Strand 3

My nose itched. I twitched it. The itch continued. I reached up to scratch it, but my hand recoiled... HAIR! Well, bristles, really- bristles? No! Fur! Fur? FUR???

"What is going on?" I thought frantically. I looked at my hands- paws! No thumbs! Small, furry paws! I looked myself over- Short...fat...covered with fur...and a long, swirling tail. A squirrel? A dream! This has to be a dream! I can't be a squirrel!

"Okay, breathe," I told myself, pressing the fluffy tail to my chest with my tiny paws to keep it from swishing agitatedly back and forth into my face. "There's got to be an explanation for this!"

Taking a deep gulp of air, I paused for a moment in mid-thought to take in my surroundings...

Darkness was all around me, but overhead, a pale bluish circle of light shone in like a window on the inside of a high tower. As my eyes adjusted and focused, I could see small steps leading up in a spiral all the way around to where the light peeked in on me.

Stumbling over the acorn shells that littered the floor of the room, I made my way to the stairs and began to cautiously ascend, clutching the awkwardly over-long tail in front of me.


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Strand 2

I don't know how long I had been asleep when I awoke to find myself in a dark room lit by a single lamp that hung in the air over a loom where a silent robed figure sat, a hood covering her face as she worked.

On the far side of her, I saw my brother scowling at me.

Looking away from each other, both our eyes turned to the wordless woman at the loom. The only motion in the room beneath the flicker of the lamp was the weaver pushing her shuttle through the threads and pumping the pedals.

Thwock! Thwock! Thwock!

She never looked up at us, but kept weaving.

Thwock! Thwock!

The hollow sound carried on forever into the endless shadows of the wall-less, roofless, endless room. We were in a place seemingly outside of time, and we might have stood motionless for an eternity- perhaps we did- but at last, curiosity dragged our feet forward across the cold stone floor until we stood at either shoulder and stared as she worked.

My brother spoke- a raw, fresh sound in the empty-noised air. "What is this you're makin'?"

Finally the weaver's lips parted, and words slipped softly from between them in a voice that I felt I had known all my life, and yet was hearing for the first time.

Even in the stillness of the barren room, we had to still our breathing to hear what she said. "The thread cannot see the patterns it creates, yet one who is not part of what he sees cannot understand."

"What..." I managed, then cleared my throat with an over-loud cough. "I don't understand."

"You will."

Suddenly we were thread in the weaver's hands, and as the shuttle flew, the pictures formed...

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Strand 1

Tugging the covers over my head, I squashed my eyes shut, trying to get to sleep as quickly as possible, if only to escape from the room where I lay in a bed only three feet from the most despised person I could think of just then- my brother Mike. After today, I thought to myself, I've earned the right to hate him. After all, was it not his fault that we were already in bed, despite the glaring sunlight brutally pushing its way through the worn curtains that hung across the windows over our heads? If he hadn't been such a pest, taking the ball when I was playing a game of basketball with my friends, we wouldn't have gotten in trouble for fighting, right?

With the blankets still over my eyes, I reached out, fumbling around for a tape, and put it in the player, feeling for the triangular play button. Finally, I was able to drift off to Mozart, gaining special enjoyment from the knowledge that, though he hated my classical music, my brother didn't dare risk mom's wrath further by venturing downstairs to complain to her.

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Prologue

In a dark room with no walls sits a silent figure working at a giant loom. The shuttle flies and glides from left to right and back between nimble hands. A dream begins to take shape as the Master gives order to the colorful mass of twisted threads...

First Strand-->