The Black Widow

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About the Image

Featured in today’s Halloween-themed post is a stunning new release from Just BECAUSE. Much like the Black Widow herself, the Tempest Gown is beautiful and alluring at first glance, but a closer look reveals a sinister secret. The back of the gown features an intricate metallic spiderweb with a spider lurking at its center. Matching shoes (not pictured) are also available, featuring a coordinating spider-and-web design across the front of the foot.

As with all current Just BECAUSE releases, the Tempest Gown and matching shoes are sold in fatpacks by mesh body type. The customization HUD offers 24 dress colors and six metal colors for the spider and web, giving you plenty of options to create your perfect Halloween look. Stop by the Just BECAUSE mainstore to pick up a demo and see this hauntingly beautiful gown for yourself!

Complete credits are below the story. Store and event SLurls are available on the Store & Event Links page.

The Story

A Halloween Story

By the time Vivienne Blackwood buried her fourth husband, the townspeople had stopped calling her unfortunate.

Her first husband, Edward Ashcroft, had been thrown from his horse on a clear summer morning. Charles Pembroke had died of a sudden fever that no physician could explain. William Hargrove had been found at the bottom of the grand staircase in his country estate, his neck broken. And Jonathan Blackwood, her most recent husband, had collapsed during an anniversary dinner, his wineglass still half full.

Four husbands. Four funerals. Four substantial inheritances.

The authorities had investigated each death, but nothing had ever been proven. Vivienne was a woman of considerable beauty, impeccable manners, and influential connections. She had answered every question with composure, accepted every condolence with grace, and worn black with an elegance that made even mourning seem fashionable. But behind closed doors, people whispered another name.

The Black Widow.

On Halloween night, three weeks after Jonathan’s funeral, Vivienne returned to Ravencrest Cemetery. The moon hung low behind a veil of clouds, casting a pale blue light over the crooked headstones. Dead leaves scraped along the gravel path, and the bare branches of ancient trees reached toward the sky like skeletal fingers. Somewhere in the darkness, a raven called.

Vivienne passed through the wrought-iron gates carrying a single candle. Her long black gown trailed across the fallen leaves, and her silver hair stirred in the cold October wind. She knew the way to Jonathan’s grave without looking.

His headstone stood beneath an old yew tree, its freshly carved inscription still sharp against the weathered monuments surrounding it.

JONATHAN BLACKWOOD
1872–1926
BELOVED HUSBAND

Vivienne stopped before the grave and studied the stone. “Beloved,” she whispered. The word sounded strange in the stillness.

She had never loved Jonathan. Nor Edward, Charles, or William. Love had never been part of her arrangements. Each marriage had served its purpose, and each husband had eventually become an inconvenience.

She set the candle upon the headstone and struck a match. The flame caught immediately, illuminating her pale features. For a moment, she watched it burn, remembering the final evening of Jonathan’s life.

He had been unusually quiet at dinner. She recalled how he had turned his wineglass slowly between his fingers, studying the dark liquid as though searching for something beneath its surface.

“Do you believe the dead can remember?” he had asked.

She had laughed softly. “What an extraordinary question.”

“Not so extraordinary, perhaps. I’ve been thinking about your previous husbands.”

She remembered the unpleasant sensation that had settled in her stomach. “What about them?”

Jonathan had looked directly into her eyes. “I wonder whether they knew.”

Then he had lifted his glass.

An hour later, he was dead.

Vivienne had dismissed his words as the ramblings of a suspicious man. Yet the memory had troubled her ever since. Now, standing over his grave, she felt that same uneasiness return.

Something moved near her feet. She glanced down and saw a small black spider crawling across her shoe. It paused, then disappeared beneath the hem of her gown.

Vivienne stepped away from the grave. A faint sound came from behind the headstone. She turned sharply. “Who’s there?”

Nothing answered. The cemetery lay silent except for the wind whispering through the dead grass. She waited, listening, then bent to retrieve her candle.

That was when she noticed the envelope.

It rested against the base of the headstone, partially concealed beneath a scattering of leaves. The paper was yellowed and brittle, its edges darkened with age. Across the front, written in a familiar hand, was a single name.

Vivienne.

She recognized Jonathan’s handwriting immediately. Her fingers tightened around the envelope as she broke the seal. Inside was a folded sheet of paper.

My dearest Vivienne,

If you are reading this, then I was correct about you.

I knew about Edward Ashcroft before we married. Charles Pembroke and William Hargrove were more difficult to trace, but their deaths followed the same peculiar pattern. Each was wealthy. Each died unexpectedly. Each left everything to his beautiful widow.

You believed yourself clever, and perhaps you were. But you failed to consider that others might recognize your methods.

Vivienne’s breath caught. She read on.

I did not marry you because I was deceived by your beauty. I married you because I had been searching for you.

My sister, Eleanor, was Edward Ashcroft’s first wife. She died giving birth to their daughter, and I promised her I would always protect the child. When Edward married you, the little girl was sent away to live with relatives. I later learned that you had insisted upon it.

You took her father’s life, Vivienne. You took her inheritance. And for twenty years, I have waited for an opportunity to discover the truth.

Vivienne lowered the letter.

Eleanor.

She remembered Edward’s first wife only vaguely. A portrait above the mantelpiece. A fragile woman with dark eyes and a solemn expression.

And the child.

There had been a daughter, hadn’t there? Vivienne had scarcely given her another thought.

Her hands trembled as she unfolded the remainder of the letter.

I found the poison hidden in your dressing table. I know what you intend to do, Vivienne, and I have taken precautions. Should anything happen to me, the evidence I’ve gathered will find its way into the proper hands.

But I’ve learned one thing during my investigations that I cannot explain. Before their deaths, each of your husbands reported hearing strange sounds in the night. Scratching at their doors. Footsteps in empty rooms. Voices whispering their names.

I have begun hearing them, too.

Last night, I heard Edward’s voice. He told me that the dead do not forget.

And neither, my dear Vivienne, do they forgive.

Vivienne stared at the words. Jonathan had known about the poison. He had known about the others. And yet she had watched him drink from his glass and collapse before her eyes.

She refolded the letter with trembling fingers, trying to steady her thoughts. Perhaps someone had discovered Jonathan’s suspicions and was attempting to frighten her. Perhaps the entire letter was a fabrication.

She turned toward the headstone, intending to retrieve her candle and leave.

That was when she noticed the writing.

Scratched into the back of the stone, just below the weathered edge, were six words:

YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE COME.

Vivienne stumbled backward. She was certain those words had not been there when she arrived.

The candle flame flickered violently.

Beyond the circle of light, a figure stood between two headstones. A woman wore a long, old-fashioned dress, its pale fabric stained with earth. Her dark hair hung loose around her shoulders, and her face remained hidden in shadow.

“Who’s there?” Vivienne demanded.

The figure did not move.

Vivienne stepped backward, clutching the letter to her chest. “I asked you a question.”

Slowly, the woman raised her head. Her face was young, perhaps twenty-five, but her eyes were terribly old.

Vivienne knew those eyes. She had seen them in a portrait above Edward Ashcroft’s mantelpiece.

“Eleanor?”

The woman shook her head. “My mother is dead.”

Vivienne felt the blood drain from her face. “The child…”

“My name is Margaret.”

The young woman stepped into the candlelight. “You sent me away when I was five years old. You told my father I was a burden. And when he died, you made certain there was nothing left for me.”

Vivienne struggled to regain her composure. “Margaret, whatever you’ve been told—”

“I know everything.”

Margaret’s voice was quiet, almost gentle. “Jonathan was my uncle. He spent years gathering evidence against you. He thought that if he could make you believe he was another wealthy, unsuspecting husband, you would eventually reveal yourself.”

“Then he was a fool,” Vivienne said, her fear giving way to anger. “He suspected me, yet he drank the wine.”

“My uncle knew you were going to kill him,” Margaret said. “He believed he had taken every precaution. But he never imagined you would act so soon.”

Vivienne glanced toward Jonathan’s grave. “Then he should have been more careful.”

“Perhaps,” Margaret replied. “But there’s something you should know. Since the night he died, I’ve been hearing his voice.”

Vivienne felt a chill run through her. “That’s impossible.”

“At first, I thought grief was playing tricks on me. But then I began hearing other voices. Men I had never met, speaking names I recognized from my uncle’s investigations.”

Margaret looked toward the three older graves beneath the oak tree. “Edward. Charles. William.”

A faint tapping came from beneath Jonathan’s headstone.

Margaret turned back to Vivienne. “They’ve been waiting for you.”

A cold wind moved through the cemetery, carrying the smell of damp earth. Vivienne heard something scraping against the inside of Jonathan’s coffin, followed by a long, hollow groan. Behind her, the soil above Edward’s grave began to crack. Then Charles’s. Then William’s.

She stumbled backward, her heart pounding. For the first time in her life, Vivienne Blackwood understood what it meant to be afraid.

“No,” she whispered.

The candle flame guttered in the wind, casting wild shadows across the headstones. Vivienne turned toward the cemetery gates. They were closed, and Margaret stood beside them, motionless.

“You don’t understand,” Vivienne cried. “I never meant—”

The words died in her throat.

From Jonathan’s grave came a sound like a long, ragged breath.

The candle went out.

For a moment, darkness swallowed everything. Then, in the pale moonlight, Vivienne saw four figures standing among the headstones.

Their faces were hidden, but she recognized them by their clothes. Edward’s riding coat. Charles’s dark waistcoat. William’s familiar walking stick.

And Jonathan, still dressed in the suit she had chosen for his burial.

He stood closest.

In his hand, he held a silver wineglass.

Vivienne tried to scream, but no sound came. Jonathan extended the glass toward her. In its depths, a small amount of dark liquid caught the moonlight.

“Your turn,” he whispered.

Then the figures began to move.

The following morning, the cemetery caretaker discovered a black candle standing upright before Jonathan Blackwood’s grave. Beside it lay a torn envelope and a letter, its ink blurred beyond recognition.

There was no sign of Vivienne.

The police questioned Margaret Ashcroft, who insisted she had spent Halloween night alone at home. No one had seen her enter or leave the cemetery, and there was no evidence to contradict her account.

In the weeks that followed, rumors spread through the village. Some believed Vivienne had fled after discovering that her crimes were about to be exposed. Others claimed she had finally met someone more dangerous than herself.

The caretaker never offered an opinion. But every morning, as he made his rounds, he noticed something peculiar about the old cemetery.

Four graves remained undisturbed beneath the trees. And between them, stretched across the branches of the ancient oak, hung a single spiderweb that seemed to grow larger with each passing day.

At its center rested a black widow spider, its abdomen marked with a crimson hourglass.

Sometimes, just before sunrise, the caretaker could have sworn he heard a woman’s voice drifting from the web. A faint, desperate whisper.

Let me go.

But no one was there. And the spider never moved.