EXCERPT TWO: “The Spindler’s Web”
by: T. Wallace-Pregent
He was abnormally quiet. That’s the first thing Brynne noticed about him. The Canticles were a family of six and you had to be loud to be heard. The kitchen, the heart of the Canticle household, was normally booming and bustling with noise: board games being played, dishes getting washed, homework being talked about and radio blaring. Every young voice was vying for parental attention. Parental voices were either barking out orders or running interference.
On this day, however, all six Canticles were quiet. The tall grey man may have been silent, but his black eyes were loud, staring with a gravity that was unnerving to say the least. His high cheekbones and well-chiselled features were still handsome despite his advanced age and the severity of his expression. This was a fearsome man; a man you didn’t refuse. Yet, if Brynne had looked closely enough, she may have seen something in those eyes that was not altogether foreboding. A spark of something gentler, a humor perhaps, that could not quite be called a ‘twinkle’ but was something akin to it.
Brynne did not see the gentle spark that morning in the Canticle kitchen, however. She saw the almost panicked expression of her father, the grim line of his mouth, his set jaw, and immediately she detested her estranged grandfather with all the passion a twelve-almost-thirteen-year-old girl could muster. Which was quite a lot.
The children were quickly ushered outside, a definite sign of impending doom from Brynne’s point of view. There was no point in joining her much older sister Elizabeth who was going for a walk around the neighborhood. She flatly refused to help her younger brother Caeden hunt for warty toads in the water garden. The beautiful sunny day was spoiled for Brynne and she could do nothing but sit cross-legged on the warm stone patio and listen to the snatches of adult conversation projected through the open kitchen window.
“I told you never to come here!” Her father’s voice was angry and strained. “I’ll not have you addling my children’s brains with that nonsense!”
She could not hear what her grandfather was saying, but she could hear that John Wizerly’s voice was low and even and absolute in its authority. She could hear her mother’s voice, too, and it sounded calm, but higher-pitched than usual.
“Father has a point, Arthur. Even if you don’t agree with his views, is it fair to deprive them of their grandchildren? What if he were to promise not to tell them anything? What if I offered to go with them to be sure that nothing…unusual happened?”
Just then Brynne’s tingling ears were assaulted by Caeden’s joyful shrieks as he dangled a slimy bullfrog in front of her eyes.
“Caeden Anthony! You are so dead! Just you wait…”
The next thing she knew, she was running from the fat warty creature and screaming half in fear, half in delight. It made her forget the impending doom for a while. In the next moment, though, reality hit her with the suddenness of a natural disaster. John Wizerly himself stood before her, those grim black eyes fixed on her and Caeden: insinuating wordlessly that they belonged to him. Then he turned and walked away down the cobblestone path around to the front of the house where his car was waiting.
