This was originally something far... uh... darker. But I changed it.
I really need to stop writing only stories about Cellach and Brendan...
This is very, very short. But I DON'T CARE. I just wanted to get past this Moment.
Moment Four: Dark
"Check."
The child wasn't going to back down, that was certain. Nevertheless, Cellach scowled and crossed his arms, determined to stand his ground.
"There are no spiders under the bed, Brendan."
"You don't know that!" The boy protested. "You didn't check! What if it happens again?"
This was honestly getting ridiculous. Cellach had woken up the night before last to the sound of his nephew screaming. He didn't know what he thought had happened, but the boy's terrified story of waking up to a spider on his face wasn't it. Admittedly the thought had been rather chilling at the time, and he'd let the boy sleep in his bed that night, but after a few days of introspection, Cellach decided that Brendan's irrational fear of spiders had gone on long enough.
"Please, Uncle?" Brendan pleaded. The man shook his head firmly.
"No. Absolutely not."
The look on Brendan's face made Cellach feel as if he'd kicked a puppy. His lower lip wobbled and his eyes went very wide, and were abruptly full of tears.
Against his will, Cellach began to second-guess himself. It was tiring, but the lad was only five, and Cellach grudgingly recalled having similar fears of things lurking underneath the bed.
He hadn't forced his father to look underneath, however. And his fears were of monsters, not spiders.
But the look in the boy's eyes was one of total heart-break and fear, and so Cellach, with a pointed look of exasperation, checked under the bed.
"Nothing," he said firmly, standing straight and raising an eyebrow. "As I said before."
Brendan smiled brightly, wiping the tears from his eyes. "Thank you, Uncle. Good night."
The memory had come up unbidden, in the moments before sleep. Brendan had snuggled down into his bed for the first time in nearly twenty years, and his eyes flew open in an instant. He hadn't thought about spiders in years, not since more pressing fears had muscled their way into his thoughts and nightmares. Now, the creeping feeling of one of those eight-legged things hanging inches above his face, a moment from falling, made him practically roll out of his bed.
Standing, he hesitated, then swung his arm wildly at the air above his bed, checking for webs. Nothing. He sagged with relief, then tensed again. They could be in the corners, or perhaps higher than he was tall. They could be inches away from his bare feet…
Brendan hurried across the room to the table where his candle sat. His haste made him misjudge the distance between his bed and the table. The dull sound of his toes colliding with the leg was quickly followed by a great deal of snarled curses. He took a deep breath and, clenching his teeth to keep from cursing more, reached over and lit the candle.
Right next to his hand was an enormous spider.
He froze. The spider froze. Brendan, in a rather ungodly way, wondered if he would burn the tower down if he tried to kill it with fire.
Just crush it, a rather hysterical voice in his head said. You're a fully-grown man! You're beyond this!
Yes, he was. He was totally beyond this childish fear of spiders.
He kept telling himself that as he snuck into the Scriptorium, a pillow under his arm and a blanket over his shoulders.
I'm beyond this… sort of.