The Tradition

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

Day, I correct it. This was written before the purge–before we buried the men who cloaked us in darkness; now, we walk in the light.

I linger on the words framed on our wall. I pass this every morning. Today, it reads differently.

Today, it’s my turn.

I lift my candle and lean into the portrait to the left. “Good morning, Nana Lillian,” I whisper, touching my fingers to the glass of her framed photo. The youth of her smile radiates back at me.

“Good morning, Grandma Louise.” I offer her the same brush of fingertips.

The floorboards groan with each step as I descend into the gaping mouth of the staircase.

I pause at each sister’s portrait until I stop at the second to last on the wall. “Good morning, Aunt Lydia.”

“You don’t have to whisper.”

She stands at the bottom of the staircase. I know it’s her. I can hear her breathe. Across the strawberry bushes. Passing behind me in the kitchen. She breathes through her mouth, a panting cat.

Her face glows larger as I get nearer, nose protruding like a shark fin. I stop just two steps in front of her. A smirk cracks her lips and spreads across her face. She presses a finger to her upturned mouth and shiny wet teeth.

Cousin Leo looked just like her; eyes twinkling, ready to pounce.

I remember him. Lydia’s Little Lion, the grandmothers called him, exchanging smiles and cooing at his full head of curls. When we pulled him from the lake, his hair stuck to his face like leeches. His cheeks were bloated–thin gray balloons for his 5th birthday.

There are no pictures of Leo on the wall. I understand why.

She opens her left hand to meet my right and our fingers intertwine. “How’s my favorite niece?”

“Good enough,” I admit, our hands releasing.

“Nervous about the ceremony?” She prods.

I shake my head, saying “Nah. I’ve been rehearsing for years now. You know Mom.”

“She’s such a worry wart!” She cackles. “How’s she holding up?”

“She’s the nervous one,” I try to tease but my voice snags in my teeth.

“You’re going to do great!” Then she looks at the display cases to my left; there’s one corresponding to each of the portraits. “We always do.”

I follow her gaze. There’s a black widow pinned in the corner of each display, a needle stabbed through her cephalothorax. I always avert my eyes from the paintings; eight fingers painted black and pressed against paper. An aged brown thumbprint stains the abdomen. “I think butterflies would be prettier,” I say, even as I’m mesmerized by the crumpled body.

Aunt Lynda’s staring at me. I can hear her breath; snagged, struggling in spider web lungs. “There are no butterflies in our story.”

Mom says Aunt Lydia’s not the same.

She smiles more.

***

I flick on the kitchen light and the whiteness fills the room, illuminating the tile walls and open oak cupboards lined with glass and pottery–only useful things. Mom stands in the center of the kitchen, pressed lips, waiting.

“See you soon,” I toss over my shoulder to Aunt Lydia.

She catches it between her teeth. “I’m looking forward to it,” she says and, humming to herself, meanders out the back door to the garden—to the cabin.

I set the candle in the window, grab my apron around the corner, throw it over my head and tie it in a quick knot at the small of my back. I wash my hands and flick the water droplets into the sink.

The music’s already playing.

Mom holds her hands together, like she’s caught a sparrow. “All right, my love. Here we go again.” Her voice sounds light, but it’s forced, clogging her throat, the words choking her.

“Is this really necessary?” I try to tease a smile from her. “Just give it a few hours and I’ll be doing it again.”

“Of course it is,” she smiles with her mouth. “Practice makes perfect.”

I grab the carrots–heirloom red so they stain my fingers–and peel the skin into the trash. They float like bright red confetti.

I line up the carrots on the cutting board–four at a time, always–press my curled fingertips against the slippery scarlet, and look up at Mom.

“May I start now?”

“No.” She stands still, unwavering. “Wait for it.”

I lift my knife, listening as the woman’s voice escalates to a crescendo, eyes focused on the silver edge.

She hits the high note.

The blade drops, a rhythmic chop, chop, chop and I scrape the perfect circles into the pot on my right.

“So,” I say, dropping more red into the pot with a thunk. “Do you think I should watch It or venture into new horror territory?”

“Not today, love.” The faucet handle shrieks as she fills a glass of water. “Save your energy.”

“You don’t have to worry,” I reassure her, grabbing four more carrots, neatly lining them up. “I've made this thousands of times. Today will be no different.”

Even over the thud of the knife, I can hear her sudden inhale.

I look up at her. Her eyelashes flutter. The glass quivers in her hands. I don’t recognize the look on her face–the look I’ve seen countless times on the countless contorted faces on the TV.

For once in my life, I see fear in my mother’s eyes.

***

I stand in the doorway, the white lace of my gown trembling in the breeze. Lilac blooms weep purple tears and the sweet aroma fills my nostrils, sparking my senses, filling my lungs with an aura of ecstasy and dread.

I exhale. We are the Latrodectus.

The grass pokes between my toes. I walk with practiced steps down the green path between flower beds of forget-me-nots and yellow daisies. Their velvet petals brush my legs, ushering me forward until I reach the stone path to the cabin. Above the chirp of birdsong, I hear the high ahhs of my sisters.

The cedar cabin, silvered with the sun’s rotations, is held together by the thorny embrace of rose bushes. The elders, my sisters who have come before me, stand in black gowns draped from shoulder to toe and charcoal wiped across their foreheads. On their cheeks, three sets of eyes painted in an inverted triangle stare back at me, unblinking. They’re all smiling.

“Lana,” my great grandmother raises her hand and intertwines her fingers with mine.

“Nana Lillian,” I acknowledge her.

“As the daughter of a Latrodectus, you may choose the ceremony or banishment from the grove. Do you wish to proceed?”

“Yes.”

She hands me a stone bowl. I take it and see the reflection of myself shimmer in the deep red liquid. I try to steady myself and she cups her hands around mine. I search for her in the storm cloud shielding her eyes. She nods.

Thumb dipped into the liquid, I press the stickiness in the middle of her forehead, my thick thumbprint remaining when I pull away.

A red trail trickles into the folds of her skin. “Thank you for blessing me.”

I can’t suppress my smile as I embrace her, breathing in her silver wisp of hair.

I greet each sister, then press my thumb to her forehead. Aunt Lydia winks at me.

When I reach my mom at the end of the line, her eyes are damp. I hear myself inhale. I press my thumb against her forehead and softly pull back. I stare at the red print on her painted skin. My gaze meets hers.

She’s smiling with her eyes.

“Thank you for blessing me,” she whispers.

I nod, my eyes mirroring hers; hot and red and filled to the brim.

She takes the bowl from me and sets it down on a halved tree. She picks up the candle from our home: the ceremonial candle. She lights it with a slow strike of match and hands it to me.

I face my sisters who then form a semi-circle around me, my back to the door of the cabin. They begin to sway. In unison, they hum low and deep.

I can’t smell the lilacs anymore. I smell something else, seeping from the cracks of the door behind me, nauseating.

I take a deep breath.

“The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years,” I begin. “But one day, a candle burned in the window.” I lift the candle. “We are the Latrodectus. Despite the daughter’s tears, we release the black widow.”

“We’ve bowed to eighteen suns,” the women speak in one voice. “We’ve labored under eighteen moons. Awaken this sister’s Arachne so we may be restored, too.”

I face the cabin door. They sing in ooos and ahhs–a balm of familiarity soothing my ears as I open the door.

A gush of putrid air smacks my face as I step inside. I turn on the light.

I hear the candle hit the ground. The thud surprises me. It sounds far away. A tunnel. Not burning beside me.

“Lana,” Mom coos in my ear. “Lana, pick up the candle. Lana. Come back and pick up the candle, my love. Lana, please.”

I can’t look away.

With his body pinned to the wall, the man’s fileted skin sticks to the wall between each limb: eight total. Eyelids sewn shut, the paint around his eyes dried to tears down his face. He gazes at the ground with a permanent smile.

His severed hand is on the cutting board.

I puke. Green bile on the stark white floor. It mixes with the red. I gag again, falling to my hands and knees. “Noooooo!” I sob. “No. No. No. I can’t. I can’t!”

Mom drops down beside me. “It’s okay.” She sets the candle up and her arm squeezes my ribs. “He wandered into our woods. Arachne brought him to us!” She stares up at him in awe. “She always does.”

I didn’t know the wail from my mouth was mine.

Mom rocks on her hands and knees, her palms flat against the floor. Tears melt the painted eyes on her cheeks as she wails. Aunt Lydia falls to my other side. She roars in agony and sobs in her hands.

“Mom, I can’t.” I moan. “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.”

“You can.” She sits up and holds my face in her hands. “You are a queen. You are a Latrodectus.”

I look back at him, but she pulls my head to her and presses her forehead against mine. I feel myself sliding, the white and red of the floor blurring in my vision. “Mom,” I ache, spittle dripping down my lips. “Mom. Not this. Please, anything but this.”

“Lana.” Her hands steady my skull. “Lana, look at me.”

I look up, willing myself to focus on her features–her lips, her cheekbones.

Her eyes electrify me.

“Pick up the candle.” She holds my gaze. “You must. When the light goes out the ceremony will be over. You’ve done this every day for years, remember? Practice makes perfect.”

The singing of my sisters fills the shell of the cabin’s stark white interior. They stand against the wall. They chant and hum and sway, the notes washing over me in reverence.

I pick up the candle and stand to my feet. The flame quivers as I set it in the window to my left. I keep my eyes down, one step at a time, even as the blood pools and sticks against my bare feet. Blades of grass ebb away in the red current.

The knife waits in front of me. So does the pot. A deep, oval emptiness. I feel dizzy, falling forward and stumbling into it, bile belly bubbling. I swallow it back. The voices swell to a roar, like thunder rumbling in the wet pads of my feet.

I step up to the cutting board. Press fingers against bone.

Inhale.

I lift the blade.

Exhale.

She hits the high note.

Practice makes perfect.