Chapter 16 #2
The trees towered like cathedral columns, their bark braided with vines that shimmered faintly, laced with light that pulsed in time with my heartbeat.
Roots curled above ground like serpents frozen mid-strike, reshaping the path as if deciding where we should place our feet.
These woods weren't like the ones in my Oxford. They breathed. They watched.
“Marigold? What is this place?”
She glanced back, a knowing smile touching her lips. “Weavers' wood. One of the last places where magic still runs strong.” Her eyes gleamed in the dappled light. “Can you feel it?”
I could. The weight of it pressed against my skin, warm and alive and humming with possibility. I caught glimpses of glowing threads in the air, fine as spider silk, shimmering gold and silver before vanishing the moment I tried to focus on them.
A warm breeze carried the scent of jasmine and damp pine, and petals drifted from overhead despite it being far too late in the year for flowers to bloom. They caught in my hair, soft as whispers.
“It's beautiful,” I breathed, reaching up to catch a falling petal. It dissolved against my palm like snow, leaving only warmth behind.
“It's dying,” Marigold said quietly, and the joy drained from her voice. “Like all the magic.”
Before I could ask what she meant, before I could process the weight of “dying”, the trees opened into a clearing.
In the center stood a cluster of stones, moss-covered and crowned with pale blossoms that opened as we approached. Marigold rapped her knuckles against the rock, then pressed her palm to the rough surface.
At first, nothing. Only silence
Then the earth shuddered. The stones groaned, grinding against each other as if waking from centuries of sleep. A seam split down the center, widening slowly, reluctantly, until a passage yawned open at our feet. Cold air poured out, smelling of damp stone.
“Oh, of course. Secret door in the middle of the woods. Totally normal.”
I froze, every instinct screaming tomb, trap, grave. But Marigold squared her shoulders and stepped forward, as though the dark mouth of the earth had been waiting for her.
Marigold shot me a look. “Are you coming or not?”
I swallowed my hesitation and stepped inside.
The passage sloped downward into a chamber carved beneath the roots of an enormous tree. Its ceiling was tangled with luminous vines and twisted branches, all aglow with faint bioluminescence. Candles flickered in alcoves carved from stone, their flames unmoving in the still air.
And then I saw them—the Weavers.
They wore gowns of white linen, loose and flowing, stitched with faint golden thread that caught the light.
Some stood alone, fingers raised as glowing strands shimmered between them.
Others sat in quiet clusters, hands pressed together or hovering above the threads, eyes closed as if listening to something only they could hear.
One woman brushed another’s shoulder, and a golden filament pulsed between them before fading.
They moved like spirits—silent, watchful, untethered from ordinary breath and motion. Their hair fell in loose braids or wild curls, woven with sprigs of herbs and flowers. No two were alike, yet all carried the same sense of being rooted in something far older than the soil itself.
A hush spread through the chamber, and from the far end, two older women emerged.
Twins.
One had silver-streaked hair wound into a tight braid, her features sharp as chiseled marble. The other let her curls fall wild around her face, her eyes warm but unblinking. They moved in near-perfect synchronicity, as though they had been dancing to the same rhythm for centuries.
The braided one stopped first, arms folded, her expression unimpressed. “Well,” she said, voice dry as old parchment and twice as sharp. “So, this is the girl causing all the fuss.”
The two studied me like tailors judging torn cloth.
“She’s younger than I expected,” the curly-haired one murmured, stepping closer. “Though I suppose they always are.”
“She looks half-finished,” the first added. “Thread’s a mess.”
“Syra,” her sister chided.
“What? I’m not wrong.” Syra squinted at me like I was a crooked painting. “She’s knotted up like an old spindle left out in the rain.”
I opened my mouth, unsure if I should be offended or afraid.
The softer twin stepped in smoothly. “Don’t mind her,” she said, with a smile warm as honey. “She hasn’t had her tea yet.”
“Because someone forgot to bring the nettle leaves,” Syra shot back.
Without missing a beat, Syra’s twin reached up and plucked a sprig of something green from her own braid, handing it to her sister as if this solved everything. “Here. Fresh.”
Syra stared at it, scandalized. “That’s not nettle. That’s sage.”
“Sage is grounding,” she said sweetly. “You could use some.”
“I could use a sister who doesn’t serve pantry sweepings as medicine.”
“Better than a sister who sets herbs on fire for sport.”
“They were cursed.”
“They were dry.”
“Dry and cursed,” Syra said stubbornly, tucking the sage behind her ear anyway.
The curly-haired one only rolled her eyes and turned back to me, as if this was all perfectly normal. “I’m Ysella, and that’s my sister Syra. We run the Weave here. Or what’s left of it. You needn't be scared.”
Syra sniffed. “If she’s going to survive this, she’d better get used to being scared.”
“I’m not scared,” I said, though my voice betrayed me with the slightest tremor.
Ysella’s smile softened, never mocking. “Of course you are, darling. You’ve just learned how to wear it well.”
I swallowed hard. “What do you want from me?”
Syra’s amusement faded. She stepped closer. “Someone tried to sever you from your thread.”
“Not just hide it,” her sister added quietly. “Cut it clean. Like snipping the roots off a flower and expecting it to bloom. Her eyes met mine with something like pity. “You're a Weaver, Lily. But you cannot reach your magic. Can you?”
“I don't understand,” I whispered. “There is no magic in my time. If I'm a Weaver, why can't I—”
But even as the words spilled out, something inside me recoiled. Because I had seen things. The glowing threads in the woods. The way the air shimmered around Marigold. The pull I couldn’t name.
I’d spent my life believing I was ordinary.
But now, surrounded by witches and candlelight, by the scent of smoke and earth, by two ancient women who looked at me like I was a tapestry they’d once helped weave—I understood.
I wasn’t lost.
I’d simply been hidden. Stitched out of sight until now.
Gran’s words echoed through me. Trust yourself. Trust your instincts, even when logic tells you otherwise. Especially then.