Medusa's Web by Tim Powers

“Dip into the wine thy little red lips, Salomé, that I may drain the cup!”
    Ariel leaned across the wheelchair and picked up the glass and put it into his shaking hand. “It’s already near empty; finish it yourself.”
    He did, though he spilled some drops onto his dressing gown lapel, and then handed the glass back to her.
    â€œThat explosion,” he said, “you’ve heard it before. It’s my mother, blowing herself up on the roof.”
    Ariel momentarily hoped Scott had climbed down from the roof; but, “What do you mean?” she asked. “Come on, please—that was a week ago.”
    â€œAnd how long ago do you suppose that ‘Laurel and Hardy car’ was parked on the side road? All of this is your fault as well as my own. And my mother’s. Though I’m the most guilty, I suppose.” He tried to hike himself farther up, then just slumped back with a gasp of pain. “Damn. We should host a youth camp, you know? They could put up tents in the garden and out by the bungalows.”
    â€œYou really are a vicious pig,” said Ariel, setting down his wineglass. “You can’t get out and leave spiders you’ve looked at in playgrounds anymore, so you want to . . . get your filthy rejuvenation here ? I wouldn’t let you.”
    Claimayne waved a pale hand dismissively. “It was just a thought. But I might leave a couple around for our guests. They’re appreciably younger than I am.”
    â€œI don’t think you’d want to soak up any of Scott’s vitality. You’d probably get the DTs. But you could probably use a dose of anorexia from Madeline.” Ariel looked nervously at the dim ceiling. “ Do youknow what that explosion was? It can’t have been . . . what you said.”
    â€œYou just saw a car from nearly a hundred years ago, and you don’t believe you can hear a noise from only a week ago? It was my mother.”
    Ariel was horrified to realize that she believed him. “Claimayne,” she whispered shakily, “this has got to stop .”
    â€œActually,” drawled Claimayne, “your first guess may have been right—it may be the fault of our guests most of all.”
    â€œWhat, that old car I saw is their fault? Or the grenade going off again on the roof?”
    â€œBoth, and more. The dishes and windows—and my vinyl records!—that are breaking in spider-pattern cracks.” He opened his eyes wide for a moment. “Do you remember 1992?”
    â€œSome. I was ten years old.” She touched her own silver gyroscope pendant.
    â€œI was eighteen. Arthur and Irina had disappeared on New Year’s Eve of ’91. My mother had apparently lost a collection of spiders in ’91, and I think Arthur and Irina stole them from her; then the summer after those two disappeared, my mother got the collection back again. I think she took them from Scott and Madeline, who must have found their parents’ hiding place.”
    Ariel was aware of, and instantly suppressed, an eagerness to know what had become of the collection. You don’t do that anymore, she told herself—you don’t want to lose yourself, your self, anymore—and these would probably have been dirty ones, ones that somebody else had looked at. I only did freshly printed ones that had no possible flash-aheads or flashbacks connected to them . . . after I knew how they worked, anyway.
    â€œI was a sneaky boy,” Claimayne went on with a reminiscent smile. “I snooped and found them . . . but there was one she hid away where even I couldn’t find it. They were labeled, and she kept a list—the one I never could find was labeled Oneida Inc . In a penciled note she called it her retirement check. I think my mother never looked atit; I think she was saving it for an extremity, but”—he gave a circular wave that took in the whole troubled house, the whole