Prologue:
Berlin
Tessa Altmann was on her way home from the university, her head full of things she still had to do before her first date with Beate. Tessa had spoken to her a few days ago after a lecture and they immediately hit it off. Beate was exactly on her wavelength and both majored in geology. Tessa couldn't believe her luck; her academic year started out almost perfectly.
She took a shortcut through an alley, as a pitiful meow interrupted her thoughts. She looked down and discovered a kitten that was trapped under the bars of a storm drain. Tessa wondered what to do. She nudged the grill with her foot, but it didn't move. She didn't have time to linger and looked around to see if there was anyone else she could point the kitten out to, but apparently everyone had already fled from the oncoming rain.
"Just wait for a little bit, I’ll be back," she tried to comfort the kitten. She would come back once she met up with Beate.
Only a couple hours later, when they came out of Tessa's apartment to head back into town, she saw the drains spilling over with water and her brain made the connection between the rain and the kitten. They hurried to the place where it was trapped but it was too late.
Fate had not been gracious enough to wash the animal's body away to allow Tessa to lie to herself.
Beate revealed to Tessa later that the way she was blaming herself for the death of the cat was what kindled Beate’s love for her. For Tessa however, Beate had become an inescapable symbol of the guilt she felt that day.
Four years later, Romania:
The sun was low and the shadows of the Romanian mountains were already crawling into the narrow valley below when Tessa made her way down.
She couldn't see the cave or the girl yet, but both had appeared every day so far.
She knew her descent then climbing the other side would take at least an hour and Tessa hoped to spot her before it got too dark to find the way back to the car. But the thought of making her way back through Romanian mountain and forest roads at night did not fill her with confidence either. At least there wasn’t much danger that the ancient rusty Dacia waiting for her would be stolen.
She knew what she was getting herself into. She had had almost two weeks to think it over.
Had it only been two weeks? It felt even longer since she had seen the girl for the first time.
The reason Tessa came to these mountains was to collect material for her thesis in geology and to get over the breakup with Beate, which was not made easier by the fact that they had planned this trip together.
She was due to leave for Berlin the next morning and she really didn’t have the time for what she was doing right now.
In addition, she had been warned not to go down into the valley.
Stafie. The Romanian word for ghost. She had heard it many times recently when she asked questions in the inn where she was staying, and each time someone had crossed themselves. Ghosts were their explanation for everything that happened out here.
But aside from the rural superstitions, there were much more real dangers below the tree line. Wolves and bears usually stayed away from humans, with the exception of those who had learned to regard humans as prey.
The valley was one of the refugee routes through the Romanian mountains.
Not a main route, Tessa had seen some of them from above on occasion. Mostly old trucks, sometimes buses or cars that struggled through the roadless landscape and frequently got stuck. Some groups or families marched through the valley on foot and every once in a while she thought she heard screams.
Tessa recalled her conversation with Frau Borowetz, the landlady of the Liliac, the hostel where she had rented a room. After several glasses of red wine, she had become increasingly relaxed and talkative. When Tessa asked her if someone had been reported missing recently, Anna, as she wanted to be called, had laughed out loud.
Then she gave a very quiet lecture. Tessa learned that in President Ceausescu's time people disappearing was a normal occurrence. Some of them would be taken away by the Securitate, and some of them had fled the country. Going with traffickers was a huge risk on its own. The smugglers usually didn't care what happened to the people, since they asked for their money upfront. And even today, family fathers, both young and old, would prefer now and then to vanish into thin air instead of facing their responsibilities.
"No, my child," she said again, laughing. "Nobody is reported missing here in Almasu Mare. And they are not looking for anyone either, unless it is a tourist." She pointed to a pin board on which notes were hanging photos and information about mostly young backpackers who had been lost in the area.
"What would you do if I didn't come back tomorrow?" Tessa asked.
At first Anna didn’t want to answer, but after a bit more wine and Tessa not letting go of the subject, she finally said, "My child, you have to understand one thing. We have learned that the people who go looking for missing people disappear themselves. It may not be like it used to be, but it is not easy to change habits that once posed a danger. So please don't be angry with me, but I would wait a week, then we would split your things between us and then I would rent the room to someone else. "
Tessa couldn’t even blame her.
She had reached the bottom of the valley and the shadows of the mountains were already climbing the rock face on the other side where the cave had to be.
Tessa stopped to look for it. The girl appeared at the entrance to the cave every day. There she stood and beckoned.
And she smiled. Tessa reminded herself for the thousandth time that it was impossible to see the expression on her face at this distance and that she was probably on her way to speak to a severely mentally handicapped girl in the middle of the mountains of Romania, only because her relationship with Beate had failed.
Deep down, part of Tessa even wished that something would happen to her, that she would get lost. A subconscious wish, that only flared up now and again inside a wave of guilt she couldn’t explain. A selfish wish, a longing that was by no means self-destructive, but an expression of hope that Beate may come looking for her.
However the conscious Tessa wasn't thinking of Beate right now, she was thinking of a cat.
Then she reprimanded herself, telling herself that it was stupid that no one would look for her if something happened. She was about to give up and turn back, but then she saw the familiar dark spot in the rock face.
Where just minutes ago the site appeared like massive rock, now there was a clearly visible entrance of a cave.
Tessa assumed it was a play of light and shadow that hid the opening from view during the day. But it wasn't the cave that caught her attention in the first place, it was the girl.
Tessa had pulled out her binoculars. There she was! Standing alone at the entrance looking outside, like she did every afternoon. The figure remained completely still, except for beckoning with her arm. She was smiling! wasn’t she? She was still too far away to see any details.
Tessa had been there before a few times, but she had never been able to find the cave. To reach the other side meant she had to go through the forest and lose her line of sight.
"If I don't find it this time, I'll just forget the whole thing," she mumbled and started walking.
The forest wasn't big, but the fading light made it dark and eerie. Tessa winced every time she heard a noise. Most of which she had caused herself, while others were just small critters scattering away.
Once more she tried to convince herself that the whole thing was a pointless endeavor. Why did she even think the girl needed help? She seemed to be doing fine on her own. If she wanted to get out of there, she could have asked people traveling through the valley at any time, or just leave on her own.
Tessa caught herself wishing to meet a predator so she had a reason to run away. This whole thing felt more and more foolish the closer she got to her goal.
But eventually she came out of the other side of the forest without any incidents and saw the open mountains in front of her.
Her heart was pounding with excitement, she could see the cave and the girl with her naked eyes now. The girl must have seen her too because now she looked into Tessa’s direction, beckoning. The closer she got, the more details she could see. The girl must have dyed her hair at some point, because the tips were still a blonde that had grown out a long time ago. In general, her hair was tangled and dull, her body skinny and malnourished. Only her dress, which barely covered her shame, was oddly pristine and did not fit into the picture.
And her smile ...it looked strangely distorted.
Only a few meters away, Tessa said to her: "Hello?" Whereupon the girl turned around and ran away, disappearing into the darkness of the cave with an awkward stride.
Tessa didn’t know what to do.
She had already established that the girl was not a ghost as the locals claimed. But should she follow her into the cave or inform the authorities?
She didn't know how the girl would react, but she knew full well that probably no one else would take care of her, no matter who she went to. She thought of the cat. She had to take the girl with her, here and now, there was no doubt about that. Tessa just had to ignore the voices in the back of her mind, which were constantly looking for new excuses not to have to enter this unknown territory.
She switched her flashlight on and pointed it into the cave. The rock didn't look like it had grown naturally, more like it had been carved or at least smoothed and it was of a very uniform size, more like a tunnel.
There was a bend about ten meters ahead. Tessa decided to go that far in to have a further look.
She slowly put one foot in front of the other, constantly illuminating the walls. There were no other corridors. When she peeked around the corner, she saw that a few meters further the cave widened into a chamber. She quickly dashed forward the short distance and abruptly stopped.
The chamber was empty.
There was no sign that anyone had ever been in there. Just smooth rock walls and dust on the ground. Pristine, undisturbed dust.
"Stafie," Tessa whispered to herself. "The girl was a ghost after all."
Strangely enough, at that moment she felt no fear. She rather hoped that whatever had happened to the girl in her lifetime, that her tormented soul had found peace now.
She searched the chamber for a little bit longer, trying to find something —anything— but there was nothing.
When Tessa turned to leave, she startled. The girl was standing in the tunnel between Tessa and her way outside. A strange fluorescent light illuminated the cave. A chill ran down Tessa's spine, but she didn't panic. Wasn't that why she had come in here?
The girl stared at her. Tessa noticed that her feet were not touching the ground.
Carefully she inched closer.
The girl was incredibly skinny and her skin was covered with red pustules. Bugs crawled in her hair, and ticks had attached inside her ears and on the hairline.
Her teeth were exposed due to the fact that her lips were gone and she could no longer close her mouth.
White worms crawled on her exposed gums.
Tessa was close to tears. She couldn’t even fathom the suffering the girl endured. Her eyes appeared to be the only thing unaffected and those eyes stared at Tessa with terror.
“Don’t be afraid!” Tessa said and raised her hand to stroke her cheek gently. A single tear ran down the girl’s face and at the same moment she collapsed.
Tessa startled and jumped back, but she quickly collected herself, went to the girl again and knelt down next to her.
She was still alive. Her head and body twisted unnaturally and the expression in her eyes still terrified. She didn’t look at Tessa though, she gazed past her, at the ceiling of the cave.
Tessa looked up and discovered a dark round hole above. A shaft about half a meter in diameter, barely big enough to accommodate a person.
She pointed her flashlight inside and saw what the girl was so afraid of.
Nine black eyes staring back down at her.
Tessa knew she had to run away, but she was paralyzed with fear. Even when the long, hairy spider legs pushed their way out of the hole, she was unable to react. It wasn't until she felt a bite on her neck that her ability to think rationally returned, only to realize it was too late.
Epilogue:
The trapdoor spider closed the cave with a lid every morning. That was why Tessa hadn’t been able to find it the other times
In the light of the fluorescent webs of the upper chamber, Tessa watched the spider suckle on a cocoon that had once been one of the unfortunate passing refugees hoping for a better life somewhere.
She didn't want to think about how many of them the spider had caught since she was here, but she envied every one of them. Tessa knew what came next, and she had no choice but to anticipate what she hated most: the feeding.
When the spider ate its fill, it crawled over to the paralyzed Tessa, propped against the wall, to face her with its black eyes. Then it forced its hairy appendages into Tessa's mouth, pushed her jaws apart to force feed her a pre-digested gruel, that Tessa felt sliding down her throat. Her mouth burned like fire every time. The digestive juices would slowly but surely eat away at her lips, just like the girl’s.
Tessa had lost all sense of time. She wondered how long her ordeal might have lasted already, how long she had been in the grip of this creature.
The spider disappeared down through the hole in the floor. It had woven a dress for Tessa too. It was pretty and it faintly glowed in the dark. But it also offered shelter for numerous insects and parasites, which Tessa felt constantly crawling on, and recently under, her skin.
A noise from below revealed that the spider had uncovered the cave and was coming back up.
It was time.
"I did save her," Tessa thought, as she slipped down the shaft into the tunnel.
She looked at the setting sun as she slowly approached the cave entrance. Tessa wished so much she could just run outside. Away from this hideous creature who had adapted its hunting methods so perfectly to the only intelligent species on the planet. But she would not take a single step towards the freedom that would save her.
The paralyzing venom kept her mind trapped inside a helpless body and the spider crawled above her along the ceiling of the cave and moved Tessa by invisible strings like a puppet.
Tessa stood at the entrance and beckoned.
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