Schwint walked over, extended a finger, and the creature crawled on stilted legs over his skin, taking up nearly half his hand. He moved the spider closer to me. “She’s actually quite beautiful. See the spots on her back and the banded legs?”
I scuttled backward over the carpet. “How do you know it’s a girl?”
He gestured back toward the web. “See that little guy up there? The males are a fraction of the size of the females.” With another motion, he drew my attention toward the ceiling. “Those ladies have several men each!” He waggled his eyebrows at me. “Scandalous!”
At least three other webs draped from the ceiling with matching monster spiders. With another shudder, I realized they’d been hanging there over us all night.
Caitlin’s laughter stopped abruptly as she lifted her head, her eyes moving slowly from spider to spider. “Okay, I’m with Finn. One spider, sure, but that’s wrong. Let’s get the fuck outta here.”
Schwint looked genuinely offended, like she’d insulted his family. “They’re not poisonous. Their webs are actually quite—”
Caitlin cut him off. “What are you? Some kind of spider fanatic?”
“No. I’m a fairy, remember? Nature’s kinda my thing.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, then turned her glare on me. “Boy, do you ever know how to pick ’em.”
My skinwas still crawling when the bus left the station. I was fairly certain I hadn’t been the only de Morisco to check under the seat before taking my place.
The bus ride from San Jose to Montezuma was a little over five hours, traveling over the western half of Costa Rica, even going up into the mountainous regions to go around the Gulf of Nicoya, then back down to the southernmost tip of the Nicoya Peninsula.
Even though we’d been over half an hour early, the line waiting to board had been so full of tourists that by the time we got on, there hadn’t been four seats together. Schwint and I sat side by side while, several rows in front, Caitlin and Newton shared a small section. Luckily, a black Goth chick sat directly across from Caitlin. One word from her British accent and Newton was completely forgotten.
It had been dark enough when we arrived that I hadn’t noticed much of San Jose. Revealed in the daylight, I clearly understood why Schwint was ready to get out of the city. It was one of the most depressing cities I’d ever seen. Concrete slab structure after concrete slab structure. Trees and parks were here and there, but for the most part, it was one ugly, forlorn building after the next.
The gloomy state of the city was soon forgotten out of pure terror. I was fairly certain every driver had spent the morning drinking multiple bottles of Jack Daniel’s while snorting speed. It was like we were in the middle of the Indy 500, except the vehicles were going every direction imaginable. Even our huge old school bus, as broken-down as it was, zoomed in and out of traffic, narrowly missing cars and pedestrians alike.
“I think I’m gonna be sick.”
Schwint grinned at me. “I know, it’s great, isn’t it? Makes me glad I can’t drive, but it’s a blast!”
“A blast? I thought LA traffic was bad. I’ve never seen anything like this!”
He nodded. “Newton and I noticed that while flying over the mountains yesterday. It’s just this bad, worse even. I lost count of how many car wrecks we saw.”
“You’re not helping.” Tentatively, I looked back out of the window in time to see a little kid hop onto the curb before a monster four-by-four truck barreled through the intersection he’d managed to cross. “I swear, it has to be magic of some kind that there’s anyone left alive in this country.”
“You won’t notice as much once we get outta this hellhole of a city. It’s one of the most beautiful countries I’ve ever seen. Judging from the sky view at least.”
I gave him a skeptical look. We zoomed past another intersection, and I finally realized what had been bothering me. “There’re no street signs.”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed that.”
After a few more intersections, I was certain. “No street signs. How in the world do you find anywhere with no street signs? Even if you do survive the traffic, you’ll never actually get where you’re going.”
He reached over and gave my hand a squeeze. “Don’t worry. If the bus crashes and we get lost, I’ll zoom up and lead us from the sky.”
“My hero.”
Sure enough, after we’d left the city limits, the view passing on the other side of the bus window looked like an entirely different world. Graffiti-covered cinderblocks gave way to massive trees and vines. Honking, dented cars morphed into colorful birds soaring overhead. Thousands of miserable faces transformed into monkeys here and there in the trees. When a sloth was spotted hanging from one of the branches over the road, a muddle of excited languages and accents filled the bus.
We’d left San Jose far behind. San Jose, along with San Diego and the rest of North America, were long gone. Somewhere along the line, we’d entered a place that looked like it could be hiding every long-lost supernatural species in its dense, dark forests. No wonder the Vampire Cathedral chose to live in Costa Rica. It wouldn’t surprise me to see a unicorn walk out from the trees or a phoenix soar over the rainforest canopy. Maybe witches had been wrong. Maybe all those species we’d counted as extinct, exterminated by the Royals, hadn’t vanished from existence. Maybe they’d been here all along, hiding in a world so removed from man. I hoped so.
One busbreakdown, two Brahman cattle-in-the-street-induced roadblocks, and three rest stops later, I realized I’d been wrong. What I’d seen before hadn’t been simply magical, it had to be more. We were just leaving the Monteverde region, and I had no doubt—none—there actually were nonhumanoid mythical creatures left in the world. The mountains were emerald green, except for the myriad of waterfalls of flowers and splashes of color from the lush tropical flora. Clouds sank around the tops of the mountains, shrouding their rounded, volcanic peaks from view. At times the clouds settled below us, covering sections of flower-filled valleys nestled between the cliffs. Jordskote had to have been here, she had to. Some, if not all of this lushness had to be her doing. The land betrayed the nymph’s presence. I glanced at Schwint sleeping beside me. I was willing to bet it betrayed the influence of fairies too.
Schwint had been right about the terror of driving in the mountains as well. The roads were nearly too narrow for one car in many places, let alone to have room for the high speed passing that happened on a consistent basis. The very fact the vehicles didn’t crash head-on around blind curves and tumble down the mountains as they weaved through each other should have been enough proof to humans that supernatural creatures exist—that there were witches and fairies on this very bus. By the third hour, on our way out of the mountains, I’d nearly grown numb to the near collisions all around. When in Rome…
Gradually, as we entered the Nicoya Peninsula, the mountains gave way to long stretches of beach, palm trees, and crashing waves. It was so much the stereotypical airbrushed beach postcard scene over and over that I nearly rolled my eyes at the cliché. Only this was no postcard.
