The Weaver

There was once a little girl named Jesme who lived with her father in a small apartment above an even smaller shop on the main road of town. Her father was a proprietor of the shop, which drew in women and men from across the kingdom, for the craftsmanship of its expert mending. Her mother, now passed, had taught her how to mend garments of the finest fabrics, leaving behind not a single trace of the fabric’s undoing. Desperate for a better life for his daughter, her father would spend many days and nights away in nearby towns showcasing the expert hand-stitching of his wife, and soon his daughter as well.

“With expert hands, she will be the catch of the town!” exclaimed her father seeing his daughter’s handiwork.

As Jesme bloomed with age, her father would often bring her along on his trips, afraid to leave her alone at home. It became his mission to showcase not just the fine craftsmanship of his business, but display his most prized possession – his daughter.

At first, Jesme reveled in their trips. She would wear her mother’s dresses, with only a few pins and tucks in places she had yet to fill. The dresses were just an inch or two longer than they should’ve been, but she was grateful for it, since it hid her worn leather slippers whether other girls her age would have jeweled glass ones. On a few occasions, if there was a festival in town, her father would stop and take her for a turn around the dancefloor, his arms carefully holding her like a frame holds the most magnificent painting.

But as time went on, Jesme began to dread her trips. Her father would have one too many pitchers of ale, his dancing became increasingly difficult due to his aging knees, and Jesme would drive the ride home alone as her father sang or slept in the wagon behind her.

“One day, sweet Jesme, you will be the most desirable lady in town!” He’d howl sprawled out on bags of fabric she would later have to press. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d stay up late into the night to make sure the dresses were placed back on their racks as if they’d never left. “You will garner the best husband and have the most perfect life.” He’d promise.

The more Jesme heard it, the more she wondered what it meant to have the most perfect life. She knew what it meant to her father, to be wedded and not have to mend a single dress, whether she wanted to or not. It meant freedom from the toils he’d suffered, a life of ease and nobility.

But Jesme didn’t want that life, did she? It sounded awfully boring. She enjoyed mending fabrics, but perhaps there were other things she enjoyed? The idea of sitting in fine dresses all day waiting for a husband seemed empty – not abundant. She didn’t know what she wanted, but that life certainly wasn’t it.

With every passing day, Jesme watched as women poured into the small shop from towns near and far. With them, they carried not just beautiful gowns, but pants with legs both wide and slim, uniforms of all kinds, and shoes, boots and slippers to match. The farther her father travelled, the more variety she saw in the items she mended. In her father’s single mission to find the most eligible bachelor, Jesme found a whole wide world opening up in front of her.  

While her father increasingly passed the days sleeping off whatever revelry from the night before, Jesme would chat with each of the patrons as they marvelled in the mending of her work. They’d tell her about all sorts of adventures that had caused the tears needing mending, from carrying feisty toddlers to climbing mountains to healing souls and everything in between. Each story took Jesme to new places and she thrilled in the expansion she felt in her chest.

She wanted to keep every story close to her heart, so Jesme began to secretly and carefully remove one thread from each garment she mended as a keepsake. To make sure the missing thread wouldn’t jeopardize the integrity of its garment, she would weave in one single white thread from her own garment in its place. The new thread was completely undetectable, almost invisible thanks to Jesme’s gifted weaving, almost blending magically into the threads around it.

The more she did this, the more vulnerable her own garment became. She knew she needed to do something to fix it or soon it would be too sheer with nothing left to hold it together. Sure that her father would notice the missing thread from the roll, she began to take the threads she’d collected from the garments she mended and weaved them through her own.

It was hardly noticeable at first, but over time, her own garment became more colourful and vibrant, taking on a life of its own. It was not a menders garment, nor a mother, a princess, a teacher, a nurse, or a rider. It was all of them. She’d even woven threads from the power suits, safety jackets and uniforms of men. The blended fabric was both soft and strong, delicate and impenetrable. It was a fabric unlike any the world had seen before.

As word spread about the garments. Tales of the shop’s magic spread throughout the entire kingdom.  

As Jesme’s plain white garment changed, others began to comment on its extraordinary colours, textures and weightlessness. The mothers asked for similar weaving to bring colour into their brown tunics. The princesses asked for modifications to their stiff corsets. Even the businessmen quietly nodded to the softest silk, careful to avoid being seen doing it.

Despite the visible changes to Jesme’s own white garment – now vibrant and variable from one day to the next -- her father hadn’t seemed to notice or if he did, he wouldn’t say. He continued to see what he wanted to. It was the only thing he could see. His daughter was becoming exactly what he imagined -- the most desirable mender and perfect bride.  

Yet, Jesme grew wearier with each new garment in her lap demanding an exchange of some kind Rather than take any additional threads from her patrons’ garments for fear of taking too much, Jesme began to remove the borrowed threads from her own garment, undoing the very work she’d spent months weaving together.  She tired from the late nights spent weaving more robust fabrics for others, as her own garment frayed at the seams.

“Hello, are you the magical weaver?” said a voice at the counter one morning even though the door chime hadn’t sounded.

“Um, no. I mean, yes. I am the weaver, but it is not magic,” replied Jesme honestly. While her father enjoyed talking up her work, she shied from it. In fact, she often worried that one day someone would see her for the fraud that she was -- that she’d done nothing short of stolen precious threads, in exchange for her plain white ones.

“Well, I’ve heard great things about the powers of your mending,” the woman went on, carefully removing her hat and setting it down on the counter. It had many colours woven through it, some shimmered in the light pouring in from the large storefront window. “I’ve heard of women trying new skills, finding new passions and men approaching important business negotiations with mindfulness and compassion.”

Jesme stared at the woman, her eyes widening in amazement. “That’s wonderful, but I can assure you that it had nothing to do with my mending,” Jesme argued.

“You know, I was a mender once. It is an incredibly important gift to tend to the garments people use to tell the world who they are. Sometimes those garments can be restrictive, keeping someone locked in place. Other times, like when donning costumes, they can be a white canvas enabling people to step outside of who they believe they are or ought to be; to try on new versions of themselves.”  

Hearing the woman speak felt oddly comfortable to Jesme. As if she’d known her all her life.

“It’s not easy to do that, of course, and some people need a little help to try on something different.” The woman continued, taking off the most indescribable shawl Jesme had ever seen and placed it on the counter beside her colourful majestic hat.

Jesme stared at the shawl, which dulled in comparison to anything else the woman had on. It was a pale nude colour, almost translucent against the wood grain of the countertop. It moved with the slight breeze of the open window, rising and falling gently with each breath as if still resting on the woman’s shoulders.

“Like it?” she asked noting Jesme’s gaze. “It was once given to me by a woman I knew. She’d done amazing things with her life, and shared her gifts with the world around her. She believed herself to be nothing special at all, but she was everything to the people she touched. Including me.”

“That sounds like an extraordinary life.”

“It was,” the woman looked away for a moment, then back at Jesme. “Why don’t you keep it. I have no use for it anymore. I’ve lived many adventures and it no longer suits anything I wear these days. I hope you find some use for it.”

Jesme looked at the woman strangely. She wasn’t sure she understood how a piece of fabric could do all of that, but she didn’t want to be unkind by questioning her.

“That’s awfully kind of you, madame. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“No, no. I’m just passing through,” she smiled picking up her hat. “But one day I may visit again, and when I do, perhaps you can tell me stories of all the wonderful lives you’ve touched with your weaving. Starting with your own.” She said with a knowing look as she gestured with her towards Jesme’s own tattered garments.

“Ah, yes, of course,” Jesme answered shyly. “We’ve been very busy these days and I haven’t had the chance to tend to… er… my own .” She laughed nervously, shrinking slightly behind the counter. She gathered up the woman’s shawl in her arms to hide herself with it.

“Well, you will find that once you mend your own garment, you will be able to weave like magic,” she winked as she pulled on her leather riding gloves and turned to leave.

“Try using the thread from the shawl. It looks like it would fit perfectly, and it’s already tattered in places anyway.” She pulled open the door and the chime sang as she left.

That night, after she’d finished her work for the day, Jesme sat at her sewing table with the dull tattered shawl in her lap. She thought carefully about what the beautiful aged woman had said, and began to pull out one thread at a time, and wove it carefully through her own garment. Yet with each thread she pulled, another one appeared in its place.

Jesme couldn’t believe her eyes. Was this really happening? Surely, she must be seeing things. She put down the fabrics. She needed rest.

Only, the next night, the same thing happened. Then again, the next. Could it be that the fabric the strange woman had left her was magical?

After mending her own garment, she began to feel stronger and more confident. She dared to use the magical threads in the fabrics of her customers, again carefully removing one of its threads and replacing it with the dull white one of the shawl. Like magic, the new thread wove into the threads around it, indistinguishable, yet somehow brightening and strengthening the garment as a whole.

With every exchange of threads, the fabric of each individual dress, uniform, apron or power suit, became something slightly different, borrowing and trading its qualities. The power suit became gentler with the thread of the nurse woven in; the apron more resilient with the toughness of the miner's uniform. The exchange brought more people to the shop, lines formed along the sidewalk, stories were shared and strangers became friends.

All the while, Jesme’s own garment grew again to become the vibrant version it had once been with the borrowed threads of other garments. She heard the tales of discovery, relief, joy and even finding love from the people whose garments she weaved with new threads. Jesme’s world grew larger and more expansive with every story told in that small shop, the mended and rewoven fabric sitting between them.

Indeed, she was a gifted mender, but she was more than that. She brought people together and created a tapestry of community; she built resilience and courage where there was none. It wasn’t the thread, but her use of it that was magical.

She wondered if she’d ever see the majestic woman who stepped into her shop that day and handed her an old and dull tattered shawl. At times, she even wondered if it had all been a dream. And if the woman did return, she’d have much to share, of the many adventures and the lives she weaved, including her own.  

By Jess