The fly clenched to her chest, the spider descended headfirst into the dark depths of the pond.

                                                                           #

                   It was a long trip down through the predator-infested water, but as it grew colder, she relaxed. Something enormous swam by, but either it did not notice her or it had no appetite for spider flesh. Her body displayed the scars from a lifetime spent tangling with dangerous competitors-everything from water skitters to backswimmers-but she knew her limits. If one of those fast-swimming monstrosities ever noticed her, it would swallow her whole, and that would be that.

                   When the fly struggled, she poked a fang into its left eye and held it there until the body grew rigid. The bubble surrounding her abdomen provided her with both oxygen and warmth, and it nettled her, having to share her air with her food. But the alternative-bringing home a drowned insect-would not do. She had no qualms about wrapping her prey in silk and saving them for later, but drink a dead insect? Never.

                   On the muddy floor of the pond, she felt around until she touched a steeply angled rock. From here, she knew the way home. Her body swayed with the currents as she pulled herself through snarls of algae and pondweeds, moving slowly, for the days of her youth were long past. By the time she found her home, a dome-shaped structure slung between three plants, she ached all over and her breathing had become a steady wheeze. She slipped inside the entrance at the bottom of the dome and scrambled up a short passageway into a warm and humid darkness.

                   The room was sparse and clean, and after climbing from the small pool of water, she deposited the fly beneath a single corpse that hung from the ceiling. She smiled to herself, remembering. The corpse was lovingly cocooned in silk, a cherished memento of a time when she'd been young and radiant with hope.

                   After a few moments spent stretching her middle leg in a yawn, she leaned over her newest victim. The fly was metallic green with clear wings, and mouthparts made for lapping nectar. It was scrawny, except for its plump abdomen, rich with the promise of delicacies. She projected her thoughts into its mind: SOON I'LL GIVE YOU A GOOD WRAPPING. AND WHEN I LIQUIFY YOU, I'LL DRINK YOUR INSIDES SIP BY SIP.   

                   She skirted the pool and backed into a roomy sleep nook, yawning as exhaustion seeped out of her limbs. Cruelty came naturally to her, and she'd let the fly marinate in its fear. Yes, give it time to marinate . . .

                   She dreamed the dream that came to her often these days, a wonderful memory of a long-ago evening when she'd stood on a branch in the sunshine and rain, her little spiderling belly pleasantly full. She felt the press of her many brothers and sisters huddling behind her. Beyond them lay their mother's cannibalized remains, her gift to them. The exciting new world stretched out before them, but no one seemed to know what to do next. Someone nudged her, and suddenly she was weightless, adrift on the wind. Filled with inexpressible joy, she spread her legs, released her silk, and ballooned away.

                   She never saw her siblings again. A student of instinct, she'd built her underwater lair, caught her prey, slipped countless snares, all in solitude. She'd thrived in a harsh environment that most spiders only glimpsed in their nightmares.

                   Yet it wasn't enough.

#

                   The spider woke, groggy with slumber, feeling the tedious thump, thump, thump through her entire body as the Basher beat a heavy leg against the side of her dome.

                   She crawled out into the dome, stiff with age. Guided by her acute sense of smell and her body's ability to read vibrations and temperature shifts, she "saw" the room as if it were softly illuminated. The fly lay where she'd dropped it, on its back next to the pool. The mild poison she'd injected was wearing off, and it fluttered one wing. Above it, the mummified corpse, drained of all blood and weighing almost nothing, swung back and forth with each thump.

                   The spider moved up the wall, past previous places where the Basher had tried to smash its way inside. Partway up, she found an inward bulge about the size of her abdomen. When she pressed her body against it, the thumping ceased. Through the thick silk, spider and Basher confronted one another. She had a vague impression of something malevolent and obsessed, angry and alien. As it always did when she discovered it trying to get in, the Basher withdrew.

                   She ran the tip of her abdomen across the bulge, reinforcing it with fresh silk. The Basher was stupid and bothersome, a menial creature of brute strength. Didn't it have anything better to do than harass her?

                   The fly's wing fluttered faster as she crawled back to the floor. She wondered how it perceived her in the utter blackness. Did its hairs tingle? Did it sense her approaching body heat? Such delicious vulnerability. She decided it was time to wrap it up-

                   Something grabbed hold of her midsection and yanked, and as the pale yellow appendage dragged her toward the pool, she splayed her eight legs, groping for purchase on the smooth silken floor.

                   A second limb launched out of the pool, arching past her for the fly. Though she'd never seen it before, she recognized a sort of spidery grace about it, and understood. The Basher. She twisted, stabbed her fangs into the worm-like leg that had clamped onto her, but it did no good.

                   The instant her hind foot touched the entrance pool, she knew it was too late. She hooked a claw on a silken strand, which stopped her from sliding farther, at least momentarily, but now the leg was cinching tight, crushing her and making it hard to breathe.

                   The second leg hovered over the fly as if keen to take its measure; the Basher must have discerned some latent danger, some bitterness she had not, because the moment it touched the fly, it drew away. The leg around the spider's chest released her, and both appendages disappeared back into the water.

                   Stunned, her chest hurting, she hobbled across the floor to the safety of her nook.

#

                   The Basher had come inside.

                   For the rest of that day, the spider remained in her sleep nook, seething on violation.

                   How dare you invade my home.

                   Gradually her anger reshaped itself into worry, and for the first time since she'd been a spiderling, she experienced uncertainty. She did not know what the Basher was, or where it came from, but it did not belong in these waters. Was it some sort of huge underwater spider? It almost seemed so. Who knew what fantastical creatures lived in the jungle's murkiest recesses?

                   She pictured those worm-like legs waiting for her just beneath the surface of the pool. Now that it had found the entrance to her dome, it could come inside whenever it pleased. The thought left her in a near panic.

                   By squeezing her so hard, the Basher had imprinted its mark; something inside seemed to have pulled loose, leaving her breathing thick and congested. Her only distraction was watching the fly shrug off the poison, then hurtle from wall to wall in frantic exertion, seeking a way out. At last, it collapsed, exhausted. When it stood, its fever of terror seemed to have passed, and as it scaled the wall to hide behind the corpse, she perceived a subtle change in the way it moved, a defiance that troubled her. It wanted her to know it hadn't given up.

                   Why had the leg had recoiled from it? Had the Basher sensed poison in the fly's blood that she did not? Disease that she could not? The idea both intrigued and appalled her. Perhaps what the Basher sensed was deceit, a perversity in the fly's scent designed to mimic a threat. Disease or deceit, the spider had brought home an insect she dare not consume, and it galled her.

                   Infinitely worse, the Basher had figured out it did not need to force its way inside.

#

                   For a brief time, before she'd killed and devoured him, she'd had a mate. He'd appeared one day out of the gloomy depths of the pond and followed her home. He'd been bigger than her, aggressive but somehow physically forgettable. Yet she remembered the smell of him, the passion, those few heady days of intimate embraces and furious coupling.

                   Long after he was gone, she'd held fast to hope-a tickle deep in her belly, a signal that life was beginning. But the tickle had not come, and in the fullness of time she'd faced the truth, like a grinding devastation. Alone with her deep melancholy, she retreated into her dreams. In them, she saw her children hatching from their egg sacs, crawling toward her, hungry for their first meal.

                   Come to your mother and drink your fill. My gift to you.

#

                   In the dark waters of the pond, the Basher beat its leg against the outside of her dome. When it didn't stop, the spider scooted to the edge of the sleeping nook and peered upward.

                   A drop of water had formed in the center of the ceiling. Even as it grew fat and fell into the pool, another one slowly formed in its place.

                   She'd made her dome with many layers, thick and sturdy, and the mutinous part of her was tempted to let the Basher slam and stomp to its black heart's content. Her dome might leak, but it would hold.

                   LEAVE ME ALONE! She projected the thought with all the force she could muster, but the Basher did not respond. Maybe the distance between them was too great. More likely, it rebuffed her for the same reason she ignored her prey's attempts to communicate with her: it regarded her with disdain.

                   Aware that the Basher was probably trying to lure her out, with heart pounding she left the security of her nook and crawled up the wall, her spinnerets already moistening. She waited for the next drop of water to fall before stepping onto the spot where the drip originated. The beating stopped.

                   She'd begun to lay down her silk when she was unnerved by a cold change in the air. A pale yellow leg rose out of the pool of water, serpentine and groping. It neared the ceiling, turned toward her. Unlike the other two limbs, at its tip was a claw, curved and red. She wanted to flee, tried to, but its sinuous movements mesmerized her.

                   Come outside with me, the Basher whispered into her mind. You know you want to. You know you will. Faintness seized her, and she swayed, suddenly on the verge of passing out. She let go of the ceiling with all but her two hind legs and hung there, upside down, her muscles gone limp.

                   You must come outside. The leg encircled her, each revolution tighter than the last, its flesh rough and scaly. The horror of despair clutched her, and for the first time, she experienced the helplessness her prey felt when she cocooned them alive. A firm tug was all it would take to dislodge her from her own ceiling.

                   She sensed a darting movement as the fly swooped in and landed on the leg. The leg stiffened, and when the fly vomited a glob of slime, the air sizzled as if hot embers had touched cold flesh. The leg let go of her, then whipped back into the water with a splash.

                   Thrown into the air, the fly blindly careened off the walls while the spider dangled, a waterdrop shaping around her. At last it fell away, leaving her drenched. She reached up and pulled herself to the ceiling.

#

                   After that she sensed no more thumping, but she did not fool herself into thinking the Basher had given up. Would ever give up. It was out there in the pond, biding its time. Always an enthusiastic sleeper, she now slumbered for extended stretches. When she was awake, the leisurely drip of water gnawed at her. It wouldn't have taken much to patch it, but she couldn't bring herself to leave her nook again.

                   Shamed and humiliated, she told herself that she was just being patient, waiting for an opportunity. But it was a lie. She'd lost her nerve, and she knew it. At the same time, she comprehended the slow peril of inaction, how hunger and air-an excess of one, not enough of the other-would eventually defeat her. If she wanted to survive, she'd have to leave her nest and float to the surface, retrieve a bubble of air and a body to drink, and bring them back. There was no other way.

                   Yet how could she, when she couldn't even find the courage to step into her own dome?

#

                   The fly stood before the spider's sleep nook, anxiously rubbing its forelegs together. It prickled at the door to the spider's mind, but her inflexible pride refused to allow it in. When she made a shooing motion, the fly cringed, stricken with fear.

                   Am I the eight-legged monster lurking in its lair? The thought cheered her, but after a time, the fly began to rub its legs together again. Irritated, the spider leapt up. Halfway out of the nook, she raised four legs. GO AWAY!

                   The fly's wings went stiff with shock. It turned and ran, almost falling into the pool, before scampering up the wall.

                   The spider backed into her nook. Whatever had pulled loose inside her seemed to shift and twist. She coughed until her gut ached.

                   It returned.

                   The spider studied the fly, unsure how much time had passed. A day? Two? Longer? How had it come to this, cowering in her nook while a fly-a measly fly!-roamed her home with impunity? Again, the insect prickled insistently at her mind; again she refused it. The spider drummed an impatient leg on the floor, and when the fly trembled, she drank in its fear and misery like an intoxicant. What she didn't care for was the fortitude beneath that fear. The fly took a step forward, possessed with a boldness the spider found infuriating.

                   WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE! She charged out of her tunnel, and as the fly crumpled to the floor, her attention went to the pool of water. The surface was still. But for how long? She stepped hurriedly back into the nook. The fly got to its feet, shaken but determined. For a time it stood its ground, trying to gain entrance to her mind. It probed more insistently than any other insect had until the spider's head throbbed and she hated it. The fly leaned forward, wondering, it seemed, what terrible thing might happen if it ventured into the monster's lair. In the end, it did not have the courage. In the end, and to the spider's relief, it turned away and left her in peace. She nestled deeper into the nook.

                   Like the Basher, the fly was a mystery. Others had groveled before her, of course, only to scurry away in terror, their hopes shattered. This fly had shown tenacity and gumption, traits she disliked in the small and pitiable. Would it have begged for its life if she'd given it a chance? She didn't think so. What she believed was almost breathtaking in its audacity.

                   It wanted to make a deal: In exchange for its life, it would shield her from the Basher. She scoffed. Protected by a fly... the very idea was preposterous, an insult.

                   As for the Basher, if it really was a spider-a monstrous and twisted version of herself-then it had a body; if it had a body, it had a face, eyes, an underbelly. All she needed was a soft spot to inject her venom. She played with the idea of allowing a leg to take hold of her, but that was fraught with too much dread. What if she couldn't gather a bubble of air in time, or the leg simply squeezed the life out of her?

                   For the same reason the fly could not enter her nook, she could not go down and challenge the Basher.

                   What, then? Wait it out? Every day that passed, the air became harder to breathe, her hunger greater. She could feel her strength waning.

                   So sneak away, grab an insect and some air, and return. No, she decided. If she left, she wasn't coming back.

                   She'd often speculated on why she'd never encountered the Basher outside her dome. Perhaps it was only interested in her because she was inside, hidden from it. Was it toying with her, amusing itself?

                   She chewed over what it would mean to abandon her home, to flee. If she made it to the surface, she'd still need to travel through unfamiliar lands teeming with predators. How far would she have to go? To the other end of the pond? However far, when she got there she'd have to begin the arduous task of building a new nest-a daunting proposition at her age. She wasn't even sure her weathered body could produce enough silk to build another dome.

                   There had to be another way, some other plan.

                   But there wasn't. Sooner rather than later, she was going to need to make a swim for it. She thought about what waited for her up there: fear and pain and the supreme effort it would take to survive. How much easier to simply lie here, gasping for air until it all dribbled away.

                   Sleepy thoughts swirled like pondweeds in an undertow. Had she made the right choices in life? Perhaps things would have turned out differently if she'd searched the pond for another mate. Unbidden came the one thought that grieved her most of all. I'll never be a mother. My chance has passed.

                   Sleep at last. Blessed sleep.

#

                   Time abandoned her, the blackness melding together until her internal clock could no longer discern day from night. She traveled the sunglow of her dreams to the long-ago season of her youth, to happier days-or was that flawed memory? It didn't matter. Real or imagined, her dreams were her refuge.

                   She'd been invincible in those days, energetic and nimble, a black orb swimming against the slipstreams. Encased in her warm bubble, she'd gone where she pleased, a creature of whims. Once, she'd discovered an underwater grotto and almost run out of air exploring it. Another time, she'd blundered into quickmud and barely saved herself by catching hold of a passing dragonfly nymph. The exhilaration had lasted all day.

                   After she'd dined upon her mate and trussed him in his cocoon, when hope and joy had burned their brightest, she'd taken to climbing out of the water and gazing up at the trees. Her eyes, excellent at detecting quick movement, possessed little capacity for distance. It was all a blur, but she didn't care. The day my babies are ready to be born, I'll climb one of those trees and see what I will see.

                   Later, when hope shriveled and died in her womb and she mourned the loss of joy, she taught herself that life went on, even for those without gifts to give.

#

                   She awakened in sleepy alarm, aware that she was lying in water. It flowed in from behind her, and as she got to her feet, she turned, trying not to panic even as she felt her stomach force itself up into her throat.

                   From the rear of the nook, a pale yellow leg lunged for her. She recognized it as the first one to seize her, and hastily retreated. She expected the leg to grab hold of her, but its rough skin snagged on the silken threads lining the nook's walls. Stuck, it flailed about in frustrated rage.

                   This, then, was why the Basher had stopped beating at her walls: while she'd been sleeping, it had burrowed its way inside, using the tip of one leg to furtively spread apart the woven threads of her nest. She'd dismissed the creature as too stupid to be cunning, only to have it come at her from a direction she hadn't expected. How could she have been so foolish?

                   Water gushed out of the nook behind her, overflowing her pool. Parched, she dipped her head and drank. In that moment she saw the onrushing future, her lover no longer hanging but floating, her home a flooded tomb. As if a breeze had billowed its way into her dome, all her dithering and self-doubt evaporated. She understood what she had to do.

                   Weak, dehydrated, she climbed the nearest wall and found the fly clinging to the backside of the corpse. Its abdomen had shrunk by a third, a sign that this ordeal had lasted long enough for both of them. She pried it loose, felt its bristly hairs and cold, clammy skin.

                   Holding the quaking insect to her chest, the spider surveyed the room. She'd lived almost her entire life secluded in this silken hideaway, dining on mosquito larvae and flies, on half-drowned bees and moths with sodden wings-whatever she could overpower. Over there, she'd once gotten drunk on midge blood and stumbled about in a happy stupor. And over there, she'd killed her first diving beetle. The beetle hadn't wanted to be her meal-had, in fact, protested violently. Memories of a good life, if incomplete.

                   She slipped into the pool, collected a bubble of air, then submerged through the short passage. The current pushed her out from under the dome and into open water, and with the fly held close, she floated upside down toward the surface. It was a familiar path, and eventually the cold gave way to warmer waters. Her fear of the Basher subsided. Shadows played across her eyes as she approached the rain-dappled surface. Excited by the light, the fly squirmed.

                   She contemplated whether she had the stamina to climb out of the water. She'd have to do it, that was all. Once she'd rested and caught her breath, she'd find something easy to kill. Then she'd go on, just as she always had.

                   She was daydreaming, anticipating the taste of liquified intestines, when she saw a leg rising fast out of the depths. Don't you ever give up? But she wasn't surprised, not really. Tipped with its red claw, the leg tried to sweep around behind her, but she shifted her body and forced it to attack straight on. It breached her bubble, and after a brief, intense duel, it pushed aside her legs. Before she could sink her fangs, the claw stabbed her, sending a streak of ice deep into her chest. The fly, nearly crushed in the struggle, pressed its mouth against the leg and disgorged the meager contents of its stomach. From far below, a soundless wail of torment erupted like a small explosion.

                   The claw retracted from the spider's chest, and she watched the leg fall away. The Basher had had enough. It was finished with her.

                   Already she felt the dead chill radiating out from her chest. The Basher had made its last mark. It didn't matter that its toxin might not be fatal. She looked to the surface and imagined herself lying there tranquilized, motionless, waiting to drown or be eaten.

                   To die a victim, docile and defenseless... no, she wouldn't permit that be her fate.

                   While she still had the strength, she took a deep breath and held it. Then, leaving the fly inside the bubble, she pulled her abdomen free. In a few extreme situations, nearly out of air, she'd swum with a shallow bubble. Never, however, had she been outside its life-giving warmth.

                   Face to face, spider and fly stared at one another. She observed the scab where she'd poked it in the eye. It seems I've left my own mark. All her life she'd been true to her nature, content to view her prey with callous disregard. Now, feeling the nearness of her own death, she discovered within herself a softer emotion.

                   Make of it what you will, she thought, and pushed the bubble away.

                   Enclosed in the silver envelope of air, the fly floated upward. She wondered what would happen to it, and whether it would ever again sail its own currents.

                   She rather hoped so.

                   Untethered, the spider slowly sank back down into the watery silence. She watched the light fade away, felt her lungs smolder. I have no air! I'm drowning!

                   A soothing calm settled over her and the pain in her chest dissolved. She stretched out her legs, embraced the joy.

                   I'm flying again.

                   She held on as long as she could until at last the water grew cold and rushed inside. Her body convulsed, relaxed, and she spiraled down into the darkness, her silken threads unspooling behind her like a balloon adrift on the wind.