The Endless Story | Chapter 4 "By the light of the night..."

 

I jolt awake in the middle of the night from a strange sound. Like wind chimes being struck by the wind on balconies. A mournful melody, as if hymning grief and loss. Several seconds pass before I orient myself to where it's coming from-right beside me, from my nightstand, specifically from the leather-bound notebook.

Terrified, I snatch it quickly and throw it to the opposite corner of my room. There's no way something this supernatural is happening, I must be dreaming or losing my mind. It falls to the floor and opens in the middle. The melody stops as suddenly and unexpectedly as it began.

I take a deep breath... it was probably just my imagination, after all the mind gets confused between sleep and waking, whatever dream it was has passed.

I lie back down and look at the notebook from a distance. The light of the full moon breaks through the clouds and illuminates my entire room. Along with it, the corner where the notebook lies. The moment it's touched by the silvery moonlight, it begins to glow like golden light, as if it were a small sun.

"This can't be happening..." my heart starts racing, "I can't be actually experiencing this," I think, and clutch my knees with my hands.

My mind lives at two opposing speeds. On one hand, my nature's curiosity drives me to go see if what's happening now is real or just my imagination. On the other hand, fear-the terror of the unknown-wants to curl me up in the safety of my bed until morning comes so I can throw the leather notebook in the garbage.

But... it's not just that... I'm equally afraid that perhaps my last conversation with my aunt was true. That this notebook really will have answers, that there really is something beyond what we see... that I really am responsible for my mother's death...

The sound of the wind chime begins again from the notebook. I feel a pull toward that sound, as if it calms me, lowers my pulse and my resistance.

I get up from the bed and go over to the notebook. I bend down to pick it up, and it dims its glow as if helping me to read its pages, which are now written with the calligraphic letters of someone...

"It's my mother's..." I realize aloud and immediately turn to the first page of the notebook to catch the letters from the beginning, my mother's words.

The letters detach from the first page and hover before me, golden, luminous, forming the first sentence.

"My beloved daughter Lumi..." tears stream down but I don't lower my gaze, instead I continue to watch the golden letters arrange themselves one after another and write:

"Happy birthday! I know I won't be present at this significantly unique moment of your life, but I know you'll forgive me for this. It was no one's will, everything happens for reasons that aren't ours to interpret. As the First Weaver, Lorella, said many centuries ago, we are all part of an endless story. An endless dream that we discover with every descendant, with every new Weaver, with every new dream we weave into our bloodline so far.

I know, there's so much new information and so little time to explain everything to you. The calling you feel, this need to unravel the thread of your dreams onto paper is something that will follow you throughout your life, whether you choose the path of the Weaver or not. All of us have gone through what you're going through now. Our ancestors, those who chose this path, had great influence on the history and evolution of our civilization, they made sometimes small and sometimes great decisions that determined the path for the next generation of humans and Weavers.

But there were also women of our long bloodline who didn't answer this calling. Your aunt Miriam is one of them. No matter how much I begged her when we were young, she didn't want to dedicate herself to our Art. I knew this would result in her losing her mind and sanity. So I acted as I acted. I wove the dream of her suicide. I didn't want my sister to go mad, locked in an institution until she grew old. I wanted her to be freed from the bonds of her body, to sail the waters of the universe and become stardust. It was my first dream. And I never regretted it..."

The golden letters disappear from the air. The sound of the wind chime stops, and the leather notebook ceases to glow. I feel another loss deep in my soul. The loss of my ignorance until now. Of my childhood, my adolescence.

I needed time to absorb what I learned today. It was all so fresh. I close the notebook and place it under my pillow.

"Lorella... The First Weaver..." a name that was familiar to me as a sound but I couldn't remember from where.

From the next room, I hear the snoring of my long-asleep father, and I wonder if he had even the slightest idea of who my mother really was. If he lived in a lie or at least in his delusion.

I can't say that while my mother was alive they had fights and tensions, but they weren't particularly romantic with each other either. Especially in the last years, they had lost much of their communication. Of course, from my mother's death until today, dad has turned to alcohol. There wasn't a week when he didn't go to some bar at least once. I knew he loved her. I knew he missed her. I knew that somehow this is how he remembered her and forgot her at the same time... I knew... What I didn't know was that I could have helped him.

And to be honest, I still don't know...