"Will you walk into my parlor?" said the Spider to the Fly.
"'Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy."
Sequel to The Web. One last epilogue to The Harp.
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Months.
Ten months.
Ten months of searching, seeking, listening. Following the sounds of harp music, the plucking, strumming, droning sounds of the orb harp.
Ten months led to this.
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Jack found her in Danny's room again. Maddie was sitting at their son's dusty harp, stretching strings to try and put it back together. He stood next to her and put an arm around her.
Maddie shook him off. "Not now, Jack," she said, so very monotone.
He recognized that monotone. It was the same one Danny used right before he disappeared. "Maddie, please."
She shot a murderous glare at him before going back to the harp strings. "I can't get these to sound right," she said. "I need them to sound right. It hurts if they don't sound right. Jack, just go away, it hurts too much."
Jack felt utterly helpless. He had no idea what to do.
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The trees were gray with webs and shadows. Tiny eyes stared out at her, shining spider eyes staring unblinking from within the shadows, within the billowing webs. The narrow path was untouched, a tiny track of bare dirt the only thing in sight that wasn't crawling or shining or billowing.
The sunlight didn't filter down this far, not through the thick canopy of webbing. The flashlight's beam picked out the path, meandering past skeletal trees and around gray forms that might once have been bushes or maybe even animals. On the side of the path a still-moving lump detailed the horrific danger that lurked only a single footstep away.
She stopped at the lump and shone her flashlight at it, curiosity getting the better of her. She poked at it.
Spiders shot out from within the lump, crawling away from their meal. As they left it began to move again, pressing against the inside of its prison. She fancied she could see the outline of a hoof, hear the faintest bleating of a deer.
She stood up and shuddered. If she did this wrong that would be her fate. She could still run away. She could still leave this cursed forest and never return.
She grabbed her head and stumbled, almost falling off the path. She grunted in pain as the music grew louder, threatening to burst out of her head in any way it knew how.
No. She couldn't leave. She had to get it out. That was most important. More important than finding her son. More important than returning to her family. More important than anything. She had to get the music out of her head before it drove her insane.
Before it killed her.
She continued deeper into the forest, always sticking to that path.
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Jazz and Jack stared at each other across the kitchen table. They wracked their brains, looking for something, some idea as to what they were going to do. So far sitting there drinking hot chocolate was the best they could come up with.
"This isn't your problem, Jazzypants," Jack said. "You have college and you need to focus on that."
"But Dad, this is Mom we're talking about? What if she disappears like Danny did?"
They heard the footsteps down the stairs. Footsteps that didn't even acknowledge them as Maddie ran out the door without a word.
"Then I hope she finds him," Jack said.
Jazz nodded, a horrible feeling of dread clutching at her belly. Tears stung her eyes as she realized that might be the last time she would ever see her mother again.
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The path faded into the forest floor. Maddie stood at the edge of its safe little lane. This was the point of no return. As if to tempt her she saw that some of the strands of web beyond glowed. Sickly green, translucent magenta... Colors she recognized. Colors she'd missed. Colors she so very much wanted to touch, as though touching them might release some of the music building up in her head.
She reached out, hands brushing all manner of sticky strands, trying to run her fingers along one of those glowing colors. But she was too far. Just barely too far. Only a step and she'd be able to touch it. But a step would take her off the path. She looked back at the meandering track and made a decision,
She took that step.
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Jack tried to get the police to understand. Yes she left. No she wasn't coerced and no she wasn't kidnapped. Yes she just left. But she was missing! They had to find her before she really disappeared like Danny had.
It was no use.
She was a grown woman. She had no history of being a danger to anyone or to herself. Jack, on the other hand...
It was her right to disappear into the night. If she was going after her missing son then that was her right, too. Given their lack of leads the police told Jack that they hoped she found the closure that the law was unable to provide.
Jazz went back to college. And Jack was alone.
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There was still a path to follow. She had to pull her machete out of her boot to find it but there was a distinct trail marked by a thinning of the invisible strands that tugged at her and an increase in those glowing strands that drew her. Every time she touched one the music in her head quieted down just a little bit, leaking out of her in a single-toned drone as she drew her fingers along the strand. It was a torturous process, like trying to quench a terrible thirst with little sips, but it was enough to draw her along. It was enough to keep her coming.
It was enough to keep her on the path until...
The ground dropped out from underneath her. The webbing covering the hole refused to hold her weight, brushing and dragging against her as she fell into darkness. She lost her grip on the flashlight, the machete, the both of them caught by the webs as she fell.
She landed on something soft, comfortable, musical. Music surrounded her, invaded her as what she landed on deformed, stretched, bounced like a trampoline. She closed her eyes and moaned as the sound enveloped her, a cacophony like being surrounded by an entire symphony.
As the symphony faded, as the bounding stopped, she heard it. An orb harp.
"Hello Mom."
Maddie turned over, her hands sliding along the spiral of the giant orb web she'd landed on. Her eyes peered into the darkness looking for something she hoped, she knew would be there. Bright green ghostly eyes.
Danny untangled himself from his orb harp and climbed closer to his mother, close enough for her to see.
He'd changed. His hair was a long, chaotic mixture of black strands, white strands, gray and pink and green strands of web. His eyes glowed green, his skin was pale and glowed with a ghostly radiance. He'd once been Danny Fenton. He'd once been Danny Phantom. Now he was both at once, neither at the same time. Now he played music, now it played him. It kept him awake, alive, aware. Without it he felt... thirsty.
"Oh my Danny," she said, reaching out to touch him. He was cold to the touch. He was real, so real. He was really here...
"Welcome, my dear." Danny turned toward this new voice with an expression of quiet joy. Maddie followed his gaze to a pair of red eyes in the shadows.
"Teach me to play," she begged.
Long-fingered hands started pulling pink-tinged web. The legs of a giant spider reached out and grabbed her ankles, holding her still as those hands wrapped the pink web around her feet.
"Danny, what's going on?" she asked.
Danny crawled across the web to his mother's side, holding her arms. "Shh," he shushed. "We'll teach you to play. And then you'll feel so much better. But first you have to rest. You've been on your feet for a long, long time. Get some sleep. When you wake up we'll teach you how to play so beautifully. I promise, Mom. Just relax."
She nodded and laid back onto the orb. She trusted him. Even as those long-fingered hands cocooned her past her waist she trusted him.
And then she looked down at what was cocooning her. A pale, naked torso faded into the abdomen of a large spider like a hybrid creature. Long arms ended in clawed hands the same color as the eight long legs that stretched from the creature. Long white hair fell in a tangled mess from his head down his back. He looked up at her with familiar red eyes.
She screamed.
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Maddie knelt in the web, tightly cocooned from her feet to her chest. Spiders the size of dogs and cats sat around her as she played just as she'd been taught. He lay nearby, drinking in the music with a deliriously happy expression on his face. Next to him lay the creature that had cocooned her, taught her, bitten her, kept her here. And yet she couldn't bring herself to hate him. Once she could have but not now.
Not now that Vlad had been the one to help her get the oppressive music out of her head.