Lian had started to redraw his bestiary. Not from scratch, exactly—more like a revision. He flipped through each page and asked himself, Is this still true? The answer was often no. Jamie's fox had softened around the edges, less cunning now, more curious. Ms. Devon's crane no longer felt distant—it perched patiently, wings ready, but not yet unfurled. Even his mother's panda had changed. Once silent and weary, it now seemed watchful, perhaps even strong.
He turned to the spider.
There it was, mid-page. Sharp legs, round body, waiting in its web. He hesitated. That shape still unsettled him. But now, it wasn't only because of his father. It was what it represented: danger cloaked in silence. Control masked as care.
Still… he couldn't bring himself to erase it.
That afternoon, he walked home with Jamie under a pale sky. The clouds hung low, dragging the sun behind them. Leaves scuttled along the sidewalk like small, frantic creatures.
Jamie kicked at a stick, her brows drawn together. "You've been quiet all day."
"I'm thinking," Lian said.
"About the spider again?"
He nodded.
Jamie looked off toward the street. "What would happen if you didn't draw it? Just... let it go?"
"I can't," he said. "If I let it go, I won't know when it comes back. I won't be able to protect myself."
Jamie stopped walking. "But maybe that's the point. Maybe trying to protect yourself all the time is what keeps you scared."
He wanted to argue. But he couldn't. Instead, he said, "What animal do you see me as?"
Jamie blinked. "You mean like how you see people?"
"Yeah."
She thought for a long time. "I used to think maybe... a rabbit. Not because you're scared, but because you're always listening. Always trying to catch what other people miss. But now? Maybe a mirror. Or a chameleon."
"A chameleon?"
"Not because you blend in," she said. "But because you change. You don't want to, but you do. You're always watching, adjusting."
Lian didn't say anything for a while. "I don't want to lose who I am."
Jamie shrugged. "Maybe you're not losing anything. Maybe you're becoming something new."
That night, he sat in bed, his sketchbook open across his knees. The streetlight from outside painted long, quiet shadows on the ceiling. He flipped to a blank page and wrote:
"Maybe people aren't animals. Maybe they're stories. And stories change."
He stared at the words until they blurred. Then he drew something he'd never drawn before: his father as a boy.
Not a spider. Not a shadow. Just a boy.
Small. Unsure. Holding something invisible in his hands. A thread, maybe. Or a string of words he never said.
Lian added himself next to him—not older, not wiser. Just beside.
They weren't talking. But they weren't turning away either.
The next morning, he noticed something strange. As he walked through the hallway at school, the shapes started shifting.
Mr. Levine, the janitor who always grumbled and frowned—his badger form flickered. For a second, Lian thought he saw a golden retriever underneath.
The girl who once whispered behind his back? Her snake coils had frayed. Now she looked more like a nervous cat—tail twitching, unsure.
Even Jamie's fox glimmered, like it was made of stained glass—translucent, fragile in its own way.
The animals were changing. Or maybe, he was.
During lunch, he took a breath and sat next to someone he'd never talked to before. A boy with headphones and a heavy hoodie, always alone. Lian looked, expecting to see some shape emerge—a bear, a moth, maybe even a rat.
Nothing.
Just a boy.
He offered him half of his sandwich.
The boy looked surprised, then smiled faintly and took it.
After school, Lian found himself back in the library.
Mr. Arman was shelving books. "You look like someone who's lost something."
"I think I've lost my sight," Lian said.
Mr. Arman didn't turn. "Or found a new one."
Lian sat at the front desk, tracing the edge of a book. "Why did you stop seeing them?"
Mr. Arman finally looked over. "Because I started listening instead."
"To what?"
"To people. To silences. To myself."
Lian nodded slowly.
"I think I'm ready," he said.
"For what?"
"To stop carrying everything alone."
Mr. Arman smiled.
"I think that's where we all begin again."
That night, Lian flipped through his bestiary one last time.
He didn't erase the animals. He left them there. Not as definitions—but as memories.
Then he turned to the back and wrote:
I will keep looking. But not to judge. To understand. And maybe, someday, to forgive.
He closed the book.
The spider didn't haunt him that night.
It just sat quietly, in the corner of a dream, watching the boy draw light into the dark.
And this time, it didn't feel like a threat.
It felt like a shadow learning how to rest.