CONFESSIONS OF A WITCH GIRL: tHE TIME WEAVER CHRONICLES.3.
CHAPTER 3: tHE gIRL wHO LOST HER NAME
I know what death feels like.
It feels like a withdrawing, an inhale with no exhale to follow.
I know what death feels like because I have died many times. Many lives and many deaths, and I do not even have a name.
Not one I can use anyways. Not here.
She lay in her room on the floor, head turned to face the right wall, legs propped up on to the edge of her bed. Her arms stretched outwards from her body, her right hand gently twirling the short shag of the rug. Her eyes closed again, blocking out the white walls, the white ceiling, the white cage within which she lived her days. She squeezed her eyes so tight it began to hurt. She gently fluttered them open and dark blotches made a starry night across her vision.
She hummed to herself. What was the point of her existence anyways? She was not allowed a life of her own, but was forced to be the vessel of which many lived theirs. Changed theirs. Her breaths were marked and owned by others, why bother having lungs when a corporation owns them she often wondered. Along with the rest of her body, she was a product. She envied the Weavers brought in from birth, or even the few brought in as toddlers. The teens and adults suffered most at their new ‘lives’.
‘Ignorance truly is bliss.’ She said aloud to her empty room.
Too often, her memories of the outside haunted her dreams; the freedom of life was such a beautiful thing. She wished she could forget it.
She had been seventeen when she was brought in to the AOS towers.
At the age of twenty- eight her mind was still ripe with the memories of her free life. But no memory was more vivid than the day the AOS came for them all.
She had been sitting on her front lawn, a white summer dress hung lazily around her body, cotton and loose it beckoned at the breeze to come and dance with its lace. She sat with both legs to the right of her, fingering a small daisy growing out of the earth. She had loved sitting in the grass, face turned towards the sun. Her mother hummed to herself softly behind her as she hung linens off a line. They were several hours outside of the AOS capital. Her father commuted every Monday and returned every Friday, they had moved out of the capital at Mora’s birth. The decision had been an easy one the moment Mora opened her eyes and cried out for her first breath. As her mother and father looked in to their new child’s blue eyes, the glint looked back at them.
This was a time when the glint was not a death sentence to the children born with the gift to weave. This was a time when the glint meant a certain amount of status and respect, a income far larger than the modest one her father was earning, it meant a new world of possibilities for their family.
The first several years of Mora’s life were just like any other child’s. It was not until her 7th birthday that her sight began to develop. At first, she would find herself in a constant state of déjà vu, continually living each moment twice as her vision saw everything happen before it occurred. This gradually shifted in to longer more defined visions that transpired two to three times a day, until finally around the age of 15, her vision came to her when called upon. It was at this time she became ready to weave.
On the eve of her 16th birthday, a group of older weavers came to collect her from her parent’s house in the country side. They had moved out of the capital when her visions had started, knowing the constant bustle of the city scape would trigger her visions more often, which had the potential of being quite stressful for a child. Seven woman dressed in white linen gowns appeared on their doorstep, smiles hung kindly from their mouths. The eldest of the group was a woman with dark skin, her curvy body held snuggly to her linen garments. Her black hair was dusted with greys, weaving in and out of a messy braid that fell to her right shoulder. Mora’s immediate thought had been that her eyes were the kindest she had ever seen.
She remembers her mother opening the door and welcoming the women in to their home. Mora stood in the adjacent hallway, her silhouette darkened as the sunlight swam in from the windows behind her. Her stomach filled with nervous knots as her mother and father chatted eagerly with the women. These were to be her mentors. These were to be her coetus. The group she would trust her life to, the group she would weave with.
The coetus bond was unlike any other. Stronger than even a mother to her child, or a sister to her brother, the bond was stronger than family, stronger than blood. To weave together was a sacred act, a combining of consciousness, a joining of souls. In order for the coetus to function properly and safely, each individual within the coetus must have a similar soul-print. If the nature of even one member’s soul differs from the group, it can lead to extreme sickness in all the members and could even result in death. The idea is the same as that of a blood transfusion. You must transfuse the same blood as the donor to the matching blood of the host, if the wrong type is given the body acts out in rejection. The same goes for the soul print. Each member must possess the same type of soul in order for the soul of the group to function as one unit, one body. This is done by matching of the glint rings found in each weavers eyes as a child. Each child’s glint ring is unique in longevity of presence. Mora’s had lasted until the age of 2 years old, where as she later discovered members of her coetus glint for some had only lasted a few months after birth, while others had lasted in to early adolescents as late as 7. The oldest child on record whom still possessed the glint rings had been 14.
There were four standard glint types. Each new child born with the symbol of a weaver would fall in to one of the four categories of glint types. Each type of glint were characterized with what areas of life they were best meant to weave. Though every weaver could essentially weave in all areas of a person’s life tapestry, for best results seeing one that specialized in the area you desired was key.
Love, Finance, Business, Death.
Finance of course was always the most lucrative of glint types. Mora rolled her eyes up to the ceiling in thought as she scoffed as to why that would be. She released a little chuckle, remembering a few of her latest clientele to appear at the tower. They had been pudgey, balding, sweaty men. Rich men. Men who had spent their whole lives building wealth and pursuing pleasure over anything else. A part of Mora had always felt somewhat sad for these men when they came to her. They were simply products of their enviornment. Products of the AOS. The world had become so conglomerated in the previous decades that only the rich did survive in any real way. It wasn’t shocking to her that these men came to her to weave for them in Love or even in other potential business pursuits. She got it. In fact if she could weave for herself, or if the weavers hadn’t been restricted from weaving for eachother, she wouldn’t mind a quick weave out of her current reality. This made her laugh even louder at her ceiling. She spun her white hair through her fingers, watching it glow in the candlelight of her dimly lit room. She sat upright, hugging her legs to her torso. What a strange life she had, and what a marvel it must be to live a life for yourself, she thought sadly. What would it be like.
She stretched her legs out before her and watched her blue veins pulse beneath her skin. Her thoughts often grew dark when she remembered her early days as a weaver. Over time she had grown hardened, accepting of her fate in the towers with the others. This was simply her reality and there was no way out. This is where she would remain until her last day.
It was interesting to Mora that she could offer so much opportunity to her clients and keep so little for herself. What should have been such a beautiful gift had become the shackles that kept her from having her own life and her own freedom.
She stood up and turned, taking a seat. She scooted down her single cot bed and felt her eyes growing heavy. It was often difficult to tell the time while she was in the confinements of her room. There was but one small window that overlooked the capital city. The window was so small, her face filled it in its entirety when she pressed her cheeks against its bars to look outside. The window was small for obvious reasons, it limited the chance for any escape or even thoughts of escape. It was just another reminder of how trapped she truly was.
A tear began to swell into her lashes and she blinked it away as fast as it had come. She could not let herself feel the pain of loss of her old life. She mustn’t let herself go there, as it was a certain way to decrease her accuracy for her following day’s weaves. She was one of the most sought out weavers in the towers, her days were full and her time to herself so limited. Emotions clouded a weavers vision, increasing likelihood of mistake or even potential death of the client involved. Weaving was magical, and extremely useful for those who sought it, but it was dangerous. The weaver had to be of an utmost clear mind to truly find the perfect thread, at the perfect moment to create the perfect weave. Though Mora hated her circumstances, she felt pride in her work. Her work, after all, was her legacy, and it was all she had in this life. She figured if she had to do it, then she may as well be the best at it. This attitude brought great fortune to her Tower master. Each Tower had their own master of Weavers. Mora was fortunate enough to have a somewhat pleasant Tower master. He was a shorter man, of medium build. His hair was a dirty blonde and his eyes were a kind soft blue. Mora often thought he was much too kind to hold such a position of power and control, and that surely he must know someone higher up to have procured it.
The Weaver Masters were generally thought to be nameless, at least to the Weavers they were. Mora often wondered if this lack of sharing personal information such as names, made it easier for the Masters to view the Weavers as the objects they were kept as. Tools to be used by the elite and powerful. After all, the Weavers were only numbers in the Towers, their names stripped from them when they arrived. However; though names weren’t shared, Mora was certain she heard one of the other Masters call her Master, Tim.
“Tim.” She spoke the name out loud in to the silence of her room and it gave her heart a little leap. For a moment she felt fearful, someone could have heard her through the locked door, from the hallway. She held her breath for a moment, realizing her fear had simply been imaginary, she released her breath.
She faced her small, barred window once more, a pale pink glow was now filling the sky and she knew the sun was beginning to rise.
She rolled to face her doorway, clutching her knees up towards her chest in a fetal position. With another sigh, she closed her eyes and allowed her mind to cease, and drifted in to a deep sleep.
