No Spider Harmed in the Making of this Book

An Anthology of Spiderlit for Arachne's Eighth Anniversary

Jennifer A McGowan, David Mathews, Sarah Lawson, Kate Foley, Maria Kyle, J A Hopper, Elizabeth Hopkinson, Cherry Potts

• Publisher: Arachne Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781909208940
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Stand up for the small and not especially cuddly!

Back in September 2019 we were inspired by Lady Hale and distracted by her spider brooch. Then we realised we were coming up to our 8th Anniversary in August 2020. What better way to celebrate than with a book of Spider related stories and poems?

Poets and authors from around the world responded in astonishing numbers to our call out for work that celebrates the spider, and in which the spider survives, triumphs, and provides a role model.
Our writers have given the nod to Anansi, Robert the Bruce, Miss Muffet, and of course, Arachne herself, as well as discovering whole new worlds of spider influence and metaphor, with many stories dipping into Fantasy and Science Fiction.
A joy for any arachnid fancier, and anyone who can't stand small lives being trampled, in prejudice or phobia.

Stories

Spiders I Have Known

Martha Nance

1

Tiny jumping spider on a red zinnia petal four-eyeing me carefully as I move ever closer with my giant cyclopic camera. He rises and puffs himself up threateningly to a full quarter inch size lookinglookinglookinglooking me in the eye until suddenly he

drops to some invisible spot on the ground, gone, safe. Photoshoot over.

2

Stickydust cobwebs in the corner of the barn, and, well, maybe even the corners of the guest bedroom and of course those shelves in the garage with stuff on them untouched by humans for at least ten years. I just hope that these aren’t the homes of brown recluse spiders, or black widow spiders (do they make webs? cobwebs? nests?) And by the way, does anyone ever actually see a spider associated with a cobweb? Is there any such thing as a new cobweb, or are they are born old and draping and dusty?

3

Daddy long legs in the cellar, and out in the woods. ‘Are they spiders, or are they just insects? How can you tell?’

‘Think,’ earthly-wise twelve-year-old I say to my nature-deprived, apartment-dwelling cousins – ‘there is a simple answer to that question. Start counting legs, and if you get to eight, which you will, then it must be a…’

‘Spider?’ the older one guesses, after a too-long pause.

‘Yes! And they aren’t even poisonous.’ Off we gallop happily on our nature hunt.

4

Then there are those spiders that, at least in Minnesota, live only in glass houses, at the pet store, or zoo, big hairy guys that I used to confuse with Dracula, and later on, half jokingly, with an actor named Tarantino. How many other words do you know that end with ‘ula’, or start with ‘tarant’? I have never felt particularly close to a tarantula, nor have a desire to see one in its natural home.

5

But native to my front yard field, in great numbers, are the orb-weavers, the Argiopes. In August, their beautiful foot-tall spirals catch the dew and reflect the early morning sun in great numbers between the thistles and goldenrods and spikes of field grass. These colorful spiders work all evening, perfecting their spokes and spirals, measuring silk in spiderfoot lengths, then unabashedly signing their works right in the middle with their own signature latticework. Today’s model is waiting in mid-web, each foot poised on a different silk strand, waiting for the vibrations that tell her the rising sun has delivered a careless early riser to her for breakfast – perhaps a sleepy grasshopper, or a young dragonfly. I wait with her, camera in hand. Suddenly, she has captured a green darner, a major feast. Like any other hunter, she is not merciful when it comes to breakfast. She kills efficiently, ruthlessly, and encloses her meal in silk wrap to keep it fresh.

Does she pause at any point to admire the artistry of her nightwork? I don’t think so. It is left to me to declare it to be beautiful and show it to you, or for you to walk out into the field yourself.

6

Eight worlds, or let’s call them countries, each a spider foot delicately positioned on a web, and each foot containing thousands or millions of sensors, humans like you and me. One could wish for eight eyes’ worth of clear vision between the feet, as the Argiopes have. But instead, like nerves in the foot of the spider, we detect unthinkingly the slightest movement in the web that connects us, and respond instantly and abundantly when we feel a change. Like those individual nerves, although we record and react to tiny changes in our environment, we forget – or have no capacity to know? – that with the movement of each spider foot, each country or world, the whole web shudders.

More questions: What do we trap in our world-web? Is our large spiderous self, itself, living in a Dracutino house, to the amusement of some larger being? Are we poisonous? Do we reside in a neglected corner of a larger universe with other cobwebbed worlds, sticky with dust? Is it possible for us, unlike the Argiope, to recognize beauty in our web? I ask my cousin, the artist, and my other cousin, the scientist, these questions, but they disagree, so I ask you.

I am pretty sure, however, that our worlds and countries do not share the jumping spider’s luxury of falling instantly to an invisible safe spot.

Spidergirl

Margaret Crompton

We were sisters. Twins. Born on the eighth day of the eighth month of the eighth year after our Mother’s term as Year Queen. From the start, our limbs were long and slender and very flexible. Mother would laugh and call us her Spidergirl. Girl. Not girls. She was firm. Did it take both of us to make one whole person? Just because four arms and four legs add up to eight. We each managed perfectly well with our own allocation of two of each kind.

She’d never tell who had come first. Most twins, we were sure, were born consecutively. But Mother’s smooth face would transform into a web of smiley wrinkles as she assured us that we’d been concurrent. Floated into the world on silken parachutes, she’d laugh. My Spidergirl. We had no one to ask, to explain what would have constituted a natural birth. For anyone. Certainly not for a Spidergirl.

At school, we both excelled. We were unbeatable gymnasts. Running, climbing, hanging upside-down from wall-bars, balancing on narrow beams, swinging on ropes. We could hide in spaces smaller than the actual volume of our supple bodies.

Our other great talent was for craftwork. Other children struggled to thread needles, pricking soft fingers and trailing bloodspots across clean linen. Others ravelled wool into imploding balls, or embroidered unconvincing flowers onto fraying samplers.

It was the custom for the oldest girl in The School to be Year Queen. A great honour. Instead of the close-fitting black uniform, she would wear a white dress, freshly laundered every day. Her hair would be loose, instead of tiny plaits so tight that they made your head ache. She would dance and write poetry, take the lead in the school play, and sing solo in concerts.

In our year, we were the oldest girl. ‘But no,’ insisted Headteacher. ‘You are two separate girls. Only one of you can be Year Queen. Ask your Mother who is the elder.’

Mother’s face was as covered with smiley wrinkles as when we first asked who had been born first. ‘Concurrent,’ she confirmed, laconic as ever. ‘Con. Current. It means, running, or in your case borning, together.’ She enjoyed her own joke. We did not.

Because we had been born concurrently, we were precluded from ever becoming Year Queen, whether concurrently or consecutively.

We consulted Miss Anansi, a famously ruthless lawyer, already fabulously rich and successful. As former Year Queen herself, she understood our grave predicament. In an essentially competitive society, every girl needed a sackful of assets, qualifications, glowing references, admiring reviews, invitations and opportunities. Above all, the wonderful prospects of a Year Queen.

One year. One Queen. Not twins. One twin alone, not a concurrent pair.

But there was a mystery. When her year ended, the Queen had one final duty. She was required to marry. Although not her boyfriend or the man of her dreams, her husband would be ‘The Perfect Match,’ we were always told. And that was all we were told. Only the retiring Year Queen would learn the secret, on the day after she left school.

Even feisty Miss Anansi wouldn’t break that silence. But she hatched a plan. If we refused, we would be expelled, and no other girl of our family ever admitted to The School. Of course we accepted. Whatever happened, we’d still be – Spidergirl. Even if one of us served a year in luxury, while the other drudged, second-best. Only. One. Year.

Once we’d agreed, Miss Anansi explained her plan to identify Spidergirl’s temporarily-senior half. Obvious really, in such a competitive society. A competition. ‘We can do that,’ we assured ourselves. ‘We cannot be divided. Whoever is judged to have won, we are still one.’ Note: ‘Whoever is judged to have won.’ Not ‘Whoever wins’. We could not conceive that either of us would be described as ‘the winner’.

Headteacher was, simply, relieved that the problem had been – or at least would be – solved. Mother had lost interest. She was pregnant again. There would be more daughters, more Year Queen candidates. Consecutive or concurrent? Not her worry. Her job was conceiving, bearing, borning.

Miss Anansi organised the competition in two parts, to give each of us an equal chance. First, craft. A classroom was divided in half by painted paper screens. Each half was filled with identical materials – wool, silk, canvas; wood, wicker, cane. There were shuttles, needles and bobbins; looms, tambours and frames; spinning-wheels and spindles, potters’ wheels and clay. Buffets were laden with light refreshments. Younger girls were deputed to keep us supplied with materials, and arrange completed work on display stands. We were content. We had no need to see each other to be together.

We were informed that Judges were hidden behind a curtain whose embroidery depicted a decorously-draped man deciding on which of three equally-beautiful totally naked women he would bestow the prize of an apple. The Judges would watch how we worked, and ensure that we couldn’t cheat. We were shocked, offended that anyone could imagine we’d think of cheating. Let alone not only think of cheating, but actually cheat.

The competition comprised three tasks. No surprise there. What worthwhile contest had ever demanded more, or fewer, than three achievements? We must first use wool, then silk, and finally we could choose whatever we wished, provided that we had never before used the material. And we must create first a picture, then some piece of equipment; the final choice must be an experiment, something we had never before attempted. We were keen to begin.

We each created a picture with a kaleidoscope of fine wools. One was embroidered on bleached canvas stretched taut on a wooden frame, needles flashing. Icarus soars to the sun on wings crafted from eagle’s feathers stitched into hardened wax, then falls to his death through the sea where he lies forever on the sandy bed, his oblivious father flying on, his mother waiting on the shore he will never reach. Earth, air, fire, water, and earth again.

One was woven on a great loom, plain warp supporting a thousand weft threads, shuttle shining. Penelope is creating her panorama of Odysseus’s cruise through leisurely encounters with Nausicaa, Circe, Sirens, which she weaves through the day and unpicks through the night to deceive the predatory suitors who seek not her devotion but her power. Imagination, endurance, love, all maintained by courage.

Our chosen themes were ancient, universal, but we set the people in our own time, our own places, unlike the Arcadian embroidered apple-man with his unclothed goddesses. Icarus’s mother mourns on the beach beside our city, while Penelope weaves in the room where we ourselves were working.

Next, we twined and braided lengths of silk rope, some with decorative bands or ribbon insertions, all unbreakable, strong enough to bear the greatest weight. We made belts and coils, skipping ropes and rugs, sandals and sunhats.

Finally, we experimented with our personal choices. Although there was plenty of material and equipment...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Dedication
• Introduction
• Poems
• Stories
• About Arachne Press
• Copyright
• Individual copyright