Quinn 2022 Version

Chapter One

Henry spent his days tending to his sheep. Whose wool he would trim, dye, spin into threads, and store on long wooden spools, waiting for his mother's delicate hands to weave them. Her fingers blurred while she wove the threads together on her loom. Henry couldn't understand how she placed every stitch in position as if it had always belonged there. He gazed into her eyes while she worked, searching them for secrets. Alas, she's stared back into nothingness. The light in her eyes had long since faded and gone out. His mother was blind.

"Honestly, mother I don't know how you do it," he said. "Each blanket is better than the last." She smiled and turned towards his voice, never losing focus on the blanket she was working on. The dyed wool wove effortlessly into a pattern of greens and yellows. The colors overlapped each other, twisting and turning until a yellow tree lay across a green canvas. Countless branches spanned across the blanket, and at the end of each branch was a tiny leaf.

"Shouldn't you be preparing another spool for the blanket instead of gawking at me?" Henry looked down at the spools. She was right. He wasn't paying attention to the spools she was working with, and they were running low. He ran to the small cellar, where they kept the spools. His only light was a small flame from the lantern he was using to watch his mother work.

Hundreds of spools as tall as Henry filled the cellar. Although he could have pulled the needed spools without it, he held his lantern up to them just to make sure he was pulling the right colors. Once, he had given his mother the wrong colors, and without hesitation, she had known. He lifted one of the green spools onto his shoulder, steadied his balance under the weight, and made his way back up the stairs, the centers of which bowed from his repeated use.

Just as he arrived, the green spool his mother was currently working with pulled the remaining thread through her loom. Henry rushed to attach the ends of the threads so she could continue without waiting for him. His mother did not slow down. She continued her weave and pulled the loom just as Henry finished securing the knot. With the pull of the loom came another line in the design. Henry rushed to grab another yellow spool before it, too, would run out. Later, when she finished the blanket, Henry would make his way into town with it and many others to sell to the shopkeepers.

Their house sat at the edge of the forest on a small farm Henry tended to. Six sheep, a mule, a cow, and a few chickens made up the flock. Inside the hay-roofed shack, were three small rooms, and a cellar. The main room was where all the other rooms connected to. On one side was the entrance to his mother's room, in which a small bed of hay and blankets took up most of the space. Along one wall was a small chest made of oak, filled with his mother's clothes and extra blankets. The other side of the main room held the entrances to the cellar and Henry's room. His room was no bigger than his mother's and held a similar bed and blanket. What differed is Henry's room had a small window in it. He would spend nights looking up at the sky making shapes in the clouds or connecting the stars on clear nights until he'd fall asleep. He had a smaller chest in his room with his clothes in it as well. On top of the chest were oddly shaped twigs and rocks he had found while in the forest gathering food.

In the main room were the fireplace and two chairs. In front of one of the chairs sat his mother's loom, where she worked all day to make her intricate blankets. Their colors would range from greens to red, violets to yellows. Each one was never the same as the last. Once she was done with another blanket, they would be stored in the cellar in the spaces the spools of wool used to take up. The empty spools Henry would place in the barn with the animals, where they waited until the following spring when Henry would shear the sheep and make more wool thread for his mother's blankets. Across the main room was a small table they would eat their meals at, usually cooked by Henry in the fireplace.

Henry spent the mornings hunting for small game animals when they were easiest to catch. He'd set traps along a pond he found near the edge, as his mother didn't want him going too far into the woods, in case she had to call for him. He heard stories from townsfolk about people going too far into the woods and never coming back. His mother said it was just stories they told to keep their children safe, though she too warned him to keep close, often. She did not like him going alone into the woods. Whenever he returned with the spoils of his labor, his mother had a sour look on her face.