Webbed

A Beginning

   Harriet's POV,

     You may have heard the nursery rhyme Little Miss Muffet. It's partially true in some areas, most fairy tales are based on facts as mine was. The year was fifteen hundred and six, I worked on a small dairy farm with my brother and his wife. I am not afraid of spiders, those small creatures helped my family quite a fair bit. I did indeed meet a spider who was larger than his cousins in the woods on the outskirts of Windimir. I always sat on a smallish stump to recount the thoughts I collected during the day. The sun had already set, I had watched it vanished behind the hills and what a glorious sunset it was.

    Although the wind in the trees carried anguish screams from the area where the castle was. I had just closed my eyes when I heard rustling in the foliage above me, I looked up to see a fairly largish arachnid. It held what seemed like an envelope in its mandible. Well, I had seen stranger things in my time on this earth. It swayed gently from its thread waiting for me to take it. So I did, I stood on the stump to take it gingerly from its mandible. The spider clicked its thanks and scuttled back into the trees. I tucked it into my apron. I jumped down, running back to the farmhouse. I went in, said hello to my brother before dashing up to my attic room.

   I lit a few candles and sat in the chair by my dresser, pulling the glided card from my apron. I flicked it open, ah, it was for a masked ball at the palace. This was a first. I'd heard that day balls were the norm nowadays as a terrible curse had stricken the royal family. The ball was scheduled to take place the day after tomorrow. I knew my appearance earned me a few curious looks whenever I entered the village. I had my mothers unusual lavender eyes and my fathers unruly, curly, hazel hair. I was also a little clumsy and awkward, I had already broken my left wrist twice after falling out of trees in my childhood. I had reached my eighteenth year without a hitch, I could look for love at this ball had I not been betrothed to a man a five years older than I. My name is Harriet Muffet, although most people I knew called me Hattie.