Follow You Home

by Mark Edwards

Every dark space felt threatening, as if it contained and concealed something horrifying.

The tarantula sheds her skin once a year, the narrator explained, then seals herself away behind a wall of silk until her new skin has hardened. Only then can she re-emerge and start to feed again.

I stood there for a moment, lost, unable to remember the way home. Eventually, my legs carried me automatically in the right direction.

The skin that had grown back was not the old skin. This was her new body and there was no wall of silk to hide behind.