Damp Idyll No. VII
The cloud of gray moths had made quick business of the remnants of the remaining six magical tapestries in Underwood—the great pieces were no more. Lola, sitting on an enormous toadstool, picked her teeth absently and threw some bones upon a small fire, where they crackled pleasantly.
“Are you thoroughly done?” Babette demanded.
Lola nodded and stood, throwing a white rabbit skin over her shoulder.
There, before the Four Sisters, was a loom of enormous proportions. It was made of a silvery gray wood and seemed somehow both sturdy and transparent. And after a quick spot of tea, and a toast to their reunion, the sisters were now ready to weave. Their gnarled, crooked fingers coursed with creativity; snaggle-tipped nails and tea-stained fingers flexed and stretched. Hearts beat with a contentment only found when doing one’s true desire.
They gathered before the loom, as they had done so many times.
“Well.” Lola sighed, looking each of her three sisters in the eye. “Here we go again!”
“One more time.” Gigi giggled.
“Yes.” Fifi’s head bobbed adorably. “One more time.”
“One last, final time,” Babette clarified.
Four sets of fingers flexed, followed by a symphony of knuckles cracking. Hands on sinewy wrists whirled, mottled skin a congregation of liver spots. The threads eased, and then strained.
The weave began, bewildering the eye.
For their palette, the Four Sisters had chosen hundreds of spools of thread spun from the ribbons from an ancient tree in Pimcaux—the Tree of Life. With names such as Faded Whimsy, Faint Star, Bygone Tragedy, and Boneset, all the threads were of varying shades of white.
As the Four Sisters wove their fabric, a calm spread about the vast chamber of Underwood. A slight, melodious tune could be heard—just barely, as if rising from the very earth and settling down as dew. For the Four Sisters were weaving the very fabric of life, and as they did so, their transformation began.
A small mouse, at home in the hem of Lola’s skirt, peeped out, alert to something magical. A parade of wood lice crawled along Gigi’s eyebrows. The dark fuzz that lined Fifi’s upper lip sprang to life—a woolly caterpillar—and crawled away.
“You’re shedding, dear.” Fifi motioned to Gigi, for indeed clumps of green and brown were beginning to drift from her oak moss shawl.