"To Weave a Tale"BY;Fjm

I sit here hunched at my loom, waiting for the lonely night to creep in through the open window. I have seen a thousands of such nights and will probably see thousands more, but this one, I tell myself will be different to those I have already seen. As the shadows lengthen and the room grows steadily colder,I reach over and brush my hands over the lifeless coals, as they erupt into flame I lean back in my uncomfortable, wooden armchair and continue with my work that I am doomed to slave over for all eternity.
As I weave I remember the memory of that fateful day all those years ago, the day when this forsaken bargain came into account. I was only fifteen then and had many friends, although I doubt any of them would remember me now. I was training to be a high sorceress in a special academy; I enjoyed the work and the girly gossip that seemed to circulate round the dormitories every night. The girls recounting certain lessons for humorous or interesting moments. Oh yes, I reflected bitterly, a farmer's daughter from the very fringes of the civilized world in a very selective academy, that was full to the rafters with rich heiresses and the aristocracy's spawn. Oh yes, I loved it.
How I had got into the academy was a mystery to everyone except my family and myself and none of us were prepared to tell the dismal tale. In truth I didn't believe it myself, to my shame and horror I thought it was a dark tale my family had told me to hide the truth, I was a fool not to believe them. So I passed many happy years in a blissful ignorance that my life would always be like this, how wrong I was. On the eve of my sixteenth birthday all dreams were shattered, forever. In the middle of the afternoonlessons a man clothed entirely in black arrived at the academy, requesting to see me. I was taken from my studiesand brought before him in the garden, his visit is so vivid in my memory that I remember every miniscule detail, from the magenta coloured roses that were in full bloom, to the blinding shine of my white enchanter's dress and the glimmer of my engraved silver circ placed fashionably on my brow. As I followed my teacher up the cobbled path to the middle of the white courtyard the man turned to face us. Although his features were hidden by the fringe of his black cloak I knew instantly who he was.
He was the figure who haunted my dreams every night and the demon who ensnared me in my nightmares. The dark shadow that constantly followed me every day, my childhood's demon, the monster under my bed, call it what you will, we all have one. It was just mine was alive, breathing and chillingly real. When my teacher introduced me I was hardly listening, my hands had started shaking and my throat was dry, my nightmare was once again reaching out towards me and I couldn't stop it. I couldn't run, run away to my land, my safe haven I had built for myself, to hide in its high towers but I found that I couldn't anymore. I thought my life was closing in on me. It was then that he spoke, with that same supernatural voice I had heard so many times before inside my head. "Your family promised me something long ago in exchange for something they needed desperately. Do you know what theypromised me, Elenor?" It was all I could do to stop myself running back to my class and my friends but I forced myself to face my demon, after a few minutes I nodded slowly. As he spoke again I could have sworn that I felt my blood run cold. "What did they promise me Elenor?" He asked in sinister voice. I didn't want to answer, I didn't want to tell him,and in any case he already knew he was just testing my nerves. It was only then that I realised that my teacherwas gone, and that I was here on my one with this man. Suddenly hundreds of questions burst into my head.When had she left? What had she heard? If she had heard anything would she tell?I had started to shiver and I had to hold my arms to attempt to disguise it, but it was no use. "What did they promise me?" the man asked again a little more impatiently, but I couldn't move the fear that had threatened, it seemed had finally taken hold. I don't know how long I just stood there although it felt like years it must have only a few seconds since the man asked again more forcefully. They would stand here until I answered and in a bizarre way I was holding up my own happiness, but that wasn't the reason I wasn't answering. It was simplybecause I didn't know what would happen when I went back to class or when I finally became a high sorceress, I didn'tknow if this man would always be my shadow, would he follow me all my life everywhere I went and never stop, that's what I was truly afraid of. I was afraid of uncertainty itself.
The man asked a final time and I urged myself to answer." They promised that you would receive one of their daughters in return for my place at this school." It came out almost silently and as I said it my voice cracked. "That's right, your father promised me a daughter in return for your place at this school, and your mother gave birth to two girls didn't she." This was true I did have a sister, Sarah. How did he know this? Has he been scrying on me? She had stayed at the farm to help while I went to the academy. I hadn't seen her in at least ten years. "Well as you have rightly pointed out your father owes me a daughter and I am here to collect the debt to be paid." I didn't understand, Sarah had always excepted her fate as the debt to be paid none of the family had ever questioned that and if the time has come he should be collecting Sarah so why was he here,"Why are you here? Sarah is the daughter of which you speak so why aren't you at the farm?" "Ah, but Sarah is not there?" "Why not?" I asked, Sarah had never been five miles out of the village before so where had she gone, and if she had left the village she wouldn't have gone that far, she would be easily found. "She died five years ago of a passing disease." The man replied flatly, I felt as if he had just ripped my beating heart straight out of my chest. Sarah dead, it wasn't true it can't be, Sarah had sacrificed her life for my happiness, so that I could be happy and live my life for the both of us, but she had betrayed me. The only thing she could have done to make my life hell while she would be resting blissfully unaware in the land across the golden river and she had done it. I hated her, I really did. I blamed her for dying although I knew it wasn't her fault. I couldn't forgive her for the life of eternal misery that she was condemning me to. I couldn't forgive her. My soul would not.
I kept cursing Sarah as the man led me out of the courtyard and past my beloved classrooms, and through the sun drenched corridors, but the sun felt cold on my face. He led the way to the main gate and beyond to two horses standing tethered to a tree, and to my dismay my trunk was resting up against the large trunk of an old oak tree a few yards away.Had he looked inside? Had he been in my room? Had he seen those secret letters from my friends and family? Exactly how much did this man know about me?He led me over to a rusty brown coloured horse and ordered me to mount it. I didn't bother to protest, I knew I would be helpless and a waste of time. It was this feeling of helpless, that I could do nothing except watching my precious future slipping away slowly in front of my eyes that made me sad. Once the man had mounted the other, black horse he grabbed my reins and led meat a painfully slowly pace into the forest. Before we reached the fringes the forest I glanced back at the life I should have had, all the friends I was leaving behind and I hardly noticed the tears now rolling uncontrollably down my cheeks. As the darkness of the forest closed around me I closed my eyes and let the rhythm of the horse sway me to and fro, my makeshift world that had once felt so warm and safe in flaming ruins behind me.
The first night here was the worst I have ever endured; I swear the Gods made it so to torment me for hating my sister.The man had taken me to the uppermost room in a tower that seemed to reach to the very core of the sky. There he imprisoned me forever to weave this accursed web for his dark purposes, I weaved night and day, year after year, I weaved stories of other people like me imprisoned in this sinister fairy tale, held hostage by their own misery. I told tales of sadness, of loss and depravity, of darkness and despair. For years I told of other people's sadness without having a chance to grieve for my own. About ten years into my service I received news that my Mother, Father and baby brother had all died due to an unexpected outbreak of the plague, when I heard I was sure that the man had something to do with it, but since I had no proof then there was nothing I could do. So instead I passed many years in a comfortable silence, weaving other people's desolate tales, never even hinting at my own. The web of sorrow I called it, it had every single tale of every single person and I could never stop weaving since the man had made me immortal for the sole reason to simply keep on weaving. And here I sit, silent and alone for eternity, forever doomedto weave of others despair instead of my own, imprisoned in a nightmare of my own making.
The firelight waning on my face as the joyful sun peeps over the dark horizon I look down at the redundant needle inmy dry fingers, and I try to smile. New tears spill into my hands, the sight of my families smiling faces now afresh in my mind, the needle falls out of my hands as I cup them round my wrinkled face and I hear it tinkle merrily on the floor amongst the pool of tears.
This is what I am and what I am to become, forgive me.