Free Cobwebs by Karen Romano Young

wouldn’t they?”
    “Oh, the healing process,” Ned said vaguely. “Whatever works, I guess.”
    “What kind of work
is
it?” Nancy asked.
    “Just medicine,” he answered.
    “What kind of medicine? Voodoo?”
    He stared. “Voodoo it certainly is
not.”
    “Then—”
    “Then stop it.”
    But she couldn’t. “Dad, those people scared Grandpa.”
    “Why do you think so?”
    She was careful in her response. “Well, I don’t think it’s just the money he owes.” She thought her fatherwas more surprised than he showed. “Dad,” she said. “Granny said tonight that there was more than one way of being a spider. What do you think she meant?”
    “They’re not all our kind,” said Dad tensely.
    “What all?” she asked. “Who?” The Greene kind? The Kara kind? And what kind was Grandpa Joke? What kind was
she?
    He said, “You must know it’s hard to identify them.”
    “Why?”
    Dad waved his hands at the low Brooklyn buildings around them. “It’s the way this city is. People come here from all different places, and they all turn into New Yorkers.” That meant: Fast walkers. Subway riders. Multicolored crowds. “Some groups don’t fit in so well. They hang together more than others. Most are underground, trying to stay unnoticed until they get their chance.”
    “Get their chance to what?”
    “To—” He stopped. “Nothing.”
    “Dad, come on!”
    He shook his head, a tense movement that hardly moved his dreads. “It could cost us too much,” he said.
    “Is that why Grandpa Joke needs money?”
    He looked confused. “Not that kind of cost.”
    “Then
what?”
    “Nancy, we’re not the only roof dwellers, and not the only ground dwellers. But this other thing—”
    “Medicine?” She stood still on the sidewalk to say it.
    He had to stop, too. He cocked his chin sharply, not wanting to answer.
    “Why won’t you—”
    “I
won’t,”
he said. He cut dead the conversation. He walked on, and she followed. She felt hot behind her eyes, but if he was going to hold back because she was too young, the last thing she was going to do was cry.
Whatever this is,
she thought,
it’s something else they’re waiting to see if I have. It’s something else I don’t have.
    Ned’s long legs stretched out. Nancy hustled to keep pace. But they didn’t move so fast that she missed the eyes of the boy on the dome as he turned to watch them pass. Ned didn’t seem to notice him as he hustled toward the station, hurrying in part to get away from her questions, Nancy figured.
    “Dad, I think there’s a train coming into the station.” The slightest jiggle in the sidewalk clued her in. She began to run.
    “How’d you know?” Ned ran along, keeping pace.
    “The ground shakes.” Everyone in New York knew that. People five stories up—or even more—took it for granted that they could feel the subway passing in certain areas.
    “I didn’t feel anything,” he told her.
    “Guess I’m just lucky,” Nancy said, thinking nothing of it.
    “It’s a gift,” Ned agreed.
    Nancy felt irritated. Some gift, compared to what he wanted her to have. She fell silent, and let her knees bounce along with the bumping of the train, more than was necessary. She walked her hands up and down the steel pole, not wanting to be in one place, seeking the cold places in the metal. Seeing that boy again had made Nancy all jangly. She didn’t know what it meant that he had seen her dad. It felt like another step closer to … what? In her head, she asked him,
What’s your name?
He didn’t reply.
    Their subway car had a lot of empty orange seats and a dirty floor. Ned loved the subway this time of night. He hated it at rush hour, couldn’t stand touching strangers as a rule. “Do this, Nancy,” he said. Hereached for two metal straps, one for each hand. Hauled himself up and flipped over backward, feet in the air, skinned the cat with his feet on the silver-gray ceiling of the subway car. “What a feeling,”