Chapter 8
It’s taken me two days of bed rest to have the strength to make the trip downstairs to my shop’s back room. Luckily, Lucas is sleeping so deeply in my bed that he wouldn’t notice if the indoor plumbing exploded, let alone me sneaking out.
Now I sit cross-legged on the freshly swept floor, candles and crystals surrounding me.
Usually, I don’t use such excessive measures, but I’ll take all the help I can get at this point.
It’s been a long time since I’ve done this journey without my grimoire’s assistance.
It’s like reading by candlelight instead of lamplight.
I can perform the magic without it, but it makes everything so much easier.
Jinx hops up onto my shoulders and wraps her fluffy cat body around my neck.
With a synchronized steadying breath, we begin.
A rumbling vibrates from Jinx. Deeper than her purr, the frequency echoes within my bones.
My eyes heat as they close and I’m sure my glowing green irises shine through the skin.
My heart thuds, fighting against the thrumming that threatens to overtake its rhythm until, finally, it gives in and stills in one agonizing second.
My lips part before… shwoom, my mind sucks within me.
The pain of suspended death is overwhelming, but Jinx is there as a ghostly rope within my soul that twines around my consciousness.
In this strange place of half-death, I am a spirit within my own heart and soul with a body that mirrors the mortal shell that I live in.
Viola described it as my mind making sense of the impossible.
I perceive that I have a body, because that’s how I understand my existence to be.
Jinx guides me, pulls me in, and keeps me from floating away until I land on the anchored rock within my soul.
There are not many weavers who can enter their souls to behold the magic thread within.
Almost like tipping into a new world, each weaver experiences their magical plain differently.
Some perceive their souls as deserts with the thread as an oasis.
Other soft fields of magic. Mine is a raging ocean.
Thunderous, black waves battle against a massive cliffside, a prison for my wild Entropy magic.
Each roaring crash erodes away at the rock face, endeavoring to chip away enough of it for the cliff to come tumbling down.
It didn’t always exist this way. When I first journeyed into my soul as a child, the Entropy ocean was a dark, bottomless sea, calm and peaceful.
It lapped tentatively at a rocky shore that housed a beautiful forest with leaves made of dancing golden flames, the light glittering magnificently with the power of Creation.
Jinx walked along the shore with me then, explaining my fate as a Dual Thread.
That every time I use magic, the ocean or forest will swell.
The ocean’s waves will build and build until a tsunami drowns the forest, or the forest will grow, the golden flames resembling a sun that will boil away the water until there is nothing left.
That is the pain I feel when my two threads battle.
An endless war within my heart to dominate my soul.
It was with this concept in mind that I forged the cliff.
With the help of my grimoire, I sliced deep along the shore, then lifted it high so that each thread had their own half of my soul to reside in.
Perhaps that would’ve been enough, but the Rosemont flame is too powerful and my curse… too hungry.
I made a mistake. I didn’t understand how often I needed to commune with my grimoire to keep my curse from finding the ends of my Soul Threads within.
It touched my Entropy Thread, attempted to climb it to my soul.
Jinx saved me that day and forced the curse back into the grimoire.
But the damage was done. A sheen appeared along the icy dark ocean, spreading until consuming it and transforming the water to oil.
A chilling fuel that only made the black flame stronger.
Now the ocean rages against the cliff, endlessly trying to reach the shores to devour me like it did the rest of the Rosemont line.
It is the cliff’s integrity that I’ve come to inspect, but I’m greeted by something far worse than a weakened bluff.
My soul is a hellish chaos, and the waves are higher than they’ve ever been. No longer are they beating against the rock. They nearly overwhelm it.
My physical body chokes on the breath I hold and Jinx’s claws sink in to hook into my flesh.
The pricks center me and I twine my spirit more securely to my familiar’s anchor line as I teeter on the cliff’s edge.
I turn from the black ocean to inspect the lush forest of bright light.
My stomach plummets. Creation’s light is dim, the leaves of flames barely flickering, splatters of black, oily water from the waves dousing sections.
Several trees are small and sickly, more winter meadow than forest.
This is why it’s taken me so long to regenerate. My Entropy Thread is devouring Creation before it can grow strong enough to oppose it.
If I had my grimoire, I’d be able to pour some of Entropy’s raging power into it, weakening the waves until I could force a calmness upon the ocean once again.
It would give the light time to sizzle through the oily puddles until the forest regenerates.
It’s a careful balance, one that I’ve meticulously maintained until now.
As if sensing my weakness, a wave rises high, towering over me.
Black and oily and hissing in rage. I grip Jinx’s line hard.
With all the power in me, I bellow at my Entropy Thread, AWAY!
But the Entropy doesn’t obey. The wave thunders down towards me, ready to devour the weaver that dares to contain it. Dares to wield it.
Jinx quivers on my shoulders.
A shadow bursts from the thread I grip, slamming against the wave and forcing it back. The rocks rise, clattering over themselves until I cannot perceive the oily ocean.
But the rock is weak with thin cracks throughout. I slide a hand along the wall, trying to fuse some of the fissures, but it’s useless. I’m too tired from battling the spider and saving Lucas. Jinx’s wall will have to stand on its own until I have my grimoire again.
The shadows wrap around me, Jinx’s rumbling voice echoing in my mind. You have two weeks at most. After that, the cliff will crumble and the black flame will consume you.
I go cold, my eyes opening and heat dispelling as the green light in my irises fades.
Where Jinx’s fluffy cat form rests is the only warmth in me, but my familiar is too still.
Too silent. I lift my trembling hand and slip my fingers through Jinx’s thick fur.
She rubs her little head into my palm before slipping away, her round feet making no noise on the wood, and she walks out of the back room, her tail low and head bowed.
Pressure within my throat grows and I turn my head to the side to escape the discomfort. Memories of Viola come flooding to me and I relive those moments with her with a heavy, aching heart.
“You were always meant to be a Rosemont, my little love,” Viola says and plucks up her silver brush.
I sit patiently as Viola brushes my smooth hair in long sweeping strokes.
The sunshine from the gardens pours into her bedroom in majestic rays, the large windows open to permit a summer breeze.
Her vanity was so large to my small, child eyes then, and I could barely see myself in her enchanted mirror.
Magical birds of pure gold flutter about the frame, their shiny metal wings spreading the sweet smell of enchantments with each beat.
It mixes delightfully with lemony undertones of the soft pink heritage roses that sit in the vase beside her bed.
“Then why am I an Androclaria?” I wonder aloud.
Viola smiles softly, her pale skin striking against her dark hair.
Her green eyes sparkle in the bright summer sunlight.
“Once a century, the Great Tapestry permits growth within the Soul Threads and a new generation of weavers is born. It’s a wonderful time, where petty differences are put to the side and everyone celebrates in the splendor of magic.
Your father…” She pauses, brush hovering above my small head.
She slides it slowly from my crown to the tips of my reddish hair.
“He wasn’t blessed by the Tapestry for a long time. ”
My little face crunches in a frown. “Is that why there’s only Ali and me?”
“Yes. Your father is very old. He has lived through three of these fertility cycles. The second one created me before our father passed to the Weave. Because of this, there was a lot of pressure from the Council for Atticus to name an Heir, but your father believes very strongly in tradition. The Archweaver title has been passed from parent to child within the Androclaria line since the beginning and Atticus was determined to name his child Heir.”
I turn to see her better, “That’s silly.”
“It is, but your father is stubborn and he loved his mother very much. He never liked that my mother was of Preservation.”
My eyes light. “Does that mean Valen and Emelia are my cousins?”
A tinkling laugh bubbles from Viola and her bare arms wrap around me, the raised thick scars that mar them pressing against my smooth skin. “I am not a Bauer, but that’s why Rossana and I are very close. Her uncle loved and chose to marry my aunt Millie.”
My cheeks glow. I enjoy hearing about my great aunt Millie very much. “Can you tell me their love story again?”
“Pay attention to this lesson and maybe I’ll tell it to you later.”