Emmi Itäranta - The City of Woven Streets

When I walk past the round room, I see Weaver still sitting there. Irena is with her, and there is a live-fire lantern at her feet.

‘Wait.’ It is Weaver’s voice.

I take a few steps back. Weaver picks up the orange-burning lantern from the floor and offers it to me.

‘Take this,’ she says. ‘You will need it.’

I take the lantern.

‘I hope you find her,’ Weaver says.

So do I, I think, but I remain silent and turn back to the corridor. Irena gets up and walks to the door to close it.

The last thing I see is Weaver’s face and her expression, which I cannot read.

I drag the skiff a short way up the hill, to where the web-maze begins. I hide it in a side alley where I tie it to a stone gatepost. A silence of empty houses and streets is caught in the webs, it sways slowly in the passing breezes. Weaver was right: the lantern will help. The weight of early evening is already upon the day, and most of the glow-glasses in the maze have lost their light. All algae on the island is dying.

The web encloses me, wraps itself into gauzy layers that protect me against everything, yet nothing. I climb towards the house. It is strange to think that this will be the last time I walk up the hill. For many years, the House of Webs has been the only home I have known. Now it is a cluster of dark dead alleys and buildings, bone-smooth floors and grave-cold rooms where only the slow stirrings of sea and earth and air make sounds.

Something beyond my own ragged breathing and footsteps falling on stones catches my ear. I listen.

Ta-tap, ta-tap, ta-tap.

Someone else is moving in the web-maze, not far away from me.

I stop. The footsteps proceed almost exactly in the precise rhythm of my own. As an experiment, I take a few more steps. Like an echo of mine, the movement proceeds, ta-tap ta-tap ta-tap , soft-soled shoes on the humid stones. Their sound is strangely two-phased, like a heartbeat.

I stop again. The other footsteps do the same.

The movement begins to roll in the wall-webs like a wave: it billows one wall first, then another, something denser than wind and air. A body swaying under a sheet. Someone is looking for me, trying to reach towards where I stand.

‘Valeria?’ I say.

Everything goes completely quiet. The movement in the webs undulates to an end. At some distance I see a small flame through the layers of webs: another lantern. Then I hear approaching running steps and see the outline of a body crash onto a web, harsh and violent. The wall-web holds; its fragile and veil-like appearance is woven to mislead. The bottom edge is knotted to metal rings on the ground with multi-layered threads, so you cannot crawl under it. It is hard to climb over, because the fabric offers little foothold. In the light of my lantern I see how a burnished blade thrusts through the web, begins to pick apart the threads and pierce a hole into the surface.

I realize I have made a mistake.

I am not far from the house any more. I blow out my lantern and cannot help but wonder: did Weaver give it to me so I could be more easily seen in the maze? For an instant, doubt drowns me like sudden deep water. Maybe Valeria is not alive. Maybe this is simply another trap laid out for me. But if ever there was a moment to turn back, it is lost now. I abandon the lantern along the way and begin to run up the hill along a route I would find in pitch-dark. I hear the sound of tearing webs behind me and accelerate my pace.

My feet find the way easily. I take caution not to touch the wall-webs so as not to give any other sign of myself apart from the footsteps. I know from experience that the threads muffle sound and make it more difficult to perceive its direction. The other lantern burns further and further away and moves sideways, not drawing closer. Whoever carries it has lost direction. Or so I hope. But the webs will not hold the sharp knife forever.

The stone buildings rise before me as dark figures against the evening sky. The shortest way to Weaver’s study is across the square, but inside the buildings I will be better hidden if my follower reaches the house. On the other hand, I will not see if he finds his way to the square.

I choose the fastest route. The pool in the middle is a dead, dark eye, without a trace of glow left. The contours of the buildings are already melting into the deepening dusk. Soon it will be impossible to see anything.

The outermost folding door of the Halls of Weaving is slightly open. I enter through it and glance behind me: no light or movement anywhere. I pull the door closed quietly. I fumble my way between the looms and hit my knee against the corner of a wooden frame. Something clatters to the floor and pain bursts along my leg. I stop to listen. It is quiet.

I reach the door that opens to the corridor and slip through it. Weaver’s study is only twenty steps away. Its tall door opens easily and without sound.

There is barely any light in the room. A narrow waxing moon is floating upwards in the sky outside the corner window. The watergraph gleams as a tall, mute statue.

‘Valeria?’ I whisper into the air of the study.

A faint wave moves from one tapestry to the next on the walls. It may be just air flowing through the open door. It may be just imagination. I listen to my own breathing.

‘Valeria?’

The word fades into the space of the room.

I hear a sound, brief, wordless. I walk towards it, taking short, wary steps. I stop before a tapestry falling all the way to the floor near the corner where Weaver keeps her medical store. Our Lady of Weaving stands in front of me, covered in layers of web, face and limbs half invisible. Behind the tapestry I sense a slow and faint breathing, forced into silence. I grasp the tapestry and push it slightly to the side.

I see movement in the dark. I hear water slosh inside a glass. A frail, blue light as thin as a singing medusa’s tentacle begins to grow. The space is a simple alcove with a bench embedded in the wall, a blanket fallen into a heap and a jug of water. Valeria gets up from the bench. Her eyes are big and full of dusk when she steps to me and pulls me against herself. I stay there for many moments, listening to the rhythm of her breathing, always faster than mine, and I let her warmth absorb into me. Each curve, rise and dent of her body fits in with mine.

‘Are you well?’ I ask.

Valeria pulls away from me and nods. Her gaze is serious. It falls upon my brow. She raises a hand to my face and strokes the still-stinging tattoo with her fingertips, a touch light as air. Then she clasps my hand and places it on her chest. We must run and hide, but her face is close to mine and I do not wish to move away from under her touch. The night coils further, the killer’s footsteps draw closer and the world will not stop turning, the sea rolling its wrap over the island.

‘We must go,’ I say eventually.

Valeria picks something from the bench. I recognize it as a piece of charcoal when she begins to write on the wall with it. I notice now the walls are full of faint writing. I discern words among them: Father. Mother. Weaver. Council. Eliana.

Weaver told me to wait, Valeria writes. Something overflows within me. I realize she has continued to learn to read during her imprisonment. I want to ask her to write everything she has wished to say and could not, but time is running out, light is running out, and we must get away.

‘I know,’ I say. ‘But someone followed me here.’

Valeria’s eyes widen and her mouth settles into a line. She nods, takes my hand and picks up the glow-glass. I listen. I hear no movement. We step out from behind the tapestry and walk across the study to the door.

‘We must make it to the maze,’ I say. ‘Other routes are cut off.’