Spinning Silk

by T. Cook

  * * *

  We met in the garden. His gaze caught mine and I shivered. I sensed every vibration, read every thought as though it traveled across an invisible thread stretching taut between us. He read me similarly, and although it forged a mutual sympathy, it couldn’t meld us together.

  His mouth opened as though to speak, but he couldn’t utter the words, and instead they flooded into my mind.

  “I am going.”

  “Where?”

  “To my uncle.”

  A tremor ran from my fingers to my toes. My knees buckled. “Not to war!”

  Shin’s gaze dropped to the ground. “I don’t know what will remain of the revolution. Perhaps there will be a blood war, but perhaps not. Either way, I’ll report tomorrow.”

  Tears stung my eyes, and I was forced to hide from him again until I could control the poisonous flood.

  I crouched in the closet, folding into a tight fetal position, uprooted and adrift from convictions I had thought inalterable. I was forced to ask which was better: loving Shin and destroying him with venom, or banishing him to near certain death within a violent revolution.

  At length, I began to see that neither question was rational. I might as easily have asked whether it was better to suppress the life I might give in favor of the life I wanted to cling to. No answer would appear along this two dimensional plane.

  I might fight forever between two points on a plane, each end pulling with equivalent force, until at last I understood that the solution must reach upward and outside, into a third dimension—neither to moralize nor to rationalize, but to become—to become the creature greater gods had envisioned of me.

  It was not enough to consult what my heart wanted. I had a spirit, a mind, and a spider’s nature as well. I struggled with all of them to see the creature I might be, and had never known.

  I struggled hard, and yet failed. Confused and weary, I fell asleep and dreamt of an old woman whom I somehow knew, but couldn’t quite place in memory. She spoke to me with effort, her throat arid and her voice breathy. “I need a subject. Give me a subject.” Her hands reached as her glassy eyes stared. Cold, bony fingers found my hair, my shoulders.

  She was blind.

  An ancient loom occupied half of the room. I realized that she wanted an image to weave into a fabric. “It is my final weaving. My last before I die. I must weave it before I can rest.”

  I offered her various physical objects for her to examine with her hands, but she cast them all away in contempt. Impatiently, I brought her half-withered hands to mine, and guided them over my face, over my hair and neck, across my collarbone and down the length of my arms. When she was finished, having examined me from head to toe, she sighed thanks and turned away contented.

  When I awakened again, I realized with a blink that I needed a model. And at last I understood where I might look.

  * * *

  “Shin, I will not forbid your returning to your uncle. But I will ask you to delay a little while.”

  The light caught his eyes and I perceived his desperation for any excuse, any compromise by which he might justify staying. “Tell me what you want.”

  I drew a quick breath. “Take me to the records.”

  58

  Dusk had fallen. The husk of a moon floated above the horizon as we departed the house. Shin thought it best to travel at night by roads occupied mainly with peasants.

  He wore a linen robe over trousers. I wore the same. I had to alter them before departure, and managed a rather hasty job of it. The gusset hung low and chaffed my inner thighs after a day’s walking. But the chafing was nothing to the fatigue of treading over the ruts of weather-ruined roads. I fatigued before even reaching the foothills. A high mountain pass loomed beyond the foothills against the eastern horizon. This range, our destination.

  We pressed on through the night and into a blinding sunrise the following morning until reaching the woods atop the foothills. There, we made camp and ate a breakfast of dried fish and salt vegetables. We had passed the long night in almost complete silence, of necessity, because the streets still teamed with strangers and we didn’t wish to expose ourselves either by voice or accent. It didn’t matter. All necessary communication had passed between us with a gentle nudge or knowing look.

  Once beyond frequent travelers, I started when Shin’s audible command rang in my ears. “Let me look at your feet.”

  He challenged the warning look I shot him with a dark expression I couldn’t hold. I averted my eyes as he removed my sandals and took my blistered feet into his hands.

  “They are bad,” he whispered. “You should have told me. I might have prevented this. The remaining journey is difficult. And they will…”

  “Hamper our progress,” I finished for him, tugging my foot back fecklessly against his firm hold.

  “I was going to say, take time to heal.” Shin said, already massaging the foot with a salve. “I will never understand your inclination to suffer silently alone rather than ask me for what you need and you know I would happily supply.”

  But he did understand. Wordlessly, he read my stiffness and perceived my preference for his cold scolding to the warmth of his touch. And he fell silent and handed me a neat fold of clean bandages. I finished the dressing myself. He turned his attention elsewhere, a little way apart. We nursed our own wounds separately, as the sun rose high above our shelter beneath the trees.

  At dusk, we resumed our journey, my pace slackening with the sting of my broken skin. Shin would not outdistance me by more than ten or twelve feet at most. I never complained, but every couple of miles, Shin found an excuse to stop to record a milestone or refill our flasks. I carried the salve myself, and reapplied it as frequently as our stops allowed. In this way, we continued without much delay to our progress.

  By morning, we had mounted high into the hills where the forest thrived. Trees encroached upon our narrow path, craggy roots exposed above the earth and draped with moss. Shin paused as the path disappeared through a natural tunnel beneath the thick tree limbs arching above us. Foliage admitted the slightest slivers of light. Tightly woven vines and roots would force our passage more by feel than by sight.

  Shin’s eyes sought mine. “We’re here. The outskirts of the Spirit Garden.

  It was called a garden, though it grew completely wild, and as its name implied, was famed for mysticism. “Have you been here before?”

  “Not since I was a child.”

  “You don’t really believe it haunted?” I whispered, never doubting the idea for an instant.

  “I don’t have to believe it,” Shin said. “I know it.” His eyes cautioned mine, and he didn’t need to ask me to stay close to him. I laced my fingers through his hand, our blood’s motion beating palpably from our breasts through its pathway inside our entangled thumbs.

  “Haunted by who?”

  “Our own cousins. The jorogumo.”

  I suppressed a gasp. “The spider demons are only legend.”

  “Like your parents are legends. And yet your effect on me has always been so material.” His hand closed tightly around mine and he leaned close and planted a gentle kiss on my right earlobe.

  “You have seen them?” I whispered.

  “Once.”

  “You’re not teasing?”

  “No, I am not. And if you would rather not go on, I will escort you home without another word.”

  I exhaled slowly. “No. We may as well die by jorogumo as anything.”

  “Don’t say it,” Shin’s whispered. “They were the terror of my childhood. I would not think of daring this forest without your having begged it of me.”

  I peered at the dark edges of his silhouette and my resolve almost failed. And yet, I shrank from the prospect of giving up, remembering how retreating back to the house with Shin would return us to an impossible, defeated position. After a brief pause for rest, we pressed toward the shadows, the tunnel swallowing us to blackness within seconds.

  In a sho
rt stretch of path, we learned to move together. Shin lifted me atop his feet. I carried my own weight, but received his every physical signal. Knees. Pelvis. Hands. Shoulders. I answered every nudge, every breath on my neck, with movement and momentum of my own—replying with pressure, and occasionally, urgency, when he should conform to me. We fused, efficient and reflexive. Slowly, our strides lengthened, our movement became unhampered. Fluid as water.

  Roots and branches reached and clung, ripped and clawed. We adjusted. A nest of bats stormed across our faces, screaming and beating. We coiled together—me nesting my face beneath Shin’s chin. Foxes cried. Owls called. I might have hallucinated it, but I heard throaty laughter bursting from human lungs. Yes. I might have dreamt it, but not alone. I noticed Shin’s responsive shudder.

  Vaguely, the passage of time crept its way into my awareness. Fatigue overtook us both, yet Shin pressed forward, unrelenting until the branches broke again to light. When they finally parted, it was not to bright day, but to the quiet light of dusk. I had not realized the sun had moved so far across the horizon. We had been moving in the darkness more efficiently as one body than we had individually all morning.

  We fell exhausted to the ground. Mouths parted. Lungs heaving. Shin beside me, sprawling and coughing. A sense of catharsis overtook me and my breathing escalated. In the next moment we were both laughing, arms encircling one another, exulting in life we had both been so ready, almost, to throw away.

  We sobered quickly. In cooperation, our bodies had held so much tension, that once easing, fatigue spoke and we slipped swiftly to sleep. For a moment, at least, I believed I could pose no danger to Shin—certainly less threat than that of the demons so near. And although we had escaped the darkest forest I had ever seen before or since, we could not outdistance the blackness of night.

  By then we were too exhausted for vigilance.

  59

  In one blink I perceived I had awakened alone. Shin had risen before me and disappeared. I lifted my head and suppressed a groan. Every muscle protested as I brought myself stiffly to standing. I scanned the clearing and the narrow path where we had dropped to the ground in exhaustion. All was still.

  I found the moon, and judged the night to be half spent. This surprised me. It meant I had slept an hour beyond my typical sleep interval, having done so soundly, and so exposed to night predators. Shin must have risen to scout the trail. I removed my flask from my trouser pocket and took a long pull of the cold water. Then replaced it and limped my way gingerly up the trail to meet Shin.

  At a distance beyond where I would have expected to find him, I spied a figure in a pale robe crouched beside the trail. It could only be Shin, and so I went on. When I drew nearer, I realized my mistake. It was not Shin, but a strange young woman, clutching a small baby in her arms.

  I didn’t stop to consider the rationality of what I saw. The woman trembled; her shoulders hunched, apparently overcome with emotion. She needed my help.

  “What are you doing out here alone?” I asked through labored breaths.

  The woman hung her head, mute, but she lifted her baby to me to take the bundle. I responded reflexively, reaching for the child and cradling it with both arms, but as I stared, the wrap parted and I started.

  An enormous nest of tiny spiders crawled from beneath the wrapping.

  * * *

  I gave a cry and the jorogumo seized me by the shoulders, shaking me roughly in her enormous hands and shrieking in my ears.

  Then all at once she faded to Shin’s hands, and Shin’s voice calling my name. I shook my head from the fog that had enveloped it to the awareness of deep darkness.

  “Furi! Wake up!” Shin pulled me to standing.

  I struggled to regain my bearings. “Where are we?”

  “You were walking in your sleep. You returned to the forest.”

  I gasped. “I saw a woman. I thought she needed help.”

  “She was a jorogumo, luring you away.”

  I trembled. “She was so real!”

  “I don’t doubt she was, but hurry. Can you run?”

  I ran ahead of Shin. This time, when we finally passed through the arched passage, we did not stop. We continued our upward climb. Adrenalin and the haunting image of the woman’s infant nest in my arms goaded me upward, against wind and groaning flesh and bone. And when I began to tire, Shin unburdened me of my bedroll. When I could go no farther, he lifted me onto his back and carried me.

  * * *

  A day and a night passed before we ascended the height of the pass. Then Shin left the trail.

  “We’re not far away now. You cannot see the cave from here, but it lies behind that bulge in the rock face. Do you think you can make it?”

  Breathing hard, I couldn’t answer audibly, but I began my way up the rock face, determined to make the attempt.

  Shin’s jaw hardened. “My people were climbers, but your people are not. Let me carry you.”

  “I can make it,” I insisted. “Let me try.”

  Shin relented. He had to. Carrying another person up so sheer a climb was impossible, even for him. He must have known it. I followed him upward on the volcanic rock face, craggy with holds that ripped and scraped my skin even as I braced my grateful weight atop them. Slowly, I forced my body up to the bulge, but my muscles trembled and melted into throbbing deadweight. No matter how I willed them, they refused to continue. So weakened was I from the journey, I could go no further.

  Shin climbed up ahead of me and I waited, breathless and exhausted until he lowered a knotted section of rope.

  Near the top, Shin gripped my sweat-bathed arm by the wrist and, not slipping an increment, pulled me safe into the recess. I collapsed against him, mouth parted and chest heaving. His arm encircled my shoulders and I shifted upward a half inch to rest snugly against his chest.

  There we rested, Shin cradling me in his arm with an ease belying the mortal danger I meant to him. Yet, I had no illusions. His breathing should have gradually relaxed.

  It escalated. I could hear the pulse of his heart racing in his chest against my ear. He bent his head. Slow. Patient. Determined—a perfect mask of the torment he must have felt. I pressed my palm over his heart, wishing to slow it—fearful it might burst for pressure and speed. He closed his mouth over mine in not only a kiss, but the relentless extraction of a promise. So help me, I yielded it without knowing how or when I could follow through.

  * * *

  I had never seen a cave made civilized before. After surmounting so many natural barriers to its doorstep, the mouth opened wide and welcoming, flanked by a heavy wooden door, stabilized by a groove cut along the threshold. The door was not only well constructed, but ornamented with a skillful carving of a river landscape.

  When Shin had made a small fire and had lit it at the cave’s mouth, we ventured within with the aid of a small torch. Following the orb of light, I gasped at the refinement all around me. The cave revealed domestic comforts of every kind. Tatami covered rooms, carved shelves and tables of stone and hardened earth. A water basin. A proper kitchen. Someone had perfected the ventilation by means of thin grooves extending upward and outward through the rock. I could not fathom the patience and skill it had taken to accomplish this, and stared at the industry in wonder. But I didn’t know what was coming.

  We crept through a narrow tunnel that opened up into a broad natural cavern. At its mouth, I gasped as the torch’s glow cut the darkness and the cavern shimmered in glittering reply. The walls throughout the vast expanse were jeweled with crystals. Amethyst. Gypsum. Quartz. I couldn’t identify all the minerals glittering under the low glow of the lamplight.

  Fitted between the stones, on shelves carved directly into the rock walls, stood volume upon volume of hand-bound histories.

  “This is the library?” I could scarcely catch my breath for surprise. I pointed to a column of shelves. “The histories are set into the wall between the mineral deposits.”

  Shin lifted the lamp to examine
the spines of the histories. The copies dated back several thousand years from our time.

  I reached and pulled a book from the shelf. “Look at it,” I said, and hugged the volume to my body. (It was too heavy for me to hold any other way.)

  “All true,” Shin whispered, “Within this cavern we had no politics to offend. No ideology to conform to. The great indulgence of a secret library is perfect honesty. You will never read anything more faithful.”

  I caressed the spine of the book. “Where are my mother and fathers’ journals?”

  “They were more recent than these,” Shin said, examining the shelves. “It may take some looking.”

  Most of the spines were neatly labeled with ancient characters, but Shin was the more literate between us. He found the volume, even while I stood awestruck by the sheer sight of the cavern—mind grappling to understand the magnificent creative genius that had come to bear in creating the place.

  “I could never have imagined a place like this.”

  Shin let his gaze drop. “I should have brought you here at once.”

  “Yes. But you have at last. Thank you.”

  He wordlessly reached for the volume and surrendered it to me.

  I shook my head. “Read my father’s account to me.

  * * *

  Shin read to me through most of the day. When the sun set, I sent Shin ahead of me to sleep, and I stayed up much of the night, reading slowly through my father’s account.

  And it was an emotional journey, pouring over those pages. Sometimes it broke my heart to know his suffering. But near the end I understood that suffering was a thread that wove through all of his experience. Only love was unique. And it was this strange love, and not familiar pain, that motivated his choice to be with my mother. I could detect no hint of regret from him.

  But my mother had given up her position among immortals. She had borne much of the burden of her choice. Would she feel the same?