Spelling Every Weave

a tiny tale

Photo by Chris Chow on Unsplash

Real artistry did not lay in fixing a broken dish. You waved your wand and you were done. Neither was it in repairing a cracked window. You slathered on the glittery potion and let it seep in overnight. Even a hole in the floorboard — which was the handiwork of your mother because she could not keep her heavy cast iron cauldron upright — even that was an easy fix. You put a carpet over the whole shebang and hoped for an unsuspecting visitor to fall through it. You needed your entertainment from time to time, after all.

No, real artistry lay in the way you worked the loom. To say it was tricky was an understatement. For fabric witches, such as we were, our trade included an array of textiles infused with particular functions. Now, see, the magic would not stick to the stitches after the fabric was made. No, the incantations could permeate only while weaving, and with very specific formulas no less.

For instance, to make a pinafore work as a shield against potion brewing calamities, you would need to inculcate every third pick of the weft, the threads criss-crossing through, with the spell. To let dresses set sail with the winds and carry along witches of all ages and genders, you must make sure to trap the flying hex within the sheds created while the filling yarn is crossing the warp, the threads held steady by the loom.

I could not help but recall every formula while I raised the newly weaved off-white fabric towards the light pouring in through the open roof. The thing was, I got distracted because of a crow flying overhead, and so I missed the count. I should have been chanting every second shed and tapping the spell in every fourth picking.

I watched in dismay as the cloth disappeared from view. I could feel its folds clenched in my fingers even when I could see the sky between my fists.

“Ay, ay, stupid witch. You went third shed and sixth pick, didn’t you?” barked out mother, looming over me out of nowhere. I nearly shed my skin and jumped off the bench, bones and all. How did she always creep up on my disastrous moments like that?!

She slapped my back and pushed me off the seat. “Go away. Your mind is obviously useless right now.”

Clasping the transparent threads between my fingers, I trudged out of the room while she fired up the loom once more. Amidst the swishing, clicking and clattering, I could hear her mumble with distaste, “Idiot makes clothes which turn invisible themselves instead of rendering their wearers so. What can she do if she’s so easily distracted? How will the business survive when I’m — Gah! I got distracted and started weaving a plain fabric. Curse it!”