A Mischief in the Woodwork - By Harper Alexander Page 0,35

on my lips as blood welled from my finger, and I dunked it quickly in the washing water that sat stagnant in the sink. It eddied out in a dark halo, mixing with the ink-blot comets of blood that had dripped first. Carrot tops and onion peels sloshed on the surface of the water.

A spider sprang from his crack in the wall over the sink, emerging to sit on the wallpaper and watch me. I flinched, childishly, and eyed him as I rinsed clean the cut. He seemed content to watch me, so I turned my attention to my finger as I drew it out of the sullied water. A deep nick graced my fingerprint.

A hazy motion distracted me, and my finger blurred as my focus shifted to the backdrop of the wall. The spider was moving, crawling down the wall toward the sink. He alighted on the ledge that separated the wall from the sink, coming to its edge as if to taste the bloodied water – but instead, he jumped the whole sink entirely and was on me in an instant.

I jumped back, swatting at him, but he slipped into the folds of my clothing and ran along their lengths, finding his way safely to my arm. I brushed at him hastily, but he dodged around to my wrist and then ran up my finger, where, as I raised it in horror to shake him off, he set to work winding a swift web around the cut.

Horror stayed, I paused to watch, oddly fascinated now. The creepy-crawlies still pulsed inside me, but I put a conscious hold on instinct in order to let this odd twist play out.

The spider's spindly legs worked fast and purposefully, knitting a snug, invisible bandage around the last digit of my finger. I swallowed my aversion to the little creature, bemused but intrigued by his handiwork.

Then, abruptly finished, he crowded around on the tip of my finger and reached toward the counter.

Feeling obligated, I moved him closer, and he hopped across and scurried back to his hole in the wall.

Blinking as if I had surely imagined the episode, I stood there, alone in the kitchen. Then, brow furrowed, I leaned across the sink, hesitated, and peered into the crack.

My perspective was wrenched then, and suddenly it was as if I was the spider looking out. It was dark, and I was surrounded by rotting wood and filmy web, a great, jagged keyhole of light streaming in like a halo around a giant eye.

My eye.

I blinked the warp of perspective away, my eyelids stammering furiously, trying to quench the unbidden vision as I stumbled back. What had possessed me?

I eyed the wall, keeping a wary distance. Then I saw it: the perfect, frosty fingerprint pressed into the wallpaper next to the crack, where I had braced myself to peer in. Had the web transferred from my finger?

I held my finger up to my eye, finding it shimmery with the threads that still held my cut closed.

But when I glanced back to the wall, the fingerprint was growing. It was spreading like a crystal weed, its texture thickening as its pattern crawled outward. Then it was met by the same stuff coming out of the crack in the wall, and I recognized it – web. It was spider's web, but lots of it, and growing seemingly of its own accord, but with all the intricacy of the artist creature it belonged to.

It grew thick and white, spilling from the crack in the wall and spreading over the wallpaper, leveling onto the counter and the underside of the cabinets – as if the room was freezing over with a deviant manner of frost.

I grabbed the knife before it was overtaken on the counter, and backed away. My blood still shone on the blade, and I could see the reflection of the morphing room in the slight piece of metal. My grip tightened on the handle, ready to brandish it, preparing to cut through the stuff that was quickly taking over. I held it up, poised, and then saw in its blade the reflection of the wall behind me, where threads were spewing from another crack. I spun, feeling cornered, holding down a quizzical sense of panic. This wasn't happening.

Hadn't Tanen warned it could get worse? I recalled his words where they hovered in the back of my mind.

The web drew itself across the wall, quick like a pencil sketch, crafting itself into intricate, snowflake-like patterns. It