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The Weaver

  By Kerran Olson

  Copyright 2016 Kerran Olson

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  The Weaver

  The girl is stitching threads of all different weights and colours and lengths; entwining them into an intricate tapestry which shimmers in a way which cannot be described in the world in which you spend your days. In some places the piece she is working on branches out, joining other pieces, or falls away. When the pieces end abruptly, falling to tattered strings in her hands, she wipes away a single, golden tear and continues, unwaveringly, with another section. Each piece represents a Lifeline, each hue and yarn a different person, event, feeling. You wouldn’t recognise all the colours. In fact, you wouldn’t understand at all. As I watch her now she is tranquil, her movements graceful and slow; to your eyes, she would be beyond a blur. “Faster than the speed of light”, your kind would say. Light is her favourite thread, glowing and warm beneath her fingertips. The tapestries where Light is twisted with Darkness, heavy and suffocating, make her arms ache. But she loves them all. The short ones in rainbow shades that earn a tear when they are cut off, and the long ones that start to thin, tinted by Loneliness before their end. Those which branch off in every direction, and those which twist together bound by Promises; tight knots that must be burned to break the bond. Each piece its own, but never alone. Every strand intertwining, the blanket stretching farther than the eye can see. She is beauty and horror; love and despair. Her hands are weapons and healers all at once. She is your creator and all creation.

  She is the Weaver, and she holds the threads of all our stories.

  ***

  ‘How is the World today, Willow?’

  She runs her hand softly, longingly, across the stitches,

  ‘Beautiful, as it always is.’

  He bends to examine a frayed section, dark with black and grey yarn, thin ends of thread poking out in all directions.

  ‘What happened here?’ The lines of his face reflect a mild curiosity but little concern.

  ‘War. Many Lifelines were severed,’ She gestures to a silvery thread, just visible twisted amongst the darker tones, ‘I tried to weave those which remained with Hope but…many resisted. See how long it took for Fear to fade away? The fabric was weakened significantly.’

  He nods, disinterested, walking aimlessly through the pieces and poking at intriguing patterns and textures as if they are something far less important than Stories and Lives. He glances towards the Weaver when she sighs quietly, so quietly her breath is barely audible.

  ‘What now?’ A frown threatens his features.

  ‘You don’t care for them. For their World. I don’t understand it.’

  His eyes narrow as he crouches to meet hers, deep silver irises mirroring one another; a mark of their kind.

  ‘I watched your mother weave this world, dear. When you have a daughter, your heir, I will one day watch her weave. I may not feel the Lifelines as you do, but never say I do not care. I see the rifts. I see the tears that they make in this fabric. Tears of their own making. Look at this-’

  He scrunches the darkened areas in his fists.

  ‘-War. Famine. Terror. Murder. Jealousy. Anger. You feel them, Willow, you’ve described it. They almost weave themselves. Try as we might, the dark threads are strong. If you didn’t weave the Light in, the Hope, what would become of them? The World is unjust. It is cruel.’

  Her hands slow, never leaving the fabric, fingers always twisting, looping.

  ‘I want to see it.’

  He stops pacing, shock painting his features. ‘You are the Weaver, you cannot. It is unheard of.’

  ‘Magnolia can weave. I will be gone a short while, just to meet-‘

  ‘To meet? To meet who?’

  Her eyes never leave the threads, and though it escapes his notice, she clutches more tightly to one section than any other.

  ‘The Lifelines. Even through the darkness, I feel their beauty. Their passion. I have not left this room in all my years as Weaver, not since Mother passed, and I know that it is my right to go. Please allow me.’

  ‘Once. You know you may leave only once to see the World and you are young. If you go now you will have many millennia to reflect on the horrors you will witness.’

  ‘I think you are wrong. I feel them beneath my touch, I have shared their pain and felt the bruises to their earth but there is good in the World and many of the Lifelines fight for it. Their Stories twine with Light and Hope and they are the ones I wish to see. I am permitted to make the Journey once, and I choose now.’

  He stands tall, looking down on her as she sits, dainty fingers flying across the threads, determined eyes fierce. His stance relaxes ever so slightly as he turns away, defeated, and his concern goes unnoticed.

  ‘Very well.’