The Spider Lady

They called her the Spider Lady. Not very inventive, but they weren’t a creative bunch. Her real name was Frida.

No one knew Frida’s age or how long she’d lived in the town, for they never asked her. But they knew she was old. Her skin was creased, and her hair was the color of the threads that wrapped around the golden corn that grew along the roads each year. It was a pale-yellow white.

She lived in a large house at the edge of town. It was the first thing you saw when you came into town, and if you ever left, it would be the last thing you saw when you looked back. Frida’s husband had died years ago, and they hadn’t had any children. No one knew that either.

All they knew about were the spiders.

Frida allowed what seemed to be like every spider in the state to spin its home in the eaves of hers. Spiderwebs covered the windows and sides, dripping from the gutters and beams. The house was covered. In the early morning’s dew, it would glisten and sparkle in its sheet of silk.

Frida would sit on her porch, with spiderwebs draped around her, watching the townspeople walk around their town that was just as vulnerable as any. She would talk to the spiders too. Not much more than “good morning” or “looks like rain”, but it was more than anyone thought was necessary for spiders.

The people would look away if Frida passed them on the streets or in the shops. They would whisper to one another, looking down their noses at the woman who was not like them. Children were afraid. They said she was a witch.

There really was not anything that different about her. She had blood in her veins and skin on her bones. She just loved spiders. She appreciated their role in the food chain, for she was not very fond of mosquitoes or flies. And she thought that spiders had every right to a home as any of us.

Frida was a kind woman; considerate and generous, had anyone cared to learn that. But her thin fingers resembled the spindly legs of a spider, and people would swear they saw spiders crawling through her straw-like hair. The eyes always see what they want to.

Unfortunate things would happen because of the Spider Lady. Or rather, ordinary things would happen that seemed ominous when coincided with a creepy house of webs.

There was the time a young girl wandered away from her mother, while she browsed the shop windows down the street. The girl was curious about the mysterious lady who sat on her porch, talking to herself. She wasn’t scared of her, she just wanted to see how a house might be wrapped in spiderwebs.

The girl skipped in front of Frida’s house and saw her there, sitting on the porch. Frida smiled and waved and as the young girl raised her hand to wave back, she tripped, falling over her untied shoelace.

Frida stood up and took a step down from her porch, intending to help the poor girl. But by then, the mother had noticed her daughter had wandered away and bolted down the sidewalk, not wanting her daughter in front of that horrible house a moment longer.

“Stay away from my daughter!” she shrieked, drawing the attention of every bystander who was looking for an excuse to gape and stare. She yanked her daughter up from the ground and hurried away, assuming the Spider Lady had had everything to do with her child falling.

And there was also the time with the snake. Frida was walking along the sidewalk on a pleasant morning when she happened upon a couple going in the opposite direction. Just as they approached one another, a garter snake came from the bushes alongside the sidewalk. But it appeared to have come from under Frida’s skirt, or so the couple’s imagination told them. And of course, they wasted no time telling everyone they could that the Spider Lady also carried snakes with her.

Frida had only been out for her morning walk, and the snake just happened to be there too. Coincidences are often unkind.

Then one fateful day as Frida was going to the shops, she collapsed; her heart giving way to the tug that had been pulling ever since her husband had died. It took a few moments before anyone noticed. Even then, the people approached her cautiously, not sure if she would disintegrate, as they had heard witches do when they die. Some even turned and walked away, indifferent.

Eventually the coroner was called, her body collected and buried unceremoniously, and the people ducked under the webs into the home they had always been secretly curious about.

And the spiders watched them.

The house was in good condition, it was immaculate. The people were astonished at how beautiful it was, given the appearance of the outside. They hadn’t known, for no one had ever bothered to visit.

The deed to the home was found and a few of the greediest townspeople conspired. They forged the deed in their name and made plans for the lot. The land was valuable, more so than the house. They would produce cotton, peaches, or corn, whatever they could sell at a high price to the city.

The house came crashing down and the spiderwebs fell with it. The spiders were clever though, and had known what was coming, for they had been listening to everything. They had scampered away, hiding under nearby porches or gutters, grieving their friend Frida.

The people watched from their stoops, feeling as though the air around them was being sucked toward the sky. The air felt different now; they couldn’t explain it. And then, they turned and went back inside their homes, forgetting Frida and her house of webs almost instantly. The people went to sleep and dreamt that they were tangled, their limbs wrapped in sticky, silk threads.

When they woke from their restless, troubled sleep, a dull buzz could be heard. The din of thousands of wings and innumerable, unstoppable feet.

Swarms of flies and mosquitoes, bees and wasps, began to storm the town. The people ran for shelter, covering their heads and swatting at the pests. They were everywhere. The people looked from inside their homes as insects rapped at their windows.

“It’ll pass,” they mused. They stayed inside for the day; certain they would wake tomorrow to find the bugs had left.

But the insects remained. Clouds of them hovered over the streets, centipedes and cockroaches marched in parades into the homes, finding their way in through the cracks.

The townspeople tried to cope. They covered their heads in scarves, and shielded their homes with nets, but it did no good. They tried to eradicate the insects. They sprayed poison, leaving no corner of the town untouched with toxicity. But the bugs were unfazed.

The people even brought frogs in to feast on the vermin, but they were outnumbered. Even the greediest frog could not eat that many flies. The spiders bided their time, idling in corners and shadows.

Houses were overcome, for the termites were hungry, and gobbled every plank and board. The fields on the Spider Lady’s land were never productive; the grasshoppers consumed every seedling. The people were bit, diseases spread, and the people succumbed to the insects, for there were no more webs to catch them.

Now, the people of the town were certain Frida had indeed been a witch; she had cursed them. They were doomed, when all this time they had thought they were invincible.

The people decided to leave the town, for now it offered them nothing. The last thing they passed on their way out was the lot where the Spider Lady’s home had once stood. They looked away as they turned up their noses, trying to ignore the shudders of guilt that went through them.

And the spiders watched them as they went, eager to begin making their webs again, and devour those delicious grasshoppers.