'Weaving is magical,' her mother had told her. 'The colors and shapes form in your mind, swirling and breathing until they burst forth like a bud ready to bloom. No one else can ever replicate your individual design, even with a pattern. They are yours and yours alone.' Her mother had kept a swatch from her father's mantle in her purse always. Later, when her mother died of a fever, the Druid placed that same bit of spelled cloth in her mother's fist.
Geileis could not remember when the loom wasn't covered in threads and the shuttle not clicking back and forth while people slept, talked, or ate. From infancy, it was the first sound she remembered, even before her mother's voice, the first craft she learned at the knees of her grandmother and aunts and the one steadfast comfort in times of stress. She wasn't stressed now but filled with expectation and the joy she would feel when Arguis saw what she was making him.
She stood back and stared at the loom. A horizontal beam stretched across the top, about six feet from the floor and it was nearly five feet wide. The cloth was half finished and the unwoven threads hung vertically to the floor anchored by circular stones. How much time would it take to finish the weaving? By Samhain? Imbolic, perhaps? Then there was the sewing and embroidery, the lining, and the hem to complete, all small details compared to the weaving of the cloth.
She turned to the sound of boots scuffling on the threshold. Arguis appeared in the doorway, then made his way over to the loom.
He nodded appreciatively, letting his hands glide over the colored threads. "You missed a spot," he said, pointing to an open space. "There."
"Nay, it's supposed to be that way. To make room for the other colors."
His gaze dropped to her breast where a small round stone that hung from a leather cord rested between them. "You wear the spindle whorl," he said sounding surprised. "Is that to appease the gods?"
The question sounded absurd to her. She was not a religious person. "I mostly wear it for my mother," she corrected.
He glanced from her to the loom and opened his mouth to speak but then closed it and said nothing.
"Arguis," she said interrupting the silence. "You have something to say to me?"
"Er, no. I mean. Aye. I mean. So that's your loom, huh?"
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