I frown, brushing my fingers just over the lines. Threads carry echoes, emotions like dried petals folded into parchment. This one hums grief. That one, longing. Another, sharp with guilt.
I close my eyes, searching for the boy in question. I don’t know him, but if he’s inked into any of these threads, I’ll be able to sense him. The third from the left tugs slightly. It’s tangled, warm at the centre, but frayed at the end.
“This,” I say.
The Monster doesn’t confirm if I’m right, just pours another cup.
“You’re improving,” it murmurs. “You’re listening more.”
“I’ve always listened.”
It shakes its head, its long hair moving like seaweed. “Not like this.”
The tea smells of chamomile and thyme, but I’m too restless to drink it. Instead, I glance out the windows.
The light is shifting. My heart flutters with excitement. I tuck my spindle charm beneath my collar, the glass thread pulse of it fluttering faintly against my skin.
“I need to check the altar,” I say, standing.
“It’s been checked.”
“I would just like to make sure.”
It watches me, stilling, the teacup halfway to its mouth. My cheeks warm, and I have the sense it knows I’m lying.
“Be back before dusk,” it says, voice low, without pressing. “Magic ripens in the light. But it curdles in the dark.”
I nod, then hurry out, my steps measured so I won’t give myself away with my excitement. I can sense him before I catch sight of him. The garden is beginning to memorize him as well. The thyme opens and the violets face the wall long before I do.
He’s already there when I arrive. Sitting on the edge, his knees pulled to his chest and his face lifted to the sky like he belongs to it.
“You’re late,” he says, his warm gaze finding mine.
“You’re early,” I reply, and he grins.
“Isn’t that just another kind of late?”
I roll my eyes, but my smile betrays me.
I climb up beside him, like I’ve done dozens of times, and we sit in companionable silence. His shoulder brushes mine and he suddenly shifts. I don’t move away.
There’s something in the way he speaks to me, like he doesn’t see strangeness. Like the herbs in my hair make me whole. I’m just Agnes to him. And that’s starting to feel like the most beautiful thing I’ve ever been.
“I brought you something,” he says after a while, and pulls a book from his coat. The cover is worn soft, as I brush a finger across it. “Poems. Thought you’d like them.”
I swallow, my eyes meeting his soft browns. “Why?”
He shrugs. “You speak them.”
I don’t open it, not yet. I don’t trust my hands not to shake. Instead, I say, “Do you believe in fate?”
He turns toward me with his whole body, one brow already lifted. “You’re the one who sees threads. You tell me.”
His words slide over my skin like the sunlight itself. I hadn’t told him about the magic we wove. He somehow knew, long before I dared to think about sharing it with him. And it didn’t frighten him. Not at all.
“I think…I think fate isn’t fixed, not like people tend to fear. I think it waits for us to decide. And then it weaves around the choice.”
“Like ivy.” He tips his head, and I smile, with teeth and all.
