Although Arty’s room was big, it was still only one room. It had a bathtub, which Beardsley had filled with hot water before leaving the room, a chamber pot, a nightstand, and dozens of toys which Arty spent a lot of time playing with.

It became harder and harder to spend his time in one room, regardless of how many toys were scattered about in it, and how many new ones were gifted to him by his parents each day. His room seemed to get smaller every day, and the walls closer.

As Arty bathed, he could think of little else but the sound of a flute, peacefully playing in his mind. The sound was relaxing at first, but quickly began to give him a headache. Arty finished his bath—wanting to find someone to talk to help drown out the flute.

He dried himself off with a rag and then dressed himself.

Afterward, he looked out on his eerily lonesome bedroom with paranoia seizing him, holding him still.

He hastily knocked on his bedroom door. “Beardsley? Are you out there?”

“Coming sir!”

Arty sat cross-legged on the carpet, waiting for Beardsley to come.

He heard the key turn in the door.

An inch of a shadow peaked under the door.

A sharp gasp escaped the boy’s lips, Arty shut his eyes.

The door swung open and Beardsley entered, closing the door after. “What would you like to do first, Master Arty?”

Arty uncovered his eyes, trying not to look at the door.

A hand slid down a piano, eliciting a fluttering symphony of sound, even though no such piano existed in the house. Arty tried to block it out and focused on Beardsley’s question. “I’m stuck on this one math problem… Can you help me?”

“Absolutely. I pride myself on my arithmetic prowess.” Beardsley replied proudly. “Oh, to answer your earlier question, your parents will be back later tonight.”

Arty beamed, his paranoia evaporating.

He opened the top drawer of his dresser and pulled out his homework along with a feathered pen. He and Beardsley sat down on the carpeted floor with Arty putting the piece of parchment between them.

Beardsley looked at the problem with a grin. “No wonder you were having trouble! Division is a pain.”

A smile twitched at the corner of Arty’s mouth. “I’m not good at numbers, but I’m really not good at division.”

Beardsley nodded. “Beardsley to the rescue!”

Arty scooted over to Beardsley’s side, peering over his shoulder as he showed Arty the steps to solving the problem. Arty’s eyes lit up. “Now I get it! I want to try one!”

Arty solved the next five problems on his own. Once he finished, Beardsley checked his work and found it to be satisfactory.

A trumpet blared loudly, signifying Arty’s grand victory over the math problems. “You’re the smartest butler ever! Even Dad has trouble with these!”

“You flatter me, sir. But yes, I am amazing.” Beardsley agreed.

Arty worked in silence for a time on the rest of his problems. Beardsley watched his progress, correcting him where he made mistakes.

Arty decided he liked and trusted the troll, something he hadn’t previously been able to decide upon since the troll had been hired three weeks earlier. He was unafraid to ask him questions. “Beardsley…?”

“Yes, Master Arty?”

“What does a matriarch do?” Arty asked.

Beardsley shrugged. “I’m in the dark about what your mother does, Arty. I just know she’s a powerful woman and that the people in this village do what she says.”

“Oh…” Arty sighed, wondering why his stomach felt so knotted.

Beardsley patted his head. “How about a hot cup of coco, Master Arty?”

Arty drummed his fingers on the carpet. Eventually, he nodded.

__

Whispering voices woke Arty up in the night.

His eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling as a violin squealed mercilessly through his mind.

He looked at the door.

Long shadows were cast under it.

His breathing became rapid and uneven.

He calmed down when he recognized the shadows and voices as belonging to his parents. He climbed out of bed, intending to ask them both to come in.

But they were yelling at each other.

“Isn’t there any way we can postpone the Gizzenbar?” Father asked. “His life won’t be as colorful if he doesn’t have music in him…”

“You yourself admit that the music in your head drives you mad at times! I’m sure it drives him mad, too!” Mother replied. “It has to be tomorrow or we will miss our window entirely.”

Father said nothing in reply; Arty heard his feet scuffling down the hallway.

The handle on his door jiggled.

He didn’t know why, but his heart was racing again.

Music throbbed in his head as he crawled under his covers.

Mother opened his door. “Sorry to wake you up, darling. I just have to see you tonight! It’s been far too long.”

Arty sat up, rubbing his eyes and pretending like he had just woken up. Despite hearing the odd conversation between his parents, his face lit up upon seeing Mother.

“Mom!” Arty yelled, leaping out of bed and throwing his arms around her. “I haven’t seen you in forever!”

Mother patted his head. “Don’t exaggerate darling. It has merely been two weeks.”

Mother looked as gorgeous as ever in her favorite, flowing, pink dress, her familiar, foofy, soft-than-mink blond hair falling delicately below her waist. But...

There was something different about her eyes.

Arty backed away from her, blinking in confusion. “Your eyes look different, Mom.”

Mother tucked a strand of blond hair behind her ear, pursing her lips. Arty could tell that she didn’t want him to notice the difference.

Mother hiked her floor-length dress up in her fists so she could walk to Arty’s bed and sit on it without tripping. She patted the spot next to her.

Arty obeyed the wordless command. Mother would not look at him. “You know, Arty. We come from a very powerful line. Your grandfather is Belmarduk, and your grandmother is a very powerful sorceress named Hesthea. A lot is expected of us. When Belmarduk calls on his children, we must all be at our most powerful.”

Arty listened intently. “How come I’ve never met them?”

“Papa is a busy man. He has more important things to attend to than us.” Mother explained. “You will see him once I give him a reason to see us.”

“A reason?” Arty repeated, avoiding Mother’s odd, shining eyes.

“Papa won’t visit us until...” Mother clarified. “We show him that we have acquired new power.”

“New power?” Arty queried.

Mother stood up, her back facing Arty. She lowered her head, rubbing one of her arms. “Oh, it has to do with this village, and my new friends.”

Arty quickly became bored with the conversation. He changed the subject. “But you’ll be around more, right, Mom?”

Mother turned around--her eyes could be seen in clarity--Arty recoiled.

Her eyes were no longer her own--there were sapphirine spiders glinting and skittering inside of them!

He backed away from her with a scream, tucking himself under his blankets.

Mother swept her golden hair behind her shoulders, gliding to Arty’s side and uncovering him from his blanket. “Don’t hide from power, Arty. You’re about to give me the power I need to have Papa visit us!”

Arty shook his head, turning away from her. “I have no power!”

“Arty. You have music in you like your Father does.” Mother reminded him, turning his cheek and forcing him to look into her spider-ridden eyes. “It gives you such power!”

Arty gulped. “I don’t get it, Mom. All music does is hurt my head. I don’t have any powers.”

“But you do, Arty! You do! You just don’t realize it. But don’t worry… Music will no longer hurt you soon enough.” Mother told him comfortingly.

Arty’s heart, which had been beating so hard that he thought it would beat out of his chest, suddenly evened out. He smiled. “It won’t?”

Mother nodded with a sweet smile. “We’ll take that music out of you tomorrow night, and you will live your life unburdened by it. You’ll finally be able to venture outside the house and join the rest of the world.”

Arty’s heart burst with joy. He hugged Mother, no longer afraid of her eyes. “Thank you, Mom!”

Mother kissed his forehead and murmured, “It’s no trouble…”

She tucked Arty into bed after that and sang him to sleep. Accompanying her sweet voice was a gentle harp that no one could hear but Arty.

__

Arty dreamed of a time when Mother had been around more often. She and Father would take turns singing him to sleep and checking his closet for monsters. Although Arty liked Father’s singing, he much preferred Mother to sing and Father to check his closet for monsters.

There was something about Mother’s singing that soothed his soul and calmed the pounding music in his head.

The best sleep he ever had was the sleep Mother gifted to him.

Back then, Mother’s eyes were the softest shade of heavenly blue; her hands were silken, and she used them to smooth his hair back and kiss his forehead.

She sang songs to him that bolstered his courage and stuck with him just as well as the instruments which throbbed cruelly in his mind.

The music in you might hurt,

But it is a gift, not a curse,

It will give us the power we need,

To change this world and succeed.

“You hear me…?” She had whispered once. “You are the most important person to me.”

__

Arty’s vision was blurry when he woke up in the middle of the night. He couldn’t tell if it was from how tired he was or if it was from something else.

He threw a glance toward his bedroom door.

Red light was pouring in through the bottom of it.

Arty was frozen where he sat, his fists clenching his blanket.

Dizzily, he looked down at his arm.

There was a big, purple bite on it. It wasn’t the first time Arty had been bitten in his sleep; he wondered if that was the reason he felt so dizzy.

His head spun as he cast his blankets off.

There was no music in his head. Instead, there was a low rumbling--like the earth beneath his feet was rotating.

He stepped onto his blue carpet, his vision of the bare foot he had set on the ground doubling.

He couldn’t seem to get enough air in his lungs, no matter how hard he breathed.

Briefly, the music in his head switched back on. He couldn’t describe the instrument or the sound; he just knew it made him feel like he was floating away from his body.

Arty set his other foot on the ground.

The shaking ground swept his feet out from under him, throwing him onto his belly.

Arty’s nails dug into the carpet as his room began rotating.

The inexplicable sound thrummed through his mind again, and then ceased, making his stomach queasy. This music tastes bad… Was all he could think.

The room continued wheeling underneath him, shuddering violently until his carpet was on the ceiling and his ceiling was where his carpet was.

Arty stood up; he was too dazed to question how he was standing on the now-ceiling without falling.

He headed toward the door, the red lighting bursting through, enveloping the door as if it were being swallowed by fire.

Arty turned the knob with a shaking hand, creaking the door open.

He paused in the hallway.

A dozen hairy beasts to his left spun in his vision.

His own breathing became loud in his ears, but his legs refused to move.

His vision stabilized, the beasts disappeared.

The bizarre sound shot through his mind again like a lightning bolt, shaking him to his core, rendering him petrified.

In another moment, he forced his feet to move toward the door at the end of the hallway--the door that led to the master bedroom--where his mother and father slept.

A quiet chittering became louder and louder as he approached the door until he was overwhelmed by it, clapping his hands to his ears.

Eventually, the sound faded away.

The door before him multiplied in his vision eight times. He placed a shaking hand on the knob--a knob which had eight scratches on it shaped far too much like a spider’s legs.

He heard voices through the door.

“I don’t see why we need these beasts! We were perfectly happy without them!”

Father…? Arty thought to himself as crackling fire filled his ears.

“You were perfectly happy without them. You are perfectly happy living as a nameless wretch, and you always will be. That’s why power will always elude you; that’s why you will always bow to me. Why don’t you feel the community--the warmth--that has been granted to us by spiders? The spiders don’t choose just anyone to be their queen.” Mother’s strong voice sounded through the door.

“I don’t want them around Arty.” Father said firmly. “They keep biting him.”

“Of course they do. They want his power.” There was a long, silent pause. Eventually, Mother said, “Fear not, I would never let them touch our son. I will have a word with them.”

Arty turned the knob on the door.

His hands were coated with sweat, his heartbeat was thudding in his ears as he pushed the door inward.

He stood in the doorway, terror swallowing him, immobilizing him.

The room was littered with spiders both big and small, all looking at him with their black, hungry eyes.

Mother was sitting on the bed, Father was kneeling in front of her.

The indescribable sound seared through his mind.

Father’s head was missing.