heid, almost like their wee pals dared them tae go as close tae the human as possible.
I usually leave the wee ones, ye can barely see them anyway, but if it’s any bigger than a nail I usually find somethin’ tae kill it. Some ae ma flatmates ‘hink it’s cruel, they should be let ootside. Ma grannie always used tae say there were two kinds ae spiders; hoose and outdoor. Neither could survive in the climate ae the other. Puttin’ indoor spiders oot ae the windae was the same as killin’ them, it just prolonged the process. No tae mention, the wee bastards might try and find a way back inside. Better tae put them oot their misery.
Do ye know I’ve never seen a spider in the shop. I never thought it was strange, never thought aboot it at all. You’d expect somethin’ in a place like that, a spiderweb in the corner, or pulled like a tightrope between two pieces ae furniture, waitin’ fae ye tae walk face first intae it. Yet I’ve never seen the silky thread glistening in the sunlight, never seen an eight-legged creature movin’ over its web tae catch the poor fly that’s been caught.
I’d never given it a second thought until I saw one skitterin’ across the door ae a wardrobe. At first, I thought it was just a mark in the wood, the grain or whorls that ran like watermarks frae one side ae the door tae the other. Then it began tae move, tae crawl slowly across the polished surface.
But wait a wee minute. I feel as though I’m forgettin’ something, forgettin’ tae mention somethin’. When’s the last time I recorded?
- Sound design of a mouse and keyboard
Oh, I have missed somethin’. Madam Anora. We were in that derelict hoose. It feels like that happened so long ago noo, and so much has happened since. Let’s catch up.
Madam Anora cornered me in the hoose, offerin me a way oot ae ma apprenticeship. All she wanted in return was a wee bit ae ma life. A few decades or so, perhaps? She never named the price at the time, but more fool her, if she had it mightae swayed me. Anora wasnae lettin’ me go until I gave her an answer. Tae take the deal, or refuse.
Lookin’ back I’m pretty sure she wouldae killed me, or at least trapped me in some Helheim dimension where I couldnae escape if I’d refused. I had the sense tae realise, at the time, that refusin her deal wasnae gonnae turn oot well fae me.
I starteed tae ‘hink at the time, tae become curious. There were many ‘hings she wouldnae answer, but perhaps I could turn that tae ma advantage. I couldane stop ‘hinkin of the why? What did it matter tae her that Madam Norna had an apprentice? Was ma existence such an irritation that she’d offer me a deal just tae get rid ae me? There had tae be a reason, somethin’ I wasnae or couldnae see.
I gambled and asked. What was in this deal fae her?
A shadow ae irritation, as though she were dealin’ wi a brat in the shop havin’ a tantrum, moulded her features fae a brief second before she smothered the feelin’. She wasnae used tae bein questioned. I’ve thought aboot her next expression so many times I’m beginnin’ tae feel I imagined it. I swear she was aboot tae tell me, like a villain revealin’ their master plan. A flash ae triumph, ae arrogance, like I was the last piece in her puzzle. Then it vanished, her face a mask of nonchalance. She refused tae answer ma question.
Stalemate.
I took another gamble, one that makes me sweat even noo. I gee Madam Anora a taste ae her own medicine. I offered her a deal. When she answered ma question truthfully, then I would truthfully give her an answer aboot her deal. It’s temptin tae make it seem as though I knew whit I was doin, like I knew this would work. I didnae, no entirely. I knew that Madam Norna couldnae force people tae make deals wi her, but I wasnae sure if that rule applied tae Anora.
But confidence is half the battle.
So, I walked towards the door like I knew I was right. And she didnae stop me.
I’ve thought aboot that deal a lot since. Whit I wouldae done if Anora hadnae been bluffin’. Or whit I’m gonnae say tae her if she appears and answers ma question, tells me her evil plan. There are times when I dinnae like bein an apprentice. The thought ae becomin’ the Madam one day makes me feel nauseous. The thought ae livin’ a longer life than any person should, ae watchin as the world leaves me behind, as everyone I’ve ever known or cared aboot passes on, whilst I’m stuck, stagnant, at the beck and call ae forces beyond ma control. Givin’ up ma name, givin’ up ma life, I still dinnae know if I’m willing tae do it.
But whit’s the alternative? I’d like tae believe Anora couldae given me all the hings she showed me, but it sounded too good tae be true at the time, and I’ve just become more convinced. Nothin, if it has tae do wi fate or the shop or the Madams, ever neatly works out happily for everyone. There’s no easy way oot ae this fae me.
Besides, I’m Scottish. I’ll probably only live until I’m 40 anyway, and if Anora wanted half ae ma life, then I’d be deid as soon as I’d made the deal. Let’s just hope she doesnae come back and answer ma question.
Speakin’ ae ‘hings that do come back, let’s talk aboot that spider. There was nothin’ special aboot it, nothin’ distinctive. It was dark, a dark brown or black, it had eight long, thick legs, and a body that looked like it would make a mess if I squashed it on the wardrobe door. It was mindin’ its own business. But it was also in the shop, and I liked that the only cleanin I really had tae do was the floor. I didnae fancy havin tae clean up spiderwebs as well.
I dinnae really know why I had the urge tae get rid ae it. I just couldnae stand the sight ae it crawlin over the furniture and clothes, leavin’ its glistening web behind it. I also wasnae really in a great mood that day. Fionn was gone, Chronos was up the stairs wi’ the Madam, and the bell above the door hadnae rung all day. The shop was empty. Bad empty. And whenever the shop became silent ma mind started tae reminisce aboot the times when it wasnae, when the two roasters would bicker and squabble, and I would complain, no realisin’ I preferred that tae the stillness.
It felt like an age ago that I’d told Reid tae leave, but it could only have been…what…a fortnight? The lookin’ up at every ring ae the bell had passed in the first week, the hope that he’d come marchin’ in dour faced and angry bein dashed every time it was a curious customer. I know it’s fae his own good. I know that. But why does it no make me feel any better?
I killed the spider. I waited until it had scuttled across the wardrobe, followin’ it frae shelf tae rail, tae wall, before I swept it ontae the floor and crushed it beneath ma feet. I picked up the shrivelled corpse wi a tissue and threw it in the bin, havin’ tae face the silence once more wi’ very little tae occupy ma mind.
The next day and at least there were a few customers. One even bought somethin’, and whilst I was putting the order through they told me there was a large spider on one ae the bookshelves. What were the odds ae that? Almost a year withoot seein’ a single spider, and there were two on consecutive days. There was probably a bloody clan ae them, and I’d killed the breadwinner, forcin’ the others tae go and fend fae themselves.
After the customer had left, and tae fend aff the heavy silence and heavier memories, I went in search ae this second spider. It wasnae hard tae find. It had crawled halfway doon the bookshelf by the time I arrived. It looked exactly like the one frae the day before, doon tae the bulbous body and furry legs. It stopped when I came near, as though hopin I hadnae seen it.
I killed this one too.
I then spent the next few hours searchin’ fae places where spiders often hide. Small holes in the skirtin’ boards, high corners where no one can reach, hollow spaces under chairs and between boxes. But there was nothin’. I still hadnae even seen the glint ae a spiderweb.
This pattern continued fae days. Every time I was in the shop I’d either see the wee shite maself or a customer would tell me where it was. Every time I killed it, either wi’ ma shoe, or something else. If I spent as long as an hour in the shop withoot seein’ one I went in search ae it. I just couldnae let it lie, didnae like the thought ae it just crawlin’ all over everythin’. I even started tae ‘hink it was the same spider. It was the messiah ae spiders, resurrecting itself after I’d killed it time and time again.
I started havin’ dreams, started seein’ a glimpse ae it on the wall in ma bedroom, climbin’ over the cereal boxes in the kitchen, hangin’ in the corner watchin’ as I brushed ma teeth before bed.
I had Fionn kill it one day, thinkin’ maybe I was the problem. I could tell by the way he was lookin’ at me that he was worried. I’d become almost frantic, fidgetin, always on the prowl fae this spider. It didnae work, and the next day the spider reappeared.
Chronos was outraged I even asked him tae kill it, as if it were beneath him. I suppose goin’ after this spider so doggedly was probably beneath me too, so I couldnae be angry at him. I never told the Madam because I ‘hink I knew whit she’d say. Or perhaps it was some kind ae sacred spider that only crawled oot ae storage once a year fae some freedom, before returnin’.
Days after it’d all began I ended up trappin’ the spider in a jar. It used tae hold coins, a mixture ae discoloured and polished, worn and faded symbols, Latin, and profile heids on their surface. I’d tipped the contents intae somethin’ else, and brushed the spider intae the glass.
I felt bad as it tried tae climb up the walls, scrambling tae get oot. Perhaps killin’ it was actually the kinder ‘hing tae do. I ended up sittin on the ground doon one ae the aisles ae the shop, starin’ doon at this spider in a jar on the floor wi’ me. The shop was empty, again.
I missed Reid. Even though he never said much, he was just…there. He had a presence, he found interestin’ items in the shop, he played cards or chess wi’ Chronos, bickered wi Fionn and I in equal measure. He was as much a part ae the shop as any ae us, and now he was gone it felt emptier than it ever had. I’d been in the shop withoot him before, but I couldnae remember those days well. It was as if Reid had always been here somehow. Except noo he wasnae, and I fuckin’ hated that.
I’d tried tae distract maself, wi the spider, wi the customers, wi Fionn, wi anythin’ else just so I wouldnae wallow. But I’m tired ae tryin’ tae pretend I’m no hurt that he just left. I know I let him go, I know it was the right ‘hing tae do, but after all ae that time, did I really just imagine that we were close tae bein’ pals? Even though I didnae know much aboot him, his family, his background, I still knew him. How I’m convinced he actually liked bickerin’ wi’ Fionn, or how he got secretly frustrated every time he lost tae a creature that had no opposable thumbs, or how excited he got when he found somethin’ in the shop, or how arrogant he’d get whenever I didnae know somethin’.
I may have let him go. But I was hopin’ he’d come back. And he didnae.
Ma eyes started tae sting. That hot feelin ye get when the world becomes blurry through the tears buildin’ in your eyes. The glass jar where the spider sits still has gone oot ae focus. I dinnae hear the bell go. Somethin’ that’s becomin’ a habit. I hear floorboards creak and presume it’s Chronos or the Madam. Someone sits doon opposite me, on the other side ae the jar, and asks me whit I’m doin.
I recognise the tone, the voice, the frown that it’s said wi’.
I cannae kill this spider, I say tae what I presume is a hallucination ae Reid.
Why kill it? he says, why no just keep it around? It’s no doin’ any harm.
Reid reaches oot and tips up the jar, and as I watch the spider crawl as fast as its legs will take it under the nearest set ae drawers, I realise that ma hallucination picked the jar up in the first place. He put it back on the floor between us. I resist the urge tae reach oot and pinch him.
He stops me when I start tae speak, sayin that he has somethin’ he wants tae say. He’s frownin’, as always, eyebrows drawn in, but he’s no angry. His tone is steady, calm, as he tells me that I’d never asked him whit he wanted. I’d assumed for him, I’d made the decision for him. He claimed he was pissed at me fae that, and that’s why he’d left, why he’d stayed away fae weeks. He’d convinced himself that I didnae like him, and just wanted tae get rid ae him. Which he wasnae havin’.
He offered tae be ma familiar again, tae return everythin the way it was before. I refused. I didnae want whit we had before. A connection that wasnae equal, one I’d always wonder was the reason he was around. I told him that Fionn was ma familiar noo, and went tae show him the dragon heid on the ring, only tae find there was noo a fox’s heid there too.
Madam Norna later explained that there’s varying degrees for familiars. The connection can be like we had before, mutually beneficial, weighed heavily in ma favour, or it can be like it was noo, wi’ both Fionn and Reid. Equals. Friends. Allies. The ring nothin’ but a symbol, and in certain circumstances a beacon in the dark.
I never saw the spider after Reid returned. I’m still convinced it was the same spider returnin’ day after day. Perhaps it learned its lesson after bein trapped in a jar, a fate worse than death and resurrection. I’ll never really know, and I dinnae want tae tell the Madam in case I’ve been killin’ some kind ae ancient deity, or somethin’ worse. I ‘hink this one’s best left unanswered. Just this once.