It would have been really ugly if it hadn’t been made of gold. Its eight shiny legs connected at sharp angles to its wide, oval-shaped body. It had a row of unblinking eyes that glowed with burnished emptiness and tiny hairs all over its body that shimmered when they caught the light.
It was the size of a small dog and made a similar clicking sound when it walked on hardwood. When it moved through the village, people stepped aside to let it pass. They threw open the doors to their homes and lured it inside with offerings of dried-out insects.
They watched as it wove its glittering web, an intricate tapestry that hung from their ceiling and lit up like a chandelier. Once it was finished with the weaving, it would eat the bowl of insects and wait at the door to be let out again.
The villagers knew they must be cautious. It startled easily. To scare it was to risk decapitation. A young bride invited it into her new cottage and thought she could encourage it to change its weaving pattern by nudging it with a broom. As soon as she touched it, it froze and fixed its eyes on her. Then it unsheathed two long, sabre-like fangs, swung through the air and sliced her head clean off.
In the whole village, there was only one house that had never been decorated by the creature. The old widow whose house sat near the dry creek bed warned everyone: stop letting that thing into your houses.
It was silly anyway. The webs lost their luster after a few days and then just attracted dust and moths. The strands were sticky with some kind of sap and it took hours to pull it all down. The sap left greasy stains on the ceiling.
One morning, the old widow heard clattering on her front porch and went to the door to investigate. Through the small fanlight, she could see it. It raised one of its front legs and tapped on the door.
Go away, she said.
It tapped again. The underside of its body was spattered with blood that looked like it was still wet.
You’re not coming in here. I don’t want you in here.
It tapped harder.
No! The widow shouted, slamming her hand against the door. It scuttled backward, slightly stunned. Its vacant eyes darkened and its head seemed to vibrate as the skin around its mouth receded and two long, curved teeth appeared. Blood congealed on the gleaming points. The thing made a low sound, between a hiss and a growl, like a saw cutting through the trunk of an ancient, dead tree.
Get away from here. She hit the door again and the thing retreated, sheathing its fangs. It stood motionless and staring. The old widow watched as clouds gathered above and slowly extinguished the light that glinted off of the thing’s body until it looked like any other dull hunk of metal.
Finally, it moved out of the old woman’s view and meandered off to the house of some fool who would let it in.
The widow's heart thundered in her chest as she sat down at her kitchen table. Sweat gathered at the back of her neck.
Soon, the villagers would wise up and kill that thing, or at least drive it out of town.
The widow studied the tiny stitches that formed the scalloped edges of her lace tablecloth and the fine hairs on the leaves of the African violet that sat in a ceramic vase in the middle of the table. A small brown spider with legs no bigger than an eyelash crept across the table. The widow placed her pinkie finger in front of it and watched as it crawled up onto her fingernail. Its feet were so light that when it walked on her skin, she felt nothing.
The widow smiled.