Fate: No Strings Attached

by Erik Schubach

  I pushed the other Fates back. “Go now. Find a cut thread, I'll meet you in the mortal coil.”

  They nodded, coaxing threads from my skin while I scrambled on my hands and knees to the last scraps of fabric. I recognized the pattern in them. The Adumbrates mustn't get them. My kin had vanished as they found a recently deceased mortal form they could take as their own.

  I prepared to absorb the threads of the scraps into my very being, but my world became pain when the great loom of the ages failed under its own weight and came crashing down upon me as the world shook.

  I realized Drey was speaking. I gave an intelligent prompt, “Wha?”

  She narrowed her eyes, then they widened slightly as she realized I had just had another flash. “I asked why you couldn't just ummm... follow their thread? God, I sound as mad as you.”

  She smirked, and I grinned back, giving her my best crazy eyes. Then shook my head. “In the eons at the loom, we've never been able to identify our own threads. I'm sure that is by design. Like the Adumbrates, when the time of the Fates comes to a close, whatever it is out there that made us all, wouldn't want us selfishly re-spinning our own frayed threads instead of allowing them to be cut.”

  She was scanning the cemetery as she asked absently, “What about your mortal, ummm... lives? Bodies? Edgar suits?”

  I squinted and looked at her. “Edgar Suit?”

  She gave me a super cheesy grin and said brightly, “That's right, you've missed thirty years of good cinema. If we get out of this relatively intact and still breathing, I'll have to watch Men In Black with you.”

  I smiled and asked, “Johnny Cash?”

  She shook her head. “No, he's dead. Men In Black, it's a movie about... you know, it isn't important right now. We're running from monsters and were talking about movies.”

  Johnny Cash is dead? I sighed internally, wondering how many other entertainers I enjoyed as Hannah were no longer with us.

  I said coyly, “It's a date.”

  Did Miss Badass just blush?

  I thought about her earlier question and felt foolish. I nodded. “I don't know why I didn't think of that. Of course, I can find Mrs. Ramos' thread. I've looked at it before without realizing it, so I'd recognize it.”

  She deadpanned, “You don't have my finely tuned mind.”

  I chuckled at her, and she added with a smirk, “Besides, you haven't even realized who and what you are for a full day yet. So your lapse is excusable.”

  I shoved her shoulder with a finger. “I'll show you excusable, right upside the head.”

  Then I pulled up the sleeve of my new jacket and looked at the Celtic knots that had vines weaving through them, as they slowly writhed and spun lazily around my wrist. The movement feeling more natural now and the heat of the movement telling me of the dangers converging from all around the city.

  I wondered how to do this, the things I had been doing since the attack were all purely instinctual, but thinking about it was doing nothing but giving me a headache. So I cleared my head and thought about the people around us, my fingers lightly brushing my wrist.

  I could feel the threads closest to us, rushing to the surface, eager to be touched by me, recognized by me. I could almost detect a gleefulness about them. Then like wisps of silver smoke, sparkling and lit from within, threads reached out from my skin to touch me. I thought of Mrs. Ramos, and then a shape started forming on my forearm, it looked like Roman columns, from some ancient pantheon.

  My companion was nodding her head, saying, “I know that. It is in the cemetery.”

  And I knew, that is where Atta was. It was fact, not conjecture. By the stitch and nap, that was amazing, and such a rush. Then I recoiled from another thread that tasted so very familiar wrapped around my finger, and I yanked back, dropping the threads. There was a heart, torn asunder, in the vines near the other tattoo.

  I looked at my arm for a long moment before shaking my head, then looking up into Drey's seeking eyes. “What is it, Sloan?”

  The problem with long-lived beings is that they outlive any mortals they come to love. So their defense was to become detached, calloused, and jaded. Withdrawing into themselves because they don't want to form connections that would hurt them as they were taken away by time as it marched along.

  But I'm positive that that is why us Fates, choose to live lives in the mortal world, living the human condition from birth to death, among those we love. It reminds us how precious life is, not to be squandered, and how priceless the contact with the people we let into our lives is.

  That made me realize that Hannah was not my first life among humans. Every hundred years or so, one of us Fates would leave the loom to live the life of a human. We would find the tragedy of a newborn, whose thread was cut at birth, and we would step into their empty shell, living a full human life, and saving the parents the heartache of knowing their child had died.

  I have loved my parents so very much in each life. As we grow and our minds can take it, we slowly remember who and what we are. By the time we are nine or ten, we can fully remember and touch the threads of life around us.

  I must have been speaking aloud because Andreya looked almost mesmerized as she asked me while she glanced at my arm and my eyes. “How many mortal lives have you lived, Sloan?”

  By the weave, her pale green eyes seemed to own me. I don't think I've ever met anyone with that exact shade. I slid my sleeve down to hide the moving tattoos as they reformed as people passed by.

  I shrugged and almost whispered, “I don’t know. I just know I have.” Then I punched her dashboard hard in frustration and ran both hands through my hair, pulling my scalp taunt. I hissed, “I wish I could remember!”

  I calmed as she laid a hand on top of mine and said softly, “It will come, S.”

  I looked over at her and said with genuine fear, “What if it doesn't?” That is what scared me the most. What if... what if I never got everything back, and I had to be a Fate again, and not know what to do? The fate of the human race is in our hands, and I wouldn't have a clue as to what I was supposed to do to safeguard it.

  What if... I calmed down as a thrill shot across my hand and down my arm, into my belly as she kissed the back of my hand, her lips lingering and her breath hot on my skin as she shrugged and said, “I'll be in your corner whether it does or not.”

  Oh... ok... I was blushing like a schoolgirl with her secret crush. But there was nothing secret about it with her. I have already made that clear. My smile bloomed as I realized, her words actually did make me feel better.

  I felt self-conscious with her just sitting there, holding my hand as she watched me. I pulled my hand from her grasp and said imperiously, “This way,” as I slid out of her car.

  She chuckled and followed. She knew damn well what she did to me. When all of this was over, I was going to confront her and tell her she needed to put up or shut up. I squeaked as she grabbed my hand and dragged me quickly down the path.

  Around some trees which were screening areas between groups of graves, the Roman columns came into view. We stepped up to them as I glanced over to a tractor about fifty yards away, which was placing a well-sized tombstone at a grave that looked to be just a few months old. The grass was a different color and hadn't quite seamlessly blended into the lawn that stretched out over the other graves yet. You wouldn't be able to tell in just a year or two from now.

  My eyes widened, and I gasped as I pulled myself behind one of the columns when I recognized two of the people by the grave. I was shaking my head, muttering something under my breath in shock. They were so much older than I remembered, but there was no mistaking them.

  Why was I panicking? Then I started to understand. Seeing them somehow made all of this real to me in a way not even the reavers had. There, in the small group watching the tractor, was my father, looking so much older, and frail... and beside him... Lily. By all the threads of the world! She had been beautiful in her twenties, but the poised, middle-aged woman wi
th that flaming mane of red hair, who stood with her hand in the crook of another woman's arm, was spectacular.

  I had just known I was going to marry that woman one day, before I...

  My heart ached so much I thought I was having a heart attack. It was getting hard to breath as my lungs labored.

  When Andreya moved in front of me, her hands on my cheeks, forcing me to look into her eyes, I realized it was just some sort of panic attack, because just the sight of my detective let me get a hold of myself and calm down.

  She wiped a tear from my cheek with a thumb, and I shrugged in apology and said what I had already logically known, and even verbalized, but it hadn't truly been real until that very moment, “I died.”

  She nodded and smirked and said playfully, “Yes, you did. But you're here now, with me.” She punctuated that fact by pressing my hand into hers and covering it with her other, shaking it a bit to demonstrate the contact. She looked over her shoulder and then asked, “Who are they?”

  I turned to look at the group as they started to move away from the grave and head toward the exit. A young teen girl took dad's arm to help him along as a teenaged boy trailed behind. I remembered part of my heart twanged for something from another life as Lily laid her head on the tall blonde woman's shoulder as they walked. I didn't need to be an expert in body language to see the two were together.

  I murmured in response, “My... Hannah's dad and... fiancee. So much time has passed.”

  Then I stopped breathing as my mind caught up with me and I realized mom wasn't there with dad. I stared at the new tombstone as the workers removed the large nylon straps from it and the tractor backed away.

  I asked the universe, “Mom?”

  Then a familiar voice behind us said, “No. Hannah's mother died a decade ago, breast cancer. That's your grave, girl.”

  I turned and was so relieved to see Mrs. Ramos stepping out from behind a column, that I almost dove on her, pulling her into a tight hug. She chuckled a little and patted my arms. Then I held her at arm's length to look her over, to look for injuries but saw none.

  Then I narrowed my eyes and looked between her and the grave as confusion started to whirl its way into my head as I said, “But that grave can't be more than a few months old. Hannah died almost thirty years ago.”

  She nodded and explained as Drey scanned the area, likely looking for threats, judging by her stance. She looked like some sort of apex predator, ready to pounce on any threat in an instant. “When we got here, we saw them at the gravesite. We went to speak with them.”

  I piqued up at that, my eyes widening slightly as she went on, “Yes, it seems that nine months ago, some vandals came into the cemetery late at night and dug up poor Hannah's grave. They took the body, and they found the tombstone two hundred yards away, broken into a dozen pieces like a truck had rammed it or something.”

  She didn’t look at me, her eyes were trained on the activity at the grave as the workers headed off. “You must not have followed a severed thread. Your essence, being here in the mortal realm without a corporeal form, can't happen. Your subconscious must have reached out for a familiar shell as you plummeted to Earth. Your old body, the last one your essence remembered was torn from the earth and pulled to you. Your ability to spin new thread must have reanimated that form. If it had been Lachesis or me, we probably would not have survived.”

  Then she looked at me with a touch of fear on her face. “What could possibly have the power to tear you from one realm to another without a life channel to follow? The energy required would have had to have been incalculable.”

  I gave her an apologetic look and shrugged and said the only thing I could remember. “The loom came down on me.”

  She gasped and looked pained, she whispered out to the cosmos, “The loom.”

  I nodded and felt a pang in my heart as profound as the one I had felt for Lily. “It's gone.”

  She inhaled long and slow through her nose, her eyes flicking around as she thought, then she exhaled, knowing there wasn't anything any of us could do about the tragedy. So she just continued. “They had ordered a new marker for the grave, and the stoneworkers had just finished it recently.”

  She smiled sadly at me. “Lily is such a strong woman, I can see why you chose her. That was her wife, Faith, and their children from Faith's prior marriage. Delightful children.”

  Then she laid a hand gently on my arm. “After you died, Lily helped your parents through the loss and became a close family friend. They saw her as a daughter. So she was here for Connor when they buried Hanna's new empty casket nine months ago, and now for the new headstone.”

  I nodded then looked down at my hands. Hands I wasn't supposed to have any more. I could never let any of them see me again, there would be too many questions that don't have any answers I could give, why I look exactly like someone they had lost another lifetime ago. It would hurt my own heart too much to see the pain of the memories in their eyes, and not being able to tell them the truth.

  I gave Andreya a small smile. She wasn't supposed to know either, it was dangerous for any mortal to know what we were. She was the only human to know that the Fates now walked the Earth until we could figure out how to rebuild the loom.

  It had been there before our time, and we had assumed it would be eternal. But we, out of everyone, should know that everything has its time. I smiled sadly then turned to her at a sudden thought. “Lachesis?”

  Before she could answer, a handsomely rugged man in who looked to be in his late twenties, with roguish stubble on his chiseled chin moved around the columns and leaned his shoulder against one. He crossed his arms and looked on with a smug smirk as he cleared his throat, his face framed by ebony curls.

  Faster than I could blink, Drey was between him and us, her weapon drawn and pointing at him unwavering as she said in a tone that would have chilled even frost, “Stop where you are. Who are you?”

  His smirk didn't waver, and he held his hands up at his sides, not bothering to stop leaning against the column. I knew that smirk, and I was so very relieved to see it, even in an overly masculine face. I chuckled a little and placed a hand on Andreya's arm, applying a little pressure. “Easy there Quick Draw McGraw, she's with us.”

  I was a little surprised that even the pressure I put on her arm didn't make her aim waver. Knotted threads, the woman was strong! I smiled, remembering that I was strong too. I had to be in great shape to free climb. Though, I haven't worked out much the past nine months.

  As she lowered her weapon, Lisbon's brows furrowed in confusion as she asked, “She?”

  I bit the tip of my tongue and gave her a teasing smile before turning to dive into the man's arms. I said into his shoulder, “Mother.” Happy for the protective warmth of her arms that she wrapped around me.

  When she released me, Drey said from behind us, “Mother?” Then she added as she holstered her gun, “Good god I'm so sexually confused right now.”

  We all chuckled at her, and I supplied, “Oh hush, we've all been a man a time or two. And stop staring at her.” I felt an odd twinge of jealousy with her looking at Lach like that. She had a solid lesbian vibe the whole time I’ve known her, and she certainly flirted and used my obvious attraction to her to devastating effect. But now I saw I had been mistaken, the vibes were definitely in the bi arena now.

  Well, I guess if I'm to be truthful, mom did land in a prime specimen of masculinity. But come on Drey, she's my mom... ewww. In defiance I reached a hand out and was relieved when Andreya took it without hesitation, lacing our fingers. She leaned in a bit and said, “Umm, Sloan? Your mom's a hunk.”

  Both Atta and Lach snorted, and I growled, “Well she'll have to get in line.” Gods above, I sounded like a pouty, clingy girlfriend, and we haven't even kissed yet. Yet being the operative word. I swear on the Loom of Ages, if we survive this, I'm going to take a chance on her.

  I glanced at her smug smile and arching eyebrow and then blushed profusely, I was going to
die right there... again. Convenient since my grave was literally a stone's throw away. I placed my forehead on her shoulder and just shook my head in complete mortification. It wasn't all bad, there was her scent of soap and gun oil again, though it was spoiled a little by the antiseptic smell from her bandages.

  Then I smiled, realizing that she still wore my jacket. Maybe I was wearing her down, and her flirting was as genuine as I had hoped.

  Then I snorted when I realized mother was making a muscle and squeezing it with her other hand. She looked up at us and gave a crooked smile that dimpled her cheeks. “What? It's been some time since I've traveled on the masculine side of the road. I forgot how driven by hormones men are.”

  Then she got serious and said, “I grabbed the first cut thread I could find in the Seattle area. I wound up in Brett Holiday's body here, as the man drowned while trying to rescue a fellow dockworker who had fallen off the pier and got tangled in the netting of a trawler that was tied off there.”

  Then Atta sighed heavily and said, “Of course you'd get the prime sirloin, I wound up in Mary Ramos here when she died peacefully in her sleep.”

  I laid a consoling hand on her shoulder and said, “A librarian suits you, Atta.”

  She winked at me and said, “It is a noble profession, the dissemination of knowledge. Though the first few weeks were rough. I had to fake it, Mary's memory coming to me in flashes. I understand what you must be going through Clotho, child. Add to that not even having your own memories until now.”

  We turned to Mother, and she just gave us a toothy grin. “It hasn't been all that bad, Brett has a girlfriend.” She stood there tongue in cheek, and I rolled my eyes, trying hard not to be entertained by the thought. Reminding myself that ewww, she was my mom.

  That's when Andreya stepped in and said, “If you are all done sharing this mind blindingly surreal reunion. There are reavers converging upon us, remember?”