©️GeraldineBanks2024
Generations of their family had lived in the Ol’ Manor for what seemed an eternity.There was no point in measuring time,that was about as useful as comparing web designs.And that they would never do.
Caspar Laithwaite had moved in with his family consisting of his wife and their two young children,a boy and a girl,both under ten. Also, in their family was Esme, a fourteen year old girl that Caspar and Nancy had adopted after being told that their chances of having their own children were slim.
Caspar was very well known in the IT field,not only was he a brilliant programmer and coder, but he could also write and communicate about the subject too.This meant he was much in demand and moving into the Ol’ Manor was an effort on his part to put down permanent roots,he was tired of globe trotting.He wanted his kids to have a home.
Nancy, felt the same way too about settling in one place and she was even pleased at first when Caspar’s sister,Meg, asked if she could live with them at the Ol’ Manor for a short time,no more than three months,she promised .She was between web designing jobs,her next contract,which was a biggy wouldn’t be until July,and she was happy to help around the house.Decorate,Babysit anything really.
Three months turned to six months ,and Nancy realised that Meg’s terrible fear of spiders had begun to make living in the Ol’ Manor almost impossible.The Ol”Manor had a lot of spiders and other insects.
“Decorating,that was a joke!”Nancy said to herself retrospectively, thinking of the first few weeks when Meg had volunteered to help.
Meg would jump three feet in the air if she touched something warm and furry while reaching over into a dark corner with the manual wallpaper stripper.Meg would scream the house down and run out of the room shouting for Caspar.
“Kill it!”Caspar, if he was there, he would deal with it,not kill it,he would find a safe place for it in the garden.Esme would find where the safest place to release the spider was ;Esme had an uncanny affinity with nature. It calmed them both as they watched the releasd spider toddle away.
However,Caspar had to go away on business halfway through Meg’s sojourn with the Laithwaite family.
Meg by this time had had enough and decided that she needed to stay in the one bedroom in the ol’manor with a working ensuite bathtoom and that she needed to keep her doors and windows shut.
After Esme had given the all clear on Meg’s new room by inspecting the room,shower, and bathroom .Esme had also agreed to do a weekly check for the sake of peace and quiet, and Esme was happy as it kept the spiders safe.
Nancy ,on the other hand, was not very happy,she wanted the ensuite for her and Caspar and had been annoyed that to pacify Meg before he’d gone on his business trip ,that he had agreed to her demand.Indeed he told Meg that Esme would help her with any problem spiders.
Nancy had written in her journal that day.
“Spiders,Spiders make my Day,
Make Silly Meg,Go Away”
Esme was a very quiet child and was introspective to a fault.She had already started classifying all the insects in the Ol’ Manor Garden and House. She was not a collecter but rather an observer.
One day,there was an incident. Meg had had taken a mug from the mug rack in the kitchen to make herself a hot chocolate only to find a large spider sitting at the bottom of the mug.Mug and spider were launched at speed across the room and there was the usual screaming and running for help.
Esme came into the kitchen and saw the mess and began to clear up the pieces of mug and the dead spider .She listened to Meg’s protestations about dirty things like spiders,and it was stupid to have a mug rack,but what difference did it make the cupboards were filthy too.Nothing in this house was clean ,there were cobwebs everywhere.
Meg had muttered to herself that spiders only like clean places; but Meg didn’t hear.
Another time ,there had been three spiders in the bathroom that day,but Meg only saw the one swinging on a single strand of web above her head as she had relaxed in a full to the brim bubble bath.
She screamed immediately and jumped out of the bath,whacking her knee against the cast iron bath,reaching for the door and frantically unlocking it.
She ran naked out into the top floor corridor,just as the two younger Laithwaites were coming up the stairs.
“Oh, Christ,” she cried out helplessly and opened the bathroom door to get her towel to wrap around her.
She came back out to the corridor just as the little girl was trying to cover the little boys eyes with her hands, and he was pushing her away.
“Get Esme,one of you, please!”
Esme appeared at the top of the stairs.
“Meg,yes, I’m here,” Meg walked towards the bathroom.
“Oh, Meg,it’s very big, and it was swinging above my head!”
“It’s OK,I’ll sort it,be quiet or you’ll frighten the children.”
Esme went into the bathroom,saw the frightened spider,helplessly swinging above the now bubbleless bathwater, and gently coaxed it into her hand.
“Esme,she’ll have to go,she’s frightening the children,we can’t go on like this,someone is going to get hurt”
The spider began to chatter.
“I’ve a big family to look after,they are saying to me the house is haunted with all the screaming and shouting.”
“I know,I’ll have to think,you know this is crazy,she’s a web designer.” Esme smiled to herself.
“Am I supposed to laugh at that? Look nowhere is safe with her around.”
“OK, I know.Now where are the other two,I need to get them out of here before she comes back in here.Tell me they’re not in her dressing gown.”
“Well,maybe,that cotton is so clean and soft.”
“Oh no,I told you not to!Right both of you out of there.”
Esme gathered up the cotton bathrobe and rescued the two spiders from the pocket.
“It’s our house, Esme. we never had this amount of trouble before.”The bigger spider kept talking as the other two spiders nestled into Esme’s pocket.
“And what were you doing swinging above her head anyway? She could have pulled you into the bath, and you could have drowned.”
“She’d have died of fright if I did!Result eh?
“Well no,that wouldn’t be much good”.
“Look Esme,you know how it is,us spiders don’t live more than five years,I’m near the end but the Ol’ Manor,well we’ve been here generations,we do our best to stay out of the way”
“Oh yeah,I’d hardly call resting in someone’s dressing gown, staying out of the way”.
“Look,everyone except Meg seems to get on with us,all this shrieking and shouting well it’s not good for a spiders nerves.Our spiderlings can’t take it.We need future generations.”
Esme sighed!She felt a new classification coming on “Arachnid Stubbornalis”
It all came to a crux when Meg got the letter finally saying that due to lack of funding ,the big web design contract had been cancelled.Caspar was away on business, and Meg imparted the news over breakfast with Nancy and Esme.
Esme felt a shudder in the timbers of the kitchen ceiling ,she sensed the spiders had had enough.They were continually on edge .To them ,it was like having a screaming banshee in the house.
The next evening,after Esme had given Meg’s room the weekly all clear .They had all gone to bed early as they were tired, having been out to dinner and later the cinema.
The spiders took their revenge.Firstly,when Meg was asleep,with a great feat of strength ,they pushed over her glass of water onto the floor.She heard it crash,at first she thought she had knocked it over and hopped out of bed,and turned on the bedroom light.
The carpet had felt funny as she ran across it,almost tickly.She looked down at her feet, and they were covered in black spiderlings.They began to crawl up her legs and she tried brushing them off but more just kept on coming.
Meg’s only thought was escape,so she ran to the exit door of the bedroom. It was locked,but where was the key,she always kept the key in it.
By now,the spiders had reached her thighs, and she was screaming loudly.The room, though, had been hermetically sealed with webs and spiders, and no one could hear her.
Her hands and face were covered,so she ran to the ensuite bathroom and opened the door. The walls and ceilings were covered by large hairy mother spiders.
She could see the army of spiders coming up the plug holes and out of the taps.She began swinging her arms wildly,and though she managed to kill a few, they just kept coming.
By now, her throat was hoarse, and she could no longer make any sound.She fell to the ground unconscious. The spider’s retreated.
The next morning,Nancy and Esme had to break the lock on the door to get into Meg’s room.They found her pale and shivering in the corner and the broken glass on the floor.
All Meg would say was that she would leave the Ol’ Manor that day and book into a hotel.
“But what happened?” Nancy said.
Meg couldn’t or wouldn’t say.
Esme had her suspicions, though, and thought perhaps it was for the best and that at least the ensuite would be her mum and dad’s now and the spiders would be happy.
thenotsomightyom 