S.A.B.L.E

I hate moths.

The first time I saw a hole in my yarn, I was ready with excuses. I must have left a pair of sharp scissors in my stash. Dropped a stitch and forgot about it. Maybe my cat had snagged it. Yeah, that was it. She was overdue with the nail trimming.

But when I looked more closely at the jagged perforation and saw tiny yarn-colored casings, I had to concede.

I had a moth problem.

Part of the issue was the sheer untamable size of my stash. I called it a collection, but if I’m being honest, it was more like a dragon’s hoard. My yarn closet soon became a yarn room, which then became a yarn house stuffed with hand-dyed skeins galore, totes full of half-finished projects, and more wool socks than any sane person needs. There was no way I could moth-proof all that stuff. It'd take a lifetime!

It was a hungry moth’s paradise, so I really shouldn’t have been surprised. Well, maybe a little surprised.

Moira at the yarn shop (yes, of course we were on a first name basis) suggested I do a freeze/thaw cycle to kill the eggs and larvae, then use lavender and cedar to keep them from coming back.

Larvae. In my yarn. Ugh! I shuddered at the thought.

After I left the shop with my new purchases (yes, of course I bought more) I got to work trucking armloads of yarn out to the freezing cold garage.

Excavating the stash felt like an archaeological dig, and rediscovering skeins I had long buried made the chore a pleasure. But the deeper I went, the less pleasant the situation became.

Two luxury skeins on top had teeny tiny holes and moth casings all over them. A pair of mittens looked like Swiss cheese. A lace shawl had a fist-sized hole right in the middle and a long-forgotten colorwork hat was little more than a brim.

The sweaters at the bottom looked weirdly lumpy, as though I had just tossed them toward the back of the closet and forgotten about them. To be fair, that’s exactly what I did, but I didn’t recall throwing baseballs in there, too.

Gelatinous white spheres dotted the cardigan pile and squashy-looking lumps filled the sleeves. I plucked the sweaters with a pair of tongs -- no way was I going to touch whatever those lumps were -- and dejectedly deposited them in the trash can. Then I grabbed at one of the deepest buried sweaters and it shuddered.

The sweater shuddered.

I squinted. It moved again and my eyes widened.

There was something alive in my stash.

The handknit sweater roiled and surged, groaning as it shifted underneath the pile of ruined fabric. Long whiskery hairs suddenly pricked through the stretched and swollen sweater. As I watched dumbstruck, the seams gave way to thick black-furred limbs. Bigger than mine and each ending with two long claws, four hairy arms balanced wide on my bedroom floor.

The arms extended, and the trashed sweater lifted higher and higher.

The back of the sweater bulged, split, and two lacey black wings as big as sails unfurled and billowed into shape. Now upright and slowly flapping its wings, the hunched figure uncurled its newborn body.

I saw it. The Mothman.

The giant bug's face was gray as dust and punctuated with blood-red eyes. They were spherical and faceted, just like a fly's, but on a massive scale. A snub nose jutted above an insectine mouth with mandibles that ripped at the remnants of the tattered sweater. A rainbow of tattered threads dangled from its razor teeth.

My stomach was ice water.

With the roar of a chainsaw, the moth’s wings buzzed to life, carrying the gargantuan insect up, up toward the ceiling. It swiped its clawed arms, trying to get a grip, but instead bounced against the light fixture and knocked it from the ceiling with a crash.

I had pressed myself flat against the wall, trying to be as invisible as possible, and had completely forgotten how to blink and breathe. A shard of glass from the light fixture sliced my cheek, jolting me back to life.

I scrambled.

My eyes still refused to blink or look away from the moth pounding the ceiling above me, but my hands were busy trying to save my life. There was still so much wool on the floor, it felt like a cushiony prison. Nothing sharp, nothing useful. I cursed Moira's good salesmanship.

Then, something solid. My hands blindly grabbed a pair of circular knitting needles out of one of many half-knitted projects. What good did I think that would do? Was I planning to skewer the Mothman? Yes, I decided. Self defense was the only option. I brandished the needles like teeny tiny swords, but the circs flopped in my sweaty hand, the drooping cable less than useless.

Switching from fight mode to flight mode, I tossed the needles aside and bolted for the exit. My stupid hands slipped and jittered, refusing to grasp the doorknob. I moaned and dared to look behind me.

The moth was bobbing against the ceiling, gnashing its jaws and rolling its bloody disco-ball eyes. Its wings were a black blur. Scars on the walls told me that those claws meant business. I commanded my hands to open the door.

They finally listened and turned the knob. I threw the door open, launched myself through, and slammed it behind me.

And of course, it bounced back open.

Spotting the exit, the moth darted my way, buzzing louder than ever. I threw my full weight at the door and held it until I felt the beast slam against the wood. It cracked, but held.

I remembered to breathe once, twice. I must've been screaming as I thundered down the stairs, but I couldn’t hear it over the jet engine drone of the Mothman’s wings.

I almost got lost in my own home as I raced from one room to another, but somehow remembered to snag my hissing, bushy-tailed cat off the kitchen counter as I went. She dug her untrimmed claws into me, but I didn't even feel it. We had to get out of there.

And that hallway between the kitchen and the back door had to have been at least a mile long. I was absolutely positive the Mothman’s serrated mandibles were gaping just inches behind me, ready to snap.

Shrieking at the top of our lungs, Tigger and I finally found the end of the hallway and burst into the night. The cat scrambled over my shoulder, left me with deep gouges that would later need stitches, and vanished under a shrub. Gulping the half-frozen air, I shivered as much from adrenaline as from cold.

I still heard the buzzing as I sprinted across the lawn.

I turned just in time to see the Mothman banging against my bedroom window again and again. With one last shove, the glass shattered. I watched the beast clamber through the jagged hole and perch on the sill like some kind of horrible bird. With the sound of a million motorcycles, it kickstarted its wings and disappeared into the night, yarn and sweater viscera trailing behind it.

It was then that I admitted that I might have a moth problem.