The Spider Children (The Warren Brood Book 1)

by Bartholomew Lander

  She’d nearly reached the top when her knee smashed into the corner of a maliciously aligned beam. She cursed as one hand and half of her extra appendages went to her throbbing kneecap. Cause of unease identified. She’d been up in the attic fewer than ten times in her sixteen years, but that damn beam got her every time. When she could move again, she grabbed the edge with her foremost appendages and leapt nimbly up to the floor, allowing the trapdoor to fall closed behind her with a thunk. The electric light of the house below vanished, leaving only a dull glow from outside.

  The setting sun out the faux-crystal window gleamed, painting the surrounding forests in brilliant greens and golds, but the attic was as dark as a grotto. Spinneretta found the chain to the light and gave it a quick tug. The hanging bulb flickered to life, banishing the Halloween palette with an ancient yellow glow. Eyes adjusting to the new hue, she glanced around, scanning the chests and boxes that sat in uneven stacks along the slanting walls. Now, where would I be if I was a family tree?

  She approached one of the chests at random and undid its latches. The lid creaked as she lifted it, and a fresh swirl of dust billowed up from its depths. She fought the urge to sneeze, and when the cloud dispersed she turned her attention back to the trove of papers and folders within.

  “Did you find it?” came a muffled voice from below the hatch in the floor.

  “Not yet,” Spinneretta called back.

  The jarring sound of creaking wood came, and the trapdoor popped open again. Pushing the hatch into its upright position, her mother climbed up onto the floor, wobbling as she found her footing. Spinneretta noted bitterly that she’d avoided the damned beam.

  “Did you check the memento chest?” May asked.

  “Which one? They’re all memento chests.”

  “The one with all the old papers.”

  Spinneretta gestured quizzically to the mouth of the open trunk.

  “No, no, not that one.”

  “Well, then which?”

  May hummed a low note and looked about the room. “Let’s see. If memory serves me, then . . . ” She gave another musical hum and set about rummaging through a stack of boxes against the other wall. Spinneretta watched, half-mesmerized by her mother’s certainty, as May grabbed a small chest and heaved it several feet out from the wall, leaving a trail of angry dust in its wake. “Ta-da! This should be it.” In triumph, she unfastened the rusted latches and pulled the lid open.

  To Spinneretta’s untrained eye, the contents were identical to the first footlocker she’d opened, but a high note her mother sang dispelled her doubts.

  May began to sift through the folders and files with a guided purpose. “Let’s see, I believe this’ll be a good starting point for my family.” She pulled a thick file from the document prison, checked the first few sheets, and passed them into Spinneretta’s waiting hands. “And if I’m not mistaken, your dad’s tree should be . . . Huh. It should be here. Right here, between family recipes and . . . That’s weird.”

  Spinneretta glanced over the aged surface of the folder in her hands. Her fingers felt filthy having touched it. “Is it missing?”

  Her mother clicked her tongue in frustration. “Somebody probably misplaced it. God, I came up with this organization system for a reason! Who was even up here?”

  Spinneretta ignored her. She bent in close to examine the packed contents of the chest. How could anyone call such rampant paper-smashing organization? Her mother must have had ESP to find anything. As her eyes navigated the labyrinth of faded manila walls, something paper-clipped to one of the files caught her attention. She reached out and pulled it from the box. It was a flexible rectangular magnet with a light blue printing on one side. The printed side had a border resembling a set of intertwined ribbons framing a couplet in the center:

  The wolf in the warren, ravens overhead

  Three miles in bedlam, Arachne weaves her thread

  Spinneretta gazed at the magnet, unable to make heads or tails of what it was trying to convey. “What’s this?”

  Her mother gave a surprised laugh. “That,” she said, “is something I haven’t seen in forever. They’re the last lines from a poem I wrote a long time ago in college.” Her tone fell, and a nostalgic sigh seeped from between her lips. “It was probably the last good thing I ever wrote. After that, I just didn’t have the same inspiration. I was so proud of it at the time that I immortalized it in magnet form. Don’t remember why I put it away up here, though.”

  Spinneretta turned the magnet over in her hand and ran the tip of one of her spider legs over the back, feeling the age in its slick, rubbery surface. “What does it mean?”

  May shrugged. “It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just some pseudo-intellectual garbage I threw together for a contest.”

  The response made Spinneretta pause. She didn’t often doubt her mother, but the answer rang with insincerity. She didn’t find it likely that the occurrence of her surname in the text was just a coincidence.

  May leaned in close and chuckled. “Hey, you want to know a little secret?”

  A profound sense of dread began to solidify in Spinneretta’s stomach. “Secret? What secret?”

  “Because of that poem,” May whispered, “we almost named you Arachne.”

  “Wh-what?” Spinneretta stared at her mother. Her lips trembled as she processed the words. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

  May smiled. “Nope! Lucky for you, we came up with something better, huh?”

  Spinneretta shook her head, but the heat was building. “Wait. Let me get this straight. You’re telling me that you were going to give me a name from Greek mythology—a name that people would at least understand—but instead settled on a pun on a spider’s ass?”

  Her mother beamed. “You bet we did! We couldn’t have named you Arachne because there was no imagination in it. Spinneretta just has such a cute ring to it, you know?”

  The anger shook her fingers until they threatened to crumple the stack of papers within the age-stiffened envelope. “No, it doesn’t! It’s not even a name, it’s a misspelled noun! You gave Arthr and Kara normal names. Mostly. How is that fair? Why did only I get stuck with a fake name? You couldn’t even give me a reasonable middle name, what the hell is up with that?”

  May giggled. “You’re our special little girl and I love you very much.” She bent over to kiss Spinneretta’s forehead, leaving her stunned. And when her mother stood back up, she let out a long sigh. “Now where the hell are those records? I swear I’ll crucify whoever moved them. I guess I’m going to stay up here and look a bit harder. Is that enough to get started on your project?”

  Spinneretta grumbled. “Yeah.” She returned to the open hatch in the floor. Fighting with her mom was useless, but hearing how close she’d been to having a half-reasonable name made her want to scream. Folder and papers heavy in her hands, she lowered herself through the trapdoor, spider legs grappling the edges as her feet scrambled for the rungs of the ladder. The dust-smell of the attic started to fade as she rappelled downward, and that transition alone made her feel a little better.

  Just a year and a half to go, she thought. Sarah Warren, here I come.

  Spinneretta made her way to the study, a small but cozy room beside the stairs leading up to the second floor. Three of the study’s walls were lined with bookshelves housing countless assorted volumes. One end of the room was home to a wide hardwood desk where her father used to work when deadlines drew near. The times when he had the luxury of crunch-time debugging at home, however, were far in the past. Spinneretta was now the only member of the family who used the room with any regularity.

  She flopped onto the small faux-leather couch and opened the file containing the archived history of the Wolf family. The folder was thick enough that, with a little luck, she wouldn’t even need the Warren side to write a C-grade essay with minimal effort. She began to sift through the unorganized evidence of generations past, finding the inelegant, type-written font offensive to the
eye.

  A few minutes later, the door flew open with a bang. Spinneretta was too used to the intrusion to be startled by it, and didn’t bother looking up when Arthr pushed his way into the room.

  “It’s Friday night,” her brother said in mock disbelief. “And you’re studying. I knew you were lame, Spins, but I didn’t think you were that lame.”

  “That joke gets funnier every single time you use it.” She hoped against all hope that he’d just leave.

  Arthr, the only male among the Warren children, had grown taller and faster than Spinneretta; at fifteen, he now towered above her by half a head. Like her, he had their father’s russet eyes and their mother’s lean figure.

  As if satisfied by her remark, Arthr’s snide expression vanished. He crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe, his biceps flexing. His messy brown hair flopped into his eyes. “What are you studying, anyway?”

  “Grade project. Thought I’d get a head start on it.”

  He stretched his spider legs outward, the joints rattling and popping. “Can’t blame ya. Not like you’ve got anything better to do.”

  “Mm.” Experience said that the only way to get her brother off her back was to deprive him of the reaction he sought. The hypothesis held, and after a few moments of ignoring his latest prod he sighed in resignation.

  “Well, whatever. I’m outta here. Tell Mom I’m out with the guys,” he said, turning around.

  “Wait a second, I thought you were still grounded for punching that kid in the nose.”

  He gave an arrogant shrug. “Oh well.”

  She snickered. “Would you prefer I just tell her you’re out bird-watching?” The way he froze in the doorway confirmed her suspicion.

  “Tell her what you want. If you must know, we’re going to do some sprints. Gotta keep in shape for the meet in Hedera next month.” He gave a smug grin over his shoulder and left the room. Despite his freshman status, Arthr was already making waves on the track team. The student body knew him not only as that guy with the spider legs who runs really fast but also as an unbeatable fighter hungry for glory. The twin reputations swelled his head like an oozing cyst.

  As usual, Spinneretta just let his bland elitism roll off her back. Though she loved running as well, Arthr always gloated about his competitive edge. But she didn’t care. She preferred to run at night, when there was nobody around to stare when she let her legs out to drink the night air. She couldn’t say why, but it was cathartic, and Arthr’s incessant superiority was a reasonable price for that.

  With a small huff, she turned back to her documents. Sprints. Like I’d believe that. She was certain he was going bird-watching, which was Arthrspeak for hitting on hot babes at the mall.

  To her chagrin, Arthr was bafflingly popular with the girls at school. She supposed he was reasonably attractive and all, but how shallow did they have to be to tolerate his attitude? And why did Arthr’s legs seem to attract girls instead of repelling them? Statistics made it clear that girls, in particular, were petrified of spiders. At first she’d assumed the girls chasing after him were doing so out of pity, mistaking his extra appendages for some terminal illness. But she believed that less and less as time went on and his fan club grew in size.

  A short while later, after reading an account of an ancestor by the name of Jeremiah Wolf, Spinneretta grew weary of her research. Setting aside the old documents, she gave her arms and spider legs a thorough stretch before heading out into the hall. The door creaked shut behind her just as her mother, now covered in a thin layer of dust, descended the stairs with a frown.

  “I swear to God I’m going to murder whoever moved those papers,” May said. “I can’t find them anywhere.”

  Spinneretta stretched her arms again and yawned. “Thanks for looking, but don’t burn yourself out over it. I’m pretty sure I can fake the parts I don’t have.” She tried to hide her genuine disappointment. She’d always wanted a closer look at her father’s bloodline, though she doubted any answers awaited her.

  Her mother sighed. “You can fake whatever you want, but now I have to find them just for the sake of it.” She started toward the kitchen, then turned on her heel. “Oh, I almost forgot, will you go find Kara for me? She’s not in her room and it’s about dinner time. I’m afraid she’s out spoiling her appetite again.”

  “Yeah, fine.” Spinneretta gave her legs another wide stretch in anticipation for the coming exercise. Knowing Kara, there was only one place she would be so close to dinner.

  People always commented that Spinneretta was every bit her mother’s child, and Arthr got the gender-swapped equivalent half as often. But Kara, with her blond hair and striking blue eyes, resembled neither parent to any meaningful degree. Without her slender build and arachnid qualities, she could have passed for a member of a totally different family.

  Now, Kara sat perched on one of the branches of her favorite tree, waiting with the patience of a chiseled gargoyle. Her six-segmented spider legs were planted at regular intervals across the bough, their tips sinking just beneath the bark. The smell of pine needles and the taste of sap on her legs reminded her of Christmas. She often found herself gravitating toward this tree in particular. Sitting in one of the upper branches above the house, she’d sometimes read and sometimes gaze off at the horizon with fanciful thoughts stirring in her head. Sometimes she’d do nothing at all, except close her eyes and bask in the wind.

  But now wasn’t one of those times.

  Teeth pressed together, two of her legs outstretched and tense, she waited for the moment she’d strike. Her line vibrated, and the air shifted subtly. Her lips parted in a vicious smile. Resin-like precursor began to flow from her second pair of fangs, the ones she alone had been born with. As the thick fluid pooled on her tongue, she couldn’t hold back a small shudder. It was the consistency of honey but tasted harsh and acrid.

  As her prey approached, her muscles tensed. Even her spindly arms and legs prepared themselves. A moment later, her line shook from the impact. Now! With an explosive exhalation, her loaded muscles sprang and launched her off the branch. In mid-pounce, she seized the feathered creature trapped in her taut net. As she tore it from the trap, her unoccupied legs spread and prepared to absorb the impact of landing. Her bones rattled as she touched down upon the roof, and then her legs went to work.

  While four of her pointed legs held the screech owl fast, her others began to hook and pull the thick substance from her mouth, stretching each captured gob into a silvery, amber-tinted wire of silk. Her legs danced around the owl, wrapping it until the feverish beating of its wings stopped. Once its wings were restrained and its legs bound, she began to apply the second layer of wrapping. She gave each new strand a second tug to stretch it into a finer and more aesthetically appealing coating for her new friend.

  Though Arthr and Spinneretta, too, were born with concealed fangs capable of secreting venom and digestive enzymes, only Kara was gifted with the second set further back in her mouth. While they may not have been true fangs, it was from these glands that she secreted a protein-rich precursor which she had, at a young age, learned to form into silk.

  As she finished her task, she admired her work and smiled that same devilish grin. She didn’t like eating owls. Not because they didn’t taste good, but because they were so cute. The feathery mess that was always left over didn’t help, either. But food was food, and at least it wasn’t a possum. She opened her mouth, preparing to sink her fangs into the owl.

  But before she could inject her acidic enzymes, a warning boomed from behind her. “Let the bird go, Kara.”

  She turned and found Spinneretta hanging from a pine branch by two pairs of her spider legs. The look on her face was not as reproachful as their mother’s would have been, but the firmness of her voice was a mood killer.

  “How did you find me?” Kara asked.

  Spinneretta gave a half-hearted shrug. “I hope you didn’t think you could be sneaky while jumping onto the roof from nine feet
up. Let the bird go.”

  “Oh, come on! I just caught it!”

  “It’s dinner time.” Spinneretta pulled herself up to sit upon the branch. “And Mom will probably do something awful to you if she finds another feather-pie in the gutter.”

  Kara sighed. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Spaghetti, I think.” Kara groaned, making Spinneretta laugh. “But I’m sure there’s some meat for you, too.”

  Kara sat for a moment, and then made a high-pitched whine in her throat. She swiped two of her anterior legs, splitting the pristine silk cocoon. The screech owl, hooting in a wild panic, stumbled free from the webbing. It made a short series of hops, trying to beat its bound wings, and then fumbled and rolled off the edge of the roof.

  “Poor thing,” Spinneretta said. She turned around and began to climb back toward the ground, probably to set the panicking bird free. “Be sure not to leave any silk up there or Mom will scream.”

  Kara grunted and stared at the pile of wasted silk. Yeah, like I’m cleaning anything up on an empty stomach. She pulled a stray strand of web from her blond hair before crawling to the eaves and rappelling down the side of the house.

  May, Spinneretta, and Kara were already at the dinner table when Ralph arrived home from work. May greeted him as usual, and he received her warmth with equal parts exhaustion and comfort.

  “How was work?” May asked, kissing him on the cheek.

  He glanced at his watch, and a defeated look came over his face. “Long as hell. You guys didn’t really wait for me, did you?”

  May smiled. “Of course!”

  Kara tapped the tips of her spider legs on the table in an impatient gesture, eying the red slab of raw beef on her plate. Spinneretta shot her a warning glare, but Kara didn’t see it.

  Ralph smiled over at the table, a sad glint in his eyes. “You really shouldn’t have. I ended up eating a while ago as we were tying up some loose ends.”