I’ve added another scene from my story, ‘Walk a Web of Spiders’ to the blog. It’s the opening one. Here we get to see that Kadyn is not who she appears. Unfortunately, her secret is a little harder to keep than she thinks.

‘Walk a Web of Spiders’ Chapter 1:

Welcome to Davis Bradford Middle School, Miss Leaver.”

Kadyn stood at the front of the room with her hands clenched tightly together. There was no reason to be nervous, yet she was. Extremely. 

“Thanks,” she said. It came out as a squeak.

“Can you tell the class a little about yourself?” Mrs. Pete asked. “Maybe start with where you’re from?”

“Cocoa Beach. That’s… that’s in Florida. The eastern side.”

“Ah Florida. I absolutely adore Florida. I’ve never been to the Cocoa Beach area though.”

Kadyn didn’t reply. She’d never been there either. The girl she was pretending to be, however, had lived there her entire life.

“And what’s Cocoa Beach like?”

Kadyn closed her eyes and took a moment to visualize all the things she’d learned over the past few weeks. There were so many photographs and papers having to do with Cocoa Beach, Sarah Leaver’s hometown. Hopefully she’d put in enough time to memorize them all. Kadyn took a breath, opened her eyes and began. 

“It’s awesome there. The sand is super soft. It’s almost like powder, and they have this pier that stretches way out over the ocean.”

“Is it a fishing pier or is it full of touristy stuff?”

“Touristy stuff,” Kadyn replied. “Lots of it. The pier goes out about eight-hundred feet, and it has gift shops, restaurants, live music… even a mini-golf place called Senor Putt-Putts. Me and my friends used to go there all the time.” 

Kadyn tried to make it sound like Cocoa Beach was a place she not only truly loved but truly missed. Just like they told her to do.

“I think I’d prefer the shops,” Mrs. Pete said. “Are they open year-round?”

Kadyn thought for a moment. Nothing like that was in her notes. The temperature, she knew, got as low as the mid-sixties in January, the coldest month. In New Jersey, where she was really from, mid-sixties meant t-shirts and shorts. She made an educated guess.

“Yeah. They’re open all the time.” Then for good measure she added, “It never really gets too cold there. Just windy sometimes, especially in winter.” 

She was starting to feel pretty good. A few more questions, and she should be home free.

“And how close were you to the ocean?” Mrs. Pete asked. “Was it right outside your door?” 

“No, but I did live close. The beach was only about a fifteen-minute walk from Greenwood Lane. That was my street.”

Her reply was met with silence. She almost turned around but stopped herself. Everything’s fine, she told herself. You’re doing fine.

“It looks like Billy has a question.”

Kadyn turned around then, out of confusion more than anything else. “Billy?”

“Billy Gunderman,” Mrs. Pete replied, nodding towards the back of the room. Mrs. Pete was a stout old woman with a bull-doggish face. She was smiling, but it didn’t sit well with Kadyn, like it was a poorly constructed prop. “You’re fine with answering a few questions from your classmates, aren’t you?”

What else could Kadyn do but oblige? “Sure,” she said, facing forward. There was the slightest urge to pick at the scar on her palm, but she resisted. She had this. All she needed to do was keep calm and play the part. That was something else they’d told her: Keep calm. Play the part. Here you’re hidden. Here you’re safe. 

On the worst nights, especially those early on when she and her mom still lived at the safe house, that had been her mantra, her bedtime prayer.

“Not sure if you heard him since he’s way in the back, but Billy said his grandparents live in Cocoa Beach too.

“You’ll have to speak up, Billy!” Mrs. Pete shouted, making Kadyn flinch. “What street? Greenwood Lane? You say your grandparents live on Greenwood Lane?”

Kadyn’s face grew warm.

“Why, that’s the same street you lived on, isn’t it, Sarah? Do you know Billy Gunderman’s grandparents?”

Of all the ways Kadyn imagined her class introduction going, this wasn’t one of them.

“I… they… I mean, I don’t–“

Mrs. Pete cut her off. “Billy also says he visits his grandparents every summer and that he knows all the kids who live on their block. For some reason he doesn’t remember ever seeing you.” She paused as if letting the importance of that sentence sink in. 

It sank in alright — right into Kadyn’s gut. It wasn’t fair. What were the chances that some stupid kid from her class would know the street she supposedly lived on? One in a billion? To keep her hands from shaking, Kadyn squeezed them into fists.

“And just like that,” Mrs. Pete said with a snap of her fingers, her breath hot against Kadyn’s ear, “your cover’s blown.”