The Fatal Strand. Robin Jarvis
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‘There are no adequate words to explain,’ she said. ‘From the moment I set it in motion and the glittering threads ran through the warp, everything was enslaved, including myself. Many have cursed my name since that day, but had I balked at the deed, then the lords of the ice would have destroyed the last vestige of Yggdrasill, and the end would have come before there had barely been a beginning. What choice had I?’
Edie reached for a small, unglazed ceramic jar which fitted pleasantly in her palm, and toyed with the idea of popping the dead mouse inside it.
‘Was you scared?’ she asked, irked to find that the lid of the jar was stuck in place.
‘Terrified,’ Miss Ursula confessed. ‘I had taken it upon myself and my sisters to become Mistresses of Destiny. Yet I was exhilarated also, and when the first glimmering strands began to weave the untold history of the world, it was the most entrancing sight I had ever beheld, outshining even the spectacle of Askar beneath the dappling sky of the great ash’s leaves.’
Lifting her face to the ceiling, where deserted cobwebs festooned the chandelier, the old woman’s stern countenance melted.
‘What ravishing beauty the fabric of the Fates possessed,’ she murmured. ‘Every stitch was an unseen moment in time and the threads of life shone with an intensity according to the nature of who they belonged to. How that shimmering splendour captivated me and my sisters, and how easily we accepted our roles – even Veronica.
‘You cannot imagine how bewitching that tapestry became – a rippling expanse of colour and movement that burned with a light like no other. Patterns of joy and creation glowed within its fabric in an ever-shifting performance of lustrous delight.’
Rising from the seat, the woman fetched Edie’s woollen pixie hood down from the mantelpiece, where she had placed it to dry after washing the blood and dirt of the girl’s adventures from its fibres.
‘The glittering strands which course through this hood are an impoverished representation of the glorious wonders which were stretched upon the Loom. Yet the garment is a symbol of your bond with us, Edith dear. A joining of your life to that of Nirinel.’
Edie came to stand next to her. ‘Is it dry?’ she demanded. ‘Give it to me.’
The old woman placed the small pointed hood upon the girl’s head and, with a slender finger, traced the interwoven streaks of silver tinsel.
‘Celandine knitted this from a single thread taken from the patterns of our own woven doom,’ she explained. ‘Through it passes the unstoppable might of Destiny and your life is tied to it.’
‘What did the Loom look like?’ the child asked.
Miss Ursula walked across the room to where a damask curtain hung across a doorway. ‘Come, child,’ she instructed.
The old woman led the girl down the narrow flight of stairs which led to the third floor of The Wyrd Museum, only to pause when they reached halfway. A huge oil painting hung upon the near wall and Miss Ursula regarded it with satisfaction.
‘I remember that I was a trifle harsh with the artist when he delivered the work to me,’ she said. ‘I thought he had taken my description a little too literally but, on reflection, it is a fine enough depiction of those far off days.’
Edie stared dutifully at the great canvas.
The borders of a vast forest crowded the edges of the frame but, rearing from the ground in the centre, was a representation of a titanic ash tree. The figures of three young maidens stood about a wide pool by the roots. Edie guessed that they were supposed to be the Websters and she smiled to note that, even here, Miss Celandine was dancing.
‘I do not recall if I ever congratulated the artist on his capturing of my sisters,’ Miss Ursula muttered. ‘I know that I was irritated by the veil he had painted across my face. But, now that I look closely, that nymph robed in white is unmistakably Veronica. Perhaps he based this portrayal upon a lover, for surely there is an intensity there. An unbounded beauty and tenderness, more so than the others. Veronica was like that; none could outshine her.’
Lifting her hand, she pointed at the measuring rod in the figure’s hand. ‘There is her cane,’ she said regretfully. ‘Alas for its loss in the burning – it is another power gone from this place and I wish we still had it in our keeping.’
The old woman’s jaw tightened and an expression that was drenched in dread settled over her gaunt face. ‘I must not anticipate the days ahead,’ she cautioned herself. ‘The ordeal will be severe enough without wishing it any closer.’
‘But the Loom,’ Edie prompted.
Miss Ursula’s caressing hand travelled across the varnished oils to where violet shadows were cast over her own, younger counterpart and directed the girl’s scrutiny towards a large structure fashioned from great timbers.
‘There it is,’ she breathed. ‘That which yoked us all and made us slaves to the lives we were allotted.’
‘Don’t look much,’ Edie grumbled with disappointment.
Miss Ursula straightened. ‘I was deliberately vague in the description I presented to the artist,’ she explained. ‘There were certain … details I had reason to leave out. But, in essence, that is the controlling device which dominated us all.
‘The span and tale of all things were entwined in that cloth, Edith. Yet within its bitter beauty were also large, ugly patches of fathomless shadow, where hate and war were destined to occur. Sometimes those conflicts were bidden to prove so violent that the horror and cruelty fated to transpire in the world would rip and tear through the fabric, causing vicious rents to mar the surrounding pattern. Dangerous and ungovernable are those fissures in the web of Fate. Although we did our best to repair them – poor Celandine toiled so hard, so often – many lovely things and brave souls were lost forever within those hollow voids and there was naught we could do.’
‘I came from one of them,’ Edie chirped.
Miss Ursula inclined her head and bestowed one of her rare smiles upon the child. ‘Indeed you did, Edith,’ she said. ‘When war rages and the cloth rips wide, my sisters and I are blind. We could see nothing beneath the banner of death which obscured those years and so we missed you – the very one we had waited for all these years. Still, once we realised our error, we were able to perform a little belated repair and pluck you through it to join us.’
Her eyes still riveted upon the indistinct portrait of the Loom, Edie asked, ‘What happened to it?’
Miss Ursula smoothed out the creases of her taffeta gown. ‘I believe I told you before you went to Glastonbury, Edith. The Loom was broken many years ago and cannot be remade. The tapestry of the world’s destiny was never completed and thus our futures remain uncertain.’
Edie lowered her gaze and fiddled with the jar she still held in her hand. Miss Ursula seemed to forget her young charge and was following her own train of thought.
‘Without the Cloth of Doom to guide me, how can I be sure that the path I have chosen is the right one? Is there still time to turn back and steer away from this course? Too long have I spent foretelling the pages of the world to act blindfold now. Halt this, Ursula, you must.’
Not listening to her, Edie gave the lid another twist and at last the wretched jar was opened. Bringing it close to her face, the girl inspected the contents to see if there was room for a dead mouse inside. But a foul-smelling, ochre-coloured ointment filled the small vessel and she groaned inwardly at having unearthed yet more of Miss Veronica’s wrinkle cream.
At her side Miss Ursula looked up sharply as though she had heard something.
‘It is too late!’ she cried, expelling her indecision with a clap of her hands. ‘He is here! Come, Edith, the one I have sent for, our catalyst – he arrives. We must greet him.’
Edie had not heard anything, but she knew that the eldest of the Websters was more attuned to the vibrations of this mysterious building