Webs

5

Rennold sat in the parlor with a few candles glowing among the small tables, casting a shine across the figurines that watched him paint. He had brought the easel from his study to look out the parlor window, which gave the landscape a moonlit glow.

He had replicated the field and shrubs, the large trees scattered in the distance, highlighting the details with a pale blue glow. Now he began to paint the things he wanted to see there. This spark of imagination was new, and he was enjoying the different paths his mind had set on. Wolves roamed the hillsides, a few small in the distance, some with their noses to the ground. The largest wolf was drawn in close view, Rennold tracing the scrunch of the beast's nose as its large jaws came to life, staring at the viewer with an ominous red hue.

He had been working on the piece all day, his eyes tiring and hand slipping. Finally, he put his tools away in his study. He snuffed out the candle on the desk, eyes grazing across the windows when the dark revealed a different glow in the distance.

A green glow bright enough to reach his eyes came from Alysia Field's estate. He squinted, rubbing his eyelids. The glow remained. Rennold grabbed his telescope and pointed it at the house. He could see the structure, the tiles on the pointed roof, the frame of the windows covered by a shade thin enough to extend the green behind it but thick enough to reveal nothing that was occurring within. Suddenly, the view through the scope became blocked and he looked away from the eyepiece to see a wolf spider crawling across the lens.

Rennold jumped back from the telescope and the spider dropped to the ground. It turned and darted for him; a small leg-filled shadow cast across the floor that looked even larger than the arachnid itself. He smashed his feet across the floor in the direction of the spider which ran to the other side of the room, disappearing under one of the bookcases. He looked back at the window and saw the glass raised at the bottom, a small opening where a line of wolf spiders were crawling into the room.

A gasp escaped Rennold and he shut the window immediately, then quickly backed away as the spiders crawled towards him.

"No no no no!" he shouted as he backed away, feet stamping and kicking as he tried to keep the spiders from crawling across his feet. He squashed some, kicked a few across the room, and did not quit dancing across the floor until the movement of all things stopped. He stood in the middle of his study, dark hair falling over his face, eyes wide as he looked across the patches of moonlight and shadow, waiting for another spider to dart out of the darkness. He was sure he did not kill all of them.

"Roger?"

Catherine stood in the door to his study, robe wrapped around her and tangled hair falling over her shoulders. "What on earth are you doing in here? You woke me up."

Rennold tried to release a breath from his chest.

"I'm sorry. There was a spider in here."

"Did you kill it?" Catherine's eyes were widening at what must have been a large bug to frighten her husband.

"Yes. Go back to bed. I'm sorry I woke you."

When the study door was shut and Catherine's footsteps retreated upstairs, Rennold did a walk around the study, the hairs on the back of his neck sticking up as he brushed his feet into the darkness, waiting for an 8-legged shape to come at him. After going through the whole study, finding nothing, he tried to convince himself they were all gone. He continued to tell himself this as he went upstairs, trying to resist the nerves and what if? thoughts racking his brain.

Before he got into bed, he looked through one of the upstairs windows, across the estate to Alysia Fields' house. He could barely see the shape; the green glow was gone.