Spindlefish and Stars by Christiane M. Andrews

Author:Christiane M. Andrews [Andrews, Christiane M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780316496025
Google: _nDIDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: B083J14LH6
Publisher: Hachette UK
Published: 2020-09-21T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST

IN WHICH A MAN LEADS A SWEATY OX TO MARKET

CLO SAW.

As before, the window was shuttered. But now the whole room was aglow with the light from the tapestry. Its colors did not shift and bloom like the unspun towers of fish-wool in the front room did; instead, the cloth held fast its thousands of bright patterns.

It depicted nothing—nothing distinct, anyway. Clo could see no scene, but as she turned her head from side to side, she had the sense of bright fields. Dark forests. Glimmering mountain heights. Sleepy hamlets and bustling cities. But each time she thought she had spotted an image in the design and tried to focus on it, it became abstract once again—a wash of light and color.

Remembering the mirror she had seen hanging behind the tapestry, she realized she was perhaps only seeing the reverse, the wrong side of the fabric without a clear image. Still, her throat tightened with the beauty of it.

As she stood marveling, the piggish cat darted through the open door into the chamber and took up a spot by the tapestry. Standing on its hind legs, it stuck its thick claws again and again into the fabric, tearing gashes into the cloth. Clo moved to shoo the creature away, to stop its destructive kneading, but just as she stepped forward, she paused. She watched mesmerized as the dark holes the beast opened in the cloth took on brighter and brighter edges. Everywhere the cat ran its claws, the ragged edges gleamed—little in the tapestry glowed as brightly as its torn patches. Even the shadowy gaps the cat made seemed part of the larger design.

“So much color… and light…,” she whispered, touching her fingers to her eyelids. After so many many days of gray, her eyes ached with the radiance of the fabric. She shook her head, overwhelmed.

She thought of the little apple-faced woman, chewing emptily, sitting alone on the low chair and drawing through the bobbins one by one, weaving thread by thread, hour after hour, to create this vast work. She was surprised to feel a sudden rush of sympathy for the woman, her quiet weaving alone in this dark room.

This is your work, granddaughter. You must see it.

Clo walked slowly toward the tapestry, fingertips buzzing with the memory of the wool sliding through her hands. This was the fiber she had spun?

She wondered if the threads would sigh or make noise as she drew close. But no, the room was silent but for the tick tick of the cat clawing at the fabric and the faint sound, now and again, of snoring in the next room.

She sat on the little stool placed before the tapestry and watched the cat pull a long thread away. Up close, the glowing tear it made looked more like a hole and less a part of the design, but Clo smiled at the beast all the same. “Good kitty.” She reached out a hand and stroked its bristly head.

Hissing, the cat moved away and took up another spot to knead and pull.

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