“How can there be a…?” I heard hysteria creeping into my voice. With a supreme effort I curbed it. “How can there be a purpose to…this?”

“It originated from a place with a different set of rules, with a different logic, with different geometries.”

I moaned. I felt so bad for her. “I don’t understand, Ellie.”

“Neither do I, Mother. Not completely. I think causing confusion and fear and grief and dismay is part of it, and yet… I know I shouldn’t be okay with it, but somehow I am.” A sharp, bitter sound, a harsh imitation of a laugh. “Maybe you should have named me Charlotte instead of Eleanor.”

“Charlotte…?” I had no idea what she was talking about.

“My favorite story. You used to read it to me at bedtime.”

What was she…? Oh, no.

“Charlotte’s Web? Oh, Ellie, this is no time for…for…”

“Or remember the time I tried out for the soccer team and they passed on me? Man, if Mister Grellson could see me now.”

“Ellie, please!”

How could she joke about this…this horror?

“Just trying to lighten things up, Mother. You know the expression: Sometimes you’ve got to laugh to keep from crying.”

I bit back a sob. Oh, my poor, dear, sweet child.

“Is that what you feel like doing? Crying?”

“A small part of me is crying—and screaming and shrieking as well—but it’s shrinking, and soon it will be gone.”

The old Ellie? Was she talking about the girl she used to be?

Just then another white globe dropped into view and rolled to join the rest. I retrieved the penlight and, drawing a deep, tremulous breath, angled it upward.

Two of Ellie’s spider legs were poised before her with a smaller version of one of those white globes trapped between the tips. They were rotating the ball this way and that, forming it out of the silky substance flowing from the tips. As I watched, horridly fascinated, it grew steadily until it matched the others in size, at which point the legs released it to fall to the floor.

“Wh-what are those?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Then why are you—?”

“The legs seem to have a mind of their own.”

I tried to hold it back, I was trying so hard to be strong for her, but as the legs started spinning another white ball, I couldn’t restrain the sob that burst from me.

“Oh, Ellie, why you? Why you?”

“I don’t know, Mother. Maybe I was the wrong person at the wrong place at the wrong time, but I don’t think so.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe I was destined for this. After all, I’ve never totally fit in.” A small bitter smile. “And now I really don’t fit in.”

True, she’d never taken anything at face value. Questioned everything—everything. Her mantra was always There’s something else going on here.

“The signal is a perfect example,” she said.

“Signal? What signal?”

“The noise that almost drove me mad that you and Bess couldn’t hear at all.”