Dark Weaver (Weaver Series) (3 page)

An hour later as I was winding the cord up on the vacuum cleaner, I heard him
call out to me.  “I’m back here!”  I yelled back as I shut the utility closet door.

“Since when do you do housework the old-fashioned way?” 
he said as he met me in the hall.

“Since when do you not keep your place immaculate?”  I chided.

“I don’t know what you mean, it was clean when I left this morning,” he said and embraced me gently, kissing me on the cheek.

“Seriously?”
  I laughed.  “There was a layer of dust an inch thick on the coffee table Mr. Neat Freak.  It looks like you haven’t been here in a week!”

“Someone must be exaggerating here because we both know that isn’t possible.” 

“Okay, maybe not quite an inch, but it was really dusty!”

I followed him back to the living room and took a seat on the couch as he thumbed through a rather large stack of mail he’d carried in with him.

“So where’d you go?”  I asked, trying to sound casual.

“Huh?” 

“I asked, where did you go at lunch?”  His eyes were focused on a bill he’d just pulled from an envelope.

“
Uhm, I went to the Soup Tureen in the mall — the same place that you did, remember?”  He weaved the entire pile of bills away and then looked up at me.  His confused expression made my heart skip a beat.  This wasn’t good.  I closed my eyes and swallowed hard.  Without opening them, I whispered, “No, I don’t.  You said you couldn’t meet today because you had something to do remember?”

“Joey, that wasn’t today
. That was a few days ago,” he said.  I put my hands on the sides of my temples and pressed my fingers in little circles.  Everything went dark and then I was falling.  I came to with something cold on my forehead and realized that Kalan had my head in his lap.  I must have bumped my shoulder on something because it felt like it was on fire.  My vision came in to focus and the concern on his face equaled my own.

“What happened?”  I asked.

“You fainted, and I’m so sorry I couldn’t catch you in time.  You slid off the couch sideways and hit your shoulder on the table.”  He adjusted the washcloth on my forehead.  “How are you feeling now?”

“I think I’m
all right,” I muttered pulling the cloth from my head and pushed myself to a sitting position.  “What is that smell?”  I asked scrunching up my nose.

“It’s an herbal infusion
we used to use back at home.  I soaked the washcloth with it.”  Kalan looked as proud as a little boy who had just served up his first mud pie.  I didn’t have the heart to tell him how bad it smelled.  Considering my family was steeped in old remedies for ailments, I knew a thing or two about ingredients and whatever was on that washcloth wasn’t good.  It smelled like turpentine.

“Well, thanks baby,”
I said with forced enthusiasm.  “What’s in it?”

“This and that
— I don’t know.  I just weaved it.  I’m not a mender, so it was the first thing I thought to do.”  He took the wet cloth from my hand and tossed it into the air, weaving it away.  I rubbed my sore shoulder and wondered to myself why he didn’t just undo things so that he was right there to catch me before I went down.  I didn’t say this of course because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but honestly that’s the first thing I would have thought of.  Now the only thing that would help my shoulder was a Mender. 

“I’ll call Pepper
as soon as I’ve rested for a few and have her fix my shoulder,” I said and curled up on the couch.  My body still felt sluggish and I just needed a few minutes to recuperate. 

“No, don’t do that. 
I’m sure she has enough on her mind with Marty and I can fix your shoulder.  I’ll just weave us back to that moment and catch you...”  He stopped talking for a moment as he considered his idea, “better yet, I’ll weave back and get you something to eat right away.  You’re probably just over tired – or you could have low blood sugar or something.  I should have thought of that in the first place,” he said furrowing his brow. 

I knew he was right.  Pepper did have problems of her own
on top of a blossoming relationship to work through.  It wasn’t as if she could weave for herself to make things better like I could.  Both of them had to work and I had no clue how their finances were.  It was selfish of me to assume I could call on her with every little bump and scrape. It seemed like a one-way friendship the more I thought about it.  I was so distracted that I forgot all about the conversation we’d been having about our lunch date…that I couldn’t recall. 

Kalan weaved us back and made sure I
’d eaten and was okay before he left to meet up with a study group at a restaurant near the campus.  He offered not to go and just weave a solution later, but I wouldn’t have it.  Weaving for personal reasons was becoming way too convenient for both of us and I was already feeling guilty for imposing on Pepper.  Besides, I was feeling much better.  Deep down, I was sure my sleep issues were at the root of my problems anyway.

After Kalan left, I wandered back to my unit and tried to spend some time studying.  I had two papers due the following day and there was no way I was going to take any weaving freebies.  My laptop was open, and that blank
, white page with the blinking cursor did nothing to inspire me.  What the hell was wrong with me?  I flipped through the pages of my text books but I was completely lost. I could not concentrate on my studies to save my life.  It occurred to me that I didn’t have the slightest clue what to write for either one of them because I wasn’t familiar with the subject matter.  I had no notes, I didn’t remember any of the in class discussions, and I didn’t even know where to start.

It suddenly dawned on me that I’d been weaving like a
n out of control junky.  I had no job, so I just weaved for my groceries, my bills, and anything else I had to have.  Adding to my gluttony, I wasn’t even focusing on my education anymore.  Nope.  Plain and simple, I was a walking contradiction to everything I believed in.  What had become of my strict moral weaving code?  I looked around my nicely furnished abode and was so disgusted with myself that I wanted to heave.  I thought back to the way I used to feel when I would do my weaving to make things better for people.  No wonder I was feeling so weak!  I wasn’t doing a bleeping thing for anybody but myself! 

The cursor continued to blink at me
, and the silence of the apartment felt like an enemy.  My eyes darted to my expensive looking couch, the cherry wood dining table, the assortment of decorative lamps, throw pillows, and the big screen television.  Ugh!  The excess threatened to pull the air from my lungs.  I had to get out!  I shut my eyes and weaved to the first place that came to mind: The pier.

The night was silent with the exception of the crashing waves.  I stood in a
dim circle of light cast from a weathered lamp above me.  Similar circles of light were spaced every few feet creating a procession of lone soldiers of emptiness.  There wasn’t another soul in sight.  I pulled the hood of my sweatshirt up over my head, and rested one foot on the salt-weathered railing.  My eyes scanned the blackness of the waves in the distance.  They looked like monstrous shadows, rising up to consume the night until they broke, and another followed in an infinite cycle.  As my body absorbed the strength from the minerals, I thought of the light and dark threads of life – such an infinite dance and my role in all of it seemed so overwhelming.

All my life I’d tried to help others, and c
hanging things for people had always come so natural for me.  I took pride in it, and cherished the added benefit of positive energy that came from those efforts.  Nothing ever felt more invigorating that seeing a bad situation turned around.  Yet here I was now, focusing on me, myself and I on a round the clock basis.  I stared out at the blackness gnawing on the side of my thumb as one question ran through my mind repeatedly,
what’s happening to me?

I walked the short distance home because I didn’t feel right about weaving
until I’d spent some time taking care of others.  Although the air was damp, it felt good to be able to think and clear my head.  I concentrated hard on every person I passed, fixing a plethora of issues that felt like restitution for my apathy of late.  When I passed a man sleeping in the doorway of the bank I took extra time to look backwards in his life.  He’d suffered in ways that were unimaginable.  So much so that I felt compelled to thread light weaves through his parents as well, but I didn’t stop there.  By the time I was done, I’d gone back three generations in his family. When he dissolved before my eyes, I knew it was because this was no longer his life.  He was at home now with his wife and kids.

A group of
guys on skateboards passed me as I rounded the next corner.  One jumped from the bus stop bench to the sidewalk and I got an image in my head so strong it nearly knocked me over.  He was going to be so important!  I giggled to myself because it was refreshing not to have to change a single thing for him.  Sure, he was going to have his share of hardships but each one of them would shape who he was supposed to become.  He yanked his sagging jeans up as he whizzed by me and then turned back because I was laughing.  I’m sure I looked like a complete idiot walking alone and laughing by myself.  I covered my mouth to stop but it just seemed so funny to me to think that most people would see him as just another lazy teen-ager.  If they only knew! 

Alone again on the sidewalk I stopped short.  No one was behind me, but I
kept sensing someone and could have sworn I’d heard someone else laughing — a male voice.  The shadows revealed nothing, but I quickened my pace and decided I really needed to get home. I also needed to try to keep myself focused going forward.  I made up my mind that I would spend the rest of the evening cramming and get my papers done the normal way.  Even if that meant staying up all night.  Other students did it all the time, and besides…I was used to that exhausted feeling.  I wasn’t sleeping well anyway.  I began to jog feeling uncomfortable out in the night alone but too guilty to weave.

Flushed and panting, I was relieved to reach my porch.  I searched my floppy purse for my keys and realized how seldom I’d actually returned home in
a normal manner.  After a few frustrated minutes of feeling around in my bag and shaking it to listen for the sound of a jingling clue, I gave up and weaved myself inside.  As altruistic as I wanted to be, sometimes it just had to be done.  Besides, I was dying of thirst.  As I appeared in my entryway, I was immediately struck with an eerie feeling.  I heard something, and it sounded like it was coming from down the hall.  I stood perfectly still for a moment to gather my wits and tried to calm myself down. I couldn’t explain why, but I was extremely frightened.  There it was again; A faint ‘tap-tap-tap sound, I could tell now that it was coming from Kalan’s unit.  I debated calling out his name but I knew instinctively it wasn’t him. To make matters worse, I wasn’t able to pick up a thing.  I should have sensed a presence before I even entered and I hadn’t had so much as a snip of a warning. 

I squeezed my eyes shut and called out to Kalan mentally.  There was no reply.  Just as I was about to weave myself out of there, Kalan appeared behind me and kissed me on the back of my neck.  I was so
caught off guard that the scream that came out of my throat sounded like it started somewhere in my toes. 

“Oh good Lord!
  Where did you come from?” 

“
I live here remember?”

That was the last thing I remembered before I woke up in my own bed alone in the middle of the night.  I sat up quickly and blinked to get my eyes to adjust to the dark room. 
“Kalan?”  I called out and was surprised at how raspy my voice sounded.  When no reply came I got up slowly and felt my way down the hall to the door that was once again closed.  I opened it quickly and called out again, “Kalan?”

To my surprise, he was sitting on his couch with his feet up on the table watching a movie.  The same movie we’d started watching together the night before. 
“Hey there.  I thought you needed some alone time,” he said gruffly.  I wrapped my arms around myself and walked closer to where he sat.  “Kalan, something is really wrong with me.”

He was up and by my side in an instant, the back of his hand checking my forehead before he guided me to the couch
. “Sit down baby, what’s wrong, are you hurting?  You don’t have a temperature.”  He searched my face, concern clear in his eyes.

“No, I don’t mean like that, I’m not sick.  Kalan, I think I’m losing time or something.  I—I can’t make sense of things and time isn’t lining up, and I didn’t go to lunch with you today at the Soup Tureen.
” I broke into sobs and Kalan wrapped a blanket around me before drawing me closer to him.  “Shhh, it’s okay Jo, it’s going to be okay.”

“I’m so afraid Kalan.  I’ve never had anything like this happen before and I feel like I’m going insane.”

“You’re not going insane Jo, there’s a logical reason for this.  We just have to figure it out that’s all.”

“I
don’t even know where to start!” I blurted and buried my face in his chest.  Kalan stroked the back of my hair and rocked me back and forth in his arms as he whispered calming words.  I took several deep, ragged breaths and tried to get myself to calm down. 

“I think I do
,” Kalan said calmly, and kissed the top of my head.