RAVELING
K. M. Laney
Alex eased the door closed behind him, shutting out the noise from the younger kids. His face brightened in a smile. Freedom!
He looked around at the gym lobby. A tennis match played on the big TV. The sound was off. Nobody was watching it. All the magazines on the coffee table were about sports or health or news. No comics or books to read. He looked through the windows to the pool room. Mom was there, along with all the other pregnant ladies in her water aerobics class. Boring. Even if he’d brought a suit he was only allowed to swim during his Tadpole class. Freedom, but nothing to do.
An older woman sitting quiet by the windows caught his eye. She wore one of those exercise outfits like Gramma did. A purple one. And a purple ribbon in her curly white hair. He only knew Gramma from pictures, but she always matched, too. He and Mom had gone through all the albums the other day. His favorites were the ones where Mom was a kid, like he was.
A purple gym bag leaned against the woman’s left leg. Alex glimpsed fluffy gray stuff through the open zipper. She held a wad of the same stuff in her hand. Pulling at it and twisting it through her fingers, she fed a narrow strand to a top spinning in the air by her other ankle. Maybe it was a game?
Curious, Alex took a step toward her, then stopped. Mom said he wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers. He glanced over at the front desk. The check-in girl sat on her stool, reading. Everyone in the pool could see him through the windows. He wasn’t all by himself. Alex screwed up his courage and approached her. “Hi,” he said.
The old woman looked up at him. “Hello there,” she said. Her hands never stopped, the gray fluff flowing through her fingers like a stream of fog. “How are you?” she asked.
“I’m fine, how are you?” he answered. That’s how Mom always answered when people asked her. “What are you doing?” he asked before she could answer his first question.
The old woman chuckled. “I’m very well, young man, thank you for asking,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced. My name is Nora. What’s yours?”
“I’m Alex,” he said. “Pleased to meet you.” He stuck out his hand, remembering his manners.
Nora let the top touch the floor and it spiraled to a stop, trailing gray string. She took his hand and shook it. “Pleased to meet you as well, Alex. You have very nice manners.”
Alex brightened. “Thanks!” he said. The other kids thought he was weird.
Nora picked up her top by the tall stick and gave it a quick twist. It began spinning rapidly. She teased fluff from the bundle and let the top wind it up. “I’m spinning. I bet you’ve never seen anyone spin yarn before,” she said, watching him and not the yarn.
“Spinning?” Alex asked.
The old woman nodded. “Spinning. Making yarn.”
“Is that like the spinning wheel in Sleeping Beauty?” Alex asked. “I saw a spinning wheel at the Heritage Museum once.” He eyed Nora’s top. “It was bigger.”
She chuckled. “People made yarn on drop spindles like this for ages before they invented spinning wheels. Have a seat, Alex.” She patted the seat beside her as the spindle ran down and gave it another twist while Alex settled. “Are you supposed to be out here?” she asked.
Alex scuffed his feet on the short blue carpet. “I’m supposed to be in there with the other kids,” he said, pointing his chin toward the closed door labeled “Fun Space” in bright crayon colors. “But they’re all little. All they want to do is run around and scream and stuff. There’s no one for me to play with.”
“I see,” said Nora, a gentle smile in her brown eyes. “It’s hard, being between worlds, isn’t it?”
Alex looked at her. Nora understood. He nodded. “So how come you’re here? You’re not exercising like the other grown-ups. Are you waiting for someone?”
“I am,” she said. She gave the slowing spindle another twist. “He’s a little late. No matter, though. I like being near all the young people. Everyone is so energetic and full of life.”
Alex giggled. Maybe Nora didn’t fit in either. She was probably supposed to be with all the old people. He bent in to look more closely at the fluff winding as yarn on the spindle. “Why don’t you just buy yarn at the store?”
“Oh, I can’t use ordinary yarn,” Nora said. “Made from sheep’s wool or nasty plastic acrylic? Spun by the mile on machines, lined up with hundreds of identical skeins and sold for pennies by people who don’t care? Never touched by warm, feeling hands? What kind of yarn is that? Good for socks and scarves, maybe,” Nora caressed the soft fibers as the spindle imparted twist and wound them around its shaft, “not for what I’m making.”
“Sorry,” Alex apologized.
“Don’t be sorry,” Nora said. “It’s a good question. I didn’t mean to sound so snippy. I’m quite particular about my yarn.”
Now that he was close, Alex realized the fluff wasn’t gray at all. It was all colors mixed together. He had modeling clay like that came in a lot of colors in the beginning, but the more he played with it the more it got mixed up. Now it was all gray. Nora’s fluff reminded him of that ball of gray clay that was really all the colors mixed up together. “So what are you going to make with it?” he asked.
“With my yarn?” Nora asked.
“Yes!” Alex pressed.
Nora smiled and leaned toward him. “A soul,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper.
Alex sat upright. He must have heard wrong. “A soul?” he asked.
“That’s right,” Nora said, straightening and twisting the spindle again. She pulled more of the not-gray fluff from the bundle and let it twine between her fingers.
Alex crossed his arms. “You’re making fun,” he pouted.
“Not at all,” Nora said. She let the spindle come to a rest on the floor and pulled a handful of fuzz from the purple exercise bag. She pulled and stretched the fibers a bit, making a loose bundle in her hand. When she started the spindle up again the fluff twined into smooth, neat thread.
“You can’t make a soul,” Alex said.
Nora’s fingers moved with precision, feeding the fibers into the spindle. “Everyone needs a soul, and where do they come from if they’re not made?”
Alex puzzled over her question for a bit. They talked about souls a lot in Sunday school, but not about where they came from. God, he guessed, but he never thought about where God got them. Or how He might make them, either. It suddenly seemed important to know. “God makes them?” he suggested, which really wasn’t an answer. He hoped Nora would tell him more.
“Perhaps,” Nora said. “Soulstuff is complicated indeed.” Her clever, swift fingers kept twisting the spindle, twisting the gray fibers. The fluff in her hand drew down, quickly converted into soft usable yarn. Alex watched, fascinated, while the odd, all-colors thread built up in neat coils on the spindle. At last satisfied with the amount, she wound off the end. She bent down and retrieved a pair of sticks from her bag. They were shiny and smooth, a pale color not quite white.
“Are those chopsticks?” Alex asked. They looked almost like the chopsticks from the nearby Chinese restaurant. Alex liked their food.
“Knitting needles,” Nora said. She slipped the skein off the spindle, formed a loose knot in the end of the yarn, then slipped one of the needles through and pulled the knot tight.
“Are they bamboo, like chopsticks?” Alex asked.
Nora smiled and tapped the side of her nose. “I can’t say. Trade secret, you know.”
He leaned in closer, marveling at the fine lines almost invisible on one of the needles’ smooth surface. “Can I touch one?” he asked. His hand was already reaching toward the needle.
“You might fall asleep,” Nora said. Alex yanked his hand back and Nora laughed, a fresh sound like a waterfall. “Like in Sleeping Beauty? I was making fun that time, Alex. You can touch them.”
Alex’s eager fingers reached out again. The needle was warm, not cool like he expected. Warm and smooth but with a little drag when he ran his fingers the wrong way. No splinters. He imagined he almost felt a heartbeat, a kind of pitpattery flutter in them. It might have been scary except for Nora’s gentle smile. “So you’re going to make a soul now?”
“Mmm-hmm,” Nora agreed with a nod. She threw a loop over the needle and began knitting, the loops quickly building up on the shaft.
“Who’s it for?” Alex asked.
“This one?” Nora asked.
“Yes,” Alex said.
“For your sister,” Nora said.
“Sister?” Alex asked.
“She’s coming soon, isn’t she?” Nora asked. Her quick fingers started another row and the piece traveled down the other needle.
“Well, yeah …” Alex admitted. Mom was a lot more excited about the baby than he was. He kind of liked the idea of being big brother, though.
“So she needs a soul, doesn’t she?” Nora asked.
Alex pondered for a moment. “I guess,” he answered.
Nora laughed again. “I guess!” she said. Her fingers never paused. “I guess. Spoken like a true child.” She giggled. “I guess. She does need a soul. So this one is hers.”
“Oh.” Alex smiled despite himself. “How will she get it?” he asked, watching the loops build up on Nora’s needles.
“I’ll make sure she gets it, don’t worry,” Nora said. “That’s part of making a soul.”
“Did you make my soul?” he asked.
“Of course,” Nora replied.
He peered at the emerging gray swatch, “Did it look like this one?”
“Not quite,” Nora said, still working. “Every soul is different. They may have the same stitches, but the pattern is never the same.”
“How do you know what to make?”
“I just do,” she said. For the first time since she began knitting, she stopped. She set the piece down in her lap, her age-spotted fingers frozen before completing the next stitch. “I never really thought about it before, Alex. I always let my fingers decide. My fingers and the yarn and the needles.”
“It isn’t very even,” Alex said, peering at the mass of gray in her lap. If Nora’s spinning made perfect yarn, her knitting was terrible. It had long loops and short ones and tight spots and loose spots. He had a knitted hat and it was the same all over. “Is it supposed to be like that?”
Nora resumed her lightning-fast knitting. “A soul isn’t like a hat or a sweater or socks,” Nora said, as though she’d read Alex’s mind. “It has to fit a person on the inside. And it has to have room to grow and stretch.”
She stopped again. The soul was already the size of the littlest clothes Mom took out of storage and put in the baby’s closet. Nora pulled at the gray-not-gray swatch and it stretched, first one way and then the other. Alex watched the complicated yarn loops tighten or slide past each other. Holes closed and new ones opened. Dropped stitches bound back up while other stitches fell. It was so much more than just fabric. “Wow,” he whispered.
Nora smiled at him. “A soul has to grow and change with the person. With their choices and decisions, good and bad. Big ones and little ones. To follow rules or break them or make new ones. To live up to expectations or defy them. To be adventurous,” and she winked at him, “or to stay with the little kids.”
Alex grinned back, a gap-toothed smile. Nora was cool. He watched as the yarn unwound from the skein and she knitted it into fabric. Into a soul. The soft fluffiness beckoned.
“May I touch it?” he asked at last. He itched to feel it.
“Better yet,” Nora said, “you can hold it.” The last of the yarn worked its way into the soul, the tail end vanishing into the piece. She slipped it off the needle and into Alex’s outstretched hands.
So soft! It felt like nothing, light as air. Springy and forgiving. Fine spun as cotton candy from the fair. Soft and gentle like his favorite blanket. He scrunched it in his fingers. Gave it a little tug and watched the threads move. Watched as the colors twinkled on the surface. He gave Nora a sideways glance to see if she disapproved, but she was smiling wide. Feeling a little guilty, he petted the soul until it flattened out and held it toward her. “Thank you,” he said.
Nora closed his fingers back over it. “How about I let you give it to your sister?” she asked.
Alex’s eyes went wide. “I can’t do that. I’m just a kid.”
“I trust you,” Nora said.
He looked at the scrap of fabric in his hands. It felt warm. Magical. Special, like her knitting needles. “What if I forget?” he asked.
“You won’t forget,” she replied.
“But I’m just a kid,” Alex said again, looking up and meeting Nora’s eyes.
She pushed the soul back toward him. Firm, but not in a mean way. Like insisting he keep a gift. “I trust you,” she repeated.
Alex felt her hands fall away. The soul was warm and soft. Alive. Alive and waiting for its body. Alex didn’t know how he knew this, but he did.
“Isn’t that your mother?” Nora asked.
Alex turned around. Waddling down the hall from the changing room was his mom, her wet hair bound up in a bright yellow towel like a turban. “Mom!” he called. He waved at her while she squinted in his direction. “Mom!” he repeated, and ran off to greet her.
“Hi there,” she said.
Alex wrapped his arms around her waist, being careful not to squeeze too hard. “Hi, Mom,” he said.
She hugged his shoulders. “Aren’t you supposed to stay in the Fun Space until I come get you?” she asked, but she was more amused than angry.
“I got bored,” Alex said. He stepped back, holding the gray scrap. “Look what I have!” he said.
Mom headed for the front counter. “That’s quite the dust kitten. Where did you find it?” she asked.
“It’s not a dust kitten. It’s a soul.” Alex looked at the soul. Now that Mom mentioned it, it did look a lot like a dust kitten.
“Uh-huh,” Mom said. “Whose?”
“My sister’s,” Alex answered.
Mom laughed. “So it’s a sister now? Yesterday you were sure it was a brother. Where did you get it?” she asked again.
Alex kept up with her. “From Nora. She makes them.”
“She does? Well, I suppose someone has to,” Mom replied. “Can I meet her?”
“Sure!” Alex said. “She’s right over there.” He pointed to the lounge area outside the pool. It was empty apart from the silent TV and the magazines.
Mom looked over. “Uh huh,” she said, the way she did when she didn’t really believe him. “Are you sure?”
Alex blinked. Where did she go? “She was right there!” he insisted. “She was in a purple tracksuit and had a bag the same color. All matching, like Gramma in our pictures.”
“And she made you a soul,” Mom prompted.
“She said I already had one and this one was for my sister,” Alex said. He fingered the soul. It still felt magical, even if it looked like dryer lint.
“Uh huh,” Mom repeated, still not believing him. “You have a great imagination. I’ll ask at the desk, okay?”
“She was there,” Alex insisted.
Mom tousled his dark hair. “I’ll ask at the desk. Come on, we’ll be late for my appointment. Oooh, kick. Really jumping today,” she said, putting a hand on her stomach. She grinned at Alex. “Want to feel?”
Wide-eyed, Alex nodded yes. Mom took his hand and guided it to a spot at the top of the extra-round part of her stomach. In a moment he felt a push against his hand. It retreated, then two more in quick succession. In his other hand, the soul felt warm and soft and light as air. “Wow,” he whispered. “It really doesn’t hurt?
“It does feel a little funny,” Mom admitted, “but it doesn’t hurt.” She enclosed his hand in hers. “Come on. We’ll be late for my appointment.”
“Okay,” Alex beamed. As he approached the lobby desk with Mom he glanced over toward the waiting area. The magazines were still there. The silent TV, too, showing the endless tennis match. He didn’t see Nora.
* * *
Nora smiled. With his mother, Alex was back in the adult world. No longer between. He had chosen a side and could no longer see her. She turned her head as an elderly man came in from outdoors. His back was bent, his face lined from the sun. A stained, wide-brimmed hat crowned his head and a pair of heavy hedge trimmers hung from his belt.
“I’m glad you’re late,” she said.
The old man shrugged.
Nora patted the seat beside her. “I had a visitor.”
The old man raised one white eyebrow. He lowered himself onto the chair’s pilled upholstery and slipped a coarse canvas sack from his shoulder.
“Children pierce the veil more easily than adults. You know that,” she said. “Besides, he’s related. Alex, up there with this mother.” She pointed at the front desk.
The man’s gaze followed her finger. Up at the lobby check-in Alex risked another glance in their direction. His mother, one arm wrapped around the boy’s shoulders, gestured at the furniture outside the pool room. The attendant glanced at the empty sofas and the unwatched TV before returning her attention to the pair. Her lips formed the word “No” accompanied by shake of her head in the negative. She frowned and began going over the names on her sign-in sheet. Alex looked again at the soul in his hand, gray like rainbows in fog.
The old man turned his attention back to Nora. He tipped his head a fraction of a degree, the wide-brimmed hat exaggerating his movement.
“He’ll remember. He’s a perceptive child,” Nora answered.
The old man raised an eyebrow. The hat’s angle became steeper as the tip became a decided tilt.
“Yes he will,” she countered. “Did I not knit his soul? Can I not see the patterns in its weave?”
He frowned, his white wiry eyebrows merging together.
“Pshaw, rules. Rules can be broken when required. You don’t always keep your rules, either. Why were you late, anyway?” Nora accused.
A sheepish grin replaced his scowl and his bent shoulders rolled in a shrug. He refused to meet her shining eyes with his own coal-dark ones.
“Mmm hmm,” Nora muttered. “We’ll see. What do you have for me?”
The old man reached one gnarled hand into the sack and produced a scrap of multicolored knitted fabric. One single strand of yarn trailed from a corner, its end neatly clipped. He handed it to Nora and waited for her reaction.
She ran her fingertips over the fabric, lingering on the tight knots of sunny yellow. “Oh, look what she made. All this happiness. Even with dark times she found happiness.” Nora traced the complex patterns and varied colors. “So resilient. Here at the end, too,” she said, twisting the final, unraveled strand, gold and emerald together. “So short, their lives. To grant a little more, just a little, for a final goodbye. I see why you were late.”
The old man shook his head no. He took a deep breath and reached into the sack again, this time withdrawing a large lump of fur, all shades of brown and black. It buried its head into the old man’s elbow and clung to his arm, striped tail curled protectively around its body.
Nora blinked twice. “That’s not a soul, dear.”
The old man shook his head no. He ran his fingers down the animal’s bony spine.
“We’re not responsible for animals, love,” Nora said.
The old man stroked the animal’s back again. Its tail switched.
“Cat, then,” Nora acquiesced. “It’s still an animal. How did you get it?”
The old man bent his head and concentrated on the creature in his arms. He scratched at the gaunt neck with his rough fingers.
It was Nora’s turn to frown. “Her. Get her. You’re avoiding the question, dear.”
The cat finally withdrew her head from the old man’s elbow and huddled against him. She opened eyes as orange as an autumn moon and yawned wide. She looked around, stretched stiffly and rose on arthritic legs. She spotted Nora’s tantalizing bag lying open on the floor and jumped down. A few shaky steps and she was inside. Only her tiger-striped tail remained visible. The old man tipped his head the other way and he gave a slight shrug.
Nora sighed and watched the cat’s tail disappear slowly into the opening. “I’m sorry she was suffering. But even if she did see you, we can’t keep everything that wanders between worlds. You know she has to go back.”
The old man ran a finger over the edge of his shears.
“Well, yes, die,” Nora said. “All things in their time. As Alex will die in his and his sister in hers. People understand what your arrival means. Animals don’t. They can’t.” She took the old man’s hand from his shears and squeezed it tightly. “I’m sorry, love, but you know it’s true.”
The cat emerged from the bag and shook herself. She cleaned a bit of wayward soulstuff from her whiskers and set about grooming. Her fur grew shinier and fuller and her body more sleek and well-muscled with every pass of the pink tongue. Finished, she dipped her forelegs in a deep stretch then reversed it. She bunted up against Nora’s leg and sniffed the trailing end of the soul in her lap. The cat turned back to her benefactor and sprang to his knee, then his shoulder. She crept around the back of his neck and perched on the opposite side. The old man reached up with his free hand and scratched her chin. The cat rubbed against his grizzled cheek and settled down.
The old man raised his wiry eyebrows.
Nora sighed again in mock irritation. “Just because she remembered her younger self doesn’t make her special.” She reached over to scratch behind the cat’s ear and the animal began purring. Her claws dug into the rough cloth of his shirt then relaxed, alternating paws. Her pumpkin-colored eyes narrowed in pleasure. Nora withdrew her hand but the cat continued purring. “I suppose if it’s just the one,” Nora said.
The old man smiled and squeezed her hand back.
“Ravens or owls are more traditional, you know,” she giggled.
The old man’s only answer was to tap the cat’s salmon-colored nose and then Nora’s.
“Well, rules can be broken when required,” Nora said with a smile. “Best get to work.” She took one of her needles and slipped it through the final knot in the soul she held. It loosened and she pulled the yarn free. In short order she reduced the piece to a tangle of multicolored yarn in her lap. Starting at the end, she untwisted it. Yarn became fiber, lost its distinct colors and became shimmering gray fluff. She added more from the bag. Carefully selecting her fiber, she teased off a lump of unformed soulstuff and replaced the remainder. Clever fingers twisted and pulled a thread from the bundle. She wound the end around the spindle and sent it spinning. The cat watched the process with interest.
“One life ends and another begins,” Nora said. She looked up from her spinning with a smile. “Changes are good. Even for us.” She scratched the cat’s chin in between keeping the spindle turning. “Even for us.