Chapter 10 #2
“Hush.” Weaver tilted his face up to hers, black eyes urgent, voice suddenly serious. “We can’t talk about that here. As far as the rest of Pixie Hollow is concerned, I’m a weaving-talent.”
“What happened at your Arrival?” Periwinkle asked. The fairies’ Arrival in Pixie Hollow was always followed by their talent-choosing ceremony, which showed them what their skills were. With a lost talent, how would Weaver’s ceremony even have worked? How had he been named a weaving-talent?
When Weaver stood, it put them barely a breath apart. Periwinkle tensed. But he only shrugged innocently, toying with the measuring tape. “What about it?”
Periwinkle crossed her arms, trying to look unruffled.
Fine. If he wanted to pretend he didn’t know what she was trying to ask him, that was fine.
When Weaver wrapped an arm around her waist, she made an involuntary noise of surprise. “What are you doing?”
“Getting your waist measurement.” He brought the other end of the tape around to the front of her body.
Periwinkle could feel his breath against her ear. She pressed her lips together and stared pointedly into a corner.
She wanted to ask Weaver when they were going to go look for the scissors, and what those strange threads and lights meant in her dreams, and how he’d ended up here when he was a dream-talent. But Floss’s workshop wasn’t the place, and—well. She couldn’t seem to make the words come out.
Periwinkle stood still a moment longer, nerves on edge, her mouth twisted in annoyance and several other, more confusing feelings.
“You left without saying goodbye,” she finally heard herself saying into Weaver’s ear. “That’s twice now you’ve been gone when I woke up. We need to make a plan. We have to talk about when we’re going to head up to the Drift.”
Weaver looked up at her sharply. Legs peered out of his pocket, shiny black eyes blinking in apology before he dove down to safety again. “Did you expect me to stay till morning?” he asked, pulling away from her as he stood up straight. “I got your dreams and left.”
“No, not till morning. But it kind of hurt my feelings that you didn’t even say goodbye,” she said. “I’d been looking forward to waking up from the nightmares to someone who understood.”
Periwinkle was surprised at how awkward it felt to admit this. She was surprised to admit that Weaver—Weaver, who openly disliked everyone—had the power to hurt her at all. But it had stung, his leaving, and she wanted it said.
“Done.” Weaver wrote down her last measurement and wound up the measuring tape, avoiding Periwinkle’s eyes. Finally, though, he looked back at her properly.
“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” he said slowly. His face was open, and a little surprised. “Once I had…them…I didn’t know you’d care.”
Facing each other, she came only to his collar. Beneath the cedar scent of the workshop, he smelled like resin and snow.
“Well, I did,” she said.
“Well,” said Weaver. “I won’t do it again.”
Periwinkle looked at him, dark eyes, thick lashes, hair like the raven feathers of his waistcoat. It was hard to tell, but she thought he might be blushing.
“And you’re right about needing a plan,” he added after a moment. “We’ll go to the Drift and start searching tomorrow. I want to find the scissors. I want to get started.”
“Good.” Periwinkle crossed her arms again and lifted her chin. When she wandered over to his loom, Weaver followed her.
Weaver’s station in Floss’s workshop was as spare and organized as Periwinkle’s home was fanciful and chaotic: scissors and a few other tools she didn’t recognize lay in a row, neat and sparkling clean beside two tidy stacks of orders, a few pencils, and the black spider-silk gloves he’d worn to collect her dreams. While she studied his space, Weaver picked up his shuttle again and began to work.
“I like that color.” She gestured at the loom. It held a dark green material made of shredded pine needles. “What’s it for?” Weaver scoffed.
“Do you know, I can’t remember.” He shook his head, rubbing his eyes. Violet shadows hung underneath them; he must not have slept while Periwinkle had the night before. “I’ve got dozens of orders for the First Frost Ball.”
“Can I do anything to help you? When Spangle lets me stop pretending to be inanimate, I mean,” she added, gesturing at the fountain of red feathers around her middle.
Weaver blinked at her. “Oh. No, that’s all right,” he said. “I mostly work alone. I take orders, I weave thread into material, the sewing-talents turn it into whatever it’s going to be. Occasionally I spin or piece things together myself.”
“Do you like it?”
Weaver shrugged. “It’s mostly just made me picky about what I wear.”
Periwinkle laughed, and he smiled at the sound. The smile quickly became a scowl when some of the other fairies looked around to stare.
“I bet you actually like it more than you think you do,” Periwinkle said.
Weaver glanced at her curiously. After a moment, though, he nodded. “I do like it. You’re right. I like the work. It’s just…”
He didn’t finish his thought. But Periwinkle thought she could guess what he would’ve said.
The work was good, and he was good at it. But it was missing something.
Periwinkle thought about this as she rolled one of Weaver’s pencils back and forth in her hands, opened and shut a pair of scissors, popped a few little cuplike things onto four of her fingers.
Then she noticed tiny holes in his black spider-silk gloves.
“What about these?” she asked, popping the little cups off her fingertips. “I can mend them, if you teach me.”
“Absolutely not.” Weaver plucked them out of her hand.
“Stop touching things; you’re like a squirrel getting ready for winter.
In a minute, I’m going to look over and see you’ve got bobbins of thread stuffed in your cheeks.
Pick up that thimble,” he added, pointing to one of the cuppy things as it threatened to roll away.
Periwinkle winced. “Sorry.”
“Let’s hope you’re this helpful looking for the workshop tomorrow. We’ll be done in no time.” Weaver smirked at her, teasing.
Suddenly, it was Periwinkle’s turn to blush.
“Whew!” Spangle reappeared then, two gigantic bundles of feathers under her arms. She looked first at Periwinkle, then at Weaver, who’d already turned back to his loom. “Where’s Alder?”
“She’s a little taller than Anise,” Weaver said over his shoulder, instead of answering. “Since the gown’s already too long to be knee-length on Anise, I’d add another tier of feathers and let the skirt skim the tops of her shoes.”
Spangle drew up short, frowning. “That’s, like…a really good idea,” she said slowly. “Thank you.”
Weaver did barely more than hum in reply. But when Spangle turned to Periwinkle, Periwinkle thought she mouthed something like more than he’s ever spoken to me before?
“Um. Anyway, Periwinkle, come back when you’re ready.” Spangle nodded at her piles of cardinal feathers. “Hopefully this is enough.”
“I sure hope so.” Periwinkle looked at Weaver, wide-eyed, as Spangle flew back toward her station. “Is she sewing a dress or planning to smother me?”
“Depends on if she forgives you for not being shorter. You’ll find out, I guess,” Weaver said, not looking up as he wove another pine needle shred into the fabric. “See if you can be still for Spangle. Mannequins work best if they’re not trying to lose all your sewing notions.”
“Stop it,” she said wearily. “Fly home with me? Also, we need to talk about our plan when you come over tonight.”
“Whatever you say, Sparkles.”
“I do say.” Periwinkle leaned closer, wondering if she was imagining the hitch in Weaver’s breath. “And you can call me Sparkles, or whatever silly nickname you want. But you and I both know I’m relentless.”
“I do know that,” Weaver agreed, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “What I don’t know is why you won’t leave me alone to work.”
Periwinkle headed back toward Spangle’s station. “Oh, I’ll let you work,” she said over her shoulder. “But if you wanted to be left alone, Weaver, you should’ve thought of that days ago.”