Once Upon a Neverwinter- part 7
“Time to wake up…”
“Wake up…”
Her heart thudded once.
“Awaken, my dearest…”
Twice.
“Awaken...”
Thrice, and with a sharp, deep pain, lurched into the rhythm of life.
“You will be a princess, yet, Moira.”
Her mother's voice called to her from her dreams, or was it her memories? She fought away the weight of slumber pressing upon her eyelids. Her fingers clawed away the gossamer cocoon in which she had slept for what seemed like an age. Roused as if from a nightmare, she gasped air into her lungs, so long unused, and tore the filaments from her legs. Her haste for freedom did not account for the weakness of her limbs. She tumbled, shaking, to the ground. Scrambling over the dirt floor, her fingers found the smooth, supple surface of something familiar as her own face. Even in the dark, she knew the flat treadle of her mother’s spinning wheel. She hoisted herself up to a sitting position on the dirt floor and hugged the base like you would a friend. Its grain was glossed as if it were just finished yesterday, as time can do little to alter enchanted things. Now that she had an anchor, something tethering her to the present, the chaos of her mind fell into order. Moira knew who and where she was, but when? The cellar of her childhood cottage should have been filled with tubers, jars of preserves, and potted meats. Now, nothing remained but smashed pottery and the stench of rot.
A sickly grey light filtered down through what was left of the wooden door in the ceiling. Moira’s eyes blurred with tears. No one remained in the cottage above. She knew it without trying to read the air. Still, she reached out with a trembling hand, testing the tendrils of magic that hummed around her. Perhaps they are a ways off , she thought. Surely they aren’t … but even as her fingertips grazed the shimmering lines, invisible to most, she felt the absence of her loved ones. There was no trace of their presence as far back in time as she could stretch her powers. How long ago had it been since she had joyfully plucked the threads of earth with the Sister’s Three? Did they still live? Did her mother? Or her own dear sister, Rose? She was meant to awaken with her sister. What had gone wrong?
She felt a tug, gentle, but insistent. She made herself still, just as she was taught by the Sisters from infancy. She had the gift, like her mother, and her mother’s faerie eyes; eyes that could see the strands of magic as they twined and thrummed about the world. Lifting her hand, pale in the dying light, she cradled the gold thread humming before her. It led up and away from the cottage. North, upriver, but that was all she could divine. To follow, she would have to leave her home. She would die a thousand times before she left the spinning wheel. Her throat was dry, and her belly empty, yet her resolve was steel.
Gathering the scraps about her into a tuffet, she sat and inhaled deeply, then set herself to spinning. The air crackled as she spun the thread appearing from nowhere to fill the spindle in an instant. No sooner was it full than the thread leapt away and stitched itself into a circle, then another, then spilled down into seam that fell almost to the floor. A spider’s web of filaments crisscrossed the air, fabric wove itself between the spaces. She spun until she was spent. The fruits of her labor hovered in the air patiently, waiting for direction: a cloak, a shift, soft slippers, and a satchel- visibly unremarkable in every way but to the one who made them. This must be all she needed, for it was all the thread could supply, at least for now. She stood, and with a flick of her wrist, the garments swirled around her. Lifting her arms, the shift and cloak settled about her shoulders, and she stepped into the plain slippers.
Exhausted, she shuffled to the hammock of candy floss fibers, sinking into it, and yelped as something stabbed her ribs. She pulled from behind her a trussed bundle of cloth. She unwound the twine and threadbare canvas to reveal an ornate circlet meant for a princess, a gift from her mother. A gift her mother had stolen from Moira’s father on the day her half-sister, Briar Rose, was born to his human Queen. Moira tried it on as she had many times as a young girl. It did not fit; it was not meant for a princess with horns. Yet Moira had never hated her sister, and was not malevolent like her mother. She only wanted to sleep until the curse was lifted, to be reunited with her family but, this… this did not feel right. Had her careful planning and enchantments gone awry? Did she sleep long enough to outlive the grudges of kings and witches? The only way to know was to follow the thread.
And so, tired and soul-weary, she shouldered the traveling bag and softly tapped the tip of the spindle three times. The base, treadle, and all other parts of the wheel disappeared until only the spindle remained. Into the satchel went the circlet and spindle. She stood resolutely before the rickety ladder that led to the remaining cellar door. A single, bare star winked down at her through a hole in the thatched cottage roof. Moira placed one hand on the ladder's rung. The other gingerly twisted the golden thread between her finger and thumb until it hummed brightly, addressing it:
“Well, little string, lead the way.”
Hopefully, she prayed, not to ruin.