I pinched my lips to hold in not a single word but a thousand. I untied my brogans and rolled the stockings down, one by one, seams inside out, my toes poking through. I held them out to her, an offering: Yes, I did it again, Mama, ruined everything. What shall we do now? She wanted me to fear her, but it wasn’t fear. It was boredom with our ritual, sadness that here it was again instead of anything else.

Ned stood between us, snorting like a bull. “Make her tell what she’s done with them, Mama!”

Eliza and Everina looked up sideways from their cross-stitches awaiting my next move, pretending not to. Their blank faces took no sides, as usual. Poor Henry, twelve years old, sat on the stone floor in the corner playing with dust balls and drooling into the rag tied around his neck. “I kn-kn-know where your spiders are, Ned.”

“Where, then?”

“Outside, l-l-lots of them. I’ll get some for you.”

“You imbecile,” said Ned.

“Don’t call him that!” I said.

“Not a single word, Mary, unless you’re prepared to tell Ned why his jar is empty,” said Mama, shooing little James away from her skirts. Not yet three, he came to clutch at my skirts instead.

“He stole my quizzer!” I pulled the magnifying glass, freed of its ribbon, from my pocket and held it up as evidence of his crime. “It was hanging on the back of my door, but I found it in his room. And a pile of spider bodies, without legs!”

“No one cares,” he said. “They’re spiders!”

“He pulls their legs off, Mama. And then burns them with the magnifying glass. In the most cruel way.”

“It’s science,” said Ned. “But you wouldn’t know that, would you? You go to a school for girls.”

“I’m the one who told you!” I shouted, but I couldn’t disagree. Of all my grievances against him, that Ned was seen worthy of a real education while I was not cut the deepest. “You’re not a scientist. You’re a torturer! Who pulls helpless spiders’ legs off to watch them suffer and squirm!”

“Mary!” Mama raised her voice to silence me.

But I was beyond her wrath, unafraid. “They’re not his spiders. They don’t belong to anyone! Why do you always take his side?”

This drew a slap across my face so weak I almost wanted to laugh. I knew she couldn’t stand me looking at her with pity. Betsy whined and scratched outside the door.

“Stop that dog’s scratching. Now.”