The Story Web

by Megan Frazer Blakemore

  Melanie agreed and wrote a short note to her aunt, which she left on a small table just inside the door. She placed a smooth rock on top so it wouldn’t blow away.

  Melanie swung the cloak over her shoulders. She pulled the hood around her face, throwing it into shadows. She took a leather satchel, too, and hung it across her body. She looked like something out of a fantasy novel, so at least it felt like they were on a real adventure. At least it seemed like they were doing something.

  It didn’t make Lewis feel any better about skipping practice.

  They found the web more easily this time, coming at it from the side.

  It was worse.

  The spiders had continued to rebuild the one corner, but long strands were falling. Pearls of ice clung to each strand, weighing them down and threatening to snap them. The spiders were nowhere in sight.

  Melanie took a deep breath. She held out a hand toward the web. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

  “Like what?” Lewis asked, confused. They’d known there was something wrong with the web all along.

  “My story,” Melanie said. She closed her eyes. “That’s it,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “I think I have to tell you my story. The story of how I got here.” Her face had gone pink and tight. Whatever the story was, it didn’t look like she was eager to tell it.

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  Melanie gestured toward the web. “Yes, I do. Look at it. If we’re going to tell stories, they have to mean something.”

  An image of Alice clutching the letters filled his head. Those stories mattered. Had the spiders been on the web then? He hadn’t noticed because he’d only paid attention to her. He looked at the web now. There, in the upper right corner, was one section of the web that looked new and stronger. Maybe Alice’s letters had done something after all. “Maybe you should,” he said.

  So she began: “A long time ago in Istoria, the king and queen welcomed into the world a princess. Princess Melanie Amber Azalea Blossom Finch. The princess had golden hair and silver-blue eyes, and all in the kingdom welcomed her arrival as a good sign. Each of the Story Weavers wanted to dazzle her, so one by one they came and shared their tales. As she heard each tale, she traveled all around the kingdom to each realm. Each one was more beautiful than the next. Her favorite stories were the ones the animals told. In Istoria, animals and people understand each other perfectly. She loved their funny stories and their tales of adventures. But all the while, her parents were sad. The princess never knew why. Each night her mother whispered in her ear:

  Hold me closer, hold me tight,

  Listen to my tale,

  Each day you grow and fill with light,

  But some day you must sail.

  A world beyond is dark and drear

  And filled with so much fear.

  To this land you’ll go,

  By sea and snow,

  And bring the people near.

  Melanie sang beautifully until the very last note, when her voice cracked. She sniffled and kept going with her story. “When the princess was nearly nine years old, full of laughter and starting to tell her own stories, that dreaded day came to pass. You see, the king and queen had made a deal with a sorceress who lived in the land of earth to share a child full of stories. The land of earth needed someone to protect them from the Freezing. Istoria needed the sorceress to keep their own realm safe. The king and queen knew it would not be fair to send the child of one of the people of the land. They would have to send their own child. They were good and honest people like that. They promised her she would be loved. She was promised there would be true friends to help her when she needed help. Queen Beatrice removed a necklace from around her own neck and placed it in the hand of her daughter. It was an ancient spider captured in glass the moment after it had spun its last web, a reminder to the princess of her origins and of her responsibilities.

  “The sorceress came and wrapped the princess in a blanket made of wool. The strands came from all over the kingdom and were woven together just for her. When the blanket was spread out, it told a story: her story. The sorceress strapped the princess to her back, and together they flew over Istoria. They left behind the ocean and flew over the mountains. On and on they flew. The princess fell asleep. When she awoke, the sorceress was gone. She was still wrapped in her blanket and utterly alone.”

  She was crying as she spoke. It was hard to tell because raindrops had also gathered on her cheeks, but Lewis knew they were mingled with tears. “That’s when my aunt came to get me,” Melanie said. “I’ve been with her ever since.” A spider had emerged while she spoke and worked to reattach a long radius that had fallen, carefully weaving it back into the frame of the web. Together they watched it work. “She used to tell me that story. When I first got here.” In her hand she clasped the pendant of her necklace.

  “Your aunt?” Lewis asked, surprised.

  “She’s not as bad as she seems. She just doesn’t like children very much. She likes stories, though, and—”

  “Don’t do that,” Lewis said.

  “What?”

  “Make excuses.”

  “She’s rough around the edges, it’s true. She’s not used to talking to people.” Melanie stared at the web. “When I first got here, every night she would make me a cup of warm milk. I’d never had warm milk before. It gets sweeter, somehow. Sometimes it was plain; sometimes she added vanilla, or maple syrup, or cinnamon. She’d bring it upstairs, and I’d sip it in bed. She sat in a rocker, and she’d tell me stories. All kinds of stories.”

  “Like that one?”

  “Yes. They were all about this land where stories lived. Where I was the princess. I think some she made up and some she cobbled from other stories. I’ve never really had any friends, but I had those stories, and I had my aunt.” Melanie wrapped her cloak tighter around her. “I know she’s not usual, but I’d rather be at home with her than at school where I have to admit that no one likes me very much.”

  “I like you, Melanie,” Lewis said. “I like you a lot.” He blushed.

  She smiled, but only for a second, because then the spider stopped. It regarded them for a moment, as if waiting for something. “I think it wants another story,” she said.

  Lewis opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He felt queasy and embarrassed. “I don’t have any stories,” he finally admitted.

  “Everyone has stories,” she replied.

  He shook his head. That was his whole problem. He wanted adventures. He wanted to be like Buzz, where everyone had a story about him. But he hadn’t had a chance to do anything wonderful yet. “I have games,” he said. “Big games. Good games.”

  She didn’t look impressed, so he quickly said, “My mom told me a story the other night. About a moose and—”

  “Not a summary.” She leaned in closer to him. “Tell it.”

  “Once when my mom was a girl, she and my aunt went to stay at their grandparents’ house. My great-grandparents. I only met them once, but I know where their house is—on that road that goes out by the marshes to the ocean. That old white house? Anyway, they were there, and this big storm came up.”

  As Lewis told the story his mother had told him, a second orb weaver emerged onto the Story Web and started weaving.

  “They waited for the game wardens to get there, and my mom just sat with the moose.”

  Melanie watched the spiders. Their yellow-and-black backs barely moved.

  “And when they revived him, he stole my aunt’s apple and ran into the woods!” Lewis said. Then he added: “The end.”

  “Wonderful!” Melanie clapped her hands together.

  Lewis, though, frowned. “It’s not enough.”

  “It’s a start,” Melanie said. “Let’s keep going. What stories do you know? You must know some stories.”

  He supposed he did. They took turns telling them. Melanie told fairy tales and fables and poems about old knights fighting monsters and stories about trick
ster animals. Lewis told the story of the 1980 Olympic hockey team. He told Buzz’s stories. He told a story about a boy who had been lost on Mount Katahdin and survived. They racked their brains and told every story they could remember.

  The spiders did their job. But the web was huge and the spiders so small.

  Eventually, they decided they needed to go back to her house. It was getting dark, and the ice was falling in heavier and heavier sheets. They walked in circles, he was pretty sure, though any footsteps they left were filled up by the falling ice. On and on they walked.

  Uncle Donny always answered the phone the same way. Hull-oh! Like no matter who it was, he was grateful to be talking to them. Alice barely even noticed when he pulled his phone from his pocket and answered it. They had just come into his log cabin. Her mom was stuck at the hospital because of the ice storm, and so Alice was going to stay at Uncle Donny’s. She was taking off her boots and thinking about what they were going to have for dinner when he said, “Wait, slow down . . . slow down.”

  Fear had crept into his voice. The last time Alice had heard that was the night of the social when he’d come to pick her up. Your dad is still feeling sick, he’d said in that tight voice. What was going on now? Was it her dad? Was he okay? The questions came as fast as her speeding heartbeat.

  “It was canceled . . . ​Yes, we called. I spoke with Laurel.”

  Alice, still bent over her own boots, froze.

  Lewis.

  “We just left the rink. No one was there . . . ​Okay, okay. Hold on. Have you called the sheriff’s office?”

  Alice lifted her head. The sheriff’s office? What was going on? Where was Lewis?

  Uncle Donny turned so she couldn’t see his face.

  “Yes. Yes. I’ll go right back. I’ll turn on all the lights. I can go out in my truck or I can . . . Okay . . . Yes . . . Yes, of course.”

  He clicked out of the call and held the phone in front of him, staring at it.

  “What happened with Lewis?” she asked. But she supposed there was a part of her that knew.

  “He never came home,” Uncle Donny said. “He’s missing.”

  He marched toward the kitchen. She followed right behind. He yanked open the freezer. “I’m getting you some dinner and then I’m going out looking. You’ll stay—”

  “No,” Alice said. “I’m going, too.” She felt topsy-turvy, like the ground had ceased being solid. Lewis? Missing? Gone?

  Uncle Donny tugged at his hair. “Alice, I can’t deal with this right now. One of my guys is missing. I can’t be worrying about you, too. I need to know you’re safe, okay?”

  “I can help,” she said. She had to help. She’d done nothing when her father needed her, and now here it was, crisis time again, and she was expected to just sit still?

  “You can help by staying here. Man the phones.”

  “Is he with Melanie?”

  “Who?”

  “Melanie Finch. Has anyone seen her?”

  He held his phone out to her. “If that’s a friend of Lewis’s, can you call her?”

  “I don’t know her number. She lives in the Bird House.”

  “I’m calling Officer Tibble. I’m making you a pizza, calling Officer Tibble, and you’re going to stay here.”

  Alice knew she couldn’t win this argument. So she just watched as Donny left the room, dialing his phone. She sat there. Useless. Her dad would know what to do. Even when he was her age, he would’ve known. How could she possibly think that she was anything like him when she couldn’t even help her best friend?

  She thought of how Lewis had just shown up when she’d been alone and scared out by the web. He’d known what to do, too.

  She stood, ready to act. Just as she was reaching for her boots, Uncle Donny came back in with his heavy Carhartt jacket on, an orange hat pulled over his head.

  “Someone’s heading up to the Bird House. No one answered the phone there. Do you have any idea where they might be?”

  Alice shook her head.

  Which was a lie.

  She knew where they were.

  They were in the woods. They were trying to fix the web. They had not given up.

  “Pizza’s in the toaster oven. It will be done in five. Eat it and stay by the phone. Do not leave this house.”

  “Okay,” Alice said.

  Donny stopped his frantic movements. He placed his hands on her shoulders and looked right into her eyes. “Alice, I am serious. Do not leave this house. I absolutely could not handle it if anything happened to you. Do you understand? Promise me you won’t leave.”

  She nodded, and then, without really thinking about it, she threw her arms around her uncle’s waist.

  He squeezed her back. “It’s okay, Allie. We’ll find them.”

  “Maybe . . . ,” Alice began. “Maybe check the woods.”

  “His clubhouse? His mom already checked there.”

  “Maybe check beyond there. They both really like to explore in the woods.”

  “On a day like this? And with all those animals?” Uncle Donny shook his head. “I’m sure Lewis has more sense than that. But I’ll let them know.” He kissed her on the top of the head on his way out the door.

  The toaster oven dinged. Alice took out the French bread pizza, being careful not to singe her fingers.

  Dare stood on the counter. Alice broke off a piece of the bread. Dare danced around it before pecking at it and putting it into her mouth.

  Alice found she wasn’t very hungry. “I have a room here, too,” she said. “Wanna see?”

  She hefted her backpack onto her shoulder and took the receiver of Donny’s house phone upstairs with her. Her room was at the back of the house. It had been her dad’s room, when he and Donny lived here together before her parents got married. It still had his posters of old hockey players and classic rock bands. In the closet were boxes of things from her grandparents’ house before they sold it and moved to Florida.

  Alice sat on the bed. Ice pelted the window sounding like tiny bullets, one after another, unrelenting.

  They’re out there, she thought. Lewis and Melanie were out in the storm trying to stop whatever was happening. But how could they do that without her?

  She stood. Dare rushed to the edge of the bed. Bzeep-zeep! Her call was urgent, like she knew what she was thinking of doing. “I can’t just leave them out there. I think I can find it.”

  Bzeep!

  The bird and Alice stared at each other.

  “I promised,” Alice said.

  Dare stilled and sat next to her. Alice stroked the top of her head.

  “Sometimes I feel like I have a broken wing, too. But it’s something deeper inside me, you know?” she said. “Everything I want to do, everything I think I should do, I go to move, and I can’t.” She lay back with her head on her father’s old pillow. “Like hockey. I still want to play, but I can’t get my feet into my skates. I mean, I can. I could do it. But my brain or my heart or something—the broken thing—it won’t let me.”

  Dare gave a soft, sympathetic bzeep, and Alice almost believed the bird really understood.

  She stared at the ceiling. Her dad had hung an M. C. Escher print there. It was one of the tessellations where the designs morphed as they repeated: birds into fish and fish into birds. It felt like metamorphosis to her, and she wished she could dive right in. How would she change?

  Too much thinking! she told herself. Her dad used to say that she would get too much in her own head on the ice sometimes. She needed to clear her thoughts. Stop thinking about herself. Stop thinking about Lewis.

  In the closet was a box full of old comics that had belonged to her dad. He liked the Avengers best of all. “He told me he likes when all the heroes come together,” she explained to Dare as she hefted the box out of the closet and placed it on the bed. “He said it’s like a hockey team. Like you figure out everyone’s strengths and you make the team better by playing up those strengths. Better than the sum of its parts.”
Dare looked intently at the drawing of the Falcon on the cover.

  Alice smiled. “You’d make a good comic character,” she told the bird. She held up both hands. “Waxwing!”

  She picked through them. “It’s funny, you know,” she said to Dare. “Some superheroes want to be heroes. Like Batman or Captain America. They make it happen. Other ones don’t really have a choice. Like Spider-Man. Ms. Zee would probably say those ones are part of the Hero’s Journey, but I don’t know. I mean, are you really a hero if you don’t want to be?”

  Dare didn’t get a chance to respond because, for the first time ever, Alice had made it close to the bottom of the box. There she found a red spiral-bound notebook. On the cover, looking like they’d been written by erasing away the red, were the words Andy and Donny’s Awesome Comics.

  Alice hesitated. Then, she pulled out the notebook. She turned open the cover and sighed. There was her father’s handwriting. A little messier than it was now but still straight and tall.

  The adventures of Andy and Donny, AKA Hat Trick and the Penalty, two hockey-loving kids who save the world. Often.

  The word “often” had been added by someone else, probably Uncle Donny.

  The comics were silly. Her dad and uncle rescued cats from trees and kids from bullies and, in one particularly long string, stopped the Russians from sending over a nuclear missile by beating a group of Russian kids in a game of pond hockey. It ended with Hat Trick and the Penalty going out for pizza with Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.

  Alice turned the page and froze. There was a drawing of a web. A big one that stretched across the whole page. The lines were thick and gone over again and again. The only problem was the center was gone, replaced by a big question mark.

  Alice traced her fingers over the lines. She was certain her dad had drawn them. What was supposed to be in the center of that web? She leaned in closer and closer as if, if she got near enough, an answer would appear.

  She looked at the comics spread over the bed. There was the Justice League: Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman standing tall, the Flash and Aquaman hovering in the background. Next to them was an Avengers comic, the cover crowded with heroes. Like a hockey team.