Mother of the Spiders: Octagon

1. Leslie (Thread One)

[Each chapter of Octagon corresponds to a song that inspired the shape of the character arc and/or story arc. You can listen to each chapter's "song" to gain further insight into the world-building of Gossamer Loom and the people who live there. I definitely had fun listening to these songs while I was writing the novel. Chapter 1's "Formation Song" is "Creep" by Radiohead.]

As the Johnsons wound their way through the mountains toward Gossamer Loom, the landscape outside the car shifted from the bustling cityscapes they had left behind to the serene, tree-covered hills of Vermont. The air was crisp, and the first hints of autumn painted the leaves with strokes of orange and red. In the back seat, 12-year-old Leslie Johnson had her earbuds in—"Creep" by Radiohead playing faintly in her ears.

I DON'T CARE IF IT HURTS

I WANT TO HAVE CONTROL

I WANT A PERFECT BODY

I WANT A PERFECT SOUL

The past year had been difficult for Leslie. She had struggled at her old school. The other kids... hadn't taken a liking to her, to put it lightly. Moving to Gossamer Loom was about Leslie's mom, Helen, getting a fresh start in the town where she had grown up. But Leslie felt that it was about her own fresh start, too.

Leslie was filled with a rush of excitement. If she had seen landscapes like these before, she hadn't been paying attention. It felt like they were being welcomed into a secret, hidden world. Would she really get to live in a place that looked like this?

Leslie noticed her parents starting to talk quietly in the front. She paused the song, pretending to still be listening to it.

In the passenger seat, Helen had her gaze fixed on the road ahead, but her thoughts were clearly miles away. "I really need this to work, Robert," she said, her voice tinged with a frail optimism. "I feel like I'm barely holding it together some days..."

Robert glanced at her, his hands steady on the wheel as he navigated a sharp curve. "It's going to be okay. Gossamer Loom is exactly what you need—it'll be good for all of us."

Leslie didn't know all the details of what had happened, but she knew enough to understand that her mother's breakdown had been serious. Helen was fragile, even if she tried her best to hide it. And Leslie knew there was something else hanging over her mother's head. Leslie knew it was making Helen's breakdown especially painful.

Caroline. Aunt Caroline. Helen's sister.

Helen never explained what had happened to Caroline, but this is what Leslie had gathered: Aunt Caroline had also moved back to Gossamer Loom in adulthood, after suffering her own "incident." But soon after moving back, Aunt Caroline had been deemed insane and locked away in a mental hospital by a "really great" doctor who was doing "everything he could" for her. And now that Helen had suffered her own breakdown, it wasn't hard to understand why she was freaked.

Though Leslie knew her mother had no idea she was eavesdropping, she was still taken aback by what Helen said next; it was as if she was picking up on Leslie's thoughts from the back seat, almost commenting on them somehow. "I'm afraid they'll compare me to her, Robert. The people in town."

"Her" meaning Caroline. Auntie Lunatic.

Robert reached over, squeezing Helen's hand gently. "You're nothing like your sister. No one will think that."