Kind to Spiders

As Myrtle swept the floors of the small cottage, she was always careful to allow little ‘soldiers’, as she liked to call them, time to escape the broom’s bristles. She would encounter the tiny spiders hiding in the gap between the skirting and floorboards and when she swept out the dust from such places, they would dart from the pile back to their hiding spots as Myrtle watched with glee. At seventy seven years of age, she’d seen much of the world and the things in it, yet nothing so intriguing as the creatures inhabiting the cracks and crevices of largely unseen places. She dreamt of them sometimes, and in her dreams they spoke to her, not with mouth and tongue, but with the frantic movement of their legs. Occasionally, just after she rose in the morning, when the line between the real and immaterial was still thin, Myrtle fancied that she was the Spider Queen.

Hattie her sister on the other hand, did not entertain Myrtle’s romantic notions. The modest cottage by the sea was the one thing left to them by their father when he passed and Hattie wasn’t having it “overrun with vermin”. She poisoned rats, stomped on ants and sprayed every other insect she saw with a bright yellow hand-pumped flit gun. Where Myrtle was soft, short and round, Hattie was tall, spare and severe. Myrtle’s floral dresses attracted bees when she was in the garden, and Hattie’s attire, adorned with jagged shapes and coarse lines, caused the local dogs to bark when they saw her. If Hattie was the queen of anything, it was anger, meanness and spite.

The cottage consisted of one shared bedroom, a living space and a cosy kitchen. Outside, a stone path led to the garden, laundry, water closet and woodshed. Between them, Myrtle and Hattie kept the place spotless, dividing cleaning duties evenly. Yet, one spring, Hattie got it into her head that she could hear creepy crawlies scratching about in the walls, under the floors and in the ceiling. It kept her up at night and was all she could think about. Any visitors were chased away, lest they discover what a filthy cesspit old Hattie and Myrtle were living in. One day, when Hattie could take it no more, she put on her hat and flitted off to town as her sister watched from the front window. When she returned, she was armed to the teeth… with bug spray.

Myrtle bristled, then panicked, then followed Hattie around the house as her older sister pointed out each and every place she would target. She drew up plans on butcher’s paper, hanging them on every available wall. She was going to war and Myrtle knew that her precious spiders, along with every other wonderful, beautiful little beastie, would be forever wiped out. Myrtle wept for a time, but when her grief turned to anger, it all became clear: her sister had gone too far and needed correction. At the rising of the full moon, when the air took on a quality of surreal dread, Myrtle prayed. She prayed not to deities of the usual sort, but to the spiders themselves. She beseeched them to gather, to find strength in numbers, and together they would confront and lay their enemy low.

It was midnight when the drumming began; a subtle rhythm at first that soon grew in volume and tempo. It was the thundering of countless legs converging on a predetermined point: an army of spiders terrifying in its proportions. Hattie sat up in bed, the bedclothes drawn up over her gaping mouth, devoid of voice and breath. Myrtle sat up also, clapping her hands together and bouncing like a child on Christmas morn, as the writhing, black blanket of minuscule monsters poured in through the bedroom door, engulfing her sister. Hattie disappeared beneath the horde, and when they dispersed, there was nought left but sinew and gristle clinging to the remaining bones.

‘Oh, thank you!’ cried Myrtle, leaping onto the floor to find her little soldiers swirling about under her bed.

She chuckled as they collected at her feet. Her laughter ceased when they moved up over her ankles, under her shift and past her knees. Myrtle screamed when the army of spiders breached the space between her neck and jaw, falling silent when they entered her mouth, nose and ears. Myrtle fell to the ground: the creatures were in control now. They dragged her from the bedroom, across the cottage floor and out to the large, flat stones of the garden path. As they ferried Myrtle into the woodshed, they spoke to her in the language of spiders, articulated with the rapid movements of their legs. ‘You are our queen,’ they said. ‘As a special honour, our myriad offspring shall feast on your juice. May they inherit your strength and grandeur. Long live the queen.’