There was a hair in my smoothie at the Spoonbender today. I pulled it out slowly… smoothie dripping off it onto the table. I pulled it more and it kept on coming, getting longer and longer. How much hair was in my smoothie? Was it MOSTLY hair?

I pulled on that hair for 10 minutes and finally realized it was coming out of the bottom of the cup. I followed it back to the kitchen at the Spoonbender and the whole place was full of hair. A hair explosion!

The Spoonbender has a hair hex.

"Awww... you're such a cutie!"

The Winward Spinnerette was in my lap. Making a kind of buzzy rattle. Purring?

"You like that, don't you? Yes...."

I was combing it out with a paddle brush. It seemed to be mostly made of hair.

"And such long arms. Soooooo beautiful."

Like a starfish made out of hair. Five long arms, all coming together in the center. Some kind of barnacle structure at the center, maybe for its eyes. Didn't seem to be a mouth on the underside.

"What? You want to get up? Ok, but only in the room. You can't go outside, ok?"

The Winward Spinnerette slinked out of my lap and onto floor. It shimmied across the carpet, up a chair leg, and onto the table. Grabbing at things like an octopus.

"Well you're quite a climber, aren't you? I should give you a name. Winnie? Too on the nose?"

Winnie was sliding across the table, fluidly, around my laptop. Knocked over an empty cup.

"Hey, you be careful, little buddy!"

And pulled itself up to the open window, and slipped out.

Going up the ladder is never fun. First of all, it’s claustrophobic. The ladder is inside a metal tube, like an old fire escape outside a building. You start climbing, and you keep climbing until you find a hatch.

The thing is, the hatch is never in the same place. Sometimes it's a short trip, sometimes it's long. Sometimes it's really long. Once a Hex Club president was up here for 120 years. He was really old when he came back, and all his Hex Club members were long gone.

So that's the first reason going up the ladder is never fun. I just know Sniffy is going to make a mess of things while I'm gone.

With Minx gone upstairs to talk to the Big Guys, it was time to make some changes.

"Alright everybody, with Minx gone a-visiting, you know what that means."

"Changes 'round here!" everybody cheers.

"That's right. Now, pull up those shades! Open those windows!"

"Hooray!" everybody cheers.

"Get all these creepy artifacts off the tables! Stash 'em in the bureau! Put 'em in the drawers!"

"Hooray!" everybody cheers.

"Open up the lemonade!"

"Hooray!" everybody cheers.

"Now, let's start writing those invitations."

"Hooray!" everybody cheers.

It was a Winward Spinnerette. Not just removed from its biome, but brought here, into the Hex Club HQ.

"Hessian...."

"This creature called out to me," Hessian says in the ritual manner.

"It was snoring, you said."

"On an empathic level. Duh."

Some of the Hex Club members in attendance snicker. Others realize how serious this is.

"In accordance with club rules, you are responsible for the creature until a ruling has been made."

"Ruling? I joined this club to be part of a community where we could share information about our favorite hobby. Not so I could be told what to do."

"As you know, our rules are based on experience. Centuries of experience. You made an oath to abide by them."

"Oh jeeze. I guess. Whatever."

"And don't everybody dote over it, lest you get charmed too!"

Most all the members crowd around Hessian and the creature when we adjourn.

I really hate to, but I have to make a trip up the ladder to report this.

The marbles clacked their way to the front of the Qwik Stop. @Hessian Burning was at the door with a Winward Spinnerette in his arms.

“You know you’re not supposed to remove those from their natural environment,” I said. “You’re supposed to leave them.”

Hessian looked at the creature in his arms.

“Yeah, I know,” Hessian said. “But, have you ever seen one? In person? Just look at it. It’s… beautiful…”

That was the thing about Winward Spinnerettes. Their charm. Hessian was already under its spell.

It was a very deep, dark hole. And a lot roomier than it looked from the outside.

"Spzzzzzz.... spzzzzzz....."

There was light still coming in through the hole behind me. It looked a long way off but lit things up just enough. Things were cob webby.

"Spzzzzzz... spzzzzzz...."

What was that noise?

"Put your finger in it."

"Who said that?"

Dang intrusive thoughts. I hate that guy.

I walked farther down the hole.

"Spzzzzz.... spzzzzz...."

Ah, there it was. A Winward Spinnerette. Snoring.

One of the ways to find active hexes is just look over the town. Look for what looks like smoke. A whisp of black or white curling up between the rooftops. Sometimes doesn’t look like smoke at all. Looks like more of a feeling. 

Sometimes you can follow cats. Outdoor cats, stray cats, feral cats. Sometimes they move towards the hex. Sometimes they are moving away. 

Or it can be a distortion in space time. An extreme high pressure system expanding everything like a funhouse mirror, or an extreme low pressure system, creating a dent, a dip...

I tossed a handful of marbles (hexed) on the parking lot and watched them roll. Down the rain gutter, up over the kerb, onto the sidewalk...

I followed them up the hill.

I prepared myself both mentally and physically as I approached the hex in question, practicing the 9-layer pousse-café breathing technique while subconsciously reciting the Gramaphonium at 16 rpms. I summoned my Magic Eraser in my right hand, and the called the Bronze Wool Fleece into my left.

"Ok, now, feel your way down the side of the towel dispenser. Good, now put your fingers on the wall right next to it."

"Like this?" I asked.

"Yes. It's right in that area, I think."

"You are wise not to look at it, my friend. Only someone with advanced Hexa-flexa protective goggles, like the very ones I am wearing, should ever look directly at a hex," I assured him. "Now, let's take a look at what we've got."

Well, that was odd. It was more like a hole in a wall.

"Did you know you've got a hole here?" I asked.

WHOOOOOSH! VOOOOOOMP!

My mom was voted Hex Club Queen in 2008