To Catch the Spider

I wake up by the side of the lake, the moon hanging high and low, reflected upon the still water. There is a soft chill in the air, the first sign of summer’s retreat into autumn.

My face. I must see my face.

Scrambling, I move to the edge of the earth, thrusting my head over the crevice into the inky black void of water and silt.

A face greets mine. A beautiful, comely face of tanned chiseled features, a ribbon of golden strawberry wine cresting my scalp and face, delicate but firm. A scarf of blue wrapped gently about my neck, swaying gracefully in the breeze. I reach one of my leathery hands, worn from years of service and training up to that face...my face...and let the sensation of touch fill me.

My face. My face is lovely.

Of course it is. I am lovely. I am beautiful.

Slowly, my memories begin to return. I was walking down the beach...is it called a beach when it is a lake? Blast it. The shore? Yes, the shore. I was walking along the shore to meet someone. I was with…

I lean backward and fall on my rear, a delightful sensation, one I have always enjoyed. The brief moment of panic as it feels like falling into an abyss only to feel the earth meet your flesh, cradling you as a mother does her child.

A horse. There was a horse here. I rub my chin as I look about for the beast to no avail. It had been…

Bloody hell, what happened? What brought me to the place of earth and water? What drove me to leave my home and safety to an evening of...debauchery? No, I don't feel drunk. I just feel the grass and the soul and a little worm wriggling its way between my fingers.

Interesting sensation, that. I pick the little beastie up and watch it wave about in the glistening white, little specks of dirt clinging to its pink flesh.

As I watch, a memory floats to the top of my mind, a bit of a poem my mother would sing to me.

"There was an old lady who swallowed a fly…"

Why?

I don't know why she swallowed the fly. Perhaps she'll die.

A rather dark ending. Though as I watch the worm struggle against my fingers, searching for the safety of the ground, I realize how silly that story was. No single fly would kill an old lady. Nor would the fly be truly dead, when you think about it. It would become part of the lady, absorbed by her body to create something new. Something fresh. Something stronger.

I shake my head and gently lay the worm back on the land, and watch as it is absorbed back into the earth, its tail waving a hearty goodbye.

I press my fingers and hands into the grass again and lift myself upward. I feel the crumbs of soil and gently wipe them on my tunic, before letting them drop back to the earth to be absorbed like the worm.

I am wearing a rather fancy outfit it seems. Deep blue with an ascot of sorts, or a scarf. No, it’s definitely a scarf. I remember putting it on. I put it on along with my tunic and my leggings and my vest, all similar hues of blue and green so that I might be unseen unless looked for. Deep aquatic shades of velvet and silk. My boots are of the finest leather, buckles around them and my waste of silver. I'll deal with them later.

But I have some trouble recalling why I came out here in such attire. Seems fancy for such a time of night and such a location with naught but a horse.

I hear it whinny in a back part of my mind, along with the familiar sound of a dog snarling. Or yapping. Can’t tell which. Perhaps they are reacting to the footsteps I hear in the brush behind me.

I turn, looking up into the wooded hills from where the sounds emanated. Above them, the pillars of a luxurious mansion, its flags flapping majestically in the moonlight. Mine? Certainly it seems to match the fine outfit I am wearing. But I do not remember being in that building. I remember the outer walls of the structure. I recall trying to climb its bricks to get to a window to see something. Someone? Yes, someone who wanted to see me, who was waiting for me. I remember leaving a rose on their window. I remember being embraced and…

Falling. I remember falling when the guards arrived and reached for me. I had lost my grip.

But I don't think...no I was fine. I landed on a stack of hay and managed to evade capture. Because it was not my mansion but hers. Or rather her family's, of which I was not part. Of which I wish to be a part of.

There was an old lady who swallowed a fly.

No, that wasn't what I wished. I close my eyes as the footsteps grow louder, the creaking of branches and leaves.

What was I coming here for?

She emerges at the thought, a beautiful young lady with midnight hair and eyes the size of the very moon which hovers over the lake. Memories flood me, and I recall her like I have just witnessed an angel of God bringing life to his faithful. I see her on the parapet of her home, waving as I parade across her family's keep, my armor flashing a silvery blue steel, our eyes connecting for the very first time, my heart swelling into itself. Love in our first interaction. I recall the many stolen glances and secret flowers, letters written upon petals and leaves. Jokes, songs, stories, poems.

A scream erupts from my heart, but I hold it in place.

She is my love.

She and I are meant to be one.

She sees me in the moonlight and walks gingerly across the rocky shore to my patch of dirt. In her hands is a single rose. The very rose I left before my escape.

"Ser Jerome," she says with an air of civility and dignity with which I am unused to being addressed. "You came."

Ah, so that is my name. Memories unlocked that had previously been withheld. Clever keeping that. But no matter. I am Ser Jerome, knight of these lands, slayer of...giants? Really? That seems a bit exaggerated. Lover of...blast her name is not there.

But the memory of the rose is still present, the memory of falling for her, falling from her balcony, falling toward the earth.

What a lovely sensation.

I step forward despite the screaming in my ears and put forth a smile. Gentle and kind, yet firm. Her eyes widen and her smile matches mine.

"It was my invitation," I whisper. "Of course I came."

"I wasn't sure," she whispers back, her eyes locked on me, her hips swaying to and from, her lily white dress swaying in the moonlight. Not entirely conspicuous. "But you told me such sweet things that no one has told me before. I had to see you. No matter what Father…" she trails off, eyes darting downward.

Trap! screams a voice in my head. It’s a trap!

I quiet the voice. Somewhere a cat hisses.

"Your father," I begin, "does not...enjoy my presence."

She looks back at me and rolls her eyes the way young girls in love often do.

"Father says I am too young to be courting young knights. He says I am still a wee lass, a princess. I told him that he shall have no say in my decisions regarding love. But he still forbids you from entering the gates."

I'd rather like to see him try. She truly is beautiful. Such pleasant memories associated with her. Such lovely interactions. Her being forbidden makes it all the more enticing. I would have her, despite her father’s expectations. That is for certain.

You shall not!

Shh you.

"Shall we walk among the stars," she asks. I do not think she means what she said. To walk among the stars? I have seen the heavens unfold in ways she could only dream. I have seen colors the mind could not comprehend or even imagine. I have witnessed life develop…

Oh. She means to walk along the shore with me, as we have done many times before.

Where did that other memory stir from?

I hear the tightening of strings as my many legs pull in what I assumed was prey. I feel the webs ensure me as a spider moves in for the…

There was an old woman who swallowed a fly.

I look again, at the girl, at the love, and nod. We set off into the moonlight. Together but not.

"Where is Copernicus?" she asks sweetly.

Memory of my latest ride. A horse waiting for its master at the edge of the wall. A man walking toward me, limping from a great height, tiny cuts from a flower he stole from another girl’s home.

Yes, my horse's name is Copernicus.

But what is her name? Why won't you let me recall her name?

"He is here," I say as I hear his snorting farther back than the screams that accompany it.

She looks about. "I see him not, my love," she says with a smile. Wonderful. So absolutely wonderful.

The moon casts our shadows upon the rocks like giants stepping across the sea to distant lands.

Genuinely, I wonder what a giant might taste like.

How does the rest of the poem go?

Are giants one of the things the old lady ate? And if so, what were they eaten to catch?

"He is here," I say again. "But he is not here all the same. He rests."

"I simply find it strange that you are not with Copernicus," she says, her hands behind her back, doing that enticing sway. Just her name. I just want her name.

Never.

You are not here anymore.

Still never.

I don't need it. I simply want it.

Then I will not give it to you.

"Copernicus is waiting a ways off. He will be reunited with us soon." I gesture toward the woods. She glances in the general direction which seems to satisfy her curiosity.

"Tell me, Ser Jerome. What adventures hast thou come to me with? Regale me."

Memories. My memories. My…

"Just last week I traversed the great plains to fetch a boon for your father," I begin, thinking back into the crevices in my mind. "Copernicus and I searched for an ancient grave. Our journey took us into the dark woods of yonder."

"I have heard a tale that a witch lives within those woods."

"No longer," I reply with a smile on my face. "Though there was an old lady who swallowed a fly."

"Just like the poem of which my mother spoke!" The girl says this while clasping her hands together in pure joy. "Did she then eat a spider to catch the fly?" We stop. She stops to look at us.

"To...catch the fly?" I ask.

"For certain," she giggles. "She swallowed the spider to catch the fly." She pulls the rose out and takes a deep sniff. "She of course swallowed many more beasts to try to get the fly. What was it now?" She looks down and searches her memory. I opt to do likewise, searching for her name.

There is silence between us as we hold our breath.

"So...there was an old lady who swallowed a cow...she swallowed the cow to get the dog, to get a cat, to catch a bird, to seize the spider, to get the fly. Then she eats a horse and is dead. Of course." She laughs, the most beautiful music to my ears. Oh how I want. "Did ye find such a woman on your travels?"

"No," I reply. "I mean yes, but that’s not the poem."

She looks at me with those deep eyes, now filled with the annoyance of a big sister. I remain rooted, letting her scent fill me. I feel him now, clawing at me, filling me with his hatred.

"Of course it is, Ser Jerome. It is the same song my mother sang to me as a baby. She would look me and say, 'Meredith, let me sing you the song of the lady who swallowed a fly…’"

No! the scream comes.

Yes.

"No," I say firmly. "She did not swallow the spider to catch the fly. She swallowed the fly to catch the spider, to tempt a bird, to entice the cat, to lure the dog, to take the cow, to engulf the horse…"

"Whatever the reason, she is dead of course," Meredith, my love, giggles yet again, yet the laughter is not without a hint of nervousness.

"To devour a knight. Oh what a fright to devour a knight," I pause at this and reach out a hand toward her cheek. She steps back. Why?

"You…" she peers closer into my eyes. "You...are not my Jerome are you."

My hand rests on her cheek and I let the process begin. My fingers start to melt into her flesh, and I slide my palm over her lips. Our flesh seals her lips shut. She pulls away, tugs and tears but my process is already too far gone for that. She pulls me down onto the stone shore and my face falls close to her ears.

I feel her screams meld with Jerome's who is in the recesses of our mind.

"She devoured the knight to partake of the girl," I whisper. Her eyes are saucers of the moon, shifting left right and center as our flesh becomes something more than she was alone, like a worm absorbed by the earth that bore it. I feast on her screams which echo in the chambers of my heart. I draw her closer to me, her face sliding into my face. "She partakes of the girl...to swallow the world."

Jerome screams. The horse, Copernicus, whinnies as the world becomes occupied with another soul. The cow bellows, as the dog whimpers, as the cat yowls, as the bird chirps, as the spider cringes, as the fly flees, as the old lady laughs.

The girl feels her bones and blood empty into me as the process makes us one complete being and all of me screams in delight as her whole essence becomes me.

I wake up by the side of the lake, the moon hanging low, half reflected upon the still water. There is a soft chill in the air, the first sign of summer's retreat into autumn.

My face. I must see my face.

Scrambling, I move to the edge of the earth, thrusting my head over the crevice into the inky black void of water and silt.

I see the eyes of a princess, her hair dark as the night is vast, her lips fresh and eager to smile. Her screams echo in the labyrinth of my mind as a chorus of beings fills us to the brim.

We stand and turn toward the mansion, excited to make it beyond those walls, into the loving arms of Meredith's parents, my parents. Love absorbed into ourself, her memories becoming unlocked as Jerome's were unlocked in that dark wood only a few days before.

"There was an old lady who swallowed the world," we sing as we begin the journey back toward those walls of which memories flood our very essence.