“Just throw the ball!” Chester Dale shouted as he strained against his brother Milton’s best efforts to keep him out of the pass. Across the shady glade another group of boys bounded toward a trembling, weedy boy unlucky enough to have caught the ball. Milton let go of Chester as the thud of little Edward’s body startled the late summer birds from their perches. “What a loser….” The Dale brothers gathered around the wheezing, pathetic lump wallowing in the mud with the concern of circling buzzards.
“Let’s get out of here…he’ll just start crying.” Another boy kicked the ball away from Edward’s hand, striking him in the process which sent Edward curling into himself. He knew this was going to happen, he knew what the Dale twins were like, he knew what the other boys were like, but still his mother insisted he try to be social. How his chest ached as the vultures lost interest, how his breath was slow to return after Milton offered him a sound kick for ruining their winning game.
Adults rarely want to accept the cruelty of children as it was in part a manifestation of their own worst behaviors freed from shame and societal pressures. The Dales were the eldest sons of the mayor, and through the process of careful generational curation imbued with a sense of dominance over other villagers and the power with which to enforce it. In Edward’s assessment, they’d spent their lives waiting for moments like this, for a moment they could satisfy their profound desire to harm in a way that no one would question. Who cared about Edward Cate?
“No one.” Edward managed a hoarse whisper as he stared into the bleak gray sky. He could feel the world bracing for autumn all around him. The earth felt colder than it had the last time he ended up here. Colder, less teaming with the busy bugs and listless worms he’d become so familiar with in his frequent beatings. It was calming to think of the purpose nature gave even its smallest creations and how dedicated they were in fulfilling it.
What good were people, then? All they seemed to do was prey on those simply trying to find a purpose, or survive, rather than contribute anything beyond destruction. Destroying trees to build houses, rearing animals only to destroy them for food… humans did not seem to give anything back and instead begot sons like Chester and Milton Dale who lived only to torment pale, soft spoken boys like Edward. What good was Edward Cate?
He didn’t have an answer. His thoughts trailed off in a sudden and worrying drowsiness. He’d hit his head, though he wasn’t quite aware of it. A little trickle of blood seeped between the last dry blades of grass and down toward the trees.
“Should we go check on Eddie? He’s usually up by now.” One of the Dale twins lackeys felt a twinge of guilt as he stared into the dregs of his cider cup. The boys fled the glade in favor of the harvest market. Massive pumpkins, bushels of corn and wheat, and bales of hay littered the village green. Cider makers, bakers, craftsmen of all sort were racing against the weather to set up their wares before the evening rain made messy going of it. “What if he’s….”
“Hurt?” Chester spat. “Who cares?”
“But if he’s hurt bad he might…” Dissent was disallowed in the presence of the Dale Twins, a lesson their lackey learned as the bale he sat on suddenly tipped over, leaving him sucking for air.
“If you’re so worried about Catey go find her, yeah? No one cares what happens to Cates and no good comes of prying too much.” Milton spoke this time, carrying himself with a more calculated air of authority than Chester. Milton was older by a matter of minutes, and a good degree sharper than his broader shouldered and heavy-fisted twin. “He’s probably home, crying about how he can’t handle himself on the field. Maybe this time he’ll stop bothering us.”
Milton stepped over the fallen boy and headed off toward the people assembling the bonfire for tomorrow’s festivities. The rest of the gang disbursed through the green, poking and prodding in their juvenile way. The dissenter glanced toward the woods where he was certain Edward still lay but turned away, pulling his collar close about his neck as autumn rained down on the village.
Edward remained in the glade, frost-white and small as shadows streaked across his face. In the twilight, fine gossamer threads twinkled as they steadfastly held a poultice to his injured head. Something had moved him, reclined him on a little bank of stones and tended to his wound. It or they had left him wrapped in a blanket of vibrant early fallen leaves knitted together with the same delicate threads. He wouldn’t catch cold, or that was the intention, and perhaps he would not die though the eyes that watched him from the forest worried these accommodations were not adequate.
They’d watched on in anger each time the Dales left Edward muddy and bruised. How many times they should have acted! What crime had Edward committed to face such torment? This time was worse, this time a rock did what a pack of wild boys had only half-attempted in the past and those eyes beseeched fate to see Edward well. They startled as Edward suddenly sat up.
A rattling cough sent Edward upright as breath finally seeped into his bruised chest. It was getting late! Had he passed out? The pain in his head was finally registering and he lurched forward, nausea taking hold. The presence in the trees thought they could steal a few more glimpses before Edward might notice.
As Edward eased back and wiped his crackling lips, his eyes found the eyes that had watched him for so long. Both boys stared at one another, one certain he was delirious, the other terrified of having been seen. The boy in the trees took a shaky step forward and Edward fell backward. He’d never seen anyone shimmer as this boy did as his clothes were made of the same spider’s silk. You could fashion clothes from it?
Why was that his first thought? Edward blushed and looked away as he was dwelling on the specifics of it. Here was a boy draped in gossamer and twilight and the first thing he was concerned about was the practicality of the tailoring. “T, thank you.” He stammered, finally noticing his leaf blanket and feeling the poultice wrapped firmly in place.
A twig crunched and snapped beyond the glade, causing both Edward and the boy to glance toward the village. “No, wait! Please I want to thank you….properly.” Another twig crunched and the boy’s golden eyes grew fearful before he darted back into the woods, leaving nothing but Edward’s certainty that he had been there moments before. “ugh…..” Edward collapsed back on the rock feeling rudely interrupted.
“Eddie! Eddie are you alright?” Edward’s mother rushed forward from the small band of villagers that had come looking for him to kneel at his side. She took little notice of the odd spidery things draped around her son as she took him in her arms.
Edward stared into the tree line where the boy had disappeared, unmoved by his mother’s worried questioning and the exclamation of the gathering crowd. He just wanted to thank him, that was all he could think of as he was lifted up and placed in the wagon Mrs. Hurley brought to bring back whatever they found.
“Take’em on John. We’ll talk when you’re back.” Mrs. Hurley nodded to her son as the cart rattled forward. John pulled his collar back around his neck once more as Milton Dale’s icy stare bore into him as the cart passed.
“Milly.” Chester interrupted his brother’s glare to beckon him toward where Edward had been laying. “What do you make of this? Spider webs?”
Milton lifted the unusual construct of webs and leaves skeptically. “I’ve never known a spider to weave blankets. Don’t tell father about this, whatever you do. It’s too close to the harvest to trouble him with this.”
“Trouble him with what?” Chester shied away from another of Milton’s sharp looks and nodded.
Someone cared about Edward Cate, it seemed.