\nSpider Bait held the morning in his hands. The brilliant blue and white sunlight thick and new pooled together on the surface of the dewdrop in the basin of his palms. He drank it in.\n<\/p>\n
\nIt was still early, still just morning on the first day of the rest of his life, and the first sunny day after an unusual bout of rains. That, he thought, was surely a fortunate sign.\n<\/p>\n
\nSpider Bait wasn\u2019t a particularly fortunate name, especially if your mother was known to be prophet-able, but he was the youngest sprite of a hefty group of five, and his parents had stoked up a solid hatred for one another by the time he came along, so he was never quite sure if the name was meant to be a curse or the predictor of a tragic fate. The fact that he had grown up in the orphan log despite having two living parents made him think it was probably the former.\n<\/p>\n
\nProbably.\n<\/p>\n
\nIt was on top of the orphan log, still damp with rainwater, that he sat now, waiting for the rest of the meadow to wake and knitting with a pair of wooden needles and a pale ball of silk in his lap. He watched several spiderlings disperse on the morning wind, translating the dawn in signals of light reflecting from their ballooning webs and paid no mind to the shadow descending behind him, sprouting eight slender arms.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe had grown up envying the courage of little spiders, to drift away into the unknown and make their own lives far from the place they were born, with no one but themselves to decide the course of their life. It was frightening. It was tempting. Especially to a little sprite who couldn’t quite understand why he wasn’t living in the lavender with the rest of his brothers and sisters, with his mother and father.\n<\/p>\n
\nBut that would all change today.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cMy own flower,\u201d Spider Bait said, mostly to himself, but also to the shadow looming over him, its darkness made harsher, its edges sharpened by the crisp light of this bright day. Its slender legs formed a cage around him, a grasping hand. \u201cMy own home,\u201d he continued, as the dampness of his present one seeped into his ass.\n<\/p>\n
\nWhen he turned, he found himself reflected in four black eyes, round and staring and larger than his head. There were four more somewhere on the top of her head. He and the spider towering over him regarded one another for a long moment, the long lengths of her jewel green fangs just inches from his shoulder. Then he realized he\u2019d lost count of his stitches.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cDon\u2019t look so confused, I\u2019ve been telling you for months.\u201d He carefully counted the stitches of his current knit row, and Hop moved up, beside, and around him. \u201cNo more orphan log for me. No more termites or rotting wood or Brother Clod\u2019s acorn cakes. Or all the other unwanted Sprites,\u201d he added, mostly to himself.\n<\/p>\n
\nBecause it didn\u2019t matter if you were wanted or not. It didn\u2019t matter if your dad hated your mother and she hated him back, but you were somehow their fifth child. It didn\u2019t matter if they couldn\u2019t stop arguing long enough to decide who should feed you breakfast or dinner or put the roof over your head. It didn\u2019t matter if they scrapped over every petal gone toward his clothes because they felt more about each other than they did about him. It was a fortnight until mid-spring, and that meant a new round of sprites would receive their Inheritance – the plant or flower under which their fathers had buried their caul on the day of their birth and would become their home and industry for the rest of their lives. He would come into his own, and no longer have to rely on them or the kindness of Brother Clod. He would provide for himself.\n<\/p>\n
\nNo one knew for sure where their caul was planted. It was a secret until Inheritance day, but they all knew what they could reasonably expect. Misty Morning Clover would get their clover in the patch where eight generations of his family had lived; Mountain Shadow Rosemary their fragrant herb sprig in a frankly overgrown patch of it near the ditch. And of course Spider Bait\u2019s very best friend, Crab Killer Reed, would finally have her own by the creek.\n<\/p>\n
\nBut he, well. He was Spider Bait Lavender, wasn\u2019t he? As much as his parents loathed one another, they were both from the lavender field. It was no contest, no guessing where his Inheritance would be.\n<\/p>\n
\nOh, it was going to smell so much better than the log. And just think of the things a sprite could trade with that. He\u2019d been preparing, planning for his mid-spring Offering every damp, horrid night in this dark, rotting bit of oak. There were good textiles in petals, especially when they came in coveted shades. And a good, dried flower bud could make a fine tea, especially if there was a merger involved, which reminded him that he needed to apologize to Moon Light Chamomile for suggesting that his birth parent had been too lazy to provide them with two given names and had instead separated one word.\n<\/p>\n
\nBut there would be plenty of time for building bridges and burying the old rat bone hatchet later. This was a good day. A sunny day after weeks of gloom. Who knew, he might even enjoy seeing his parents. Spider Bait balled up his knitting and rose to his feet.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI\u2019ll see you at my flower-warming later,\u201d he said, and immediately slipped off the damp, mossy surface of the oak. From his back in the weed patch, he saw Hop look down at him with her usual cocked head. \u201cMuch later,\u201d he added, or everyone would run off screaming. He picked himself up, brushing off as much dirt as he could from his withering clothes and trying not to think about the damp spot on his ass. \u201cAnd you know, a bit of silk would make a nice present now that I can count my stitches in blessed silence for once.\u201d With that, he went into the orphan log for the last time, where he discovered that Brother Clod and the littlest sprites had made him a going away berry cake, which they had to scarf down while saying their goodbyes and farewells and we\u2019ll-miss-yous around choking mouthfuls because the termites were swarming.\n<\/p>\n
\nOf course they were.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nAll the sprites of Spider Bait\u2019s generation gathered under the lowest branch of the largest oak. It stretched out from the trunk of the tree like one thick artery, briefly dipping into the ground before skimming the forest floor in a table that they would all gather around in a fortnight. After Inheritance, it was each sprite\u2019s responsibility to prove to the peers of their generation how they would contribute to their trade and the continuation of a healthy meadowland industry, and this was the stage upon which they would present it.\n<\/p>\n
\nAlso food.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe said half-hearted hellos to familiar faces and received distracted good-to-see-yous in return. Spider Bait had never made many friends. There was only Hop and one other sprite who didn\u2019t mind the smell of mold and musk that clung to all log-dwellers, probably because she smelled worse than him anyway. It was she that he looked for now, since he didn\u2019t have anyone else to mingle with while they all waited upon the arrival of their parents.\n<\/p>\n
\nCrab Killer found him first, wrestling him into a one-armed hug – she was strong for someone who\u2019d lost a limb to a particularly mighty mud-bug, which was, of course, extremely cool. \u201cI\u2019m going to bring back a great big one to boil, just for you, Spider,\u201d she said, and her voice was deep and sharp as a river stone.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe couldn\u2019t wait.\n<\/p>\n
\nNormally, he was against eating the rear ends of things, but he made a special exception for crawfish.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cSpider Bait,\u201d he corrected. \u201cI\u2019d give your other arm for a crawfish boil,\u201d he said, with an awkward laugh to indicate that he was joking, though she didn\u2019t appear to care either way.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThat one got a lucky snip,\u201d she said, boxing at him with her whole arm and the nub. \u201cI know all their tricks now.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI know,\u201d Spider Bait said. Crawfish slaying was Crab Killer Reed\u2019s family business, though her dream was to take down a crab and live up to her name.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cOne day,\u201d she said, in the same tone of voice that one might talk about finding true love.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI was thinking I\u2019d bring back some lavender,\u201d Spider Bait said to change the subject, and realized that was a stupid thing to say because of course that was what he would be bringing. \u201cYou know, like, the buds. I want to dry them out and give tea making a try.\u201d He hoped the process wouldn\u2019t take longer than the requisite two weeks. He was going to have to find that out. \u201cJust for you,\u201d he added, because it seemed polite after she\u2019d dedicated a crawfish to him and everything, though he wasn\u2019t certain if Crab Killer had any particular fondness for teas.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cYou will not,\u201d said Mountain Shadow, hardly sparing a glance. \u201cYou were a surprise shit in the field, Spider. Your dad probably buried your caul under some dead grass because he was just as drunk as your mom.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cSpider Bait,\u201d Spider Bait said. \u201cAnd how would you know? You weren\u2019t there.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nFor a moment, Mountain Shadow was quiet. \u201cStill not going to bring back any dried anything, I\u2019m sure,\u201d she muttered.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhich reminds me,\u201d Spider Bait started, turning to Moon Light who was passing nearby.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI\u2019m not getting involved in your herbal tea scheme,\u201d they replied without stopping and soon mingled into another cluster of sprites.\n<\/p>\n
\nParents trickled into the shadow of the oak not long after, leading their sprite children away one at a time with happy, hopeful words. With, \u201cCome, let\u2019s show you,\u201d and \u201cRight next to us!\u201d It wasn\u2019t long before Spider Bait found himself alone in the stirring leaf litter. Well, except for Hop, who had parked herself up somewhere in the branches and was watching from above. Probably watching. He couldn\u2019t see her just then and gave a thumbs up in the general direction that he had last spied her to show that he was definitely not nervous. There was no way his parents weren\u2019t going to come, even if they didn\u2019t ever want to see each other again. This was one of those moments where you had to set your ego aside and come together for your child.\n<\/p>\n
\nLike you had never, not once done before.\n<\/p>\n
\nBut this. This was just too big. This was his livelihood. His Inheritance. His destiny for the rest of his life, decided in the same moment that he\u2019d burst through the first threshold of life, which was now part of the soil on which he would erect the final threshold of home. This was the way it had been since, well, the beginning of time, he assumed, and he was definitely not starting to panic.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cSpider Bait, dear,\u201d he heard, and never in his life had he been so relieved to hear the voice of his mother. She gave the clearing under the oak a once over, noting his solitude, no doubt. \u201cI can\u2019t believe your dad isn\u2019t here yet, the good-for-nothing bastard.\u201d She yanked him into a hug before he could escape, then pulled back with a look of disgust. Some of the scarf he\u2019d knit from Hop\u2019s silk had come apart in her hands. It was always doing that. \u201cWhat are you wearing?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIt\u2019s – \u201c\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cSpider,\u201d his dad said, dipping his head toward Spider Bait\u2019s mother. \u201cMorning,\u201d he said to her by way of acknowledgment, which worked both as a stingy greeting and also happened to be his mother\u2019s first name. She greeted him back with only a glare.\n<\/p>\n
\n“It\u2019s Spider Bait, actually -”\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cYou kept us waiting here all day, you know,\u201d his mother accused, but before Spider Bait could point out that she had only just arrived herself, his dad called her a lying, old whore.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cYou\u2019re lucky I came here at all.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhat\u2019s that supposed to mean?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nOh, oaks, this old argument. \u201cCould we just – \u201c\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cStill insisting this one\u2019s mine? He looks nothing like me.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhat, you don\u2019t recognize your own stupid face when you see it?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nThey went back and forth at each other\u2019s throats while Spider Bait nervously picked apart the thin, ephemeral threads of his latest scarf until there was nothing left of it or his patience. \u201cIf you\u2019ll just take me to my flower now, we never have to speak to each other again!\u201d he shouted over them.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWell,\u201d his dad said after a few moments passed. The older sprite kicked at a bit of leaf litter underfoot and avoided looking at Spider Bait. \u201cTo tell you the truth – with the name and all – I hadn\u2019t really expected you to. Live. This long.\u201d Then he paused long enough that Spider Bait began to worry his father was about to admit to something terrible, like that he\u2019d lit the caul on fire or thrown it in the creek. Or ate it. Spider Bait\u2019s face was still frozen in disgust when his dad finally continued. \u201cFollow me.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
\nThe thing about having parents who hated each other was that sometimes, oftentimes, in Spider Bait\u2019s experience, they forgot that you weren\u2019t responsible for either of them.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIt\u2019s\u2026\u201d He didn\u2019t know if he could finish.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cA weed!?\u201d his mother provided. \u201cA weed, Winter!?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nA dandelion, specifically. And it was covered in aphids, if she wanted to point out more obvious things. Spider Bait\u2019s mind couldn\u2019t decide whether he thought this was a joke, whether he ought to test how high a sprite could fall out of a tree without dying, and wondering whether anyone, in the whole history of the meadow, had ever made anything out of a dandelion.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cYou see?\u201d his mother continued. His father, duty concluded, was already walking off back toward the lavender. The lavender that should have been Spider Bait\u2019s home. He\u2019d already had plans for it. \u201cYou see what an awful man he always was to us. Oaks, damn it, Spider!\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nHe could only look at her like the speechless, heartbroken, utterly terrified orphan that he was.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cOh, don\u2019t look at me that way,\u201d she said. \u201cYou know I\u2019m sorry about the name.\u201d Did he? He couldn\u2019t recall that she\u2019d ever apologized for it before, and that hadn\u2019t even been what he was thinking about at all, but now that she mentioned it –\n<\/p>\n
\nWell, she hugged him again, and a mother was a mother, after all.\n<\/p>\n
\nRight?\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cCould I\u2026?\u201d he began, unsure where the thought might be going. It was probably following his father. If Spider Bait smelled the breeze hard enough, that future still seemed real. \u201cCouldn\u2019t I just have one of the lavender flowers that are available? There are lots – \u201c\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cNo!\u201d his mother nearly screamed, as horrified as if he\u2019d just asked if he could go ahead and light the whole lavender patch on fire. \u201cNo! That\u2019s not – That\u2019s not how it\u2019s done. You can\u2019t own a flower if it\u2019s not got your caul in its roots, that\u2019s\u2026\u201d Now her face curled in upon itself like he\u2019d suggested pissing on an oak or marrying his sister. \u201cYou can\u2019t live here though, can you,\u201d she said, her voice softening. \u201cWhat will you do? Go back to the log?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cNo, no, it\u2019ll be alright,\u201d he said, glancing at the dandelion. He wasn\u2019t sure if he was comforting his mother or himself, but he would feed himself to a termite if he had to go back to the log.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWell,\u201d his mother said, looking at his withering clothes and his equally withering spirit. \u201cI could – bring you a fresh petal?\u201d She offered it in the form of a question because even he knew how embarrassing it was to have to rely on your parents after Inheritance day.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cNo.\u201d He squinted up, wondering how well those thin, yellow petals would hold up as a shirt and trousers. He wasn\u2019t much of a tailor. \u201cNo, I don\u2019t want that.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nWith nothing else to say or offer, his mother fell back on her usual mode of conversation, disparaging his father. \u201cTake this anyway,\u201d she said when she\u2019d worn herself out, no doubt ready to spread her newly ignited outrage among her friends and the family back at the lavender. She handed him a clay jug of lavender wine. \u201cFlower-warming gift,\u201d she said and sighed. \u201cAnd I think it\u2019s just what you need, right about now.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nHe looked inside it when she’d taken her leave and was touched to find that it was full.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nHop snacked on the aphids consolingly, but she wasn\u2019t hungry enough for all of them.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThanks,\u201d Spider Bait said, then commenced getting blackout, dandelion-forgettingly drunk.\n<\/p>\n
\nIt took him two days to finish the jug, and he knew it would have taken his mother only one. He didn\u2019t know if that made him feel more or less ashamed.\n<\/p>\n
\nThis wasn’t what he had prepared his whole life for. Oaks and elders, he had to make something useful out of this stupid, yellow weed, waving its stupid face all around at the stupid sun in just twelve days.\n<\/p>\n
\nMake that eleven.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe\u2019d spent the third day horribly hungover while Hop watched over him from the new hammock of soft silk she had spun under one of the long ground leaves. Spider Bait was lying in the dirt underneath it, contemplating what to do while knitting.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe aphids had made building a home in the stem, as he ought to have begun three days ago, impossible, so he was unspeakably grateful for Hop\u2019s industriousness, not just because she had moved the supply of spider silk straight to him and he could stitch nervously for hours, but maybe she wouldn\u2019t mind a roommate.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWonder if anyone\u2019s got any ladybug pups they\u2019re looking to find a home for,\u201d Spider Bait mused threateningly at the aphids.\n<\/p>\n
\nSo really, without the ability to build himself a home, which might have occupied him the first few days of his independence, eleven days to come up with an industry for the dandelion was probably right on track. Nothing to worry about.\n<\/p>\n
\nExcept that his clothes had torn during these past drunken days and where they had been withering before, they were now beginning to brown. And smell. He pinched a bit of silk from Hop\u2019s hammock and kept stitching.\n<\/p>\n
\nHer silk was so, so soft and fine and comforting, he thought as he tried to work up a swatch and considered making a shirt out of it. He quickly amended that ambition as the thread pulled gently apart in the middle of a purl stitch.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhat can you even do with a dandelion?\u201d he wondered aloud, even though Hop wouldn\u2019t know. She scuttled over to cock her head this way and that over the latest patch of her nest he had filched, churning her pedipalps thoughtfully. Or in annoyance.\n<\/p>\n
\nIt if weren\u2019t for the aphids, he could probably tap the stem. But then again, if it weren\u2019t for the aphids, he\u2019d have a proper home at least and besides, being a moonshiner had never been his dream.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe nibbled a little of the ground leaf for lunch and considered that while it made a passable shelter, it was oaks damned hideous as a textile.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWell,\u201d he announced to Hop, setting down his knitting after another stitch casually separated itself before his sanity decided to follow suit. \u201cI\u2019d better get a closer look at those petals.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nSpider Bait muttered – \u201cew ew ew\u201d – the whole climb up the stalk. \u201cYou are literally snacking on my hopes and dreams,\u201d he told the aphids in between his audible disgust.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe\u2019d noticed that the dandelion closed up at night, but during the day, it was wide open and a shade of yellow he could only describe as blinding. Now, standing amid the burst of its petals and swaying in the breeze, he looked out at the sprawl of the meadow and its carpets of color. From here, he could track the slow march of white clouds in the cerulean sky, see the distant blue and purple of the lavender patch, and in between the two, a few more spiderlings dispersing on the wind. They drifted away from the woods behind him, out over the open field, and away. Spider Bait followed the path they were taking back toward the deep shadows of the tree line and a cluster of vine crawling up the base of a nearby tallow tree. When he turned back, the spiderlings were mere specks in the distance.\n<\/p>\n
\nLate bloomers, he thought wistfully, envying their sturdy silk.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\n\u201cThis isn\u2019t so bad,\u201d Spider Bait said to Hop when he crawled back down the stem with one of the smallest, inner petals from the flower. Sure, it was flat and shapeless compared to a lavender or bluebell petal – now those were fashionable – and yellow wasn\u2019t really in but he thought it just might do.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe wrestled with the unfamiliar, uninspired shape of it from afternoon into the evening, thinking that he really was more of a weaver than a tailor, and just before nightfall would have halted his efforts, he held up his new shirt in the rosy twilight and announced.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cShit, it\u2019s unwearable.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nThe sleeves were two different sizes and the torso was askew. He tried to pull it on over his head anyway and ripped it.\n<\/p>\n
\nThat was OK. This was OK. There were plenty of petals up there, and he just had to get the hang of this. He\u2019d collect a few more tomorrow and try again.\n<\/p>\n
\nHop backed up into her hammock, her large eyes round and dark and shining blue in the falling shadows.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cMind if I room with you for tonight?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nAnd so, he crawled under her head and slept in the warm, windless down of Hop\u2019s nest, curled beneath her abdomen, and thought that it really wasn\u2019t so bad to sleep with a spider.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nHe was wrong.\n<\/p>\n
\nIt turned out spiders didn\u2019t sleep, but he was grateful anyway when he emerged from under the ground leaves the next morning, rubbing at his sandy eyes.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe looked up and rubbed them again for good measure.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe flower was closed, even though the sun was a great big golden yolk bursting over the meadow.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cHello!\u201d he called up at it belligerently. \u201cSome of us have work to do!\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nTen days. Just ten days left to prove himself and the flower – that he was currently kicking. \u201cWake up!\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nMaybe dandelions weren\u2019t morning flowers. Maybe they opened up around midday like teenagers or drunks. But as the hours passed, the top of it seemed to curl tighter into a fist, crushing his hopes and dreams for good.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe ran under the ground leaves.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cHop, there are no petals,\u201d he said, and it came out almost as one word. \u201cI think it\u2019s dying.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nHop churned her pedipalps in worry. Or indifference.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI know!\u201d he shouted, then knit furiously and futilely for several hours before he was sure the damn flower must have had enough sunlight to open. If it wasn\u2019t utterly doomed.\n<\/p>\n
\nIt was still closed.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cTomorrow,\u201d he said. \u201cSurely tomorrow.\u201d He crawled back into Hop\u2019s hammock, and even though it was only early evening, she retreated into it too, settling her comforting weight on top of him.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nThe flower was still closed the next morning.\n<\/p>\n
\nNine days.\n<\/p>\n
\nNine days!\n<\/p>\n
\nHe couldn\u2019t wait any longer.\n<\/p>\n
\nTea had been the plan, hadn\u2019t it, he thought, looking around at the leaves he\u2019d been nibbling. Maybe that could still work. It wasn\u2019t flower buds or pretty smelling herbs, but maybe he\u2019d be surprised, and dandelion tea would turn out to be the most delicious of any variety, even his dreamed up herbal medleys, the meadow had ever produced or tasted. That would show Mountain Shadow and Moon Light.\n<\/p>\n
\nOr maybe subpar teas needed to exist so you could better appreciate ones like lavender and chamomile. Either way, he spent the whole morning sawing off one of the ground leaves and digging up pungent strands of fiber out of the stalk with a rat bone knife Crab Killer had once gifted him.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cOaks and elders,\u201d he said to himself. It was so much bigger than a flower bud. It took him all of the morning with a makeshift harness about his shoulders to drag it to the tallow tree to hang in the shadows there. He had meant the harness to be for Hop initially, endeavoring to enlist her help since she was twice his size and had double the limbs, but she had only stared at him sideways with her dark, round eyes as he tried to explain. She did follow him across the meadow though, so at least he had company.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI ought to drop it, don\u2019t you think?\u201d he asked her as she scuttled and jumped after and around him. \u201cJust drop it and walk off somewhere. To some other meadow.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nBut he couldn\u2019t do that. Could he?\n<\/p>\n
\nNo.\n<\/p>\n
\nHis caul was here. His family, however horrendous, was here and that had to count for something. Crab Killer and crawfish were here. Hop was here.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe couldn\u2019t just leave and spend the rest of his life alone, maybe. There could be other sprites out there. Maybe. Ones who had other ideas about economy and community, but he didn\u2019t know what those might be or where to find them or anything at all about economy, really. Maybe this was how it worked everywhere.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe shitty home you knew was better than the\u2026 possible not-home somewhere else.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe was pondering this as he climbed into the branches of the tallow tree, searching for a thick, shady spot near the trunk that would still get a breeze, when something glinted in his eyes. Just for a second.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe squinted up into the tree. Then nearly fell out of it.\n<\/p>\n
\nUp in the branch above him was the largest, most expansive spiderweb he had ever seen. It was an honest to oaks web, not like the soft, nesting silk that Hop made. The fine silver strands moved gently in the breeze, but held their shape.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnd also, square in the middle of it, was the largest spider he had ever seen. Her legs were black and banded with yellow, paired up so that they made a neat and formidable x.\n<\/p>\n
\nSpider Bait thought of what he could made with good, sturdy silk like that, but then remembered his name and his mildly prophetic mother. He tore his eyes away and tied his leaves with more haste and focus while Hop scuttled over and underneath the branch, seemingly oblivious to the spider twenty times her size overhead.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nIt rained the next day.\n<\/p>\n
\nOf course it rained when the leaves were supposed to be drying, and he was just sure that the wind was splattering it all over the tallow tree.\n<\/p>\n
\nSpider Bait didn\u2019t bother leaving Hop\u2019s hammock.\n<\/p>\n
\nThere were still eight days to go.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nIt rained the next day too, and he languished some more in the hammock, idly trying and failing to spin Hop\u2019s silk into stronger strands.\n<\/p>\n
\nWhat else could he do?\n<\/p>\n
\nMaybe there was something to be done with dandelion roots, but it was plain bad luck to dig up your caul flower.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe was still considering it – how much worse could his luck possibly get? – when Hop re-entered the shelter of the ground leaves, wearing a raindrop hat to cheer him up.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnd it worked.\n<\/p>\n
\nBriefly.\n<\/p>\n
\nSeven days.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe covered his face in his hands so he couldn\u2019t see her anymore or her hat and groaned into his palms. At this rate, he was going to show up to the Offering naked and empty-handed. There was only a loincloth left of the lavender flower petal because he couldn\u2019t quite bring himself to abandon propriety altogether, no matter how much the rotting petal had begun to smell.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cMaybe Crab Killer will marry me,\u201d he said. She was happy enough in her own trade and didn\u2019t really need another\u2019s Offering. He could learn to wear reed leaves and he\u2019d raise her babies while she was out hunting down a crab and achieving her dreams.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe also really loved a good bit of crawfish.\n<\/p>\n
\nBut it wasn\u2019t his dream. It wouldn\u2019t ever quite be his idea of home. It would never quite be his own.\n<\/p>\n
\nSo he fell asleep, thinking – marriage, only if there was no other option.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnd maybe not even then.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nThe next day was cloudy and the ground was wet, but Spider Bait trekked across the meadow to the tallow tree. To check on the leaf, he told Hop. And told himself. It wasn\u2019t to see if the spider had moved on and left her magnificent web behind.\n<\/p>\n
\nWhen the two of them passed under the shadow of the branches, into the circle of leaf litter and the rich smell of the damp soil, he saw that it was actually worse than he had feared.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe roots and branches of the tree were soft and dark, the inner leaves still dripped as they shivered in the wind, and the leaf he had hung to dry from the lowest branch was nowhere to be seen.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe spider was gone too, her web likely blown away in whatever gale had taken his leaf. Spider Bait curled down, trembling with the wet and chill to crouch over the leaf litter and hug his knees. In a moment, he felt Hop\u2019s pedipalps bop him comfortingly on the head.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIt isn\u2019t any use,\u201d he told her, but she kept on. He\u2019d failed at tea. And flowers. And petals. He\u2019d failed at having a home and even clothes. His peers didn\u2019t want him. His parents didn\u2019t want him, and as much as he tried to remind himself that it didn\u2019t matter because he didn\u2019t like them either, there were times like this when it felt like just one more box he couldn\u2019t check.\n<\/p>\n
\nWhat was wrong with him?\n<\/p>\n
\nIt was when he lifted his head to wipe the rainwater from his face that he saw it. That same little slice of light that had pricked him the last time he had been under this tree.\n<\/p>\n
\nShe was not in the same place she had been before, but up further in the tree. The orb weaver\u2019s web was new and jeweled in dew. Just looking at it, he thought of the comforting repetition of knitting, the tangible weight of progress pooling in his lap, the turning of a single, straight thread into the highs and lows of stitches.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe couldn\u2019t make tea. But he knew what he could make.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI\u2019ll be right back,\u201d he said, ducking from under Hop\u2019s limbs. But she didn\u2019t stay. She followed him up into the tree, jumping from branch to branch in powerful bounds almost too quick for him to see.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe orb weaver was a gargantuan x in the center of her web, patient and still. Hop inched nearer to him, her gaze cocked curiously. Or disapprovingly.\n<\/p>\n
\nSpider Bait tested the bottom left corner of the web, sawing at a strand with the rat bone knife. The weaver stirred, turning on impossibly long legs that ended in dark, delicate hooks.\n<\/p>\n
\nHer strike was almost as quick as Hop’s jump.\n<\/p>\n
\nAlmost.\n<\/p>\n
\nSpider Bait had time to recoil, falling down to the branch below, with his heart pounding, a fistful of silk – strong silk – and a terrible idea.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe orb weaver hadn\u2019t left her web. She rested now in the corner he\u2019d just abandoned. Hop peaked over the side of the branch at him.\n<\/p>\n
\nSpider Bait crawled up to the bottom right corner and began gathering silk from that edge. Hop waved her two front legs at him wildly, and when the orb weaver lunged after the disturbance in her web again, Spider Bait only backed up, pushing his back against Hop\u2019s face. There was part of him that was sure his theory would work, and another, larger portion that waited for the larger spider to spring straight off the web and snatch him in her hooks and the crescents of her fangs.\n<\/p>\n
\nBut that didn\u2019t happen. His laugh was much more relief than amusement, and now Hop\u2019s waving was much more frantic, motherly and scolding. \u201cAlright,\u201d he said. She had a point. He didn\u2019t want to take too much from either side and ruin the integrity of the web. It was still the orb weaver\u2019s after all, and if he ruined it, she might move on and leave him with no sturdy silk at all.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe started spooling the silk in his hands into something he could carry, imagining what he might be able to knit with it.\n<\/p>\n
\nImagining what he could make with just a little more.\n<\/p>\n
\nIf it worked\u2026\n<\/p>\n
\nIf it worked, he wouldn\u2019t need a flower at all.\n<\/p>\n
\nSpider Bait climbed to the branch just above the web. Hop barely paused in her constant signal of danger to spring after him.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cShe\u2019s all the way down there,\u201d Spider Bait whispered to her as he started sawing a few strands off the top. He worked as quickly as he could, hands trembling with nerves. The orb weaver was already turning, getting ready to rush the staggering size of her body toward him. If he worked fast enough, he might manage to get enough for –\n<\/p>\n
\nHe yelped as he slipped on the soft, slick wood of the damp branch and went tumbling down. He passed under the belly of the orb weaver on her way up to the top of the web, and for one wild moment, he thought he might fall all the way down, missing the crisscrossing of rain-dotted silk and plunge into the branches below.\n<\/p>\n
\nBut then he stopped falling, caught in the thin strands that were just as strong as he had hoped they would be.\n<\/p>\n
\nHis first instinct was to slash at the webbing sticking to him, hoping to fall out of it completely, but it didn\u2019t take long for reason to catch up. Above him, the orb weaver was turning. Above him, Hop was waving her little arms into the air, scurrying futilely around the edges of the web. Spider Bait tried to be still, but he couldn\u2019t stop the quivering of his nerves.\n<\/p>\n
\nWhen he met the spider\u2019s great and many eyes that had turned right upon him, he heard himself muttering, \u201cHophophophophop,\u201d in a harsh whisper.\n<\/p>\n
\nThere was nothing left but to keep sawing. Threads came loose one, two, three at a time, but too few, too slow.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe barely saw the movement of those deft and deadly legs as they sprang toward him one last time, and he closed his eyes tight. Nothing that big should move that fast. \u201cHop!\u201d he shouted, shrill and loud enough to overcome the rustle of the leaves all around them.\n<\/p>\n
\nThen silence.\n<\/p>\n
\nThere wasn\u2019t any pain. Just the cold prickle of fear in his fingertips. The silence gave way to the sound of his own blood in his ears, and then even that subsided until he could hear the jagged shuddering of his breath. He opened his eyes and found himself reflected on the surface of four dark, familiar ones, knowing there were four other smaller ones, hidden on the other side of her head.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cHop?\u201d he said, but she didn\u2019t seem to see him. Her pedipalps didn\u2019t move. The sound of his own sob shocked him back into action, and he sawed himself free while the orb weaver carried away Hop\u2019s curling body. He lay where he fell in the criss-crossing shade, weeping into the rough bark of a tallow tree branch beneath his cheek. Fear cocooned him. Grief took hold and drained him until the loud keen of his despair turned into silence, into nothing more than the creak of the branches above and around him.\n<\/p>\n
\nTwilight roused him only as much as the rising shadows, and he walked back to the dandelion, alone.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nFour days went by in a blur. Spider Bait slept in Hop\u2019s empty hammock, tucked in the last of her soft silk.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe drew the orb weaver silk through his hands. It would be uncomfortable but sturdy, where Hop\u2019s had always been so downy, like feather white clouds falling apart in his hands.\n<\/p>\n
\nBut there were only three days left, and he had to make something.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nSpider Bait smelled spice on the wind from across the meadow, but it failed to inspire his stomach. Or his heart. Or his limbs.\n<\/p>\n
\nThere was little of Hop\u2019s hammock left around him, a tattered pale thing in the shade of the ground leaves. Shafts of morning speared the ground around them, leaving footprints of bright brown between the blankets of deep blue shadow.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe rose the way that plants did from seed, with the motivation of rain falling from a gravid sky, simply because he had to, and steeled himself to go to the oak clearing, where that dipping branch was no doubt laden in bright color and rich scent, with the purples and pinks of petal textiles, the earthy browns of woody stems carved into useful tools, the cups of liquors, and in the center of it all, the red of Crab Killer\u2019s impressive crawfish, with its articulated tail split and bursting with pale, boiled meat, steaming in the fecund air.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe would enter that clearing with a meager offering that was not of his flower, not his caul. Over his shoulders, down past his waist, hung a cloak and tunic of mingled threads. He had not settled for the harsh, sturdy reality of the orb weaver silk, but held it double with the comfort and hope of Hop\u2019s soft one. It was durable. It was wearable, only when he\u2019d married them together. But not something he could recreate for everyone.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe\u2019d made a swatch of it anyway, to place on the rough surface of the oak branch, and he held it in his hands as he walked out from under the leaves, looking back only to curse the cursed flower that had taken Hop from him some more.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnd stopped.\n<\/p>\n
\nThere, the dandelion flower had bloomed again. But different.\n<\/p>\n
\nGone were the butter-yellow petals, thick and many, and in their place were stems topped in a white-like spider silk, in the symmetry of a hundred little webs.\n<\/p>\n
\nSpider Bait scrambled up the stalk, ewing and ugh-ing at the aphids, but then he stood on the little rounded platform that had once been the center of his flower from which, now, so made seeds had sprouted. Their canopy spread above him, like a little forest, with sunlight dappling down.\n<\/p>\n
\nWhen the wind came, he stumbled into the stem of a dandelion seed and held on, while many of them lifted loose around him. He opened his eyes when the gust passed, and wondered if this was the answer. If this was something the other sprites might accept for the Offering\u2014an umbrella? A fan? He didn\u2019t know, but he\u2019d have to harvest them all and soon if he didn\u2019t want them blowing away.\n<\/p>\n
\nExcept.\n<\/p>\n
\nExcept he could track the path of the seeds, going gently up and away on the breeze. He watched them the same way he watched the spiderlings disperse.\n<\/p>\n
\nWhat if, he thought, his grip tightening on the seed he\u2019d used to steady himself.\n<\/p>\n
\nThen loosened.\n<\/p>\n
\nNo.\n<\/p>\n
\nThis was his home. His family, what it was, was here. His peers were here. The things he knew were here.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnd they sucked.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe put his hand around the seed again a second to steady himself and pull it up. It was something to bring them, if nothing else.\n<\/p>\n
\nSomething to bring, like the spider silk swatch in his pocket.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe knew what the outcome would be. He could anticipate the disgust and the disappointment or worse –\n<\/p>\n
\nThe pity.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe knew what his life would be like here. It was in the weight of the humiliation he would shoulder when he entered that clearing. It was in the bickering of his parents over who had ruined him more. It was possibly becoming the next Brother Clod.\n<\/p>\n
\nWhat he didn\u2019t know was what it might be like out there. What sort of life might be tethered to the other end of the wind.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe had watched so many spiderlings drift away on blooms of silk with the same kind of wild hope. So he gripped the seed, ready to hold on.\n<\/p>\n
\nOr to pull.\n<\/p>\n
\nPull it back with him to the oak clearing that was just there in the distance.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe was scared, he realized. Of course he was. Who wouldn\u2019t be? But the wind was stirring again, and he was no more scared than he had been, watching the orb weaver plunge toward him.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe looked back at the oak. Loosened his resolve again. And when he gripped the dandelion seed one last time, it was not with a fist that might yank, but both arms, in embrace.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe breathed deep of the spiced wind, of the taste and comfort of familiarity, no matter how it might fall apart. And when the world lifted beneath him, when his spider silk cloak and the dandelion seed caught the breeze, he reached for the future, thirsty, with his hands full of the sky.\n<\/p>\n
E. N. Dawson is a full time, queer, tattooed librarian and part time swamp hag writing and living in Louisiana’s left big toe with their husband, two kids, honestly too many cats, and a handful of crabs because why not.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Spider Bait held the morning in his hands. The brilliant blue and white sunlight thick and new pooled together on the surface of the dewdrop in the basin of his palms. He drank it in. It was still early, still just morning on the first day of the rest of his life, and the first …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":108129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20191],"tags":[20193],"class_list":["post-140859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-tcl-55-spring-2025","tag-the-colored-lens-55-spring-2025","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/108129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=140859"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140860,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140859\/revisions\/140860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=140859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=140859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=140859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}