Sometimes we hear him howling, other times it’s a scream to pierce the night, but more often it’s a low keening wail. Tonight the noise is a cat’s yowl; it rises from the woods, creeps under our door, pounces onto our dining room table, and serves itself on our plates. I push the mashed potato around in circles, mixing it with the sound. The four of us huddle with our uneaten meals, sliding the potato anywhere but our mouths.

“I’ll see to it,” says Mum, and she rises from the table.

“No. It’s my father. I’ll go,” says Dad, and he takes his shotgun, a hammer, and an axe. He leaves us with the slam of the cabin door.

“It won’t be for much longer,” says Mum, looking at me and my brother, wringing her hands in her lap. “It’ll pass.”

She’s been saying that for seven days now. Seven days of madness banging at our front door, demanding to be let in.

“I don’t feel like eatin’,” says my brother, speaking the obvious.

The sound of the shotgun rings out, a warning shot, and the yowling stops, before it’s replaced by a terrible cackling.

“Make it stop,” I whisper, putting my hands to my ears. “Please.”

Mum puts her arms around me. “It’ll be okay, Kathy,” she says. I feel the wetness of her tears against my hair as she spreads her lies.

* * *

I always wanted a Poppa, a Grandpa, a Grandaddy. Someone to take to school on Grandparents’ Day, someone to come along on school trips when Mum and Dad were too busy, someone to tell me about the good ol’ days. Mum’s parents were all dead, and Dad said his widowed father kept to himself, lived in the woods somewhere, out of sight, out of mind. But every so often, he sent a card or a letter reminding us that he was still alive and kicking.

“Will we ever get to meet him?” I asked plenty of times, but the answer was always no.

And then one day, a little more than a week ago, he showed up on our doorstep, even though we live in the middle of nowhere. A withered old man with whitened hair past his shoulders and the bluest eyes I ever saw.

“Your father ‘round?” he asked, casting nervous glances.

“Are you my… Poppa?” I asked instead.

He smiled, exposing yellow rotten teeth. “That I am.”

Not so long after that, Dad chained Poppa up in our basement. “It’s for his own good,” he tried to explain to us. “The wild… it comes for him. Every so often. He can’t help himself. He does things… becomes…”

I saw for myself creeping down to the basement one night. He called for me: “Kathy. Come and talk to Poppa.”

I turned on the light, and there he was, sitting chained and naked, perched on a barrel, eight long spider legs protruding from his torso. His eyes no longer blue, but jet black.  “I’ve always wanted a granddaughter,” he said. “Your father was so mean keeping you away. Keeping all of you away. Come closer so I can see you better.”

“I—”

Dad pounded into the basement, armed with a baseball bat. “You stay away from her! You monster!”

And he whacked Poppa until he bled yellow.

It was after that night that Dad moved Poppa to the woods.

“It’s for the best,” he told us. “He can’t help who he is, what he is. He just needs to get through this bout, and then he’ll be alright. We can send him away after.”

“Isn’t there someone else who can help, who can—”

But Mum never got to finish her words. “There’s no one. Not anymore,” said Dad and he looked away so he didn’t have to meet our eyes as those words, not anymore, pushed and slid within us, like mashed potato gone cold.

* * *

Dad doesn’t like us going down into the forest. Not since he chained Poppa up there. My brother and I used to climb Pohutukawa trees to play peek-a-boo with the sky, we used to build forts and fish, we even had slug guns to hunt the possums with, but that’s all stopped. Dad says we’ve gotta wait till the wild has finished having its fun with Poppa. Sometimes it might come once a year, other times monthly, but Dad says it never usually lasts more than seven days.

On the tenth day, a storm kicks in. Winds rage against our cabin, threatening to blow off our roof, and rain slashes the windows. “It’ll be okay, kids,” repeats Mum, words worn thin from overuse.

“What about Poppa?” I ask.

“He’ll be fine,” says Mum. “He’s hardy.”

But the withered old man with the white hair had never seemed hardy to me. I listen for his howling above the wind, but for once I can’t hear anything.

In the morning, before the others are up, I pack some blankets, a coffee flask, and a picnic basket of food.

Poppa’s black eyes light up when he sees me. “You came,” he says, smiling and shivering. Still naked, still chained. His skin bone-white. “Food,” he whispers.

“I… I thought you’d be cold,” I say. “I brought blankets.”

“Good girl. Come closer.”

I hesitate.

His spider legs are twisting, tasting the air.

“No. I’ll leave everything here. Dad will be—”

The web shoots out of nowhere, attaching on my ankle.

His face lights up. “Food,” he whispers again. He smiles with yellow rottenness.

There’s a pull at my foot at the same time as I hear the fire of a shotgun. This time it’s not a warning shot.

Poppa’s black eyes fade to blue as yellow bleeds out.

Dad just holds me close, both of us shivering against the madness. He holds me so tight I can just feel his own spider legs beneath his shirt, itching to get out.

* * *

Ⓒ Anne Wilkins