THE TALE THAT TWINES
PART ONE: LOST
Casporan Year 3978
(40 years before The Thread That Binds)
CHAPTER ONE
Cloud Moon 4, 3978
Dear Hazel,
Today I put on my best clothes, did my hair, checked all my lists five times, left twenty minutes early, caught the train, arrived at the Library for my Charter Oath and Binding ceremony—and discovered I was there on the wrong day.
Today isn’t the Vernal Equinox. Tomorrow is. You’d think the difference in the train would have tipped me off; if today was actually the Equinox, it would have been on the holiday schedule. The Library was also full of patrons, which should have been my second warning, since it’s closed to the public on holy days.
I didn’t notice until I showed up at the Head Librarian’s office and Opal stared at me in surprise. E had a good sense of humor about it, thankfully. I’ve been chastised before for my inability to manage time. I wonder what e would have said if I showed up a day late rather than the day early. The ceremony can only be done on one of the two equinoxes. Imagine having to wait another half a year to start my job!
The thing is, I even used the planner that Theo bought me before I left Fenia. Unfortunately, a day planner is only useful if you write your appointments on the right date. Maybe I should give up on planners. They never seem to work for me. You used to say that planning your life down to the hour and minute was an oppressive tool of capitalist governments, that doing so ignores our natural sense of flow. Now that I’m an adult who understands what that means, I agree.
Planner or no planner, I’m still getting used to the nine-hour time difference between Caspora City and Merle. I often want to sleep during the day and stay up all night. Hopefully tomorrow won’t be like that—tomorrow I’ll actually be at the Library for my Binding ceremony!
(journal entry to be continued)
The Eternal Library looks exactly the way I remember it. A trio of white limestone buildings rises to greet me as I emerge from the underground train station: one in the shape of a snail shell, one a whelk, and one an abalone. Before them stretches a grassy quad speckled with apple and cherry trees, the morning air bright with their scent. This time, I’m here precisely when I’m supposed to be.
I approach the central building, the one shaped like a whelk shell. They call it the Spire, and its enormous carved wooden doors are shut tight. I pull experimentally on the huge iron handles, but they don’t budge. I pull again, then try pushing for good measure. It’s no use; they’re locked.
I wrack my brain for what Opal must have said about where and how to meet em, but all I’ve got is that we agreed to see each other at Opal’s office, which is inside the Spire. Nothing about how to get inside when the Library is closed to the public. Was someone supposed to give me a key? Was I supposed to call first? If I bang on the doors, will someone hear?
Just as I raise my fist, I hear footsteps behind me. I startle and whirl around to see who it is, shoving my hands behind my back as if they’ve caught me attempting a break-in.
“Hello, June,” Catrina Rosefall says. “In need of some help?”
Catrina Rosefall—or Rose, as e prefers— is an Illuminator in eir forties, tiny in stature but with an enormous spirit presence. Even with my wards on, there’s a twinkling of sequins and a laugh like a chime that hangs around em in my psychic Hearing. An indigenous Casporan, e has warm brown skin, a huge pile of curly black hair, and laser-green eyes that cut right to your soul.
“If it’s not too much trouble,” I reply with a smile, “help would be great right about now, yeah.”
Rose laughs and pulls an old-fashioned key ring from beneath a voluminous caftan. The heavy plastic bangles on eir arms clatter as e unlocks one of the doors and heaves it open a crack. With a flash of brightly colored fabric, e flits through the opening like a hummingbird. I follow with decidedly less grace, my cardigan pocket catching on the handle as I squeeze through.
“We’ll get you your own key soon,” Rose says, voice echoing in the empty expanse of the Spire. “Security doesn’t like to give up the ones to the old buildings without your signature on a hundred liability waivers.”
“Well, there are hundreds of priceless treasures in here, so I can understand that,” I say.
Here in the Spire is where the Illuminated manuscripts rest. Books that are hand-made, hand-written, hand-drawn. Each one a priceless and irreplaceable work of art which, thanks to their magic, will never fade or crumble. The sacred craft was invented nearly a thousand years ago by the Founders of the Library itself. The secret to creating these living, magical tomes has been passed down from mentor to apprentice for centuries ever since.
Today is my initiation into the craft. Anxiety and excitement swirl inside my chest like stinging bees and soft-winged butterflies.
The lobby of the Spire really does look like the inside of a shell. In the center of the building rises a column, around which lie nine floors of open air. The floors rise in a gentle spiral around the central column, occasionally connected by an arched walkway. I crane my neck back, gazing all the way past the ninth floor to a ring of round skylights, the beams of which fade before they hit the ground. The air smells like paper and leather and magic.
I can Hear some of the books whispering to one another through the bars on their cases, but the others are quiet, possibly asleep. All books have souls, but Illuminated books are stronger, louder, more self-aware. This morning in preparation for being around so many of them, I applied extra magic wards to protect me from sensory overload. It’s difficult enough to deal with the noise of the physical world without the spirit world layered on top.
“Thousands,” says Rose.
“What?” I say, startled out of my thoughts. I forgot we were having a conversation.
“There are thousands of priceless treasures in the Spire, not hundreds,” Rose says, tossing me a knowing look, “but they give us the keys because we need to be able to come and go. Being an Illuminator requires odd work hours at times.”
“So I’ve heard!” I say. “That’s one of the reasons I thought I’d be a good match for the job. I don’t exactly run on standard time, myself.”
“Good,” Rose says. “You’ll fit right in.”
The doors to the Head Librarian’s office are towering edifices of carved wood, just like the ones outside. Inscribed on them is the Library’s seven-pointed star seal, along with impressively detailed images of bookbinding tools. The old redwood still smells good when I press my nose to it to catch more of the scent lingering in the air.
Rose glances sideways at me in amusement before knocking.
Opaline Sweetfrond, Master Illuminator and current Head Librarian of the Eternal Library, opens the door at the first knock. Opal is in eir mid-seventies and aging gracefully, body still strong and spine straight. Eir lined brown face is framed by a graying shag cut and large, equally gray beard, both of which are neatly combed and trimmed. E looks smart in a matching tweed vest and trousers.
“I’m ready, don’t worry,” e says to Rose, and upon seeing me, smiles brightly. “Good morning, June! Sorry if I kept you waiting. Let’s all move down to the main Ritual Hall, shall we?”
I’ve never been in the Grand Ritual Hall before. On our way there, we pass the ornate reading rooms the Library is famous for, their ceilings frescoed with Casporan mythology and their walls galleried with famous works of art. Everything is gilded and polished to a shine.
An antique mirror on one wall reflects my face back at me: youthful, square, freckled, and visibly enthusiastic. I’m glad I took the extra time this morning to curl my hair and iron my clothes. I don’t care too much about appearances, but when I look back on my memories of today, I want everything to be perfect. Everything brilliant, everything in harmony like the opening hook of your favorite song.
In contrast to the surrounding opulence, the Grand Ritual Hall is made entirely from smooth gray slate and devoid of decoration. The seamless stone floor is no human construction but a natural feature of the land. Around it has been built a high, semicircular room with rows of lecture-style seating ringed around a central stage. The stage is etched with magical geometry and sacred circles, their edges worn by centuries of use.
Psychically speaking, the room is silent. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a place without at least some spirit noise. It’s a bit creepy.
“The stone is soaking it all up,” I say, gazing around at the floor and walls.
“I assume you mean the ambient magical energy?” Opal replies. “Yes, this room is an energetic vacuum, which is perfect for controlling large magical workings. Particularly in a place like the Library, where the separation between planes is thin and things can get out of hand quickly. Our ancestors certainly knew what they were doing when they built this place. Or rather, when they tapped into the existing flow of energy nature provides.”
Not my ancestors, but certainly Opal’s and Rose’s. Both are indigenous Casporans; my parents immigrated here from Fenia, a small northeastern country half a world away. I am the first and only member of my family to be born on Casporan soil. The only connection I have to this place, to the Library, is a personal one.
Opal and Rose pull the ritual supplies from a storage closet. Opal carries a single tiny wooden box while Rose staggers under the weight of a large, overflowing crate. I hold my arms out in an offer of help, but e shakes eir head and trundles on to a small table in the middle of the stage. I guess I’ll just watch.
“The Library is built on top of a big intersection of leylines, isn’t it?” I ask, as the two of them set up for the ritual. From the crate comes a tablecloth, a goblet, small glass bottles of who-knows-what. A triplicate statue of the Founders, much like the ones in the lobby of the building next door.
“Yes. The thickest of those intersections lies just beneath our feet,” Opal says, “connecting the Library, in one way or another, to the entire world beyond. A mycelial network of naturally-occurring etheric cords whose fruiting bodies include the likes of standing stone circles, holy wells, sacred groves, crystalline caves, and many an important cultural institution.”
“If Lynn Fireforge ever dies, you could replace em as a host,” Rose says dryly, naming the verbose presenter of a popular Casporan nature program. “Remember what we said about impromptu lectures on the nature of time and space?”
“I remember agreeing to give them only where appropriate, and this feels appropriate to me,” Opal retorts.
“That kind of thing is always appropriate to me,” I say. “I love those conversations! To the point that my friends also get annoyed by how long I can ramble on about the meaning of existence or how magic works or etheric cords, those sorts of things.”
Opal beams, and Rose rolls eir eyes good-naturedly.
“Let’s get this over with, and afterward you two can talk as long as you want about mycelial networks and fruiting bodies and whatever,” Rose says, and rolls up eir sleeves.
Opal and I face each other in the center of the etched circle while Rose conducts the ritual. E cleanses the space and our bodies with a silver bell, its pure ringing tone sending shivers up my spine. My energetic wards break and fall away like shards of ice, the magic melting into the stone floor. Without them, I feel vulnerable and exposed, but it must be necessary for what we’re about to do.
First, Rose has me take the Charter Oath that every Librarian must swear in service to the Library. E produces an enormous Illuminated tome two feet across, the words inked on vellum pages in Old Casporan. I was given a pamphlet with a modern translation of the oath when I accepted my apprenticeship, but, embarrassingly, I have yet to finish reading it.
Oh well. I understand the gist of the oath: a promise to protect and value the books and patrons of the Library above all else. I have no problem swearing to that and whatever else the Founders wrote. I place my hand on the pages, responding to Rose’s ritual calls as the words rise from the page and swirl up my arm. They glow with a soft white light as they ink themselves into my skin and disappear. This is high magic, ancient and powerful and humbling to experience.
The Oath ties itself around my heart, words spun into sentences twined into etheric thread. If I were to step into the astral plane and look at my spirit body, I wonder if I’d see a new cord connecting me to … to what exactly? This book? The Library? Where exactly in the Library? A place this old and powerful must have its own heartscape, the spirit place each and every being calls home. What does that look like? Can a person go there?
“Do you need a moment before we continue?” Opal asks, breaking my curiosity-fueled thought spiral.
I shake my head. “Sorry about that. Let’s keep going.”
We resume facing one another. Rose rings the bell again to refresh the space, clears eir throat, and reads from a small, worn-looking book:
“Today we gather at the beginning. The beginning of a new relationship and a new path in the web of life. Not only between mentor and student, but between the student and the art of Illumination, which at its heart is a relationship between the student and their true self. What becomes known after this point cannot be undone. Do you wish to proceed?”
“Yes, I wish to proceed,” says Opal.
“Yes, I also wish to proceed,” I say, following eir lead.
Rose fills a crystal goblet with what looks like water, then adds a drop of something red from one of the tiny bottles. Ink? The red swirls and diffuses with a psychic sound like arpeggios on a harp. In the magical silence of the Ritual Hall, it echoes.
The goblet then goes to Opal, who takes a sip before offering it to me.
“So,” Rose continues, “the cup is passed as knowledge shall be, from one generation to another, master to apprentice, handed down through the ages from the Founding of the Library and the Founder, Eirlys Starsower emself. For all Illuminators may trace their lineage back to em, our guiding light in the darkness.”
I drink from the cup, and the sweet water makes my mouth tingle like a trip to the dentist’s office. It’s a struggle not to reflexively spit it out, which I can only assume would ruin the whole ritual.
Rose takes the cup from me as I cover my mouth and chuckles. I don’t know who e studied under, but e must have gone through this same ritual once. Did e learn from Opal, too? Or from the person whose studio I’ve inherited, their departure the open door for my own apprenticeship?
Now Rose opens the small wooden box that Opal brought out from storage. Its lid is inlaid with iridescent moonstone, the inside lined with black velvet. In the center lies a spool of crimson thread and a tiny pair of golden scissors. They remind me of my embroidery scissors, which are shaped like a stork. Instead these have a handle in the shape of a moon and sun that fit together when the blades are closed.
Opal extends eir hand to me, and I take it. Rose ties the red thread around Opal’s wrist, loops it around our clasped hands, and ties it off on my wrist, snipping the end with the tiny scissors.
Thread magic. The thread tied around my wrist is rough, maybe handspun flax, its strength and light weight impressive. I wonder who made it. With my free hand, I pinch it between my thumb and forefinger, trying to divine its origins.
Rose says something my brain doesn’t catch, and then Opal responds, “I do pledge.” Psychic information zips through the thread. A dark sky, twinkling with stars; the scent of spruce tip tea; a flash of burnished copper on an etched printing plate; the sound of a muffled radio, the voice on the airwaves reading a dramatic news story, or perhaps an old adventure serial. I can’t quite make out the words.
Opal’s spirit. That’s what I’ve just felt thrumming between us. I look up to find Opal and Rose are watching me expectantly. I drop my hold on the thread and offer an apologetic smile.
“Juniper Starstitch,” Rose says, stifling a laugh, “do you pledge yourself to the sacred role of the apprentice, to listen, to learn, to open your mind, heart, and spirit to the knowledge given to you by your teacher, in ways that challenge you to grow?”
“I do pledge,” I say.
The words are heavy on my tongue, which still tingles from the ink water. The power in them funnels up from the depths of my soul and through my mouth, every one of my past lives answering along with me. The thread hums, no doubt sending Opal a psychic paragraph of information on my spirit.
What do I feel like to Opal? E looks pleased, which is all I could ever ask for. I’m aware what an unusual opportunity this apprenticeship is. Not only to learn a craft few ever master, but to do so at the Eternal Library itself under one of the most respected and knowledgeable artists alive. I have so many hopes and dreams for what we’ll be able to accomplish together that it makes my heart ache and my hands restless.
Rose picks up the golden scissors again and with them snips the thread between us, saying, “Then it is done. So it is, so it will be.”
Though the physical thread is cut, I feel the magical bond stretch between us like intimate conversation and a cup of tea shared beside a cozy fire. Perhaps with a favorite book at hand. Rose winds down the ritual, dismissing the energy to sink back into the bedrock beneath our feet before putting the magical supplies back in their crate.
“You’ll want to keep that string around your wrist until it falls off naturally,” Rose says. “Shouldn’t be too long. That spool of thread is older than Opal—we don’t use too much of it over the years.”
“Oh, so it’s kind of like a handfasting engagement,” I say. “Interesting.”
When people want to get married in Caspora, each partner ties a woven bracelet onto the other’s wrist (or others’ plural, since in Caspora polyamory is fairly common) during the proposal. When everyone’s bracelets have fallen off, it means they’re ready for the wedding. It was one of the first products my parents, both weavers by trade, made and sold when they immigrated to Caspora. They liked to tease that my baby clothes and crib and food were paid for by the power of love.
“I noticed you examining the ritual thread,” Opal says to me. “If you’d like to learn how it was made, I can dredge up what my own mentor taught me about it, decades ago.”
“Don’t you mean centuries?” interjects Rose with a laugh.
Opal ignores em. “Someone needs to carry on the tradition, and who better than our new resident thread witch? Particularly one trained in the Fenian tradition, a culture which places even more importance on fiber magic than our own.”
Normally an invitation to talk about thread magic would trigger a massive, excited information dump from me, but in the wake of the double ritual I could take a nap right here on the floor. And I never take naps. I can’t seem to fall asleep properly at night or during the day.
An enormous yawn escapes me, creating a chain reaction in both Opal and Rose.
“Ah, these things do take it out of a person,” Opal says. “Perhaps we’ll call it a day and chat about threadcraft tomorrow.”
“Whatever the two of you do, I’m headed home now. I need to make sure Naseem and the kids don’t burn down the kitchen making Equinox dinner while extended family crashes around the house,” Rose says.
We all turn to head out. On the other side of the Grand Ritual Hall doors, the psychic chatter of the Library returns with a pop, as if I’ve taken out a pair of wax earplugs. The books are definitely awake now. Not just the Illuminated ones, but the Library as a whole.
“Is Naseem your spouse?” I ask. Rose nods. “And you have kids?”
“Yep. Two of them, both teens. They’re a handful,” Rose says with obvious affection. “You’ll meet them eventually when they come visit the Bindery. They’re very nosy and will definitely burst into your studio without knocking first.”
“Just like their Ren,” says Opal, with a sidelong glance.
Rose is in no way offended. “Yes. Just like me.”
When we reach the Spire lobby, the murmur of psychic noise rises to a stadium-level roar. In my exhausted state, the etheric soundwave puts me instantly over the edge. I wince and clap my hands over my ears, even though that doesn’t help in the slightest.
All I can hear is the noise of the Spire. All the books, all the ghosts, the spirits, an entire spiritual ecosystem. Rose and Opal both try to speak to me; I can see their mouths moving, but their words are lost in the cacophony. I want desperately to bolt from the building, but I’d rather die than leave them with the impression that I’m rude or incapable of control.
My distress must show, because Opal gently takes my arm and leads me down a new maze of hallways. All I can do is focus on making my legs move. The noise level lowers as we distance ourselves from Spire lobby, but its echoes bounce around my body, making me shiver and sweat.
“Don’t worry, we’re not the only ones working today. Holidays are deep cleaning days for the core housekeeping staff. That means they’ve got at least one energy worker in the Infirmary in the case of magical accidents,” Opal says in a soft, soothing voice. “Whoever it is will get you right as rain in no time.”
