civilwarnovels Episode Two Hundred and Twenty-Seven: Threadfinder
Episode Two Hundred and Twenty-Seven: Threadfinder
“Threadfinder?” I repeated, turning to look at the Cat and wished to take a picture..He lay on his back with yarn in his paws. His eyes were focused completely on the yarn.
“Cat…?” I asked again.
He blinked a few times and frantically jerked back from the yarn, trying to untangle himself, which only made it worse. He started trying to bite at it, and I resisted a chuckle.
I set the yarn ball I had on the counter, then helped him get it untangled from his paws and, somehow, around his head.
“That wasn’t like you,” I said softly, as I gave him a scratch behind an ear.
He shook his head away from me. “I just lost myself for a moment. The yarn is magical, after all.”
Betty yanked the yarn from sight as the Cat did a full body shiver. Mentally, I thanked her for getting rid of the temptation. Actual cats loved yarn, the Cat usually didn’t.
“The magic yarn trapped you, huh?” I asked in a joking manner, trying to lighten the mood.
He glared at me, but looked more like himself and less like a normal house cat. “That yarn is particular.”
I nodded slowly, but let it drop by asking, “What is a Threadfinder?”
The Cat blinked twice. “I haven’t heard of that before. Where did that come from?”
This time I hesitated, wondering how he’d missed it. Then again, the magical yarn did have him entranced.
“The lizard wizard guy said it as he left…?” I let my voice trail off, hoping I hadn’t just insulted a magical lizard that didn’t blink.
“He did?” The Cat stared at the door, and his tail flicked around behind him before glancing back at me. His whiskers twitched. “I… must have missed that.”
“Yeah. I’ll ask Lorestone and see what comes up in the tomes the dragons gave me,” I said. Those were at least starting points to figure out what he meant, since the Cat didn’t know. For some reason, it felt important, lingering in the back of my mind like I’d just found a puzzle piece I didn’t know I’d missed.
The Cat lingered on the counter, his shoulders drooping.
“What’s next on the list?” I asked carefully, still sitting on my stool.
He shook his head. “Nothing for this morning.”
“We can totally fit something in before lunch if you want.” While I wanted to dig into my research, I didn’t like how the Cat currently felt. Lost, came to mind. He felt lost.
The Cat turned to me. “No, let’s take a break before lunch. After food, we can focus on the next customer. I can check the book to see what it says.”
I petted him as he walked closer to me. He purred, but it felt like an act. Then, he jumped off the counter and padded down the hallway before vanishing up the stairs.
I waited a few moments, and Lorestone appeared on the counter, along with my magical book reader. “Thanks, Betty. Is the Cat alright?”
The shop would be the only one to truly know.
Warmth didn’t pulse under my feet. Instead, my mug on the counter shook a little. Uncertainty.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” I whispered back.
“Lady Sable, how can I help you today?” asked Lorestone, unaware of everything else going on.
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“Well, I heard a term that I don’t know the meaning of, and I’m hoping you do. Threadfinder; have you heard it before?” Hopefully, this would lead me somewhere.
“Threadfinder, hmmm…” Lorestone paused, like he needed to think about it. “I haven’t heard the term itself, but it makes me think of someone who thread needles, or a maybe who performs a threading, which is when you draw the warp threads through the eyes of heddles… but that goes deep into a lesson on weaving. The Clan didn’t focus enough on fiber arts as they should.”
“You mean on a loom?” I didn’t know anything about weaving, or if this was even something in reference to that. But the golden lines that I sometimes saw connecting people and objects could be called threads.
“Yes, looms are a startlingly important invention, moving civilizations forward in surprising ways,” said Lorestone. “Hence why I think the Clan should spend more time cultivating those arts. Or, at least, finding others who want to learn them, and then document the history and processes surrounding them.”
I hummed to myself as I opened the magical book up and searched for Threadfinder. Nothing came up, and I tried to listen to Lorestone's continued gush of how much he loved weaving. “I have a handmade pillow upstairs that Indigo bought me that you might want to see.”
“Seeing is rather hard for me. I wish I could see easier. But the books that speak are so special. Indigo plays them for me most nights. The book you are using right now is also special. It can send information directly to me. The dragon magic sort of links up.”
“Oh, so you know everything in here?” I asked, when my search came up empty.
“No, my Lady, that would be most inappropriate. You would need to give permission for that.”
Next, I tried searching for weaving, since that was my only other link.
Surprisingly, a book came up from my world all about ancient myology, called The Three Fates and the Loom of Fate.
I opened it and found the text to be small and a little over my normal reading level. It was definitely an old book.
“Lorestone, can you read the book The Three Fates and the Loom of Fate, and come up with a summarized version for me? It’s in this book here.” I tapped the magical book.
“I can, though it will take me sometime,” he sounded very excited.
“Great! I’ll get started on lunch and leave you to it.” First, I made myself another latte after emptying my mug. Caffeine was required with something like this. Lunch was a different story, and would be something simple.
Hopefully.
I went with classic macaroni and cheese. The kind that came from a blue box and contained a pouch of melted yellow goodness. Completely bad for you, but guaranteed to make anyone smile.
I added some peas to mine and brought the rest upstairs to the living room.
Indigo remained at the table staring at the laptop, before carefully pressing a button. She turned to watch me enter.
“Oooo food…” she said with a grin. “Some classes are boring. And go too slow.”
I chuckled. “That’s schooling for you. How is your art project going?”
“Betty cleaned up the mess, which was super nice…” she said sheepishly. “I accidentally got paint on my tail and couldn’t get it off, then it went everywhere.”
“But did you get the project done?” I asked with a frown.
“I did.” She tapped the table and a paper floated to the top. The picture contained a square with three people around it. One with purple hair, a black cat, and a smiley face next to a big bowl with lines in it.
It took a second to realize it was us eating chinese food at the island.
“This is amazing…” I said softly. “Do you need to turn it in, or can I hang it on the fridge?”
“I need to send a picture in, but I don’t know how to do that…” she mumbled as her cheeks darkened.
“I can do that,” I said with a grin, taking out my phone and snapping a picture. The school app made it easy to upload things from parents.
“Can I paint me first? Before you hang it, I mean?” asked Indigo.
“Of course!” I hadn’t mentioned the smiley face, but that made sense. The rules were she could mention magic, dragons, or that she was a dragon.
She danced around in a circle, then her focus went to the three bowls. “Lunch first.”
I nodded, before turning to the doorway. “Cat, you coming?”
If he didn’t hear me, I hoped Betty would pass along the message. He was supposed to check the book to figure out who our afternoon customer was.
#
Sable’s voice echoed around the room, knocking me out of my thoughts. The book sat open in front of me, but held nothing on the page. No matter what I did, it wouldn’t flip to the future. The ones with checkmarks and other signs were still in the front, but nothing else.
The wand seller was the last listing with a checkmark next to it, and the next line remained stubbornly blank.
The table warmed under my paws and I swallowed hard. “I’m going, I’m going. Maybe some food will help…”
I knew it wouldn’t.
This wasn’t the first time the thrice-cursed fates wouldn’t provide me the knowledge I needed.
I only worried since this had happened more and more.
What if the page never flipped again?