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The child is Asian, and somehow I am responsible for her. She is maybe three years old, and her hand is warm and safe in mine – or rather, I feel safe with her. We walk out of the building – a dizzying estate of some kind – and down garden paths in the dark. Between low stone walls, thick with English wrought-iron gates and accompanying ivy, we pass over broken bricks and weave through green clearings, ever farther from the light.
The moon is full, and soon is all that illumines our passing. The child is fearless; it is I who fear.
***
Walls give way to trees; ivy to brambles, and soon we are moving through a thicket, dodging thorns, feeling the threat and startle of every dark thing that belongs to the enchanted night. The world is monochrome, lines of black ink, moon-dappled. And then before me is a grand orb, with its weaver: a fat white spider, worthy of Frost, and wrapped for dining, a struggling fairy. When I reach, the spider catches the end of my hair and holds it, dragging my head into the web.
Only the child can touch the web without harm, and pulls me back.
The moon is full, and soon is all that illumines our passing. The child is fearless; it is I who fear.
***
Walls give way to trees; ivy to brambles, and soon we are moving through a thicket, dodging thorns, feeling the threat and startle of every dark thing that belongs to the enchanted night. The world is monochrome, lines of black ink, moon-dappled. And then before me is a grand orb, with its weaver: a fat white spider, worthy of Frost, and wrapped for dining, a struggling fairy. When I reach, the spider catches the end of my hair and holds it, dragging my head into the web.
Only the child can touch the web without harm, and pulls me back.
