The village of Eldenmoor sat curled in the crook of the valley like a sleeping cat, quiet and unbothered by time. Its cobbled streets were uneven with age, its roofs patched with moss, and its stone walls carried the memory of generations. Lyra had lived here all her life, tucked away in a narrow house on the edge of town, where the trees whispered louder than the people did.
She had never minded the silence. In truth, she preferred it.
Lyra was the sort who listened more than she spoke. Her eyes were sharp, her words few, and her presence like the wind before rain—calm, steady, impossible to ignore if you paid attention. Since her grandmother's passing, the silence in the house had deepened. It hung in the corners like dust, curling in the beams and clinging to the stairs.
Her grandmother, Enid, had been a woman of both sharpness and softness. Her hands could churn butter and sew lace in the same hour, and her voice—when it rose—could call the wind home. There were stories about Enid, ones people half-believed, half-feared, but Lyra had only known her as a keeper of things: herbs, secrets, and stories stitched in cloth.
The cottage on the hill, which Enid had refused to leave even in her final days, had passed to Lyra along with the rest of her modest estate. Most of the rooms had long been closed off, dust cloaking everything like forgotten snow. Only the kitchen had stayed alive with fire and food while Enid was still breathing.
Lyra had put off cleaning the attic until now.
The stairs groaned under her careful steps, the wooden railing smooth from generations of hands. At the top was a low door with a tarnished brass knob. She paused before opening it, not out of fear, but reverence. This attic had always been Enid's sanctuary, a place no one was allowed without her say.
Inside, the air was thick with dust and time. Sunlight cut through a cracked window, turning motes into gold. Old trunks lined the walls, and in the center, under a tattered linen cloth, stood the loom.
It was larger than Lyra remembered. The wood was blackened in places with age, but the structure was intact, solid, unmoving—as though it had always been there and always would be. She reached out and lifted the cloth gently, revealing the gleaming bones of the machine. Her fingers trailed along the frame, and she saw that threads were still strung in place, delicate as spider silk, impossibly fine.
One in particular caught the light—a shimmer of green and gold, almost alive. Without thinking, she touched it.
And the world folded.
She was no longer in the attic. The air around her smelled of lilac and soap. The room she stood in was unfamiliar—brighter, warmer, filled with the hum of summer and a sense of quiet joy. There was a woman near the window, young, with chestnut hair tied in a loose braid down her back. She was humming.
Lyra opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came. She wasn't in the room, not truly—she was within it, like a shadow or thought. The woman turned slightly, revealing a face that stole Lyra's breath. She knew it. Not from photographs or fading frames on mantels, but from the shape of her own reflection.
It was her mother.
Not the pale woman with tired eyes whom Lyra remembered, but a vibrant, laughing girl, threading her fingers through lengths of cloth like she was reading a poem with her hands. A little version of Lyra toddled nearby, clutching a cloth rabbit. Her mother scooped her up, pressing a kiss to her brow. There was music somewhere—a radio, maybe. The sound was muffled, as though playing through time.
Then it all vanished.
Lyra gasped, stumbling back. The attic returned around her, dim and cold. Her hand still rested on the thread.
Her knees felt weak. She sank onto a nearby crate, heart thudding in her ears. The memory had been real. Too vivid, too visceral to be imagined. She'd felt the warmth of the sun, heard her mother's voice, smelled the air. It wasn't a dream.
She stared at the loom.
Enid had always told stories about the women in their family, passed down like heirlooms. "We remember differently," she'd say. "Not just in the mind, but in the marrow." Lyra had thought it was poetry. Folklore. Old woman talk.
But what if it wasn't?
What if the loom held something? Not just thread and fabric, but memory—woven, stored, waiting. What if this was the real inheritance?
A strange thrill moved through her—equal parts wonder and dread. She looked again at the green-and-gold thread, now motionless, innocent. How many memories were strung in the loom? Whose? Could they all be touched? Relived?
And more than that—why her?
She stayed in the attic until the light faded, not daring to touch another thread, yet unable to look away. Her fingers itched to know more. Her mind reeled with questions.
When she finally descended the stairs, she did so quietly, as if the loom might hear her leaving and disapprove. The house was unchanged, but she was not.
She boiled water for tea, hands trembling slightly as she poured. Her reflection in the kettle looked unfamiliar—older, perhaps, or just more awake. She set the kettle down, her thoughts circling.
Lyra had never believed in fate. She liked facts, rooted things, quiet certainty. But now, with her grandmother gone and the loom awake again in the attic, the threads of the past felt alive, tugging at her sleeves.
She didn't yet know what it meant. Only that the loom had not simply been given to her.
It had chosen her.