Falling In by Frances O'Roark Dowell

they know about you.”
    “Who’s
they
?” Hen had asked, but Grete just shook her head and said nothing more about it.
    Now she carefully wrapped Isabelle’s ankle with a long piece of soft fabric that smelled like cedar chips and peppermint. Isabelle felt her eyes grow heavy as Grete explained to Hen how she’d prepared the poultice, boiling eucalyptus leaves into a syrup, mixing it with wax to make a salve, then spreading the salve onto the strips of cloth.
    “We’ll put her in the bed, then,” Isabelle heard Grete say to Hen when she’d finished, and then had the sensation of being lifted and carried through the air. Suddenly she was on something soft, an ocean maybe, a loaf of salt bread for her pillow, a bluebird singing to her across the water.



16
    As I write this, there’s a spider on my wall, and it’s tempting to reach out and smash it. But there are things to be learned from spending time with Grete. Spiders, it turns out, are beneficial creatures in more ways than you might imagine. They capture insects you want nothing to do with, sowbugs and locusts, black flies, aphids. But more than that. Spiders are the brilliant artists of the morning. They are known to be thinkers and philosophers of the highest order. It was a spider who first understood the moon and its dance with the tides, who whispered the truth of gravity’s secrets to anyone who would listen.
    And that plain brown spider the size of a button on my wall? A teller of jokes, perhaps. One of thefamous farmer spiders who grow tiny strawberries beneath the ferns by the side of the house. If I smashed him, what would I gain? And what might the world lose?
    You could think about that the next time you’re tempted to stomp an ant on the sidewalk (ants, Grete would tell you, are the noblest of creatures, loyal to their families, hard workers, and also quite funny if you catch them in that moment just before sunset, their hauling and building done for the day, their frantic pace finally slowed) or are motivated to capture a butterfly and pin it to a piece of card-board.
    What stories might go untold in the aftermath of our smashings and pinnings? What jokes demolished? What songs unsung?
    Go in peace, little brown spider. You’re welcome here.



17
    Isabelle limped from the bedroom cupping a spider in her hand. It was black and small and had been crawling across the top of the quilt when she woke up from her nap.
    “What do you do with spiders around here?” she asked Grete, who had been discussing with Hen the finer points of collecting echinacea flowers from the roadside, both of them rocking in chairs on the front porch. Grete was knitting something on wooden needles, but Isabelle couldn’t tell what. It didn’t have sleeves. Could be a shawl, or maybe a parachute. Something interesting, Isabelle was positive. Grete didn’t strike her as a knitter of the same old thing.
    “We let them go on their way,” Grete said. “That particular spider is named Travis. He is a traveler, an explorer, a news gatherer for his tribe.”
    “You know the name of each spider, miss?” Hen asked Grete, one eyebrow raised. “And what its job is?”
    “Indeed I do, Hen. All you have to do is ask. Spiders are known to have loose lips. They can’t seem to stop talking once they open their mouths.”
    “Didn’t know they had lips at all, miss.”
    “A spider is a most complete creature.” Grete laid down her knitting and stood up, reaching a hand toward Isabelle. “I’ll put Travis back on his path. Isabelle, come have a seat. You shouldn’t be moving about too much.”
    After Grete went inside, Hen pulled her chair closer to Isabelle’s. “She’s a strange one, don’t you think?”
    Isabelle considered this. She herself had been called strange all her life. “Strange” was the least of what she’d been called, but called it she was, almostevery day. Even her own mother said to her from time to time, “Izzy, you’re the strangest child,”