89. Trustworthy Arachnid
“Okay… I’ll do it,” replied Rosella despite every sane fiber in her bones.
“Good,” purred the voice of the spider, red eyes seeming to glow a little at the news, fluidly moving along side to side on
all eight of his legs.
Shivering, Rosella walked across the room to retrieve the decidedly gross fresh rabbit carcass from the table. Carrying
it in a pinch as far away from her wrinkled nose as she could, she marched it right up to the spider’s web.
“Good, good,” he cooed getting more excited the closer she got. When she got close enough, she tossed the poor
dead critter into the netlike web and watched as the vicious spider fawned over his new meal. “Thank you, oh thank
you,” he gushed graciously. “And as promised, the mirror is all yours. You may climb to claim your prize.”
Peering up into the high corner, Rosella could see the reflection of the glass. Once again, ignoring all good sense that
her mother tried to instill in her often-foolish daughter, Rosella reached forth into the icky sticky web, and began to
climb. At first, the texture of the webbing was awkward to climb, but slowly and surely, the princess found a workable if
not graceful stride up the net unhindered by the fangs of the vicious spider, just as he had promised. That however, did
not stop her from holding her breath, waiting with each step for the feeling of hot needles piercing her delicate skin.
Before long, she reached the mirror at the top, cradled gently in the webbing. It was an ornate design, gold trim
encrusted with jewels. The princess could easily see why Lolotte would want it so well guarded, but she wasn’t quite
sure what was so “magical” about it. She only hoped that she would know when the time was right. Grabbing the mirror,
Rosella climbed safely back down to floor. She bowed and thanked the spider for his bargain, feeling a bit strange while
doing so. Alas the vicious creature paid the princess no more mind, too busy spinning new webbing around his precious
meal. How animalistic she thought, with a tremble realizing how easily it could have been her being covered in the filmy
gauze.
Now in possession of the precious magical mirror, Rosella looked around the room, and realized that she had reached a
dead end. There were no stairs in sight. It was time to retrace her steps and head back in the other direction in search
of the path to the second floor.
Heading back...