[story] spindle's worth
author: roselia grimm
email: a.grimm.rose [at] gmail.com
There is a girl spinning in the marketplace. She is there everyday. Finally, he approaches her. "What are you selling?"
"I sell thread, and stories, and nothing else," she replies in a clear sweet voice.
"So tell me a story," he says, and sinks to the ground beside her.
She replies, "In the country where I was born, there are many boys and few girls. I had twelve brothers. They dressed the youngest one in dresses and made him grow his hair for fear kidnappers would take me." Her hands are busy as she speaks, spinning thin white stuff onto an small spindle made of red and white and gold wood. The hook on the shaft gleams the color of real silver while the whorl and shaft have the satin, almost luminescent finish only found in old, old woods. "He was more beautiful than I, ten times so, and he wore his hair in braids and red thread and bells."
She stops to feather in more fibre to the end of the already spun thread. "Do you like this? It is from the plant that grows where I was born. My brother could spin a hundred spindles-worth in a day. He'd tell stories as he worked. When the kidnappers came, he cut off my hair with a pair of shears and pushed me into the darkest corner of our shelter. 'Stay still,' he told me, and fought the kidnappers, screaming, until they believed he was what they sought and dragged him away, unconscious. My other brothers found me later that night."
All around the place where they sit, the sounds of the city well and ebb. The tree she sits under is home to a flock of birds; twelve of them are sitting in the branches and singing. They are white and their wings gleam like pearls. Her posture is straight and graceful. Her skirt, embroidered and patched to cover the signs of wear, covers her legs, all but for her small foot sliding out from the edge of the fabric. The shoes she wears are reinforced with iron and are nearly worn out and her hair is half-hidden under a rough hood. On her hand is a single ruby, set in gold. It is an amulet against harmful demons.
"Three years later, I left home to search for my brother. My other brothers were unhappy, but we agreed I should try because they still had not found him. The first day after I left home, I found one of the bells from his hair, and a scrap of red thread. Every year I find a scrap, or a bell, and I go further and further. I found a bell in a bird's nest. A piece of his thread was twined in the lines of a ship I traveled on."
She unhooks the lead of thread from the hook and turns the whorl away from her in one graceful and practiced movement, and winds the thread around the shaft. The cop of already wound thread is not in a cone, but a beehive shape; another reason he had noticed her. In this country they all used the cone-shaped cop when they spun.
"In one place I went," she continues, "they had the plague. I helped as much as I could, and the day I left I found another bell, lying in the dust. I sailed across the sea and dreamed I saw his body floating beneath me. I walked up and down the road to the Great Shrine, calling his name. My fingers almost froze off, and my feet bled so much it looked like I wore red shoes."
She puts the spindle down and reaches into the bag beside her and takes out a fluffy handful of white fiber. She pulls off one transparent sheet and pushes her hand through the center, stretching it out carefully until it is a long, thin circle. "Should I tell you another story? There was a man who could only sleep if he heard the sound of spinning. If the spinner stopped, even to join more thread, he woke in a rage and killed them. I spun for him, six days and six nights, and on the seventh night he turned into a raven and flew away. I have seen other things. I saw a girl who could walk on fire. She danced in a bonfire lit for witches for three nights and ascended to heaven on the back of a tiger. Once I met a man who traveled, carrying a flower with a pearl in it. He said he was on his way home. His eyes were terrible, like someone waking from a nightmare."
He says, "What if you don't find your brother?" As he pushes his hair back from his face, there is a sound like a very small bell chiming. He can't stop watching her spin; it makes his hands itch with restlessness.
"Then I will go back." She breaks the fiber at one point, and lays it aside. She pulls and stretches many of the layers of fiber, one by one, until she has a pile beside her. "When I have spun the last of this, I must go back. There's very little left."
"And if you find your brother?"
"I have seen many things," she says, and begins to spin again. "My family has always stayed in the same place. I sailed close to the edge of the world, and saw a roc gathering strands of seaweed to make a nest. The strands were longer than I am tall. The roc's wings beat so hard that the ship almost sank in the winds." She is silent for a moment.
She bends her head and says, "My brother used to finish his stories by saying--"
As she looks up, their eyes meet. Something in her face changes as he says with her, "'My spindle's full, my story's done; if my thread had been stronger, this tale would have been longer.'"
the end
email: a.grimm.rose [at] gmail.com
There is a girl spinning in the marketplace. She is there everyday. Finally, he approaches her. "What are you selling?"
"I sell thread, and stories, and nothing else," she replies in a clear sweet voice.
"So tell me a story," he says, and sinks to the ground beside her.
She replies, "In the country where I was born, there are many boys and few girls. I had twelve brothers. They dressed the youngest one in dresses and made him grow his hair for fear kidnappers would take me." Her hands are busy as she speaks, spinning thin white stuff onto an small spindle made of red and white and gold wood. The hook on the shaft gleams the color of real silver while the whorl and shaft have the satin, almost luminescent finish only found in old, old woods. "He was more beautiful than I, ten times so, and he wore his hair in braids and red thread and bells."
She stops to feather in more fibre to the end of the already spun thread. "Do you like this? It is from the plant that grows where I was born. My brother could spin a hundred spindles-worth in a day. He'd tell stories as he worked. When the kidnappers came, he cut off my hair with a pair of shears and pushed me into the darkest corner of our shelter. 'Stay still,' he told me, and fought the kidnappers, screaming, until they believed he was what they sought and dragged him away, unconscious. My other brothers found me later that night."
All around the place where they sit, the sounds of the city well and ebb. The tree she sits under is home to a flock of birds; twelve of them are sitting in the branches and singing. They are white and their wings gleam like pearls. Her posture is straight and graceful. Her skirt, embroidered and patched to cover the signs of wear, covers her legs, all but for her small foot sliding out from the edge of the fabric. The shoes she wears are reinforced with iron and are nearly worn out and her hair is half-hidden under a rough hood. On her hand is a single ruby, set in gold. It is an amulet against harmful demons.
"Three years later, I left home to search for my brother. My other brothers were unhappy, but we agreed I should try because they still had not found him. The first day after I left home, I found one of the bells from his hair, and a scrap of red thread. Every year I find a scrap, or a bell, and I go further and further. I found a bell in a bird's nest. A piece of his thread was twined in the lines of a ship I traveled on."
She unhooks the lead of thread from the hook and turns the whorl away from her in one graceful and practiced movement, and winds the thread around the shaft. The cop of already wound thread is not in a cone, but a beehive shape; another reason he had noticed her. In this country they all used the cone-shaped cop when they spun.
"In one place I went," she continues, "they had the plague. I helped as much as I could, and the day I left I found another bell, lying in the dust. I sailed across the sea and dreamed I saw his body floating beneath me. I walked up and down the road to the Great Shrine, calling his name. My fingers almost froze off, and my feet bled so much it looked like I wore red shoes."
She puts the spindle down and reaches into the bag beside her and takes out a fluffy handful of white fiber. She pulls off one transparent sheet and pushes her hand through the center, stretching it out carefully until it is a long, thin circle. "Should I tell you another story? There was a man who could only sleep if he heard the sound of spinning. If the spinner stopped, even to join more thread, he woke in a rage and killed them. I spun for him, six days and six nights, and on the seventh night he turned into a raven and flew away. I have seen other things. I saw a girl who could walk on fire. She danced in a bonfire lit for witches for three nights and ascended to heaven on the back of a tiger. Once I met a man who traveled, carrying a flower with a pearl in it. He said he was on his way home. His eyes were terrible, like someone waking from a nightmare."
He says, "What if you don't find your brother?" As he pushes his hair back from his face, there is a sound like a very small bell chiming. He can't stop watching her spin; it makes his hands itch with restlessness.
"Then I will go back." She breaks the fiber at one point, and lays it aside. She pulls and stretches many of the layers of fiber, one by one, until she has a pile beside her. "When I have spun the last of this, I must go back. There's very little left."
"And if you find your brother?"
"I have seen many things," she says, and begins to spin again. "My family has always stayed in the same place. I sailed close to the edge of the world, and saw a roc gathering strands of seaweed to make a nest. The strands were longer than I am tall. The roc's wings beat so hard that the ship almost sank in the winds." She is silent for a moment.
She bends her head and says, "My brother used to finish his stories by saying--"
As she looks up, their eyes meet. Something in her face changes as he says with her, "'My spindle's full, my story's done; if my thread had been stronger, this tale would have been longer.'"
the end