The Seamstress

The Truth

The woman wrenches the needle from the girl's grasp and throws it across the room. "You cannot do better?" she whispers, her voice dangerously low.

"Y-y-you're scaring me," the girl whispers.

"Good!" hisses the woman. She thrusts a knitting needle in her lap, kicking the rocking chair as she walks past. "Hurry up. You are learning too slowly."

*

I'm dying. They didn't kill me but I'm dying.

The pain slowly drifts away as I focus on the fact that these might be my last moments of life, inside a cursed forest in front of three ugly creatures wearing clothes.

It's so cold.

Something wet--sweat--trickles down my forehead and pools into the blood surrounding me. My vision blurs, colours and shapes blending together in a dizzy swirling mess as I begin to shiver violently, my body twisting and shaking against the crimson-stained grass.

"You are dying," the Nummularius say.

I don't even have the strength to speak; the excessive screaming has left my throat dry and choked.

A wave of pain hits me and I take a blade of grass in my teeth, biting down hard as the lingering feeling of fingernails dig into me.

I want to scream. I want to scream until my throat is raw and my lungs burst. I don't want to die, I CAN'T die, but..

Yes, I'm dying. I won't be able to save Zinnia. I won't be able to kill Absinthe. I'll die and my body will be left here, in a clearing where nobody else will f--

I feel one of the Nummularius kneel next to me. "We will need you alive to get rid of Absinthe, so hold still," it says.

Didn't they just try to kill me so Absinthe could live?

Desperate for any chance of survival, I do as it says and stop moving, every inch of my body screaming in protest as it flips me over so I'm laying on my back.

The Nummularius lays its hands on my forehead, fingernails framing my skull. I helplessly try to draw in breath as the cold becomes unbearable, like ice shoving itself into my skin and worming into my flesh.

Is it going to stab my head?

I try to wiggle out of its grip, but I can't move. I just lay there, limp and weak, as the Nummularius moves its mouth close to my head, uttering words from a language I don't understand.

Immediately the pain is lifted, like a blanket being torn from my body, and my muscles relax as I sink into the grass, the Nummularius moving away.

I find the ability to speak. "You healed me," I croak, trying to sit up.

Thank God. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

"We need you," the Nummularius says, lifting me by the arms and helping me lean against the tree. "Sit still for a moment. It will take time to restore all the blood you lost."

"Why did you do that to me?" I cry, my voice raising as strength slowly returns to me.

"We thought you were just another person prying in matters that do not concern you," they answer, standing in a straight line again. "But now that you have murdered the Seamstress's cat, she must be killed."

"Why?"

"When you killed him, you took away two things from her," the Nummularius reply. "Her ability to love, and some of her power."