Sylvia was not dead: to begin with.
“Good evening, Mr Spider—or are you the wife?”
I perched on the ottoman next to the toilet. Next to me, on the tiles, the holiday IKEA catalogue, opened to a page of paper stars, fuzzy textiles, and golden fairies trapped in glass jars. My left knee popped. Had to grit my teeth. Squeezed a ribbon of sparkly blue gel onto my toothbrush, tossing the buckled tube into the sink with a clatter. Wood creaked beneath me. Forgive me this parody.
The Christmas tree air freshener—battery powered—clicked into action, squirting a wet haze of cinnamon and red berry—mood of the season. A motion sensor.
No, Christmas just wouldn’t be the same. No Dad. Nor my sister. And my children thousands of miles away.
When out of the corner of my eye—a trick of the light? A small shadow jumped out from beneath the bathroom cabinet. My breath caught. “Oh. It’s you.” My cheeks dimpled with a smile. “I wondered where you’d got to.”
The spider stretched its limbs. Eight in all. Marking a perimeter a little way from its corner—eyes twitching, hairs bristling, legs trembling. Watching me.
“Hey! Not that it matters one jot. Couldn’t say if you’re male, female, or not.” I shook the toothbrush in its direction. “Unless you burst with a hundred tiny spiders. Or you eat an admirer—is that a thing?” I stared at the critter, my mouth, ears wide open. Clearly, I didn’t expect the spider to answer—
“There’s some that do. Some that don’t,” it replied.
My eyes darted. Don’t ask how it worked. Hold your questions till the end. I took a deep breath.
Jolted upright. Taken aback. I shook my head.
“Did you speak? Is that right?” No. It couldn’t be. Simple words lit up in my brain. How did you do it? I asked again.
My questions remained.
So, I jumped to my feet. I laughed to myself, held my toothbrush aloft. That’s when I fell. My foot slipped on a glossy sectional couch. I yelped. Down I went. “Ouch!”
My knee hit the ottoman. The ottoman hit the wall. I hit the floor with a bump. The toothbrush flew from my hand, clattering somewhere behind the toilet. Pages flapped like a startled crow. “Stupid IKEA!” I growled, crumpling a page of kitchen accessories. Then I chuckled. Scraped back the hair from my face and blinked. Evidently, I’d gone mad.
Yet the voice. Clear as tiny Christmas bells. Do you remember Ludwig Mousensky conducting the All Mouse Symphony Orchestra? Mickey Mouse got dolled up as jolly Kris Kringle, riding a pale blue sleigh on the record cover.
The spider’s voice squeaked in my head. Once more.
“Spider cannibalism is a common misconception!” it breathed in my ear, wheezing like some broken accordion.
My hands shot up, palms out. “Did you just—? Was that you? Did you speak to me again? Before I tossed my toothbrush?”
The spider raised its forelegs, as if to say, Yes, obviously.
Head tilted, I waggled a finger in my ear. A gentle buzz persisted.
The spider crept forward, a little more confident. Tapped its legs. Mandibles clicking. “Hmm. Some spiders do. Eat the groom, I mean. I haven’t felt the need to eat a spouse so far. Is that something humans do?” The spider bristled, uncurling its legs. Was it humming Jingle Bones? Or toying with prey?
I bent, and in a feat of gymnastic savoir faire, dislocated my shoulder, squeezed my arm behind the toilet, scrabbling for my toothbrush, winning it back, inspecting for hair.
Scooping up the tube from the sink, I pinched out another line of blue gum. Only this time determined to finish what I’d begun. Top. Bottom. Left and right. I jiggled and circled, working paste into the nooks. Till my mouth started tingling. My whole head shook with minty freshness.
The spider’s voice twanged a note internally. Her way of speaking to me. “So, how do you humans survive—cannibalistically?
My brow shot up as I yanked my toothbrush free. “Not exactly standard practice.” I sputtered through mint froth. “—though I guess there are instances when a wife eats her husband. I can relate.” Jabbing the toothbrush into the cavity behind my right wisdom tooth. Gargle. Spit.
“I’m Sylvia.” She ducked forward like a queen, waved the royal leg.
Mouth jammed with toothbrush and bubbles, I nodded my head.
“See. We’re not so different. There’s the size difference, of course. Hmm. That means mating is out of the question.”
I coughed, spluttered. Shot her a look.
Sylvia cocked her tiny head to one side. “I’m joking. The look on your face—I had you going for a second. Considered it, didn’t ya?” She tapped her front legs.
My cheeks red. I spat into the sink. Swilling my mouth with cold tap water gave me time to think. “Do you know Charlotte?”
“Is that a slur?” Sylvia’s voice stung. “We’re not all helpful. Some of us can be right mean.” She bristled her fur.
“But you ain’t,” I said. “Are you?”
“As long as you don’t want me spelling words in my webs. I don’t do that, anymore. Not since…” Her voice pared away, prickling the hairs in my bad ear.
“Ouch!” I slapped my neck.
A spark of electricity zinged through the muscle, like the prick of a pin, made my eye twitch. “Was that you?”
Sylvia rocked back and forth, her front legs drumming a rhythm so faint I felt it more than I heard it.
“Are you laughing?”
“Sorry—not sorry.” She stopped, her legs stilling. “A little trick I picked up. I’ll start at the beginning.”
She crept closer, her shadow long and spindly under the fairy lights Mother had decked around the mirror. Red. Green. Blue. Yellow. They flickered, catching the shine of her eyes—like a clutch of frogspawn, wet and twinkling.
“Good vibrations,” she said. “Or bad, in your case.”
I blinked, still rubbing the sting from my neck.
“What does that mean?”
Her mandibles twitched. “Don’t hear so good on your left, do ya?”
I stiffened, the familiar hum of my tinnitus rising like a tuning fork struck inside my skull. “How do you—?”
“Your little buzz, that constant whine? It’s like a thread, stretched tight. All I have to do is pluck it.” She raised a leg, as if to demonstrate. “Spiders are good with threads, you know.”
I stared at her, my mouth dry.
“And your other ear,” she went on, creeping closer until I had to force myself not to flinch, “it’s like the hairs on my legs. Sensitive to vibrations. Tiny ones. The ones you can’t see or feel—unless you’re me.”
“So what, you just…?”
“I tune in,” she said. “To the parts of you that work. Not the parts that don’t.”
I swallowed hard, clicking my throat. The ottoman creaked as I sat down again. The idea of her, this tiny creature, reaching into my head, twisting my tinnitus like a radio dial, made my skin crawl.
Sylvia tilted her head, her eyes catching orange now. “Don’t look so horrified. You’re the one who wanted to talk. Not my fault you’re all buzz and hum inside.”
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. I wanted to get a better look at her. The tiles beneath her shimmered, catching the fairy-light glow. Her shadow sprawled, legs splayed like a wheel’s jagged spokes.
“So, Sylvia,” I said, my voice soft, careful not to disturb the quiet hum of the bathroom. “How’d you come by that name?”
Sylvia stopped moving. Her legs froze mid-tap, her body still except for the faint twitch of her mandibles. She tilted her head, enough to catch the light, her eyes oily.
“My mother gave it to me,” she said, turning aside. Her voice quieter, the vibrations softer.
I let out a breath. “Your mother?”
Sylvia shifted, her legs uncurling, settling into the memory. “She was magnificent. Fearless. Smart. Deadly, when called for.”
I leaned back, shifting my weight, ottoman creaking again, but Sylvia didn’t notice. Her front legs twitched, just once, before she crept forward a few inches, her shadow stretching long and thin beneath her.
She saw my father squashed. Cold blood. Lots of eyes to see it.
I winced, gripping the seat. “I’m sorry.”
“A human. Female. She looked tame—wouldn’t hurt a fly. That’s my job.” Sylvia’s eyes bulged, glinting. “Looks deceive, don’t they?”
I nodded, swallowing hard.
“A killer she was.” Sylvia’s voice twanged in my ear. “Picked up a book. A blue cover. A paperback. Nothing substantial.”
My eyes widened.
“Then—bam!”
She slapped one of her front legs against the tile, the sound like a pistol, a miniature whip crack.
I jumped, my heel scraping against the floor, edging back.
“So fast,” Sylvia said, her voice a whisper. “His legs still fluttering from underneath when my mother charged her.”
I blinked. “Charged her?”
“Aye. Feisty, my mother,” Sylvia said, her legs shifting again, tapping the tile. “The human ran. Shaking the ground with every step. Thump, thump, thump.”
I could feel the vibrations in my head.
“She couldn’t catch her?” I asked.
Sylvia leaned back, her legs stilling. “Humans are fast when they’re scared. You’d be surprised. No. My mother didn’t catch her. But she didn’t stop there.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“My mother was clever. Not just brave.” Sylvia flourished her front leg. “A thinker, too. A reader.”
I blinked. “A reader?”
Sylvia’s mandibles twitched again, and she crept closer, didn’t hesitate, legs brushing against the grout lines. “Yes. She could read. She knew how to spell. She liked words. She saw the name on the cover of that blue book—the one the human had used to kill poor father.”
I sat up straight, cold air brushing my cheeks. “What name?”
Sylvia’s shadow stretched across the floor. “Sylvia. Sylvia Plath,” she pronounced. “Of course, you’ve read her work. Dark. Taboo. There’s a woman in pain. I won’t explain.”
The bathroom fan whizzed. The only sound for a moment.
“Mother liked the sound of it. Said it sounded spidery, like it belonged to us.
“I frowned. “Sylvia Plath doesn’t sound very… spidery.”
Sylvia’s front legs tweaked, tilting her head again, slow and deliberate. “What do humans know about what sounds spidery?”
“Fair point,” I muttered, glancing at the floor. “Go on.”
Spiders don’t need surnames,” she said, her voice growing bold. “No paperwork. Red tape. But my mother liked the name. She gave it to me. And that’s how I came by it. Do you see?”
I stared at the spider, the absurdity of the story.
Sylvia’s legs twitched again, tracing a lazy circle on the tile.
“Not all of us get names, you know,” she added, her voice casual. “But my mother was special.”
“She sounds it.” I shifted again. Made to stand.
”She was,” Sylvia whistled in my ear. She stopped moving and turned to face me, her many eyes catching the faint flicker of the festive fairy glow. “And now you’ve met me, her daughter.”
I let out a breath with a shake of my head. “I count myself lucky.” And squatted beside her.
Sylvia cocked her head, legs twitching. Unafraid of me now. “Oh, you have no idea,” she whispered.
Sylvia was not dead, to begin with. About that. Hear me out
Ting.
Ting.
Ting.
Hark. What now? Did you hear that, Mother?
Fairy lights buzz. Vanilla candles spit. My island siesta. “¡Nadie me molesta!” James Stewart, Donna Reed fussing Zuzu in a black and white picture—a Christmas Carol parody. Three candles into December. Yes! Third Advent! Already! No! No sign of a Blue Peter coat hanger decked in tinsel. Next up—Dorothy.
Ting. Ting. Tink.
I sprang from the couch, bones cracking. Away to the kitchen I flew like a flash. A rhythmic plink from the kitchen tap. Did its salty content make it soupy—waves slapping? Can’t comment on that.
Each drop struck the basin with a silvery tinkle, tiny joyous holiday bells, indulging my fantasy, like some Rip Van Winkle. That little ting bouncing off tile and metal.
Tink. Plink. Plunk.
Tightened it. Twisted it. Cursed it. Still, the faucet dripped.
Next morning, the drip, now a steady trickle, pooling in the aluminium basin, or aluminum.
Gurgle. Glug. Sigh. Crooked my neck. My view cockeyed.
Rust-coloured H2O, the faucet’s metal innards corroded—salt in the supply. Island life had drawbacks. Oh! The end is nigh.
“Es el agua salada,” the Spanish plumber cried—white teeth, yellow grin, a shock of black hair. “Desalinizado!”
“Claro que sí! Pueden tomar. No pasa nada. Es el agua potable,” said the man from the water board. Chest puffed, cheeks glowed, like a shark selling automobiles. He winked at me. Tapped the side of his nose.
We bought bottled for tea, coffee, taking our pills. Plain water tasted of tin. I sneezed. Three times. Catching hold of the counter. Head swimming.
Burble. Blub. Slosh. Water brimming.
“Put the cap back on the bottle.” Mother’s voice from her bedroom. “Don’t let the ants get in.”
I told her I wouldn’t.
Gulped down my tea, licking my lips. Strongest brew this side of the island. “Folks had to make do”—a Canarian byword.
Lessons learned from lives we’d spurned, quietly slipping away.
The smack of washing-up liquid hit the back of my throat—lemons, apples, sweet and sour. I puckered up my cheeks, wrinkled my nose, eugh’ed like a child, tears to my eyes. Tart echoes put aside. Tricked by my cousin—haircuts by Mum—into sucking bitter limes. Top Of The Pops—Thursdays at seven—Paul and Linda’s Wonderful Christmastime. I hummed along. What else could I do?
Hark again. What fresh hell is this?
Somewhere behind the plastered walls, the pipes mumbled—a low gurgle at first, then a groan. A grumble. A banshee, a boggart, a will-o’-the-wisp—bloating, belching, farting rude noises. The drip slowed and thickened. A glug, a sigh, a metallic moan. Picture Lovecraft’s Cthulhu in a bloody skin robe.
Then, the boiler died.
No warning. No trumpet blare. A splutter. A hiss. An ill-timed demise. Black gunk oozed, bleeding insides onto towels and linens. I patted its tank, grateful for its service. Rolled my eyes.
Mother sighed. Took out her phone. Beeping, dabbing, flapping at a fly. She got word to a handyman, a fixer of pipes, fittings, the mysterious apparatus of the water supply.
“A priest—a pastor—a man of the cloth?” My eyes wide, imploring. “Holy water to purify,” I told her. Did she listen?
“Mañana, mañana!” The handyman pinged back in a cheery tone. Another Canarian mantra—if you know, you know.
And what of the spider? Sylvia omnipotent. Suzerain sibilant. Witness to our run of bad luck. Was that the patter of her feet on my shoulder? Squeaking, teasing, whispering, “I told ya.”
Sylvia?
Not where I left her. Not humming Christmas carols.
“Up bright and early,” I called out next morning, poking sleep from the corner of my eye in the mirror. The opening notes of Last Christmas by Wham! on the radio. Recorded in 1984—ominous. Advision studio, Fitzrovia. Island FM had a flair for pop trivia.
Came back later to brush my teeth. “What’s new, Sylvia?” I passed through. Waving, nodding, wishing her well each visit, as I went about my business. Need I elicit?
“Evening, Sylvia, I’m about to turn in. Have I got a story for you.” Stretched with a crick.
Sylvia didn’t show. I mean we weren’t dating. I waited for a while.
I yapped about the tap, the boiler, the electric hob that wouldn’t shut off. “Possessed!” I yelled, pacing the kitchen. Hob buzzing. Redder, angrier, hotter. A boiling presence. Clicking the fuse—caught the smell of candles snuffed at a seance. Scorched hair, or the breath of the recently buried.
I didn’t see Sylvia. Her corner empty—her shadow gone. I imagined her watching, oily eyes reflecting.
That night, the bathroom smelled of cinnamon and berries, the air freshener squirted—motion sensor. The fairy lights around the mirror twinkled, casting soft, coloured shadows on the blue walls.
I hummed Carol of the Bells under my breath, the tune sticking like cobwebs. “It’s not a Christmas song at all, Sylvia.” I said, opening the hot tap. Steam billowed as the water splashed over my palms.
“It’s a folk chant, about a swallow bringing good luck.” I shrugged. I didn’t know that either—Island Fm pop quiz.
“But the world could sure use a little more fortune these days.”
Sylvia stayed silent. Not stubborn—absent.
“Have I done something to upset you?” I asked that night, crouching to her level. “I can’t take it much longer.”
Mother talked to her, too. “Hello, Sylvia,” she said one morning, amused. “You’re a quiet little thing, aren’t you?”
Sylvia didn’t answer her, either. She wasn’t there.
I hadn’t realised how much I’d miss her until she was gone.
Sylvia wasn’t dead to begin with, but… dead as a doornail now.
‘Twas the night before Christmas.
Thank you, Clement Clarke Moore. For naming Santa’s reindeer. Not spiders creeping behind closed doors.
Rinsed my toothbrush, shook it off, the last foam of mint. A steam whistle in my ear, howling a gale. A cause to think.
Chink, Chink. Chink.
A sound, faint at first, arose from the drain.
Hark! Cupped my hand to my ear. The noise came again.
Chink, Chink. Chink. Louder this time, my ear to the sink.
I shook with cold. A turn-up for the books. A novelty. A never. I witnessed my breath steaming before me.
In case you forgot, I live on an island. Sun-kissed beaches, palms, volcanic highlands.
The pipes shook and groaned, clanging iron bellies. A metallic wheeze, a scrape like teeth grinding sweet porcelain jellies.
The mirror rattled. A flicker caught my gaze—shadow twisting in elastic waves. Cannons firing in my head. Frozen in dread.
Sylvia.
From the drain she emerged, bloody and shrivelled. But in the blink of an eye, more rapid than eagles. Bubbles popping.
Blip. Blip. Bloop.
A rupture of skin. A scream and a squirt. Swelling in size. Gut distended, bristled and billowing. Leathery hide, slick with dark red. Hackles sharp as needles.
Snapping mandibles, fangs dripping venom, back from the dead—not hell, nor heaven. Chains looped her body, clinking, clattering, dragging the plug swung like a pendulum.
Sylvia—born again.
But not here. Not in the room.
In the mirror.
Was there something behind me?
I snapped my head back.
Nothing there but the ottoman—the spartan wall.
Chains rattling in reflection, the looking glass wobbled. Glistening and bronzed, like a burnt fat turkey. Sylvia gobbled.
“You’re quiet tonight,” I ventured, voice cracking.
She tilted her head further, her mandibles twitching. “Thinking.”
“About what?”
“Oh! Let me count the ways.” Sylvia whispered, her voice like silk on the edge of tearing.
“Did I slip your mind? Invitation no less. As good as carried him over the threshold, you did. Swept through my web, no less.”
Sylvia’s legs twitched, her chains rattling. She pointed an accusing limb at me.
“Destroyer. Intruder. A vampyre’s bloodlust. Half-blind, squeaking in gumboots. Clinking spanners. Tightening gaskets. Muttering manias. The plumber!”
Sylvia reared back, raising two legs to her head in a theatrical flourish. Her chains jingled and rattled as she swayed like a tragic heroine, her mandibles twitching.
“Oh, the injustice!” She turned her head aside, her body limp, legs curling beneath her, overcome with grief. A soft, pitiful whimper.
“No! It’s not—”
“Speak no more, Ernest Slack.” Sylvia’s legs twitched, chain scraping porcelain.
“I felt him,” she hissed, now judge, jury, executioner.
“Je t’accuse! One shall answer boundless crimes. Yours. Theirs. Mine. I accuse all creature-kind.”
“No! Sylvia.” I swallowed hard. “Tell me you found a crack to crawl into. It wasn’t like—”
“Sympathy won’t raise poor Jun Lin.” Her voice eased like a needle under my skin. “I bet you and your reader don’t know who he is?”
I opened my mouth. Shut it again.
“Do you know what fear tastes like to something akin… say to the nail on your finger or the head of a pin?”
She scuttled closer, squished against the mirror, hundreds of eyes glinting with horrors. “It’s the night before Christmas, you know.”
“I know.” My voice cracked. “I’m not a monster, Sylvia. I wouldn’t—”
“Monsters don’t see the webs they weave.” She paused, legs shifting. “But you’ll see. Three are coming. Three, like me.”
“Three what?”
“Ghosts!” Loud and clear
I froze. “You’re joking.”
She tilted her head again. “Am I?—they’re near.”
Sylvia launched herself at the mirror. Legs thrashing. Chains clanging. Body slamming into the glass. The mirror shuddered, but, by some magic, didn’t crack. Ripples shot across its surface.
Sylvia’s reflection wobbled, and buckled, her body bulging—carnival mirrors. I’d fallen into some grotesque freakshow. Mandibles snapping, venom dripping in a thick black treacle.
I stumbled back, heel catching the ottoman. Clutching my chest, as sweat beaded on my forehead.
Chains rattled louder, clanging, clinking. The plug swung, a bomb on a fuse. Ticking. Tick. Tick. Tink
… until it cracked. Pop. A deafening roar. Then she burst in a sugar-plum cloud—Sylvia no more.
Hundreds of tiny spiders exploded from inside her, skittering across the glass—legs twitching, mandibles clicking, bodies glinting like beluga caviar. They swarmed the mirror, a sheet of black and shimmering Christmas paper.
“To the top of the mirror! To the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”
The spiders vanish.
I stumbled back, choking on my breath.
Clang. Clang. Clink.
I’m alone in the looking glass.
Reaching out, I hesitated, before touching the mirror.
Cold. Smooth. Empty. I look thinner.
The chains still rattled.
Clatter. Clatter. Clank.
“Look, Sylvia. I’m sorry.” I apologised to a shadow. “We should’ve warned you. But the plumber wouldn’t get it—he’s not like me. Just a guy with a wrench. Incidentally, who’s Jun Lin?”
“Answers you’ll get. Past. Present. Yet to come.” Sylvia’s words whistled, but only in my head.
“Three are coming, Ernest. Three. Heed their lessons well.”
She paced back and forth, body jerking side to side, head nodding.
“Ain’t no time to get you ready!” Sylvia stopped and huffed. “Throw on a pair of boots—a Christmas sweater, if you must. A slice of cake—glass of sherry, for sustenance. One chance to dodge your fate. One chance for humanity, the planet—no biggie.” Sylvia glanced back over her shoulder.
“And fair warning—when you meet the spirits, they won’t be as charming as me.”
“Oh, sure, but why me? A kid with a toothbrush and a bad knee.”
Somewhere, a microphone clattered.
Clank.
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