Funk-N-Fiction

Welome to the start of our 2023 Annual Halloween Flash Fiction event. We’re starting with an awesome story from Cecilia Dominic.

The Samhain Petition
by Cecilia Dominic

Spider silk clothes chafe if you wear them long enough, but they’re fantastic stealth garments if you can gather enough, which I’d made sure of. I’d been planning this quest for a year.

I’d been wearing web-cloth since I was a baby, a plump, pink thing left in the middle of the nest by… I’m not sure. But never enough to cover my entire body and make a hood.

I looked over my shoulder for the hundred and forty-first time—yes, my brain counts things compulsively, a side effect of living with weavers. Although I couldn’t spin webs with gossamer filaments, I could proffer my nails as a frame.

The tap-tapping of eight feet should have been silenced by the soggy bark under them. But even if he’d stuck to the mud of the path, I’d’ve heard him.

“Arran,” I hissed with a tone none of my foster brothers and sisters could mimic. The name carried through the gray trunks dripping with the passage of the magical fog that appeared at Samhain along with my quarry, the Bat King.

“C’mon, Goss,” his voice floated to me like one of the strands I’d been named for. “This isn’t safe.”

I rolled my eyes. The Prince of Spiders had a cautious streak that marked him as a coward to his kind as surely as a black widow’s red warned others of her intentions.

He dropped into sight. I’d learned that most humans would be terrified at the appearance of a spider as large as a horse, and the Fae wouldn’t hesitate to destroy him. I shook my head and ruffled the fringe of hair atop his crown.

“Don’t do that. And you don’t have to do this. I’m fine!”

“Sure you are,” I turned so he wouldn’t catch the deceit on my face with his faceted eyes. Arran thought I was going to ask the Bat King for courage for him. I was actually going to request to know what I was so I could leave the fosterage of the spider colony before they made me marry him.

As much as the spider king hated his son’s caution, he wanted a wife who wouldn’t want to eat him after they mated. The king had escaped that fate by making sure the queen had been dragged from his side after their mating and forced to give birth in prison.

The spider colony had served as my prison long enough.

The air shimmered around Arran, and he stood naked in his human form. Fine black hair covered his gray skin, and he pulled on the pair of spider weave shorts he’d tied to one of his forelimbs. I couldn’t fault his lean, muscular frame or handsome face. His eyes still glittered      .

“Why did you change?” I grumbled.

“Because I like the way you look at me in this form.”

“I don’t have time for this.” I turned and resumed my walk up the path.

Arran caught up to me. “Fine, but I’m coming with you.”

“All right, but hush!”

Arran let me lead. I didn’t mind. He’d sting anyone who snuck up on us from behind. Soon the trees grew overhead in a tunnel, which narrowed until we crawled. Broken twigs bled sap and the sad green smell of end-of-summer rain. Arran changed back into a spider, this time smaller.

The spider cloth kept the branches from scratching my skin, but even it struggled with the mud that wanted to trap me in place until… I didn’t want to think about what would come and pull me out. If the revenants didn’t steal my soul first.

The earth trembled, and I stilled, but too late. Branches snapped, and the ground crumbled beneath me. I tumbled through nothingness until I stopped with a jerk accompanied by what felt like a punch to my belly. I sipped to retrieve the breath that had knocked from me and dangled from the spider silk rope wrapped around my waist.

Arran whisper-called from above, “Are you okay?”

I turned my head and spotted him hanging on to the edge of the hole, which now framed a tableau of bare branches and foggy sky. He trembled with the effort of holding the web he’d caught me with.

I motioned to a ledge protruding from the red rock walls. “Yes, thanks. Can you swing me over there?”

Arran did as I asked, then scuttled down to help me out of his silk. My legs trembled too much to stand, so I laid flat on my belly. We both peered down to where I would have landed.

The silvery light from above illuminated the jagged rocks below. They resembled the gaping maw of a large, ravenous creature.

“The Bat King doesn’t play around,” I murmured.

“See? This is foolishness, Gossamer. Come on, I’ll lift you out, and we’ll go home.”

“I can’t, Arran. You go on if you want to, but I have to finish this.

He crossed his two front legs, and I stifled a giggle.

“What now?” he asked.

“You look ridiculous when you make human gestures in spider form.”

Another tremor made me scoot back lest the edge of our ledge crumble. Arran leapt to the wall above me.

The tremor didn’t cease. Instead, it turned into a rumble, then a whooshing sound punctuated by squeaks. I put my hands over my ears, and Arran curled into a little spider ball beside me. I hated when he did that—it made him look dead.

A tidal wave of gag-inducing air carried with it the stench of sulfur and earth and bat guano and decay from below. The first bat, as big as a wolf, rode it up, and soon its brethren followed. The air thickened with the humidity of hundreds of bodies and the fog that rolled in from above.

I pulled the spider-silk hood over my head. It allowed me to see out through its translucence, but when the bats’ sonar would only detect a large cobweb. I could make out snippets of what they squeaked.

“The trap was triggered, but there’s nothing here!”

“Food, food, where are you, food?”

“Hey, check out the big web!”

“Oooh, that spider will make a tasty meal.”

“If it’s not already dead and dried up. Aw, drat, looks like it.”

They swooped closer, and I mentally applauded Arran for playing dead. One of the bats landed and poked me with its wing tip. The cloth held, but it couldn’t hide the texture of what lay underneath.

“Well, well, what have we here?” It leaned in and sniffed me. “It smells like… I don’t know what.”

Another bat landed beside it. “Can we eat it?”

“Maybe? Let’s take it to the king. He’ll tell us what it is.”

They picked me up, and Arran clung to my clothing. The initial drop from the ledge nearly made me lose what little I’d eaten, as did the dizzying journey through a maze of tunnels.

 Then they dropped us on the floor.

“What is this?” The voice echoed through every crevice of the massive cavern. A tall man with high cheekbones, cruel light gray eyes, and impressive sideburns the same color as his gunmetal gray hair sat on a raised throne at the front of the room and surveyed us with disdain.

He rose, and all there bowed, as did I. I took the opportunity to whisper to Arran, “Are you hanging in there?”

He tapped my ankle twice, which meant yes.

“Good. Don’t reveal yourself until you have to.”

Two more taps.

My other captor spoke. “It’s fresh meat underneath, Your Highness. Please tell us what it is.”

The Bat King’s thin lips curled into a smile. “Let’s unwrap it and see.” He approached, removed a knife from the sheath at his hip, and slit my lovely spider weave garment. I gathered the thin cloth around myself and glared at him.

This was so not how I imagined meeting the Bat King.

“Good evening, Your Highness.” I attempted to keep my tone even, but my throat had gone dry and shivery.

“Oho, it talks.” He leaned down and examined me. His breath smelled of carrion, but I couldn’t flinch away. I hoped the dim light kept my pupils dilated so he wouldn’t see part of why I approached him.

Arran shifted, and I placed my fingertip on one of his legs, telling him to wait.

I scrambled to my feet, and the living spider silk repaired itself into a gown. Arran remained curled against my left ankle.

“The better question is, what sort of monster are you?” A bat put a torch into his waiting hand. “Slitted eyes, golden.”

He drew the torch away and lifted my tawny hair. “Pointed ears, but not a Fae.” He poked me, and without thinking, I swiped at him. He drew his hand back, and the cuts healed. “And hidden claws. Do you know what you are, spider-girl?”

“Not a spider.”

“Indeed not. You’re a different sort of shifter. What is your name, girl?”

“Gossamer, Sir.”

“Gossamer of what? Where do you come from?”

“I don’t know, sir. I have lived in the Spider Colony all my life.”

“Why are you here?”

This was my chance! “I come to make the Samhain petition, Your Highness.”

At that, everyone stilled. Except the bat who’d discovered me

“But Highness, she triggered the trap. She’s food.” The other bats squeaked and growled in agreement.

The king motioned him aside. “No, it is sundown on Samhain. And she wouldn’t have found me if you hadn’t brought her. Speak, Gossamer.”

My mind raced. The bats wanted to eat me, and they’d consume Arran as well. But the Samhain petition guaranteed our safety. Didn’t it?

Admittedly, I was going on legend instead of actual confirmed knowledge.

At least I knew Arran didn’t need courage. He’d followed me, and he was still with me. He’d shown courage aplenty.

But would he feel betrayed if I didn’t ask?

The king returned to his throne, then beckoned me. “Make your request, girl.”

I stepped forward, but Arran weighed down my gown.

The king rolled his eyes. “Both of you. Stop playing dead, spider.”

Arran uncurled, then changed, and we approached the king. I curtseyed, and Arran bowed.

“What did you come here for? Both of you.”

“I’m sorry,” I mouthed at Arran before turning to the king. “I came to ask to know who and what I am.

“?”

“I’ve tried to shift, but I can’t.”

“And you, Spider Prince, what do you want?” He sighed. “You’re here, so you may also make a Samhain petition.”

I closed my eyes, waiting for Arran to ask the question that would bind me to him forever.

“I want what’s best for Gossamer. I want her to find out where she came from so she can know where she belongs.”

I turned to him, mouth agape. “You didn’t have to do that.

He squeezed my hand. “Yes, I did.”

“Very well.” The Bat King raised his scepter. A shiver rose from my feet to my crown. Obeying instinct, I dropped to my hands and knees and arched my back. The sweet, sparkling sensation of magic spread from inside me to my limbs, and when I opened my eyes, I let out a surprised, “Meow!”

“Gossamer, you’re beautiful!”

Several white cats with golden eyes looked back at me from the facets of Arran’s eyes.

The Bat King dismissed us with a wave of his hand. “You may both go.”

In cat form, I could smell the way out. Arran and I both ran through the warren of tunnels.

When we achieved the fresh, foggy air of the path, I changed back. My spidersilk gown had clung to me, and now it formed into a stealth body suit.

“What now?” Arran asked.

I took his hand. “We go find out who I am. Together.”

Cecilia is offering a choice of any one print book from her catalog to one lucky commenter!! Just leave a comment on this post, and she will choose a winner on November 1st.

You can check out Cecilia’s books on her website: HERE. 🙂

Contest starts today, and goes through midnight on November 1st. Our winners will be chosen from all eligible entries on November 2nd and notified, and then announced in our wrap-up post on November 3rd.

Good luck!!