Excerpt: Susurrus

The door is open.

That is not the usual way of things, you must understand. There must be walls, there have to be shut doors, or peeking in becomes commonplace, and the old woman sitting at her loom, well, she becomes just another old woman. Someone you might see on any of a thousand corners, huddled and ignored. And sometimes I enjoy that; sometimes I pick one of those old, shuffling bodies, and slip into her like slipping into a stream; cold, and a little gritty, and the shock makes me catch my breath. Sometimes if I open my mouth, I can taste her, and if she happens to struggle, this fish pushed temporarily into a corner of her own waters, hiding in the shallows under some rock of memory and self, then I know it will be ages before I feel like myself again, even after I have left her to shamble and wander once more. The taste lingers ... but it is simply not done, after all, to spit her out, my unwilling host. Instead, taking pity on us both, I cut those visits shorter than I might, and go back to my loom, and sip at my tea, waiting for the taste to fade.

My last such dip in strange waters was long ago now, though, and the open door is new.

Don't stand in the doorway, child; what are they teaching you at home now? To linger in a doorway is to allow passage to things that cling to your shadow, and use you for their cover, that could not cross a threshold alone. Come in, come in, or go away. (My voice creaks like the door when I opened it, but I know that her curiosity will choose for her, and it does.)

Now, let me pour you some tea.

My hand shakes as I pour, but she does not seem to notice, and her eyes, wide like sunfish, dart here and there, picking things out in the dimness of my room. Her hair is piled under the cap which she has not yet taken off, but I know that to press her on that now would be to lose her, and so I turn again to the loom, and the threads begin to form their small pile beside me. She watches, wordless, and sips at my tea. I hear her throat working (what are they teaching them at home?) and they irritate me, those small gulpings, but I let them slide over me.

She is watching the threads form, fascinated. So I did, once.

Do you like them, child? Such lovely pictures they form. Come, you can sit closer if you like, to watch.