Page 4 of Beware of Hodags
He stands too. And he’s baring his teeth in the faintest grimace. “Can I entreat you to stay with us?” He gestures at himself and his cute puppies, all of which are looking at me pleadingly.
Mentally picking my words very carefully, I dip my chin. “Tempting, thank you. But—ACK!” Puppies yelp as I leap back, frantically brushing at my arm.
“What’s wrong?” Mirk asks.
“Spider!” I screech.
Making a soothing noise, Mirk steps forward to gently dust a huge, three-inch spider off my arm and onto his hand before walking outside the puppy pen, crouching, and letting the arachnid go free.
“YOU’RE LETTING IT GET AWAY!” I shout, unable to control my volume in the face of my horror.
“Rachel,” Mirk laughs, looking over his shoulder at me, amused. “You’ve been hired at a cranberry marsh.”
“I thought it was a bog. And what’s your point?
” I ask, confused, watching the spider stalk off angrily.
Yes, it’s obvious it’s angry—it’s so damn big nobody could miss that it’s storming away in a rage.
Being that it’s large enough to qualify as an eight-legged hell moose, everyone in the vicinity now has reason to be concerned. And Mirk just let it escape!
Mirk is trying to speak, but I’m so busy keeping track of the dangerous arachnid’s march of fury that I don’t tune in until he utters the statement, “Aunt Saenathra calls this place a bog because it sounds creepy and she gets a kick out of making it sound that way. But only on the East coast do the cranberry farms refer to their marshes as bogs. Here in Wisconsin, we call our places marshes. As a form of pest control, we keep wolf spiders—”
I gape at him. “WHAT?!”
“Wolf spiders.” He blinks at me. “You’ve never heard of them? Encyclopedia Britannica says that wolf spiders are named for their ‘wolflike habit of chasing and pouncing upon prey—’”
“ACK! STOP!” I shout, covering my ears.
Mirk’s laughter is loud. I open my squinched-shut eyes to see his head thrown back as he whoops with hilarity.
Huffing, I crouch to take up my brick-heavy boy puppy who is gnawing on my shoes (along with his excess of boxy, chubby lips—apparently at this age nothing is safe, not even his own flesh) and hug the velvety furred bundle of comfort to myself because after this news, I need all the comfort I can get.
“Back to the part where I’ve been hired at a bog and how it correlates to wolf-sized spiders.
” My puppy yawns, sending a waft of sweet-smelling breath into my face that I inhale like a junkie.
“I feel like this is something I don’t want to know but probably need to know since I’ll be working here. ”
Mirk suppresses a smile. “Yeah. I’ve got to fill you in on some things about marshes. Spiders work here.”
My eyebrows raise in polite inquiry. I misheard him terribly. “Excuse me?”
His expression turns wryly amused. “You heard me. Spiders hunt bugs. Our marsh, like many marshes and bogs, employs wolf spiders. Thousands of them. Thousands and thousands. They can grow to be about two inches long—not including their legs, and—”
I’m shaking my head. I don’t even mean to; it’s a side effect of me reaching the end of my ability to process the horrifying details that pertain to what are, evidently, my coworkers.
Mirk’s gaze tracks my negation of his facts but he soldiers on.
“As you saw when we pulled up, during the fall harvest, we flood the fields, hence referring to them as marshes, and while wolf spiders can swim, they instinctively seek out high ground. If you’re standing in a field of cranberries when we flood it, the tallest thing is you.
And it’s not one or two spiders. It’s more like two hundred spiders climbing you. All at once.”
“YOU FAILED TO MENTION THIS WHEN YOUR AUNT SCOUTED ME THIS MORNING!” I protest, and the puppy in my arms perks his floppy ears and grins at me, fascinated with either the volume or the sharpness of my yelping.
I hug him tighter and send a wild-eyed look at Mirk.
“I hope you’re fine with me staying out of the bogs during harvest! ”
“Until you get acclimated to spider activity, I’d recommend staying out of the marshes entirely.
” He gives me a sympathetic wince. “The spiders don’t just climb you during the flooding.
They actually like to use humans as rest areas all through harvest because, like I said, they can swim and even hunt really well on water.
But they get tired just like anyone else and appreciate climbing people while they recoup. ”
“I’m so, so, so thankful you didn’t need to hire me to work in the bog. I’ll stay in the gift shop.”
Mirk’s smile goes lopsided. And oddly wistful. Something flashes over his face, too fast for me to read it. “Not a fan of spiders?”
I smooch the puppy I’m holding. “That would be my sister.”
“Oh?”
“She has a tarantula named Desdemona.”
Mirk’s brows rise. “Really?”
“Really. She’s such a freak. I love Adrian. She’s wild.” With a sigh, I set down my puppy. “Anyway, I’ll avoid the water logged fields full of spiders.”
Mirk exhales. “Not a bad idea. Wandering isn’t recommended. The woods around here can be kind of… treacherous. But,” he says, brightening, “you can visit the puppies anytime.”
“Now that I might do.” I mull over the fact that he basically just identified his woods as the Wisconsin version of the Forbidden Forest as I brush some grass from my pants. “I appreciate your offer for me to stay here. It’s too kind and I can’t accept, but thank you. ”
Mirk’s gaze searches my face. “There’s no such thing as too kind.”
I finish brushing myself off and take a step back, edging toward the gate. “Hmm. But there is such a thing as familiarity breeds contempt. And for you to be my boss and my landlord? Too much.”
With a conceding tip of his head, he lets the matter drop. He closes the puppy gate after me. “Have a safe trip to your cabin then. See you Monday.”
“Yeah.” I start for my car.
“Hey?” Mirk calls.
I turn and look back at him.
“A word of advice?” he says. And he looks at me very seriously. “Beware of hodags.”
I smile wanly. “Thanks. I’ll be careful.”