Divine Intervention

Good ideas arrive at the absolute strangest, most inconvenient moments possible. This particular snip came to me last night in the shower. (Happenstance? I think not!) It may be the first story-concept I have ever dreamed up that could potentially go somewhere.

There was a spider in the corner of the sewing room.

It was quite a large and repulsive spider, Nehri thought. Muddy brown and speckled with dust, the creature would certainly fit comfortably on Nehri's broad thumb nail. She could hear the frustrated click-clack, click-clack of its pincers as it struggled for purchase on the slick paneled wall, and wondered if the thing's web had gone dry.

Nehri has been watching the spider since sewing instruction had begun, nearly twenty minutes ago. She quite despised spiders, as she did all insects, but the battle of wills here- the spider's, the wall's, her own ability to bite down on her disgust - had fascinated her enough to ensure her silence thus far. He's running out of time, though, she thought distantly. Even if I manage not to vomit, one of the other girls is bound to spot him soon, and that will be the end of him.

She tore her gaze from the spider's struggle and gazed around the silent instruction room. Everyone knew today's pattern, of course- it was the first day of term, and each year they were assigned the same simple stitch to start- but most other girls were studying the ceiling with glassy eyes, minds whoever-knew-where as their practiced fingers completed the task independently. The few who managed to maintain consciousness had tucked a letter or slim periodical into the seat in front of them and read as they worked. Nehri supposed she would have done the same, had not that fascinatingly vile creature caught her eye.

She swiveled in her stiff-backed seat to resume her study of the spider, and to her dismay let out a reflexive little gasp as she realized that he had succeeded in his efforts and now clung tenaciously to the dark rafters above her. In the thick quiet of the sewing room, her exclamation seemed to ring like a plague-bell, and twenty-five sets of heads cricked as one as they snapped toward the source of the noise. Nehri flushed in the sudden glare of attention and curtsied to Madam Kar, the sewing Leader.

"Forgive me, Madam," she murmered hoarsely in answer to the Leader's questioning gaze. "I... I stuck myself."

"Bloodily?" came the crisp response.

"No, Madam."

"Then return to your work." Nehri sat with a grateful sigh, new petticoats crackling. Leaders at the Border School tended to be overcautious when confronted with anything of a remotely serious injury, but one would need to be missing a significant volume of skin to even begin to impress Madam Kar. An infuriating quality if you needed sympathy, perhaps, but for the moment Nehri would have her no other way.

Nehri raised her eyes cautiously to the beams above her, scanning despite herself for the whereabouts of that accursed insect. She had begun to wonder if he had fallen among the students when she finally spied him hovering over the cherry wood doorway. A trickle of bile soured her mouth, and she swallowed as the ugly thing disappeared into the wall.