Standing precariously on a wooden chair, Chrys snatched a tiny cobweb from its long forgotten corner. She wrapped it gently around her fingertips. She loved the way it was clingy, but didn’t feel sticky. It was like a silken tendril of delicate beauty that gave her more than people did. Drew watched her hover before she lightly hopped down, with a bounce. He always loved visiting her, because she was so mysterious. She tolerated his visits because she enjoyed their conversations.

She looked at the other corners, and saw lively spiders, with various flies in their traps. They could stay. They worked for their keep, and were welcome as long as they didn’t try to have babies. Chrys always killed the babies with a little torch light. Usually she’d let the mothers care for their egg sacks for a while, but once she waited too long, and it wasn’t a little sack, but tiny escaping spiders. She nearly burned down the house that afternoon.

She looked out the window at the garden she tended, and wondered if it was going to be time soon. Drew was busy looking at her legs, and didn’t notice the look of irritation on her face.

She wondered how she would do it this time.

There was that boy that had a cruel sense of humor. Beau claimed he worshipped the devil, and tried to wrap her into his little harem of prostitutes, innocent victims and willing side chicks. One day she tired of him, and stabbed him in the neck with a metal pen. She loved that pen almost as much as she loved the warm, copper scented stickiness of his blood pouring out on her. It sprayed the room in droplets before it slowly pulsed with his heartbeat. She was fascinated with the slowing river over her hands as the lights faded from his eyes. It didn’t last long enough.

There was the guy with the incredible strength. Abel was always chasing some high. Chrys drugged him before crawling on top of his limp body. She tried stabbing him, but didn’t realize how much work it was to get through the layers of muscle, sinew and flesh. He tried impotently to fight her off with limbs he couldn’t lift. She kept hitting his ribs until she slowed down and found a space between them to reach his organs. She hit his lungs and the blood began pouring out of his mouth too. This was too frenzied to enjoy. She couldn’t remember all of the details.

“Miss Chrysanthemum, can you hear me?,” Drew said.

She snapped out of her thoughts and wiped the silly grin off her face. She hated being called by her full name. Drew thought she was looking at him with love in her eyes. He didn’t understand what lust looked like for her. She wanted to fuck and kill this pretty imbecile.

“I’m here. I was just thinking about my garden,” she said with a wistful smile.

“Of course you were. I can show you my grower,” he smirked.

Chrys’ smile froze for a second before she smiled wider. She knew this would be less fun, but it would be worth it. She wasn’t in the mood to fight blood stains and didn’t have enough milk and bleach on hand to clean the house with after her fun. She would never dream of a clean death for him. He never paid attention to what she said and this game of cat and mouse he thought he was playing was actually her web of illusion. She was always going to be the spider, no matter what game he thought they played. It was the little things like this that kept her entertained. She would probably keep him around a little longer.

Drew knew she killed the spider eggs and thought it was sweet that she let the grown spiders live. He had no idea how much she hated flies. Flies and dogs were always too nosey. They always found the bodies and made too much of a fuss over things. The dogs were easy enough with a bit of wet food and rat poison. She’d just bury them with the bodies. The flies were relentless with their swarms and maggots. They knew her secrets and had no problem sharing them.

“Have you killed anymore rabbits,” Drew asked. He didn’t really care, but keeping her talking about her garden made her so much more animated. She was likely to start using her hands to talk, and jiggle and sway her round and perky breasts. He loved that she never wore a bra at home. They’d only been intimate twice before, but she always made him work for it.

“I didn’t kill them. I left out food that didn’t agree with them. That’s such a subjective question unless you mean I would kill them with my bare hands. Who would do that in their spare time?,” she mused aloud. Drew was so gullible that this topic was fun.

“Did you end a little life?,” he pressed on.

“My beliefs don’t include me having the power of life or death,” she countered. She assumed the goddess would keep her barren and was grateful for that gift. “I don’t create life and I don’t take it away. Not really. That’s not for me to decide or hold,” she lied. She loved the power of watching someone die slowly. It was like she could control time for them.

“Would you ever kill something bigger? Like, do you ever go hunting?,” Drew asked.

“I like to grow things, I just want to protect what I grow,” she said. She grew her peaceful life and would carefully create peace pockets around the death she surrounded herself with. She didn’t hunt as much as sit back and watch things fall into place. The rabbits were a necessary death. They might be cute, but not when they were nibbling up her hard work. The edge of melancholy tinged her smile. She hated feeling like she didn’t have control. “Why are you so into death all of a sudden?,” she asked.

Chrys looked back out to the garden toward the swarm of flies. She knew there would be maggots by now and she hated maggots. She meant to deal with that body sooner, but Drew never gave her enough space. He was over daily and kept trying to get her to have mediocre sex again. He should die for that alone. By nightfall, she was too tired to do any digging. She had to control her face and work on being attractive so he’ll be around when she was ready to hide another body. She loved disposing of the bodies as much as she liked turning people into bodies. It was such a great work out.

Derek already went through the rigor-mortis phase where the rigid muscles made it harder to move, but by now, he would be loose and wiggly, farting randomly and oozing out of his mouth, nose and eyes. His eyes would be filled with maggots by now and the smell was getting stronger. She could smell death, and it was stronger than the fly traps she kept around the garden. She had grown to love the stench. Drew wouldn’t know. He hasn’t been around death like she had. She had been working on the hole for Derek’s body for a few days, but hadn’t reached the depth she was after yet. Maybe she should try freezing her next body. She could always plug in the deep freezer that was in the shed. She forgot to hide the irritation from her face.

“Oh, baby, I didn’t mean to upset you. Would you like me to rub your back?,” Drew asked. Always trying to touch her. Chrys was annoyed.

“No babe, you should probably go, before we both do something we might regret,” Chrys said.

Drew knew he was losing this moment, and grasped for straws. “Why don’t I make us tea, and you can give me one of those card readings you like to do.”

Chrys liked listening to what the cards told her. They were all about interpretation and she was the wild card of her decks. She didn’t care that her ancestors kept begging her to stop killing for the sake of her soul. She purposely misread those spreads as the ancestors asking for more souls. She knew how much joy she had in killing. “Okay, but sit tight. I’ll make tea and set up the table,” Chrys said.

Drew sat back and watched Chrys move around the house. He loved watching her move, and she reminded him of his Mom as she busied herself around the kitchen. She started the water in the kettle, then began preparing two mugs. She pulled herbs from jars and concocted some floral tea infusion. He didn’t see her hand hover over the prescription bottle she kept there, but his angels must have been watching, because the water was ready as she was about to open the bottle and decided she wasn’t ready to deal with a second body. She really liked killing, but she needed some restraint and control. She just gave Derek the first half bottle of her grandmother’s coumadin prescription. Bruises and bloody orafices were overrated. The pretty bruises she created were entertaining, but there was no thrill in that death. She won’t be repeating it.

Chrys moved to the altar and moved her hands slowly back and forth. She was waiting for heat or a tingle. She wanted them to jump out and tell her what she needed to hear. She settled on a tarot deck with a smile, and an oracle deck with a smirk. She held them separately in her hands, blowing on them in turns. “Drew, love, think of a question and we can try to answer it,” Chrys said.

Drew used to love watching his Mom read her cards when he was little and the nostalgia of the moment made him feel tenderness toward Chrys in unexpected ways. His eyes lit up as he asked, “Can I blow on your cards too?”

Chrys eyed him carefully, and said, “blow twice on each deck and knock on them both.” She decided his reading would decide his fate because she needed a good fuck and wanted to kill him so badly.

Shuffling the cards, Chrys hummed lightly while opening her third eye to ask the universe what Drew needed to know. She held out the tarot spread and said, “pick three cards.”

He chose the Tower, Death and King of Swords cards.

Drew suddenly smelled roses. He knew his grandmother was near him and probably disappointed in his relationship with Chrysanthemum. He read his cards to mean he had to make a choice that would lead to a fresh start and would put him on firm footing in the future. He saw he was closing out a cycle with Chrys, and he needed to end it with her.

She saw the choice to kill him would give her renewed joy and she should use a sword.

Chrys began shuffling the oracle deck, and flipped the card that said, “run.” These things were up to the interpretation of the artist that created them. As she started flipping through the book that came with this newer deck, Drew felt his grandmother’s presence acutely. The smell of roses became sweet and cloying. He stood quickly.

“Drew, what’s wrong? Are the cards scaring you?,” she laughed. She would lull him into relaxing again, and kill him with the sword over her bed. She just had to get him into the bedroom, take advantage of his idiocy, and kill him.

“No, I just have to go. I got a bad feeling,” he said. She looked back to her cards and he bolted out the door, never to darken her doorstep again. And so the fly, trusting his intuition, escaped the spider.