Barcarolle

Act One - Of Top Hats and Fangs

The first wind of winter slipped a steel cold knife through the little house. The house rattled, once, twice. Barcarolle tossed a web line down, crept toward the little girl named June. Checked off the descriptions that his mother had given him.

"Short curls of black hair, wild as windblown smoke."

Check.

"A scattering of freckles across a solemn face."

Check.

"Sad lips, lost of smile and happiness forever."

In her sleep, the girl half-smiled in the dark room.

Barcarolle hesitated, rolled a tongue over a fang. The venom tasted like unsweetened coffee, making his cheek cringe. She had smiled, which was not like what his mother described, but he was certain this was the child, and recalled the dire instructions he was given.

"Just a bite. She won't feel it." His mother, surrounded by two-hundred and three of his sisters, swelled in the center of the web. "Make me proud, my son. Such venom is a gift, a responsibility."

Barcarolle wanted to run from the crescendo of cheers. Instead, he tipped his hat and whisked away.

Barcarolle and his family lived for years inside June's closet. One-thousand, six-hundred and twenty-two legs, weaving into life a story of June's worst moments, days, months and years, hanging dark jeweled crystal gauze memories with enthusiastic despair. Barcarolle was the odd one out, the only spider who possessed the venom. And once the web could no longer hold the memories, he was to bite June. Free his family. Let the gloom spread. Thirteen years was all it took until the web couldn't bear it anymore.

But Barcarolle never cared much for the web, let alone June. He kept to himself as the years went by, slinking on shelves and reading books, drinking coffee drops from used mugs, stealing dapper hats and clothes from abandoned dolls. He'd hang out with the cockroaches and vermin down house, magnetizing strange lady spiders with romantic antics he'd learned from old movies. Wasting away nights on the roof, gazing at fire stars.

June turned in her bed, creating a mini earthquake for Barcarolle. The girl was a stranger to him. But a stranger was better- far easier to kill when you least knew your victim.

Barcarolle crept close enough to notice fine lines across her forehead. He lifted his hat, wiped the imaginary sweat from under his brow. She turned just enough so that her hair pulled back, exposing the soft skin beneath her ear.

His sisters cheered like a thousand whispering leaves in the wind. Mother was grinning with her large, large fangs, fangs that once devoured his father a long time ago. "Bite her," she seethed. "She's a miserable girl. You were born for ending misery. Bite her. Go on."

Barcarolle backed away, heart thundering from hesitation. He could not listen to his family as they cheered him on, not when she had smiled. There was hope for her, and he could not call himself a spider of misery unless his victims were completely lost.

He took a bristled arm and gently tickled her chin. Nothing. Barcarolle took four arms and pretended to play a drum set on her chin. Her eyelids fluttered open. He backed away and sat on her covers, waiting.

The girl's eyelids opened like a thin wake appearing on cold blue waters. To her, the wolf spider appeared almost dream-like. After all, spiders don't wear tiny top hats, nor sit as if like a cat studying a new toy. June sat up in her bed with sleepy blue eyes filling with confusion, and Barcarolle took off his hat and bowed.

"My name is Barcarolle. A pleasure to meet-"

"I'm dreaming," she muttered. "Stop talking."

Unperturbed, Barcarolle straightened himself. "I thought you'd slap me like any human would a spider - not that I would have minded. But you talked back. You must be a little crazy like me then." The spider beamed with little fangs hiding behind a dapper mustache before extending a bristly arm.