Page 169 (1/2)

It was covered in paper fros, and upon it, with feet and wings which I could see noere dark not with mud but with ink, they had written:

But we find spiders delicious

“I find s delicious, but if I were to eat all of the as a baker’s pan”

The trio danced again, their beaks turned up to the ceiling and down, their wings whipping, snapping, flicking at the paper floor

This is wise But do you really think you could dance with us? Your penmanship would be so tiny, so intricate, only the very dedicated would wish to read it

“I have been told it is proper and right for a spider to weave—either alphabets or dresses, the flies were unclear—and dresses are so very big”

We have never heard of a spider-calligrapher

“I have never heard of Sirens who do not speak”

The wo closed and open again And then they began to dance in truth, a swift, urgent dance that bent the at the paper, letters for and lithe and exalted, their toes gently tipping an i here and a j there, their leaps elongated and graceful, so the roo as close and tight as a flock of e, theirand radiant

This is what they wrote:

THE TALE

ON THE FLOOR

WE SANG TOO LONG; WE SANG TOO WELL WE are sisters in silence now: It is our vow and our penance

Once we had a nest in the open wind, on the open sea—how gray was that sea of our youth! How soft and thick was that nest we built! How long ago it was, how long ago it seems to us no much we have seen since alked on our spit of stone and called each other sisters! But we are old noe are old, and there is no sand any innocent ballads on the shore, sharp and well turned, how long since we opened our throats in the rain and called it harmless

Our nest was then threshed of straw and juniper and loose, waving cotton flowers, driftwood and scallop shells and sandpiper bones Long dune grasses crisscrossed themselves within, and there we slept in each other’s ars, and arm, and were not wicked, no matter what they say