Water drips onto Hy-Jinx’s nose as she shivers in the darkness, her teeth beginning to chatter. The smell of rat urine permeating the chamber and the scurrying sound of tiny paws creeping around the edge of the dungeon disturb her half sleep, as she nods in and out of consciousness. The rats don’t really bother her - she knows how to deal with them. Grab ‘em, kill ‘em, and feed ‘em to the others. That way they learn to leave you alone. She remembers the whispered advice from when she was younger and navigating the streets, though still in the care of the Sisters at the orphanage. She had been crouched behind a barrel of apples, hiding from the guard, having stolen some bread with her partner in crime at the time, Angie. It was Angie who gave her the advice, a slightly older girl from the streets, with a missing front tooth who had whispered it, as they crouched in the mud behind the apple barrel. Having grabbed hold of a rat, emerging from beneath a wooden crate behind them, Angie had proceeded to break its neck in one smooth twist and then throw its body at an approaching guard by way of distraction before running down the street in the opposite direction. Hy-Jinx, too shocked at that moment by the matter-of-fact killing of the rat had remained behind the apple barrel, and a good thing too, for they caught Angie moments later, hung her the next day and threw her body onto the midden heap…just like a rat. Hy-Jinx remembers staring at Angie’s vacant eyes, and her half opened mouth with its missing front tooth and realising, for the first time, her place in the world, and how it was quite evident that they simply didn’t care…

Trembling, Hy-Jinx walks up the wooden steps into the small hallway, realising how dirty her feet are but not knowing what to do about them. She stands, dripping lumps of mud onto the bare wooden floor, staring into the side room where the younger ones are pestering Sister Josephine for a story.

“Tell us about Urucha - I like that one,” says one of the older children

“Yes Urucha, Urucha!” the others chorus in.

“Okay, if that’s the one you’d like to hear, but settle down…” Sister Jospehine looks carefully about, taking the time to meet each child’s stare with her stern visage, silence appearing almost miraculously. “So, is everyone ready?”

“Yes Sister Josephine,” they all call out in unison.

“Good. So…where to begin…” Sister Josephine considers the story which she has told so many times before and begins… “Urucha awoke to find herself in darkness, a darkness that glistened and echoed like thunder and waves, and in the moments when the darkness was not, she caught sight of others like herself, black, carapaced, chitinous flesh, protruding eyes that reflected each of the others’ to the others. “ she pauses for dramatic effect, watching how the youngest ones move in closer to the older as if for protection. “And so, in the eyes of each other, they saw themselves, and marvelled at their strange horrible beauty, at their thin spindly legs and clawed jaws and the strange bulbous form that each had, from the end of which a single thread hung.”

“Urrghh!” comes the response along with a chorus of nervous giggles.

Sister Jospehine smiles and then continues. “We need a home they thought, for all were of the same mind, and together they began to weave and as they wove and weft they sang a song. Though each sang with a different voice, different words and different tunes, like the weft and the weave, each to the other entwined so that it sounded as if they sang in harmonious unison, a single song - a universe - and with each note and word the threads vibrated, such that it was not possible to separate the thread from the song or the song from the thread. And as they worked the nest to shape, how proud they were of their new home. How long did they tarry? How long was the thread? But eventually their effort was over. Beautiful, pure, they marvelled at their endeavour then realised the fatal flaw. For so busy had they been in their admiration that they had not noticed that they had sewn their nest into a sack: a beautiful pristine, but impenetrable sack, without entrance or exit, and so they howled and screamed, and blamed each other for their folly, for they had worked for an eternity and all were exhausted and wanted to sleep. And whilst some desperately crawled across the outer surface, carefully looking for a way to get inside, others set upon others with claws and biting, and hell and chaos ensued.” Sister Josephine pauses for a moment, savouring the atmosphere her story has generated. "Now my children, what is the moral of this story? What is the meat that we can squeeze from it to help us live our lives?”

“Work hard but be humble,” suggests one.

“Don’t be too proud,” suggests another.

“Build a home together,” says little Magritte

“Yes little one, what good advice!” says Sister Jospehine warmly cupping Magritte’s chin in her hand.

“Always think carefully before and while you’re doing something.” says another

“Yes, yes,” says Sister Jospehine, pleased with the responses, hearing exactly what she wants to hear.

“Don’t build a house without a door,” says Hy-Jinx, as twenty six heads swivel to stare at her, amidst a soft chorus of giggles.

Sister Jospehine stares judgementally at Hy-Jinx. “Just think if we did, you wouldn’t be standing there messing up our hallway,” says Sister Jospehine cuttingly.

Hy-Jinx looks at the stern eyes and pursed wrinkly lips of Sister Josephine and the smiling joyful eyes of the children who sit before her and decides, then and there, what’s more important in life.

Sister Jospehine pointedly turns back to the children. “And do you know where this story comes from?”

The children all shake their heads.

“From Xana, across the sea,” says Hy-Jinx, “where they worship the Spider Gods. They think this is how the world was made.”

Sister Josephine looks again at Hy-Jinx. “And what do you think?”

“I think…I think we’re just rats,” Hy-Jinx says angrily, tears welling up in her eyes, the image of Angie’s pale dead face before her. The children giggle, thinking Hy-Jinx is joking, not realising how upset she is, not knowing that she ’s just seen the body of her dead friend. At the sound of their laughter Hy-Jinx bolts, running up the stairs, and, throwing herself onto her little wooden bed in the dormitory, cries herself to sleep. Sleep comes quickly, accompanied by a feeling of loss and grief, painted across a dark canvas of stars that glisten. There is nothing else, just the stars and blackness, a blackness so black it is blue…and a gentle perfume, a subtle smell that seems to hint of comfort and warmth that washes the feeling of sadness away and leaves Hy-Jinx feeling as if she is in a state of bliss. She giggles to herself, lifts a hand in front of her face and the darkness that is blue slowly brightens and turns into a flower, the petals of which she traces with her finger. Yet it is not her that is moving her finger, but someone else, a strange feeling…

“Oi, wake up! You there, wake up!” A voice.

Something nudges Hy-Jinx’s feet, she lifts her head, slowly coming back to the reality of the dungeon that she left perhaps only moments ago, perhaps hours.

“Someone wants to talk to you,” the voice continues.

Shaking her head, Hy-Jinx, returns, fully now, to darkness and a faint tinge of blue, a swirling shadow play, and the feeling of heat, and the smell of burning.