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On the eve of his seventeenth birthday, Kevin was eaten by spiders.  Torn apart and liquefied and slurped up down to the bones. 

He had it coming though.  There was a perfectly good reason for it. 

*

On his tenth birthday, Kevin’s mother gave him a small brown box and inside the box was another box and both of them had airholes because inside them like the world’s hairiest matryoshka doll was a large tarantula. 

“Make sure you don’t forget to feed her,” his mother told him.

“Sure!” said Kevin. 

He forgot to feed her, then when she became quiescent pulled her legs off, one at a time.  A very small orb-weaving spider saw the whole thing from her web in the corner of his room. 

Not that she gave a shit, mind you.  Being torn apart is just part of a spider’s day, albeit the very last part of the last day. 

*

On his twelfth birthday Kevin’s father gave him an egg sac.  The last one the pet store had. 

“They misplaced the label, no idea what’s in it,” he said.  “Think of it as gambling.”
Kevin got bored of waiting two days in and poked the egg sac apart in hopes of seeing what was inside it.  He found nothing but tiny little half-formed spiderlings, legs still soft and blurred like bad photography. 

The very small orb-weaver in the corner of his room didn’t mind.  Less competition. 

*

On his fourteenth birthday, Kevin was given a pair of wolf spiders. 

“Make sure you don’t keep them in the same place,” his parents told them.  “The female might eat the male.”
Kevin immediately put them both in the same tank that night and poked them until the female gave in and ate the male out of crabbiness. 

The orb-weaver approved.  She’d done the same thing earlier that morning. 

*

On his seventeenth birthday, Kevin was given a slightly small and extremely earnest tarantula named Nigel.  He spent several hours making friends with it, then went to bed.

As he turned over the covers he noticed a very small orb-weaver in the corner of his room above his head and swatted her flat without thinking about it.

That tore it.  Kevin had swatted a member of the pan-arachnid House of Commons with apathy aforethought.  He was judged by a jury of his household’s peers, found guilty, and sentenced to death within the hour, and it was a very humane sentence because he didn’t even have time to scream.

As opposed to his mother the next morning.  Good lord that woman had lungs. 

She quieted down a lot when she found the tiny court documents left on his ribcage though.  “Oh,” she said.  “I see.  Well, this all seems to be in order.  I guess there’s no helping it.  Honey!” she called down the stairs.  “Our son’s been executed by spiders.  I guess we can go on that cruise you always wanted now?”

*

They left the skeleton where it lay.  As part of the settlement, Kevin’s remains were not to be moved until they had raised at least six generations of spiders, and they were decent, law-abiding people who respected authority. 

Nigel lived in Kevin’s skull and grew fat and happy off a diet of spiderlings until he died peacefully in his sleep. 

******

The first thing the Great God Plonk created was himself, croak-first.  He wriggled his fat-bellied way into existence until the tips of his long, long legs were finished and then he looked around himself and made a chuggarumph of displeasure. 

“This is very dry,” he said, and uttered a vast croak.  And lo, there was moisture.  Enough of it to create the world and all its ponds, which the Great God Plonk immediately hopped into. 

“This is very gray,” he said, and uttered another vast croak.  And lo, there was greenery.  Enough scum and moss and ferns and trees to ring every pool and puddle, and the Great God Plonk luxuriated in their rich shade. 

“This is very hungry work,” he said at last, and went cree-cree-cree-cree-cree-cree.  And lo, out of the thin air came one trillion things that crawled and swam and flew, and almost all of them could fit in the Great God Plonk’s mouth.

That is precisely where he began to fit them. 

“This is ALSO very hungry work,” he said when he was done.  And he went cree-cree-cree-cree-cree-cree again, and an endless tide of life was made anew and sent spiralling into the Great God Plonk’s gullet over and over and over and over, because the more he made the hungrier he grew. 

“Psst,” said something to the Great God Plonk.  And it wasn’t himself, which startled him. 

It was a tiny little crawling thing with eight legs.  “Want to know a secret?”
“I have made the world and everything in it,” said the Great God Plonk.  “There are no secrets.”
“I’ve got one,” said the thing.  “I’m a spider.  We’re made of secrets.  I made one myself.”
“It can’t be that big a secret,” said the Great God Plonk, “because you are very tiny.  I think I’ll just eat you now.”
“What, you don’t want to know the secret of how to have a bigger meal?”
This interested the Great God Plonk, and so he recoiled his tongue before it had left his mouth.  “Tell me.”
“I can do better – I’ll SHOW you.  It involves traps and tricks.  See, watch.”
And the spider began to make a web.  It was very slow work – it was just a very little spider – but it toodled along as best it could. 

Which wasn’t enough for the Great God Plonk.  “I’m bored,” he said.  “Maybe I should just eat you now.”
“Ah, but then you’ll never learn how to have a bigger meal,” said the spider.  “Maybe if I had more sisters to help this would go fast.”
This made sense to the Great God Plonk, so he went cree-cree-cree-cree-cree-cree again and made many many other spiders, who all helped.  The web grew bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger until it was big enough to cover the whole pond. 

“Is this the bigger meal?” asked the Great God Plonk. 

“Taste it!” said the spider. 

The Great God Plonk tasted it.  It was tough and bitter and it stuck his tongue fast, and the harder he tried to yank it free the more tangled it grew.

So he used his arms. 

Then his legs.

Finally all the Great God Plonk could do was bobbled and gurgle. 

“THAT’s a bigger meal for all of us,” said the spider happily.  And she and her many many many other sisters descended, fangs-first.  

*

The Great God Plonk’s descendants never did learn the trick of having a bigger meal.  But they are still very, very good at eating anything that fits in their mouths. 

******

Once upon a princess castle wicked stepmother yadda yadda yadda YADDA locked in a tower. 

One day, as the princess sat in her room, her one remaining loyal servant came knocking at her door.  “Princess!” he whispered.  “The queen wants you to weave the most beautiful tapestry ever made for your father’s birthday – by tomorrow!”

“What?” cried the princess.  “But she gave me no warning, and I’m a middling weaver at best.  If my father’s present isn’t ready by tomorrow he will surely execute me!”

“That’s the idea,” said the one remaining loyal servant.
“Please, please, give me some advice,” begged the princess.

“My mother told me of an old old story: the finest weaver in the world is the great spider, Aroch.  She can weave anything out of anything into anything.  Sneak out of your tower through the window, and seek her out.  She dwells in the far away and dusty hills, where the sunlight never stirs or sleeps.”
So the princess snuck out of her tower through the window – it was a very short tower, she barely needed one bedsheet, torn in two – and crept through the slumbering castle town and into the wide wilds of the woods, where she became lost for hours and hours. 

“Oh no,” she sobbed.  “How will I ever find the far away and dusty hills by morning?”

“Why do you want to go there?” asked a tiny voice.  It was a very small spider on the treetrunk above her head.  “It’s dangerous.  Aroch lives there.”
“I need her to do something for me,” said the princess.

“Your funeral,” said the spider.  “But if you really want to find her, head for where the light is faintest.  It will turn red.  It is always sunset in the far away and dusty hills.”  And the spider tucked itself into the bark of the tree again and hid. 

The princess was not accustomed to following advice from spiders, but nor was she accustomed to seeking favours from them either, and so she swallowed her pride and her fear and sought out the faintest light and followed it through hill and dale and twist and turn and up into the very heart of the glowing red sunset that lurked eternally at the rim of the far away and dusty hills. 

“Hello?” she called. 

“Hello,” whispered Aroch. 

She was right above the princess, straddled between two hilltops.  She was very fast and very quiet for something so big. 

“I need you to weave the most beautiful tapestry ever made by tomorrow, or my father will execute me,” she said. 

“Sorry,” whispered Aroch.  “I do not weave.”
“But you’re a spider!”
“I’m a hunter, not a weaver.  See my large eyes and powerful legs and massive mandibles?  I hunt down my prey and bite it to death.  I don’t really weave things with my silk.  You’re thinking of my sister, Arach.”
“Oh,” said the princess, feeling very foolish.  “Drat.  My one remaining loyal servant’s mother must’ve been a little senile.”
“All part of life,” whispered Aroch.  “Speaking of which, I am going to eat you now.  Anything you need to do first?”
The princess’s body froze, but her mind raced, and her mouth opened just as Aroch’s did.  “Actually…yes.  I would like to do you a favour.”
“How?”

*

“I already have an ale mug,” said the king.  “Decapitate him.”

The executioner sighed inside his mask, but quietly.  His arm was starting to cramp up, and they were only halfway through the court’s gift supply. 

“Where is my daughter?” shouted the king.  “I demand to see my tapestry!”
“No doubt lollygagging,” said the queen.  “I knew she would never finish it, the lazy gadabout.  She’s had all year to make clean on her boast.  No doubt that’s her screaming in the distance right now, wailing at her bad choices.”
“She’s screaming awful loud,” said the king.  “Will someone go and fetch her, so we can execute her and silence that racket?”
The ceiling came off the throne room, lifted between two furry legs. 

“Hello,” whispered Aroch. 

“He’s the one in the hat,” said the princess, from her perch between the largest and fiercest of Aroch’s eyes.  “And she’s the one with the best marbling.”
“Fabulous,” whispered Aroch. 

“Aieee!” shrieked the king. 

“Guards!” shouted the queen.

Snap went the spider. 

*

The princess wasn’t interested in ruling, and Aroch was a solitary being. 

But on the whole the former kingdom only improved for neglect, and enjoyed many prosperous years from then on out. 

If a little less trade than before, mind you.  Word of the giant spider living in the ruins of the castle got around. 

The crash had been grisly.  The captain was dead, and the first mate, second mate, third mate, all the way down to the ship’s cat, also called Mate. 

But there was still life!  Life in the face of a hostile universe.  For in the back seats of the ship there had lurked a Competent Man, and when his keen senses had detected the turbulent descent of the spaceship through the atmosphere he had immediately leapt to his feet, seized his two seatmates – a naïve boy and a nubile waif – and stuffed them all inside the luggage compartment for safekeeping, which he naturally knew would work thanks to his nigh-innate and extensive knowledge of everything. 

Yes, it was thanks to the Competent Man that they were all still breathing, and he intended to keep them that way as long as possible as long as they understood that it was so. 

“First things first,” he said, heroically surveying the landscape with his thumbs tucked into his belt like nobody’s business, “we need to locate a source of fuel.  Those trees over there look likely.  Naïve boy, you start clearing the rubble away from the engine compartment – the nubile waif can help by moving the tiny pieces, as her biology prohibits light work or creative thought.  I’ll make an axe with these hull fragments and then go timbering.”

“Should we-” began the naïve boy, and the Competent Man punched him square in the nose as hard as humanly possible. 

“We’re in an emergency situation and I’m in charge because I am the most competent of you all,” said the Competent Man extremely calmly while wiping blood off his knuckles.  “It’s the only reasonable course of action.  Now get going while I work on keeping us all alive.  I have a plan.”

And so they did what the Competent Man had told them to, because it was clearly the only reasonable course of action because he was so competent.  By day’s end the engine compartment was nearly accessible and there was a tidy supply of firewood, which the Competent Man ordered built into a great bonfire. 

“Boyo I’m bushed,” said the Competent Man, stretching out.  “Nubile waif, cook us dinner.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Wow, you didn’t expect to do that?” asked the Competent Man, shaking his head in disbelief.  “Obviously since you haven’t done anything worthwhile all day you’ve got energy to spare and can be put to labour now.  And besides, your brain is developed to give you the satisfaction from housework that you don’t get from sex.”
“I didn’t do much all day because you told me not t-”

The Competent Man sighed loudly and broke a piece of firewood over his thigh.  They stopped questioning him in the face of his incredibly reasonable argument. 

The meal wasn’t that good.  The nubile waif didn’t know how to cook, as the Competent Man helpfully pointed out. 

***

“Alrighty then.  It’s a new day, we’re safe from predators because we have fire – proof of man’s mastery over nature, and nobody is more man than I – and now we can make a furnace.”
“Why?” asked the nubile waif. 

“We’ll build it out of the scrap you two cleared out yesterday.”
“Why?” asked the naïve boy. 

The competent man casually backhanded him.  “Don’t question my decisions.  We’re going to smelt down ore from the hill we crashed on and use it to start rebuilding the engine.  Obviously.”
“But how do you know that’s the right place to find ore, or the right kind of ore, or-” asked the nubile waif. 

“Naturally I’ve got vast knowledge of geology and chemistry,” chuckled the Competent Man, waving away her objections with one hand and grabbing at her ass with the other.  “A simple eyeballing of the landscape allows me to pinpoint that this hill is obviously a rich source of chromium-94, which we can smelt with the copper undoubtedly mingled with it straight into a hyperfloom alloy that will be IDEAL for shipwork.  Now go pick some berries for lunch; me and the naïve boy need to make a smelter from scratch using scrap metal, which of course I know how to do because I have a penis and am confident about that.”

The smelter was up and running before day’s end, and their first wiring components were being drawn out with freshly-forged tongs by the time dinner was served. 

The berries gave the naïve boy indigestion, which the Competent Man said was no doubt due to his soft and effete upbringing. 

***

And so the rhythm of survival was set.  Each morning the naïve boy and the nubile waif awoke and learned of a new marvel to be commissioned at the hands of the Competent Man. 

“Today we make batteries,” he said.

“Out of what?” asked the nubile waif. 

“Naïve boy, follow me.”
“Where?”
The Competent Man smacked him one affectionately.  “To harvest the local pitcher-plants!  Obviously their gullets are full of a substance at the exact PH to be used as acid, and we can repurpose their structures as hulls for the batteries anyways.  Simple work.”
“How do you possibly know that’s true?” asked the nubile waif. 

“Afterwards we can get working on booting up a generator.  Nubile waif, that grove on top of the hill looked like it’ll provide edible nuts.  Don’t forage too far afield or you might be attacked by wild beasts.”

The nuts were delicious, but the nubile waif didn’t crush them into a flour for pancakes, which the Competent Man said would’ve been the most obvious way to prepare them. 

“Today we grind lenses,” he said. 

“How?” asked the naïve boy. 

The Competent Man sighed and punched him in the gut.  “Lifeboat rules, you follow my lead.  Nubile waif, tear up your clothing for tinder, we’re running low on fire materials.”
“Why is it just m-”

“Onwards!” said the Competent Man, and by day’s end they had made some simple lenses with which to recalibrate the laser spectroflexor, which was already being put to use in repairing the damage to the inner hull. 

The nubile waif had torn up some spare jumpers she found inside the cargo compartment for tinder.  “These aren’t nearly as worn and flammable as your clothing would’ve been,” said the Competent Man disapprovingly.  “Honestly, I don’t know how these ideas get into your silly little head.”

“These didn’t fit any of us and I didn’t want to be naked.”
“Adorable,” he chuckled, and he patted her on the head with one hand and grabbed at her ass with the other. 

“Today we will rebuild the starchart,” he said.  

“You know how to program?” said the nubile waif. 

“Naïve boy, you’re in charge of recording all the stars the moment they come out using this tablet I’ve crafted from the clay pit just south near the pond.  Nubile waif, you can check on him every half-hour to make sure he’s paying attention.  Just bat your lashes at him and he’ll wake right up.”
“I don’t really know much about astrono-” said the naïve boy, as the Competent Man slugged him one. 

“Honestly, just use your brain and your gut and your penis and your ineffable power of being correct,” he admonished him gently.  “I’ll be busy calibrating the ship’s computer to accept the new data.  Oh, and nubile waif, no hanky-panky beyond batting lashes.  As the senior male here it’s biologically unsound for me to permit you two to mate.”
The star-tablet turned out surprisingly well.  The nubile waif said that was because her graduate dissertation had been on xenoastronomy; the naïve boy said it was because she did it instead of him and really he should be the one cooking since he was a chef; the Competent Man said it was because the ship’s computer didn’t need any of the data and he’d just wanted both of them out of his hair while he did the real and important work in peace and quiet. 

“Today we hunt,” he said. 

“What?” said the naïve boy.  “Why?  We don’t need more food, the forage provides us with plenty of-”

“To make sure we don’t lose our edge,” said the Competent Man, smacking him idly on the head.  “A man is a hunter, and a hunter must hunt.  If we just live off flowers all day we’ll lose the vigour and rigour needed to escape this planet.  Grab a spear and follow me and do everything I say or you’ll mess this up.  Nubile waif, stoke the fires for us.  Don’t use the big axe if you want more fuel, just pick up sticks or something.  Would hate for you to hurt yourself.”

They spent all day and didn’t kill anything bigger than a sparrow.  The Competent Man pointed out it was because the naïve boy was louder than an elephant and as subtle as a spaceship take-off. 

***

Thirty-one days after the spaceship had crashed to the ground in a ball of molten metal and broken hopes, it stood heroically intact once more, ready to seize the skies and hurl itself home. 

“All tests are good, and by all tests I mean I know it’s done and done properly, because I’ve done it,” said the Competent Man.  “It’s like I’ve always said: the universe always gives you back exactly what you put into it, and nobody puts more into it than me!  Now let’s get the hell out of here and sell this place’s mineral rights for a staggering fortune, of which I will generously gift a small stipend to you both.”

“Lead the way, I guess,” said the naïve boy.

“Ladies first,” said the Competent Man, gesturing at the gangplank with one hand and grabbing at the nubile waif’s ass with the other, and as she danced away from his grip a nearby tree – surprisingly untouched by the rigorous logging that had occurred nearby for the past month – finally gave up the ghost and toppled over on top of the spaceship, crashing straight through its center and annihilating the engine utterly. 

“Urk,” said the Competent Man. 

“Well, it’ll be okay,” said the naïve boy.  “I saw a nice place to build a cabin back there near the lake.”

“Aglfgl,” said the Competent Man.  His lip bulged, and a thin trickle of mixed drool and blood slid over it. 

“Maybe we can repair it?” suggested the nubile waif.  “I mean, we’ve managed to handle this so far.”

“GLORT!” screamed the Competent Man, and he picked up the nearest fragment of debris and set about clobbering the ship, the ground, himself, and the other survivors in that order. 

Thankfully it wasn’t the sharpest fragment of debris. 

That was the one within arm’s reach of the nubile waif. 

***

It wasn’t such a bad planet, not really.  Oxygen, carbon-compatible yet not overly-hostile forms of life.  Plentiful water. 

And it helped that they had a food supply to keep them going while they got started.  The Competent Man had been a bit gritty but he was still fairly digestible, as long as you were willing to overlook the nasty bits. 

The stag was beautiful in the light of the early morning; sure-footed and strong-flanked.  Dew glistened on his muzzle as he breakfasted on ferns and grass; the clearing was so quiet that each individual chomp of his molars could be heard, and if he didn’t hurry the fuck up and get just one foot closer to her Rali was going to bite through her spear in frustration.  She’d been sitting here for two of the prettiest, coldest, dampest hours of her life waiting for a crucial six inches of movement. 

A bird twittered, the stag’s head jerked upright, and it carefully stepped six inches in exactly the incorrect direction. 

Well, that was enough.  Sometimes even if it was the wrong thing you had to do something, and that was why Rali jumped out of the tree screaming and stabbing everywhere, missing the stag by a full foot at the least and slightest.  It hopped, bleated, pawed aimlessly at her – missing her head by a LOT less than a foot – and bounced backwards out of the clearing, white rump flashing, hooves flying, directly into the monster’s mouth. 

The monster shut its mouth.  It was a very simple operation that led to a lot of complicated changes in the stag’s anatomy. 

“Show-off,” said Rali.  The monster grunted apologetically through its breakfast. 

She’d really wanted to get that one by herself.  Yes, yes, it was a team activity, but after months of practice she’d hoped to have a chance to test herself, prove that she’d accomplished something. 

Instead she accomplished a slab of venison over a fire, surrounded by a feathery and anxious blanket of squallers.  At first she’d tried to shoo them back to the farm – she’d left the pen open so they could forage, and eventually someone would show up to take them in – but they never did anything but flutter away and look hurt and terrified (a squaller’s default expression, to be fair) so she’d given up and accepted that her lot in life was to be accompanied at a distance by over a dozen neurotic stinking child-beasts. 

The eggs were nice, mind you. 

***

Rali woke early the next morning to an unexpected sensation.  Chill. 

The air was cold.  Her breath hung in front of her, puffy and pale.  The squallers had compacted themselves into even tighter balls of feathers than usual, and frost rimed the monster’s scales across the thicket patch they called home, or at least ‘bed.’

It was snoring blissfully, so clearly this wasn’t unusual. 

This was good.  Rali had enjoyed the last few months, which had involved less weeding and stump-clearing and tilling than she had ever imagined to be possible, but in the back of her head she’d always been wondering what the plan was for winter.  That the monster rested so casually indicated there was one, which was a tremendous relief. 

After three days of waiting she lost her temper and hit its snout until its eyes opened. 

“THIS is the plan?” she asked it incredulously.  “Sleep through the cold?”
The monster blinked affrontedly at her. 

“You’re going to sleep for three months?”
The monster indicated this was the case. 

“I can’t do that.”

The monster looked mortified, half-sat-up with great purpose, then slumped over and fell asleep again. 

Rali sighed, and remembered her farm, and remembered clearing the stumps. 
“Well.  Could be worse.”

***

The first snow came down later that day. 

The first snow that stayed came down later that night. 

The first white morning came right after that, and it was a real sight.  But what surprised her the most wasn’t the perfect snow-tracings on every branch and twig and needle in the woods. 

What surprised her the most was the sky. 

Rali had spent as little time outdoors in winter as she could – as anyone sane did – and she’d ventured out only for essential chores, and she’d done them quickly and as well as she could be assed. 

She’d never had this much time out here alone, and watching, and seeing the whole world turn pale grey from the heavens on down to the water-turned-ice was, well. 

Maybe it wasn’t beautiful.  But it was definitely something. 

She could’ve looked at it for hours, and she did.  And then her stomach rumbled. 

Time for a hunt.  She grabbed her spear, stood upright, said “hey, let’s go” to the monster, and started swearing.

***

The last berries of the season were gone, so she ate the nuts fallen from the trees. 

The snowfall came and hid the nuts, so she hunted the stags, fat-packed for the lean times. 

The stags hid in their secret thickets in the deep woods, and that was when the squallers started to look nice and tempting, but they were also her (slightly-foul-and-fowl-smelling) blanket and besides they were laying hens, not eating.  And there wasn’t a lot of fat on them after months living in the wild. 

So Rali improvised.  She climbed trees and jammed her spear into holes and sometimes (just often enough to be worth it) into a sleeping treecurler atop its nut hoard.  She threw very small rocks at very small birds for very small meals.  She went down the frozen lakes and smashed open the ice and dangled lines made from twisted grass and bark, and once she smashed a hole open in the shallows for a drink and accidentally brained a sleeping turtle as big as her torso, which was a nice surprise and an even nicer meal. 

All in all, she was doing surprisingly well when the blizzard came. 

It was remarkably sudden.  One moment Rali was considering the snow, trying to figure out if a hoofprint meant a stag was slumbering in the bushes ahead of her or had left days ago, the next everything had gone completely white.  She couldn’t see her hand in front of her face, or anything else in front of her face for that matter.  Then she stopped trying because her eyesockets were rapidly becoming snowballs. 

Finding her way home in that was the hardest thing she’d ever done in her life, foot by foot, grope by grope, one foot in front of the next woops that wasn’t in front that was behind, fall after fall after getting up.  But at last she stumbled into a dark space that wasn’t blindingly white and fell face-first onto the monster’s fur and slumbered like the dead. 

When Rali woke up the first thing she realized was that the monster didn’t have fur.  The second thing she realized was that she wasn’t in the thicket.  And the third thing she realized was that the mawbear she was sleeping on top of was waking up. 

***

There were no more blizzards, and even the darkest depths of the cold that came the following month were no terror under Rali’s new coat.   She foraged freely far and wide, drunk on the invincibility offered by a belly endlessly full of thawed bear-meat and coddled in its slightly smelly embrace, even if it did make the squallers panic every time she came home with the hood drawn up.  Maybe she shouldn’t have left the head attached.  She did her best to earn back their fleeting, panicky trust with endless bribes of anything green she found in her prey’s stomachs. 

Well, the bits Rali didn’t eat herself.  At this point she’d have done a lot for a single burnt tuber from the west field on her farm. 

Except remove stumps. 

She would definitely not remove stumps. 

She WOULD, however, tear open stumps with her hatchet, unearthing tiny and beautifully frail families of wood-voles, which she would devour.  They were very succulent, and small enough to eat whole when roasted, particularly on a fistful of the little (and hard, and tough, but oh so smoky) monk’s-ear-fungus they bedded upon.  It was in the middle of her preparing one of those miniature feasts that the monster finally bestirred itself, nostrils prickling from the smoke. 

“Hey,” she said to it.  “Sleeping beauty done yet?”
It wobbled itself almost to a standing position. 

“Because I’ve been busy.  You didn’t know I couldn’t just nap through the cold, did you?”
The monster, though possessed of an armoured and inflexible face, had expressions aplenty in subtle casts and cants of its head, eyes, and body, which Rali’s keen familiarity with it allowed her to read.  For example, careful observation of the way it was deliberately avoiding eye contact with her, covering its face with its claws, and whimpering as it crept over to her on its belly allowed her to hypothesize that it was sorry. 

“You’d better be.”
It grovelled a little harder. 

“Okay, that’s enough.”
Birds took to flight in nearby trees, ears popping with the sheer force of the whine. 

“No, it’s fine.  It’s fine.  It’s-” Rali’s eyes narrowed, then shot to the wood-voles simmering on the stone next to her in their fungus bed.  “Wait.  Are you asking for one of these?”

Hope dawned in the monster’s face, followed immediately by a snowball. 

***

There was no clear victor in the great winter battle, only a cessation of hostility following mutual exhaustion of arms and also legs. 

Rali maintained she won because the monster ran out of energy and stopped moving.  The monster probably would’ve argued it won after Rali became immobilized for over an hour under the weight of all the snow in the thicket. 

Both of them definitely admitted in the privacy of their own heads that the squallers won.  By the time both of them were up and about again, the little bastards had picked the wood-voles clean. 

Before the sun had made itself known Rali was off and moving and already aching in both shoulders from winding the crank of the well, all the water sitting beside her smug and faintly mud-scented in its buckets.  She glimpsed up at the horizon and saw the first fresh light of dawn top the distant hills, already flexing itself to peel away the damp chill of the night. 

“Fuck you,” she said, wearily.  And then she was off. 

First things first were stumps.  Every spring she had cleared the stumps from every field, and every spring all of them would have mysteriously reappeared.  She would’ve hired an exorcist to look into it, but there was no money for that. 

There was no money for an awful lot of things. 

Like, for example, a mule to help her plow and till and drag the stumps out of the ground.  So instead she shovelled and chopped and swore at them until they moved

Then there was a break for a late breakfast of scraps from last breakfast. 

It was not a very good breakfast but that was all part of the plan; at this point in her day she’d eat anything and enjoy it. 

And then, back to it!

Rali dragged the stumps up the hill to her house, and she dragged the stumps down the hill to the woodpile.  She chopped the wood, and she split the wood. 

Wipe the brow.  The salt in the eyes stings.

And then, back to it!

She poured water for herself, and she poured water for the trembling little squallers in their paddock.  She shooed off the lurking claw-cat in the bushes, and she cursed the burning sun.  She sowed the west field, and she tilled the east field.  She weeded the north field, and she only noticed the monster when she pulled the last weed from between its talons. 

In her defence, she’d been bent over double for an hour and the winter’s-children were already tall and flourishing, near head-high.  

Rali immediately did the one thing she knew she shouldn’t, which was make a sudden movement.  In this case, she stood up very quickly while doing the other one thing she knew she shouldn’t, which was look it in the eye. 

She was spoilt for choice.  There was an awful lot of eye.  A soft charcoal colour with big slit pupils.  And right below them a mouth that looked to have been made by splitting a crocodile in half and filling it with teeth. 

It yawned at her.  The tongue didn’t curl, which seemed unfair given how thoroughly it reminded her of the claw-cat in that moment. 

Rali nodded once at it, did the third one thing she knew she shouldn’t, which was turn her back to it, and walked across the field through her yard inside her home and to her kitchen table, where she stuffed her fist into her mouth up to the wrist and screamed as long and silently as she could manage. 

***

Rali made tea.  It seemed like the best decision she could make at the time, it gave her something to do with her hands that wasn’t watching them shake, and since her hands were shaking it took almost an hour to make and longer still to drink.  It was the harsh stuff, made from a real curdleroot she’d dug out from under the steps a year ago, dried-out and stringy and pupil-shrinking, and when she finished her first cup she felt almost human; her second cup made her almost normal; and her third cup made her forget how fear worked so she decided what the hell.  

She peered out the door. 

No monster. 

She slowly paced the length of the house, checking around each corner. 

No monster. 

She climbed atop her roof and stared as far afield as she could. 

No monster. 

And then she went back to it, but with a lack of emphasis and rigor that she would’ve found appalling any other day.  But flaming snakes alive, she had an excuse to have a bit on her mind right then. 

Also the curdleroot was giving her the shakes pretty bad. 

***

The next morning was entirely normal, which Rali considered deeply suspicious. 

She crept out the door and looked around and wasn’t immediately eaten, but that wasn’t as reassuring as it could’ve been. 

So she worked at the well, and she gave the squallers their water early (they were still asleep, soft things), and she told herself it wasn’t at all an excuse to keep herself from walking out into the fields and she hated how poor a liar she was. 

If only her sister were here.  That woman could lie a river right out of its bed. 

Rali walked down into the south fields, shoulders slumped, brain tense, ready for anything, prepared for the worst, and was completely and utterly unprepared to find every single remaining stump in the field piled into a grody heap in its center, roots and all. 

“Fuck,” she said involuntarily, and knew her mother would’ve smacked her.  “What the fuck?” she elaborated, and that would’ve been soap in her mouth.  “What the fucking fuck?” oh this was all beyond the pale. 

She stared at the pile, then stared behind the pile, then stared around the pile.  But there was no monster, and there was a job to do, so in the end Rali’s duty won out over her shock and she started dragging them back to the woodpile. 

The monster was dozing on the roof of her house.  It cracked an eyelid at her as she towed the first stump by, red glow soft in the early morning light. 

“Thanks,” said Rali. 

It blinked, then did not pounce at and devour her. 

Her hands still shook all day, but that helped.  And so did a little more curdleroot. 

***

The next day the stumps she hadn’t chopped yet were crushed into very small splinters in the middle of the woodpile.  The monster was dozing on top of the woodpile. 

The day after that the south field had been re-tilled by giant claws, and it was curled around her house. 

The day after that the north field’s weeding had been performed – if somewhat inexpertly – by a pair of titanic jaws, and it was sleeping in the crushed patch she’d first found it in. 

And so on.  And so forth.  And again.  And again. 

Seven days in Rali woke up in the middle of the night with the back of her neck tingling (she’d run out of curdleroot earlier that day), walked outside, and tripped over the monster’s tail.  It was crouched in the middle of her yard, where it was very, very carefully attempting to work the crank of the well. 

“I think I’d better do that bit,” she said.  “You can go eat the damned claw-cat.”

***

Things became much easier after that.  (Sometimes – the experiment with the plough failed, on account of the monster possessing a rather large and inconveniently inflexible tail).  Open and honest communication always helps. 

Rali sowed the seeds in the south field, and the monster reaped the sprouted winter’s-children in the north field with its bladelike paws. 

Rali spread the squaller-dung over the freshly sown fields, and the monster stood next to their paddock to ensure they produced plenty more. 

Rali weeded, weeded, and weeded again, and the monster tried to weed was politely dissuaded and settled for standing directly over her as the sun blazed, acting as mobile shade while its tongue lolled from its mouth. 

Rali went into town and bartered away the harvested winter’s-children, and the monster stayed behind and ate three claw-cats and one lurk that thought a paddock of unattended squallers looked very tasty. 

Rali invited visitors over to talk shop, and the monster hid behind her house until it sneezed and she had to make very awkward excuses to get them off the farm without looking around first. 

And so on and so forth through the blazing summer and into the rusting trees of autumn and the harvest welling up out of the land, which was harvested in equal parts by both of them.  Rali handled the delicate grains, the monster dug up the tough tubers, and if the crop was a little more slashed than usual neither Rali nor her bartering partners mentioned anything of it. 

For the first time in half a decade, she had a surplus. 

“Go away,” she told the monster. 

It gave her a soulful look, insofar as it was possible with that face. 

“Not forever, just for the afternoon.  Go mess around in the woods or something.  It’s a surprise.”

It took her a little longer than expected – it had been ages since she’d seen her mother make the big oven-pits, covered in slow-burning grasses – but it all came back ready enough.  And if the tubers were a little charred, so what?  It brought out the flavour, which was good because the grainy porridge was filling but it wasn’t exactly lively. 

A giant cold snout bumped Rali’s back and thanks to many months of practice she didn’t jump out of her skin. 
“Eat up,” she said, and the monster dropped a giant and only slightly bloody (at the muzzle) stag on the embers. 

She stared at it.  Its flanks wobbled with autumn fat. 

“And this is what you’ve been living off’ve all year?” she asked. 

The monster made a small and affirmative noise. 

She looked at the stag, and she looked at the monster, and she looked at the table and its porridge and its charred tubers. 

“What the hell,” she said.  “Mom always said I’d be a lousy farmer.  No work ethic.”

***

It was a good six weeks before anyone checked in on Rali’s farm and found it empty; paddock, yard, and home alike.  The weeds had already taken over, and the fields were – somehow – full of stumps. 

The squallers never did not stop following the two of them.