The Miller's Widow Story-Arc

[Willow Oran]

Techné

Inside the house beside the mill whose frozen stream draped glittering over the still wheel, Sive sat thoughtful, watching her sister weave a story. It was barely begun. Elu had the patience for tapestries, Sive would have grown bored with the task before she’d finished setting the warp; she only watched her sister now because it was one of those days when every thought is as gray as the morning fog and nothing of worth could hold her focus. The movements of Elu’s hands as she wove were hypnotic and so Sive watched them, chin in hand, pencil tapping idly against her sketch book, “It would go faster,” she said finally, dropping pencil point to paper with a final tap, “if you would have let me make you a better loom.”

“I like this one,” Elu said, her indulgent smile visible in the reflection on the window.

“It’s too slow, too small, too old for you,” Sive listed these oft recited arguments. The idea of the loom had caught her wandering attention and her eyes were now fixed on the paper over which her pencil scratched a design for the proposed machine, extending the original, abortive design whose purpose she hadn’t yet and now probably never would identify. “It would please me to build you a new one.”

Elu selected a new thread and painstakingly began to weave the first hint of detail, “It pleases me to go on using this old one, it has been weaving longer than I’ve been alive and knows the patterns. I don’t want to teach a new loom.”

“No?” Sive squinted at the piece of story just starting to be visible under Elu’s hands, “I would make it a good student.”

“As good a student as you are?” Elu asked, teasing.

“I learn well, I was practicing when you were still on mother’s knee,” Sive said. “Teach me that story and I’ll demonstrate.”

“And will you also learn patience for this ‘too old’ loom?” Elu asked, “You missed learning it from mother.”

“Perhaps,” Sive answered, “I will learn the story from you, patience I cannot promise.”

“Will you try?”

“Yes.”

“Very well,” and because Elu knew her sister, “After your second interruption I will assume you have learned something.”

“Agreed.” Sive ladled out two cups of warm cider for them from the pot on the little stove in the corner and, setting the cups on the low table between them, lounged back on her pile of cushions, resting the sketchbook on her stomach, “Begin.”

Elu tied off the beginning of the detail and resumed the weaving of the background, “A long while ago,” she began, her voice taking on the dreamy, chanting quality that storytellers seemed to like and which Sive had never understood the need for, “but not so far from where we sit there was once a village. It was neither the largest village or the smallest village in these parts and its people were ordinary people. One year winter came as usual and it was the coldest winter that any but the oldest could remember and the oldest no longer trusted her memory-”

“Are you certain you trust yours?” Sive asked, unable to listen to this beginning any longer, “I think you must have forgotten some of the story, it was surely more interesting than this when you heard it or else you wouldn’t have remembered!”

“You don’t want to hear it after all?” Elu threatened, annoyed at being interrupted so soon, “You must have a reason for stopping me or I will not go on.”

“I do. You can tell it better than that,” Sive appealed to her sister’s pride, “Liven the words a little, Elu.”

Elu paused, as if she would indeed stop there, then nodded, Sive’s interruption had not been wholly unexpected, after all. Elu continued the story, “That winter an unparalleled frost came upon the village. It was this cold: the ground grew solid, metal shattered at the merest tap from a hammer, words froze in the mouths of their speakers and heat was so quickly sucked into the cold air that the very flames froze in the hearths. That is how cold it was and the villagers were helpless against it. Those who were lucky huddled under their furs and woven rugs but even these were barely any shield at all so each and every villager fell into a deep sleep.

“Now in this unfortunate village lived Berit called the clever, the industrious; Berit whose hands all threads were obedient to and who spoke so few words that Winter itself forgot her. Truly! Since the beginning of winter she had been working at her loom both day and night and it was only because she had run out of things to eat that she left her work and saw what was happening outside. Then in the silence of the ice Berit took the cloak she had been weaving off of the loom and wrapping it around herself, ventured from her little house.

“This cloak she wore cannot be described, for no one was ever awake when she wore it, but we know it to have been a great work of skilled hands, for it kept winter from her person and that is how Berit went around to the houses in the village and saw the sleep which had taken her neighbors and knew that if nothing was done they would die for want of real nourishment. Unsure of how long she had left to revive them, she devised a plan without hesitation. Though the world as far as she could see was frozen the sun still shone as if through window of thin cut crystal and she thought that if only she could draw the sun down its power when close by might soften the cold so that the village could bear it. But how to capture the sun?

“Armed with the spindle on which she had spun her first thread, a weathered thing of wood worn smooth by many hands, and a bushel of her best washed and carded wool she set off walking for the highest point in the land,” Elu paused for a drink of her cider and glanced at Sive to gage her mood, she seemed content to listen for now. Elu went on, “After three days of weary trudging across fields of shattered grass Berit came to a mountain’s summit where the air was thin and the stronger sun leaked through. Then Berit raised her cracked hand and felt the first sunlight since summer’s end and when the light had healed the stiffness in her fingers Berit took up her spindle, now heavy with the soft, hardy yarn which she had spun all along on the journey to prevent her hands freezing altogether, and unwound the skein. Holding her yarn to the sun she called on the heat and wove the first knot of many. All through the day she wove her knots till in the evening the sun set and left its light in her hands for in the sphere created by her knots she had bound some of its potency.

“And then Berit hurried down the mountain, sheltering the knot-work sun under her cloak fled over the frozen fields back to the village, leaving a trail of brief rain in her wake. When Berit reached the center of her village at noon the next day she hung the knot-work sun from a pole so that its heat might be felt. What think you, Sive?” Elu asked, seeing her sister’s frown.

“This Berit made a small sun to warm her village?” Sive asked, feeding peat into the stove.

“So goes the story,” Elu agreed, “You disapprove?”

“I was thinking of a conversation I had last year with a scientist of my acquaintance,” Sive replied, “We had studied together and he was visiting me after my husband’s death. The conversation turned to our work and in exchange for knowing how I had made our stream outside to flow up-hill he told me what he had discovered in his study of sunlight. I wonder how Berit did not burn!”

“Think less literally,” admonished Elu, “You know why she didn’t.”

“I’ll assume that the cold and the heat balanced so she survived both,” Sive agreed, “and wish for our own sun. You could have picked a story to counter rather than reflect the season, Elu!”

“Your walls are thick enough to keep the winter outside,” Elu reminded her, “We’re barely halfway through the story, have you learned it already?”

“I build as well as you weave,” Sive said, “And I can guess the building from the foundation. It doesn’t work, does it?”

“Does what?” Asked Elu.

“Her knot-work sun. As my friend confessed, it takes more than one attempt to harness the sun,” said Sive, “So tell me, what did she do wrong?”

“Almost nothing,” Elu said, “she hung it from the pole and its heat radiated through the village, thawing the ice and awakening the villagers, within a few days the village was able to function again for though it was still winter, the knot-work sun lessened the cold significantly.”

“But then there was all manner of trouble,” Sive countered, starting her own chant, “dually burnt by sun and snow, the village wept for their young who would not wake, then Berit wove shrouds and the mothers who wrapped their children would not meet her eyes; in meager warmth they held vigil, waiting for the ground to soften and receive their dead.”

“You should build with words more often,” Elu said, surprised, “But stop your lament, you do not know that any have died yet.”

“Did the weaker villagers survive that first round, then?” Sive asked skeptically, “If so this story is kinder than most.”

“There is worse yet to come. I will go on, come in where you are ready,” Elu commanded, “Berit had tied the knots just a little too loosely and within a month the warmth faded. The knot-work sun became nothing more than a ball of thread and the village froze again.”

Sive jumped in, “Then swiftly Berit set out swathed in her shield of sorcerous cloth-”

“There was nothing magic about the cloak,” Elu corrected.

“It kept her warm enough to move when everyone else was near death,” Sive argued.

“She wove it very thick,” said Elu, “And with all her skill, but she would have had no reason to weave magic into it.”

“Hm,” Sive began again, “Across the frozen fields in her crafty cloak, spinning the yarn-”

“Linen thread,” corrected Elu.

“-linen thread as she flew,” Sive paused for breath.

“She cannot fly. You are making her something she isn’t,” Elu warned, “You know Berit is no witch, do not change that just to fit your rhyme.”

“That was no rhyme,” Sive said and then asked, “If you went outside right now could you weave heat into knots?”

“And when she arrived at the summit of the mountain,” Elu said pointedly, “She wove a new knot-work sun and captured heat within the knots. Sheltering it under her cloak she returned to the village and hung it next the first one.”

“You could not,” said Sive, “That’s two. How does this one fail, Elu?”

“Why should it fail?” Elu asked, smiling, “Surely her magic would have fixed the problem.”

“Magic or not, nothing ever works after only two tries,” Sive said, “Stories require at least three attempts, more if the character is particularly unfortunate. What goes wrong?”

“Tell me what happens when you tie a knot too tightly,” Elu said, beginning the new row in her tapestry.

“Ah...” Sive nodded in understanding, “Warmed again the villagers revived, rose from their sleep and for winter all was well. But Berit, too eager to improve the knot-work sun, had tied these knots too tightly. Another month and then the brittle linen gave, let escape the remaining warmth. The frost returned and again the village slept.

“Berit, now tiring of her labor, wrapped about herself the cloak once more, took up her drop-spindle and set out for the mountain. Over the ice fields and up to the summit spinning her...?”

“Silk,” Elu supplied.

“Silken thread as she went.” Sive said, readying her words for this final piece of the tale, “Called down the rays of the sun and wove its power into her knots! Thus she constructed a sphere more potent, more elaborate than the two before. This she bore back to her village where it was set by her hands above the faded drafts...”

“Then being, as you said,” Elu picked up the story smoothly, “weary, she fell fast asleep under its glow. But even as the warmth revived the frozen village and even as Berit’s neighbors ventured out of their homes the heat began to consume the knots in which it was caught, for in her zeal Berit had forgotten to make fast the final knot and through this unraveled piece the sun’s power rushed out and burned the village right down to the ground!”

The two of them fell silent, pondering their story in the calm of the loom’s clacking and the scratch of Sive’s pencil as it sought an image of Berit’s knots in the margins around the plan for a new loom.

“It is too abrupt. Did any villagers survive such a gruesomely pat ending?” Sive asked, “Or should I have sung of pyres before?”

“I cannot say,” Elu replied, selecting a thread of brilliant green, “You may imagine some survived if it pleases you.”

“It does,” Sive turned to a clean page, “And Elu?”

“Yes?” Elu started to weave a new detail into the tapestry.

“I would not build you a flammable loom.”

[Willow Oran]

The Miller’s Widow



If Sive had known that he was a scientist, she would have charged more when he rented the rooms below the mill, but she hadn’t, and the deal was made. Irritated, she slipped the smooth coins into the pocket of her apron and pondered the best way to dismiss him from her doorway. The man was lingering.

He was a youngish fellow, painfully awkward in countenance and ill-advised in dress. One of those who mistook shabby habits for efficiency and abstract laws for practical reality.

“…and I was wondering if you could show me how it worked?” He was looking down at her, somehow pleading and condescending in the same expression.

“Sorry?” Sive pretended not to have heard his question.

“The mill. It’s amazing!” He enthused, wide eyes and flushed cheeks betraying his excitement, “I’ve never seen anything like it and was hoping you could show it to me.”

Sive raised an eyebrow, amused, and took his elbow, turning him to face the mill-house and the waterfall that powered it.

“There it is,” she said, carefully keeping her expression neutral and not reacting to his arrogant fascination with the eye-bending edifice.

The youth sighed impatiently. “Yes, but how does it work?”

“Well, the force of the waterfall turns that big wheel…” Sive began.

“I know that part!” He exclaimed, exasperated, “I meant the part before that.”

“Oh,” Sive paused, savoring the moment, “Well that’s quite simple. The waterfall is fed by the stream. Waterfalls usually are, you know,” She added, wicked humor creeping into her tone.

“Ma’am,” his tone verged on despairing now, “Surely you’ve noticed that your stream is flowing uphill?”

Sive admired the mill whilst she called to tongue her favorite explanation. The stream feeding the waterfall was indeed running uphill, its bed a dizzying, unnatural series of switchbacks. Mere illusion and simple physics, decipherable by any with unusual wit. “Waterfalls need height,” she said significantly, giving him one last chance to free himself from the trap he had walked into.

“But gravity- ? Water isn’t supposed to flow that way!”

“I wouldn’t know about ‘supposed to’.” Sive sighed, almost feeling sorry for him in his naivety, “Laws have not been my study.”

“I can see that!” He returned rudely and her sympathy evaporated, “Look, did you bother to keep your husband’s notes? I’d love to read them, as you obviously can’t answer my questions…”

He trailed off as Sive’s expression grew cold, “There are no notes.” She informed him haughtily, “You may find the answers yourself, just as I did.” She closed the door firmly and, locking it, went out on the deck to finish hanging the laundry out to dry.

Below, she watched the young scientist still standing, bafflement embodied, staring desperately up at the waterfall she had designed for her late husband’s mill. She shook her head, smiling to herself. She would have a steady income for a long while now; This young scientist had more to learn about necessity than most.