Chapter 24 - Thread Marks Memory
She flees.
Xozo is the first to speak, still staring into the empty hallway. "Well... that's not ominous or anything," she says, then turns toward the door, trepidation plastered across her face. "It will be all right, dear," Eileen says, patting Xozo's arm tenderly as she opens the door.
Beyond, a quaint room sits expectant, as though it remembers the sound of their footsteps but not their footfalls, their cadence, or their pace. Before them lies a space, modest, circular, absent of ornament but thick with intent. A stillness aged and folded many times over, like a room inside a card inside an envelope sealed in wax. Not forgotten, exactly. Just waiting to be opened by the right hands. And in its center, as though it had always been there, waits the table.
It begins to thrum faintly as they approach, a low, reedy breath vibrating through wood and thought alike. Thin runes crawl across its surface in threads, not language yet, just motion. A murmur of meaning not ready to be spoken.
At the far end, a faerie waits. It does not flutter, does not blink. Its milky white eyes hold steady, its onyx skin gleaming faintly under a shaft of pale light. It has no wings, no detailing, and yet its presence fills the room like dust caught in sunlight, quiet, heavy, and impossible to ignore.
"You've brought no formal offering," it says, its voice rustling like a page turned too slowly, as if the words were read from somewhere far older than the speaker. "I can offer cookies," Eileen replies, setting her basket gently on the table. "But I can only spare two."
The onyx faerie tilts its head by the smallest margin, a motion so slow it might have begun centuries ago and only just now reached its peak. "Ah," it says softly. "The manners of the fleeting. So quaint, so dear, like a butterfly tipping its wings to the tempest, as though a storm might kneel in kind."
Its paper thin fingers make a brushing motion, and the runes on the table brighten as if simply aware. "You bring sweetness to the gate of recognition. A mistaken kindness folded in dough, but tell me, not of the basket or what you carry in tow."
Eileen blinks once, then rests her hands lightly on the lip of the table. "I'm trying to find The Dawkith Lorth," she says. "The treatment of the goblins under their care is pitiful. They need to be taught modern child rearing methods, and I won't be leaving until they make a pinky promise to do better." The table hums louder.
Ah," the sage murmurs, hands outstretched now. "A child not bound to the system brings critique to the cosmos and calls it care. As if the weave is picked at by the spindle's shadow, and the cord remembers it once looped through the mouth of the world."
The onyx faerie leans forward, voice deepening into something papery and vast. "The reference you seek is not a name, but a knot. Not a being, but a beckoning. To find it, one must first walk backward through the echo of a promise not made, and breathe where the air forgets to settle. One must..."
"Yes, yes, all right," Eileen says, smoothing her shawl and interrupting with the practiced warmth of a seasoned bargainer, perhaps the Ebony Quills honored this creature in the same way villages honored their sages. "That's quite lovely, dear. But if we could keep things just a touch more useful, that'd be grand. I'm not much for riddles before afternoon tea."
The sage pauses, the runes on the table flickering for a moment. Not dimmer, just briefly indignant. "A thread plucked too soon unravels," the sage says slowly, almost sulking. "But if you insist upon haste, then hear this. The shape you seek slumbers beneath its own forgetting. Its cradle is carved from declarations unmade. It dwells where intention curdles, and yet still hungers for correction."
"Mmhm," Eileen says, nodding politely, tapping the side of the table with one finger. "So is that up or down the stairs, and if so how many flights?" The sage's face folds slightly, like a letter being resealed. "Direction is the lie we sell to time. Any reference here stirs behind mirrors that do not reflect, among scrolls written by hands that have never held whips. You cannot go, you must be seen, Only then..."
Eileen coughs politely, interrupting the cadence with the ease of someone used to salesmen overstaying their welcome. Reaching into her basket, she pulls out a boiled water skin, takes two modest sips while checking it for cracks, then tucks it back in place. She speaks again, a touch firmer now. "I think we've gotten off track. I'm Eileen and if you would be so kind, what should I call you?"
A long, rattling breath escapes the sage, which places both hands on the table now, forcing the runes to go still. Not in a frozen or a stopped kind of way, but more in the way children stop to listen to what their grandparents are about to say.
Above its head, dozens of motes of light shimmer into existence.
Then, all at once, the atmosphere shifts. The air, once dry and parchment thin, becomes something else. Soft, breezy, a hint of warm salt and crushed shells on the tongue. The taste of coconut lingering, bright and faintly artificial, like a beach memory caught in a snow globe. A memory meant to weaken her position, not bolster it, and so Eileen ignores it. She allows herself to catch the sage's eyes, which are alight with amusement. Their expression is calm, still and centered like the eye of a storm, even as the smile curls faintly at the edge of their lips, sharp, knowing, pleased.
"What about Grand Dearie, then?" Eileen offers politely while glancing at Xozo for support. "I think it could be a fitting name." But Xozo does not respond, she is staring instead, hollow eyed and a little glassy, as if the last five minutes have been spoken in a dialect of pure metaphor of which she only caught whiffs. The spell's effect breaks only when she blinks too hard, like someone rebooting from a dream that didn't ask permission to unfold and the feeling forces one of her hands to curls instinctively inward, close to her chest.
"Grand Dearie?" the sage repeats, not offended, not delighted. "Oh, how charmingly hollow. Would you name the silence before the thunder, thinking it gentle? Would you claim the space between a blink, certain it is empty? Would you hold out your hand to the thing whose fingers have always been reaching? Would you give in, for the sake of another's redemption?"
Eileen shakes her head in an assuring yes. "Of course, I would. How else can we encourage those around us to grow, to become more than the space they are given. It is why I like names so much, it is why everyone deserves a name they love," she says reassuringly to herself.
"Names step us away from answers," Grand Dearie responds. "It forces one to step into invitations, which then must be folded within oneself. Paper girl, thread tied, do you even know whose name waits to be written on your tongue?"
Eileen offers a very polite smile, the kind reserved for salesmen about to be corrected. "I know that if someone doesn't start parenting those goblins properly, they're all going to end up with attachment issues and very small knives and that's not a good combination. It needs to be corrected, I need to find this Dawkith Lorth."
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Xozo, having recovered slightly and standing behind her, slowly raises a finger. "Um, I think, it just called you a paper girl?"
"Yes, dear, I heard," Eileen says while maintaining eye contact with Grand Dearie. "I'm choosing to interpret that as a metaphor." Grand Dearie head then tilts the other way. "Metaphors are spines of belief. Belief the ruin of clarity. Clarity the cradle of hunger. And hunger..."
"All right," Eileen says brightly. "One more cryptic sentence out of you and I will begin humming loudly."
There is a pause, a long one. But not with confusion nor judgment, just with weight. As if something behind the faerie's eyes is flipping pages, slowly, carefully, looking for the correct response in a language older than language itself.
Until the table responds first, a soft pulse followed by another. The runes on it brightening, shifting from an idle shimmer to a deliberate motion. They begin to braid themselves, layer upon layer, folding into a spiral so slow it takes several heartbeats to notice it is moving at all. Yet it only takes Eileen a fraction of a second more to recognize the motion as similar to that of a half finished quilt, where each thread tugs toward a meaning but never quite reaches the edge of understanding. Why was the table giving her a metaphor for something started, but never given the grace of an end.
"You speak of correction," Grand Dearie, murmurs at last, its voice settling into the space like a slow tide. "You speak of knives and names, of parenting as if it were a spell that might unwrite ruin." One long finger lifts and comes to rest on the table with a sound too soft to be called a tap, and beneath it the spiraling runes begin to shift. Their motion unwinds and flattens, opening into what might resemble a map, though not of land or ocean or anything that could be walked with feet or drawn by compass. It is not space that reveals itself, but sensation, a geometry of feeling rather than form.
Lines appear, luminous and delicate, threading outward in curves and folds. Some drift loosely like ribbon in water, others loop tightly upon themselves as though guarding secrets. A few shine with steadiness while others flicker like breath struggling to remain steady. There is a warmth to it, a hush, a pulse of purpose that cannot be explained but is clearly felt. And amid all of it, one thread glows brighter than the rest, a soft gold curve that draws Eileen's gaze with the quiet insistence of something that already knows it will be followed.
"This is your path as set by today," Grand Dearie says, though something about the way it watches the path makes the words feel more like a reading than a warning. Then it adds, almost absently, "Or perhaps one of its many reflections."
Xozo steps closer. Her voice, when it comes, is low and thoughtful, shaped by something half dreamt. "What are the others? Where do they lead?"
Grand Dearie does not look at her but responds as if continuing a thought. "They are branches and spirals, errors and inheritances, echoes left behind by choices not made. The system does not ask for understanding. It does not need to be understood. But it does listen, it is always listening, do not forget that."
Another thread brightens near the edge of the weave, flickering with a red hue that feels heavier than light should be. Symbols appear beside it, shimmering with constant motion, never settling into a single shape. The symbols feel like they are offering a name that cannot be spoken aloud because it refuses to hold still. But not because it wants to be known, because it would prefer to be felt. So Eileen politely turns her gaze away, letting her eyes trace a smaller shape near the center of the lattice, a tiny wobbling line that wriggles softly like a creature unsure of whether to rise or vanish. After a moment, it simply disappears, fading not with drama but with decision of its moment.
Xozo's breath catches and her eyes narrow, and she starts to speak, but the words come slow, unsure if they are the right ones. "Was that…?"
"It doesn't matter," Eileen says gently. Her attention remains fixed on the living lines before her. "We're just asking for directions. Interpretations and intentions are fine, but we need something more than hints."
Grand Dearie exhales, or something within it mimics the shape of breath. The parchment quality of its form stirs slightly, a whispering rustle like pages being turned and something shifts in the room, a soft tilting inward, as though the walls are leaning closer to hear what Grand Dearie will say. "The weave has marked you," it says finally after few beats, "The invitation has already been folded within. There is nothing waiting for you."
Eileen tilts her head and adjusts her shawl with practiced ease, her fingers smoothing the edge as if brushing away the weight of that statement. "That sounds rather dramatic," she replies, her voice touched with lightness, as though she were swatting away dust rather than prophecy. "I still have quite a lot of laundry to do when I get back."
No one laughs, but that does not seem to matter to her, she is not joking for them, she is merely making a statement about life.
The table, however, does not ignore her. Its runes shift in response, not with urgency or flourish, but with something closer to understanding, an understanding of her. A shimmer moves gently across its surface, not as light, not as heat, but as recognition. It is not an answer, it is not instruction. It is a gesture, quiet and offered, the kind of presence that waits rather than demands, something it feels it will learn in the future. The shimmer too rises, curls in the air like a single loose thread, and then settles against Eileen's chest.
There is another pause in the room, long and level, where everything seems to hold its place. Then a chime sounds, soft and clean, brushing the air like a fingertip on glass. It does not announce anything, it does not summon. It only marks a moment, like a breath held in a moment of anger and then gently released to the winds of tomorrow.
Eileen does not react though in any outward way that might be seen, but there is a stillness in her posture now that was not there before. Not tension, not fatigue, a kind of readiness, quiet and complete. It leans gently into the space behind her spine, not a weight, but a spacing, as though the shape of the moment has changed and is waiting for her to notice.
And with that quiet arrival comes a certainty. It does not speak to her in words, it does not declare or instruct. But she understands better that part of her which already knew, not where she needed to go. But when she needed to arrive next.
Beside Eileen, Xozo remains still, watching Eileen with a kind of reverent confusion. Whatever language had just passed between Eileen and the table, it had moved like water over glass, impossible to hold and just as impossible to ignore. Her fingers twitch at her sides, uncertain whether to follow or wait, whether she is meant to move or simply to witness.
Grand Dearie does not speak again either, its eyes, pale and endless. It stares faintly at the space in front of it and yet something in its posture suggests the conversation is finished, not dismissed, only done. Like a story that has chosen its final sentence and refuses to be coaxed into an epilogue. But there is more to tell for hundreds of motes of emotional light are circling around Eileen, drifting in and out like tiny lanterns. Xozo blinks, she realizes she does not understand where all the Motic Resonances had come from, why were they anchored to Eileen and most confusingly why wasn't she absorbing them for they must be worth a fortune in experience.
+22 Yellow Motes: Sanctuary Pattern Initiated.
+26 White Motes: Echo Received by Unready Eyes.
+14 Red Motes: Mercy Intervened Before Wound.
+18 Blue Motes: Confusion Transfigured by Witness.
+15 Green Motes: Broken Pattern Rewoven by Proximity.
+19 Brown Motes: Stillness Counted as Devotion.
Eileen gives a small, polite nod and adjusts the edge of her shawl once more. The gesture is less about neatness and more about rhythm, a small ritual to mark the end of one thing and the quiet beginning of whatever comes next.
She steps back from the table and turns, not with haste but with calm. Xozo follows a second later, her steps soft, her breath quiet. The hallway beyond the chamber has not changed, but it feels slightly different now, not darker or lighter, just less unknown.
Neither of them speaks at first as the door closes behind them. The silence between them is not awkward or uncertain but it is warm and wide, like the space between notes in a lullaby. When Xozo finally breaks it, her voice is soft, the question unsure whether it needs to be asked.
"So... are we closer now?"
Eileen considers for a moment. "Closer to something," she replies. "But today is not the day we will find the answer we need."
Far ahead, the hallway turns and when they reach it Eileen finds that familiar staircase with faint light pouring in from above. Turning she smiles at Xozo who looks back at her with worry, like a child who does want to be left alone at night. "Why don't we get you something to eat? I know Fenn, Audry, Ollan and William would love to make your acquaintance."