Mrs. Halfpenny and the Martian Spider

Mrs. Halfpenny was not the sort of woman who liked adventures. In fact, she spent most of her sixty-two years avoiding them altogether. She had never been on an airplane, cruise ship, boat, raft, or a train and she had never even tried sushi or lobster. The most exciting thing that she had ever done was buying a used convertible in a reckless moment while on spring break with her best friend, Millie. Spring break to Mrs. Halfpenny was different from the spring break all the rest of the college students enjoyed. Her spring break consisted of her and her best friend, Millie driving to another city and having lunch. She brought the red convertible on a whim. And when she realized that wind tangled her hair in unspeakable ways she promptly sold it three days later.

So, when Mrs. Halfpenny wandered into the Wicker State Forest on that peculiar fall afternoon; she did it with the confidence that was possessed by someone who had no intention of straying from the marked path. But paths have a habit of splitting when you least expect it

Before long she realized the trees had thickened into a kind of green twilight. The air seemed damper and the silence got a lot heavier. The gravel path seemed to have disappeared and replaced by a carpet of leaves which muffled her footsteps. She turned once, then twice, trying to retrace her footsteps but the forest had a way of swallowing direction whole.

Mrs. Halfpenny was lost.

She sat on a moss covered log, clutching her brown backpack which matched her jacket perfectly as if it were a life raft. The forest smelled like pine and something else, something faintly metallic, like rain on copper. That's when she heard it.

A voice.

“Ah” It said conversationally. “A fellow traveler.”

Mrs. Halfpenny jerked her head around to her right side. The voice was deep and resonant, and almost elegant. And then she saw him. Dangling from a long thread of silk thicker than her hand, was a spider. NO–A SPIDER! CAPITAL LETTERS SPIDER! He was the size of a bicycle. He had long jointed legs that shone like gleamed polished armor.

Eight black eyes glimmered like tiny onyx beads and yet there was nothing threatening about him. Mrs. Halfpenny opened her mouth and then closed it. She finally managed to say, “Good heavens!”

“Good heavens, indeed.” The spider said laughing softly on the ground with a certain grace that she had never seen before, especially from a talking spider. She had never seen that before either. He folded two of his long legs in what could only be described as a bow.

“Permit me to introduce myself. I am well–the name would be unpronounceable on your tongue so you may call me Geoffrey.”

Mrs. Halfpenny held her backpack tighter. “Spiders don’t talk.”

“Most don’t.” Geoffrey agreed. “I, however, am not most spiders. I am from Mars.”

Mrs. Halfpenny blinked her eyes fast twice. “Mars? Mars?”

“Yes, the very same Mars that you heard of.”

Geoffrey’s mandible clicked in what looked like a smile. “Came here by accident. Navigational error. You see. One minute I was charting the red wings of home and the next I am plummeting through a wormhole. And–” He gestured with one leg towards the trees.

“Here we are. Dreadfully inconvenient.”

Mrs. Halfpenny, who had once fainted at the sight of a harmless garden snake in her backyard, found herself oddly calm. Perhaps it was the shock of a spider talking to her with impeccable manners.

“I see.” She said faintly. “Well, I’m afraid I am rather lost myself.”

“Splendid!” Geoffrey said, brightening. “Then we shall be lost together. Two castaways in this vast sea of timber.” He paused, tilting his head. “Unless of course, you would like to assist me in returning home. Naturally, I will assist you as well. Quid pro quo, as they say.”

Mrs. Halfpenny had no idea how to help Geoffrey but she nodded anyway. It seemed the sensible thing to do.

The unlikely pair set off through the forest. Mrs. Halfpenny in her sensible hiking boots and Geoffrey gliding alongside her on eight whisper quiet legs.

“Now,” Geoffrey said, “The first order of business is to locate the wormhole through which I fell from. It will serve as your exit too. Since your quaint terrestrial roads seemed to have abandoned you.”

Mrs. Halfpenny swallowed hard. “And where might we find this wormhole?”

“Ah, that’s the puzzle.” Geoffrey said.

They traveled for what seemed like hours. The forest looked stranger the further they walked. Trees twisted into shapes that seemed to watch them as they passed. Mushrooms glowed faintly at the bases of the trunks.

Once Mrs. Halfpenny thought she saw a pair of luminous eyes peering from a hollow tree but when she looked again they were gone.

Geoffrey for the most part seemed entirely at ease, though he kept glancing at the sky. What little he could see of the sky through the tree branches.

Finally they came to a clearing where the ground dipped into a shallow bowl. In the center was a circle of stones.

“There.” Geoffrey said softly. “There is the wormhole. It is beneath.”

Mrs. Halfpenny looked at the stones. They looked ancient, worn by centuries of wind and rain.

“How do you open it?”

Geoffrey shifted his body uncomfortably. “That is what we need to figure out. That is the difficulty. It only responds to a harmonic frequency produced by certain Martian vocalizations. Unfortunately, the fall seems to have disrupted my vocal membranes.”

“In other words,” Mrs. Halfpenny said slowly, “You can’t sing the song.”

“Not without assistance.” Geoffrey's eyes glittered. “But, perhaps we might improvise.”

What followed was the strangest duet in the history of two planets. Geoffrey produced a series of low throbbing hum while Mrs. Halfpenny, feeling utterly ridiculous, attempted to mimic the notes. The forest seemed to be holding its breath. Pretty soon the stones began to glow.

“Marvelous!” Geoffrey said. “A bit higher on the third note if you please.”

Mrs. Halfpenny obliged. Light spilled between the stone and a swirling vortex of blue and silver appeared. The wormhole opened up like an eye. But when the light came a wind pulling and sucking dragged at their clothes and legs.

“It’s unstable.” Geoffrey shouted over the roar of the wind. “We must go through together or not at all.”

Mrs. Halfpenny hesitated for only a second and then clutching her back pack she grabbed one of Geoffrey’s legs and they leapt.

Mrs. Halfpenny landed on soft grass under a sky full of stars. She sat up dazed. Beside her, Geoffrey rose to his full impressive height. But something was different. The sky above was not of Earth’s sky. Two moons hung over a landscape of crimson dunes and crystal spires.

“Home!” Geoffrey said, softly.

Mrs. Halfpenny stared. “Is this Mars?”

“Indeed. From here I can open a small portal for you to return to your forest or perhaps somewhere closer to civilization.” Geoffrey paused. “Unless of course, you’d be care to stay here.”

Mrs. Halfpenny looked at the alien sky, the twin moons and the glittering towers in the distance. For a woman who had avoided adventures all of her life she felt a strange temptation. But she thought of her little house on Proper Lane, her cat, Miss Snuggles, her dog, Outback, her book club meeting on Thursday afternoons and her volunteer work at the senior center. “I think I want to go home.”

Geoffrey smiled and nodded his head. But, remember, Mrs. Halfpenny once you have leapt between worlds, ordinary will never be the same again.”

And that he began to weave the portal that would carry her back. Mrs. Halfpenny stepped through the swirling portal clutching her backpack. One moment there was a rust-red sky of Mars and the next there she was in the calm forest again as nothing ever happened. The portal shut behind her. Birds chirped and a breeze rattled the leaves in the sunlight. And there she was standing at the edge of the path of the forest where she had first gotten lost. She walked home in a kind of dreamlike state, put the kettle on for the strongest cup of tea she ever made in her life and convinced herself that the forest was magical and that it was a place she was never going again. She would stick to book club adventures.