The Threadmistress and the Teddy Bear

Chapter 3: Origins 3

Emery woke disorientated. She pushed Little Ted, sorry, Dunkel aside and began to make herself some black tea. Her kitchen was a mere three steps from the end of her bed. There were two rows of large tiles which designated the kitchen area. The rest was flimsy carpet while the bed and living room were all in one.

"I guess I dozed off," she said out loud as she sent a thread to her phone and pulled it over holding it up in front of her sleep filled eyes. Emery didn't own a clock, her phone had the time.

It was just after ten am. It was a Saturday, and she had nowhere to be and no money until next Tuesday.

As the kettle boiled, she made her tea by feel using her threads as she had done it so many times. As long as she put the milk in the same place in the fridge, it was easy. She had to check her stock of tea bags. She tried not to drop any as the box floated over and it tilted down so she could peer inside.

Emery sighed. She would have to reuse at least a few.

"I hate being poor," she told Dunkel. He didn't respond. After a few moments contemplation, she remembered she had to be in contact with him, with her threads, in order to communicate.

She repeated her statement while moving Dunkel around her bed, practising moving his legs and arms in a Teddy Bear walk.

With six of her threads on Dunkel and six engaged in tea making Emery was at her limit. Tea making came as second nature, but she had to concentrate to walk Dunkel.

"Sob. Poor Emery," Dunkel said. The communication came through her threads into her mind. It was a tricky thing because her brain registered the words as if they were spoken aloud.

Emery couldn't tell if Dunkel was being consoling or sarcastic.

"Tell me how to make money Dunkel," Emery asked.

"Use ... power," Dunkel said in his disjointed way.

"You'll see that is not as easy as it sounds. Even with these handy skills," Emery stated as she took a sip of her freshly made tea without the use of hands.

"Something ... is ... not ... right," Dunkel said.

Emery looked around. She checked the door and windows with her threads. "What do you mean? Everything is fine," Emery said, but Dunkel did not respond.

She became paranoid and laid a thread onto the door jams forming a basic weave and sticking it in place. It was a rudimentary compared to the weave on Dunkel, but she could make them. The only issue was the strength of her threads, and her basic weave design would not keep out someone with power.

Emery used her threads to lay a trip line in the hallway and another inside her door. She sat there breathing heavily when inspiration hit. She lifted the bucket filled with water from the leaky AC and hung it over the door.

"There," she said. But after a moment in consideration, she wondered how the bucket would stop an intruder unless they had some sort of rare weird aversion to water.

"Pulley," Dunkel said. She had not removed her threads from him in case he came round.

"What?" She replied.

"On bucket thread," he said and pointed.

Her mouth opened. He moved. Dunkel moved on his own. Forgetting the bucket and intruder, she asked him, "How did you move just now?"

Dunkel sat down, "Hard ... work," he replied. He sat slack as if he needed to rest.

Emery inspected him. Physically there was no difference, but when she examined the intricate threads which crisscrossed his body, she could see a disturbance where she had been moving him. The push and pull of her own threads had disturbed the weave.