Character · Book 6, The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

Shi Maria

The Screamer, the Widow Endless, the Bedlam Bride, MaeMae to Samantha: a level-140 Reaper Spider Minion and demigod banished from the celestial realm to a Cuban swamp because, legend has it, she killed and ate her husband, a killing she does not remember, with a fifth eye that blinds and maddens and a human head on a putty neck. She swallows Samantha, weeps on cue, bargains her way into Donut's deck for a ride to Larracos, eats six heads off a hydra, and, combined with Carl by a misfired card, tattoos herself above his sternum with ink made from a root and a friend's blood. 'Either way, I win.'

Segment appearances

• Chapter 8 — The Bedlam Bride
• Chapter 25 — The crab trap
• Chapter 26 — MaeMae
• Chapter 27 — Phase two rules
• Chapter 28 — Rude-Dolph
• Chapter 29 — Der Schachmeister
• Chapter 30 — Four drugs
• Chapter 31 — The corridor behind the shops
• Chapter 34 — Family business
• Chapter 37 — The eye of the Bedlam Bride
• Chapter 39 — Lazarus-A-Bang-Bang
• Chapter 41 — Jola the Yule Cat
• Chapter 42 — Sharp-Elbows
• Chapter 46 — The Reminiscence Hydra
• Chapter 47 — Operation Slut Stomp
• Chapter 50 — Homestead
• Chapter 57 — Samantha's secret
• Chapter 58 — Amayon
• Chapter 70 — Golden Combo
• Chapter 71 — The Eye of the Bedlam Bride
• Chapter 72 — Falling Up

Arc

The swamp

Samantha's captor and best friend, who swallowed her and lets her plan (ch. 8); the Screamer of the Bahamas book, a banished demigod who may have eaten her husband (ch. 25); tears on cue, a fifth eye Carl feels closed, a whisper that quotes Odette's advice back at him: 'You know what I want, and that gives you power over me' (ch. 26). She wants a ride to Larracos.

The card

Kills her own healer in a mall, eats a herd from the sky, opens her eye on Carl through a simulation (ch. 28); plucks a gorgon's snakes and kisses her (ch. 29); jealous of Lazarus's entrance (ch. 39); eats six heads off a hydra and, eye open, muffles Asher's echo: 'Soon, soon you will do something for me' (ch. 46).

The tattoo

A Golden Combo meant for Alpha Carl lands on Carl; for three minutes she wears him, reads his inventory, burns a hole through a building, eats Li Jun's eye with his hand, and pokes an eye into his chest with ink from a root: 'I am a part of you […] Either way, I win' (ch. 71). Donut tears her card; the quest stays (ch. 72).

The title

The book is named for her three times over: the demigod in the swamp looking for her husband (ch. 8), banished, legend has it, for eating him (ch. 25), and a Reaper Spider Minion (ch. 26); Odette's people's proverb about the blinding eye of obsession, which Odette has stared into twice (ch. 37); and the eye itself, opened on Carl in a simulation, on a hydra, and last as a tattoo above his sternum (ch. 28, ch. 46, ch. 70–ch. 72). The bestiary's warning: 'Beware her lies' (ch. 25).