after all. His body is coated with something—gossamer, sticky, thick. Silken fibers hang from him in places like threads, as if he’s fraying.
Web?
David gulps, louder than intended.
The boy turns toward him, but his glazed eyes look through him. Nothing seems to register on his face. There’s no expression other than a blank, somber stare.
A webby rope grows taut on the boy’s ankle, dropping him to the ground face-first. He garbles into the grass—a strange, animalistic sound devoid of any sense—as if he’s forgotten how to talk.
The chatty little creatures of earlier scurry in—five of them—still arguing among themselves. They look like silvery spider monkeys with hairless hides. Bulbous eyes the color of nickels, with no pupils or irises, glimmer like coins in a wishing well.
Glossy slime oozes from their bald skin. The silver, oily droplets trail their footsteps and long, thin tails. All of them are wearing tiny miner’s caps. The lights bob around the clearing, a disorienting display, like glowing bubbles.
As they pass David’s rock, a putrid, meaty stench follows in their wake. They surround the fallen boy, hissing. One of them unwinds the web from the victim’s ankle and uses it to tie his hands at his back. The boy snaps his teeth in a vicious and feral attempt to break loose, though his face retains that unchanging, empty stare.
The closest creature tumbles back and then laughs—jagged, spiky teeth spreading wide in its primate face. It emits a disturbing sound somewhere between a purr and a growl, then jumps atop the boy, proceeding to stuff his mouth with web. The other silvery monkeys cheer their partner on, driven to glee by the defenseless boy’s choking sounds.
Nauseated by the gruesome spectacle, David slings his goggles at the group to distract them, then jumps out from his hiding place.
“En garde!” he shouts, and swipes his sword at the silvery creatures in an attempt to frighten them away.
They screech in unison and squirm into some hedges nearby. Whimpers shake the leaves, followed by flashes of light from their caps.
David sheathes his sword and stoops beside the boy, releasing his binds.
“Yous-es aughtent shouldn’t do it, talker,” one of the creatures warns in an airy and threatening singsong voice. “The gardener omescay on the ayway.” The others snicker in response, causing the shrubs to rattle, but then they grow disturbingly silent, as if listening for something.
Gardener? David keeps an eye trained on them as he continues to untie the boy. Uncle William niggles in the back of his mind. David hopes his other family members have found the old man by now. One thing he knows: Uncle William and his father both would want him to do the right thing. He took an oath to protect all humanity from the magi-kind, and this boy obviously needs protecting.
So intent on his inner battle, he doesn’t see the giant hovering shadow until he hears the haunting song:
“The itsy-bitsy spider went up the water spout,” an eerie voice croons from above.
His shoulders grow chill in the same instant his eyes snap up—too late. The horrific sight mesmerizes him.
A human-size spider hangs upside down overhead. The top half is female—translucent face with scars and bloody scratches scattered all across her purplish lips, cheeks, chin, and temples. Her silvery hair hangs down in thick coils, nearly reaching David’s head. Her bottom half is a black widow’s, five times bigger than the size of the medicine balls the knights use to build muscles and stamina. She’s balanced on a strand of web affixed to the branches, and it glistens like her hungry blue eyes. Eight shiny spider legs bend around the anchor line, both terrifying and graceful.
David considers drawing his sword, but he’s frozen with awe and fear.
She brings her left arm down, and it almost looks human, aside from the garden shears in place of a hand.
Gardener. The word taunts David, biting at him, nudging him back into the moment.
Snip, snip, snip. The whisk of the scissors wakes David completely from his trance. He crab-walks backward, pulse racing as the blades barely miss his face.
The spidery woman alights delicately onto the ground in front of him.
Terror skitters through his nervous system—a thousand icy sparks igniting chill bumps along his skin. Before he can right himself and run, a thick spray of web encases him from his feet to his thighs, catching up his sheath and rendering his sword hidden and useless. David totters off balance and flattens to the ground, right next to the boy he tried to