The Fallen Silk

cyclical

Miss Effie Wickes,

We would like to formally invite you to the Autumn Celebration, a yearly gathering of the entire town, which commences this Friday at eleven o'clock in the morning, at the Anderson Estate Orchard. We will be spending the morning and afternoon picking apples and berries, and then a formal event for the adults will begin at six o'clock that evening in the back garden of the Estate proper. Food, drink, and merriment will be provided. We do look forward to your attendance.

With Regards, Mrs Carolyn Anderson.

Her mother had loved the Autumn Celebration – during fall break, Theola would whisk Effie away from the city in order to attend the festival. It was always such a big deal, as were the other seasonal celebrations the town held every year. But there was something about the Autumn festival that filled her mother with warmth and balance and a nearly magical glow that had always excited Effie. She remembered the Apple Picking Ceremony and learning how to make cider and pies and eating the apples with hand-made almond butter. The children would all be ushered inside for supper around four-thirty and the adults would finish decorating the back garden for their Celebration. The juniors and seniors of Norswood High would watch the children, carve pumpkins, read faerie tales, and do other activities until the Celebration was over – at which point, most of the children would stay the night at the Anderson Estate, and the adults would disappear into the forest for whatever it was they did. Effie had never asked her mother what they did in within the dark trees, and she knew that even if she had, Theola wouldn't tell her. The only explanation the children received was that they would learn once they were adults.

Effie looked at Nimbus, the kitten's soft purrs vibrating against her chest, and looked back at the invitation beside her on the couch. It was as if she was meant to be there, in the cottage, in the town, at this time of year just for the celebration, just to see how cyclical the wheel of time truly was.

***

A plate of jam biscuits and a cup of steaming tea sat on the side table, and Effie moved around the room, carrying boxes covered in dust from the closet and placing them on the floor and the bed. She couldn't put it off, she knew she had to go through her mother's things, but there was a pain in her heart that wouldn't go away.

Satisfied that she had enough boxes to fill a few hours, Effie sat in the centre of her bed and opened the first box – it was filled with journals and books and dusty, faded letters written on handmade paper. The writing was definitely her mother's, and the subjects ranged from longing to excitement to a dark depression Effie hadn't known her mother had experienced until recently. She placed the letters in a pile beside her, hoping to go through them all at a later date.

The diaries were just as jumpy – some entries were so bright that Effie felt blinded by her mother's happiness, yet scattered throughout the pages were such dark thoughts and feelings that confused her. How had her mother dealt with such a jumble of emotions? Effie stacked the diaries beside the letters, planning on putting them all together to form the story of Theola Wickes in a way that she might be able to understand her mother's illness better.

The books excited something in her that hadn't shown itself in years; the childlike wonder and curiosity of old tales and fables, the undying innocence of stories that taught morals and valuable lessons but still caused such a deep fear within the readers that they would never dare do what the characters had done. There were bookmarks made of cloth, leaves, bits of paper stuck between pages, corners bent; she felt that each page held a clue to what her mother had felt and thought throughout the years.

Finding these things made her feel closer to Theola, made the loss of her mother more bearable, as if she had not died at all but was only away indefinitely.

Effie moved to the next box, pulling it onto the bed and opening the flaps to reveal a heap of clothes. She lifted the top piece and recognised her mother's favourite house-coat – it was a knit sweater that, Effie remembered, fell to her mother's mid-thigh; the sleeves had covered her mother's hands, and it would open to frame her in deep forest green. She squeezed it against her, taking in a deep breath, and she wanted to cry. The tears threatened to fall, but she put the sweater down and sighed in agitation. The next piece of clothing was a strange skirt made from different patterns of fabric – she placed it on the other side of the books and letters and diaries, planning to donate it to the local thrift shop with most of the other clothing.

The last piece of clothing in the box was a reddish-brown dress; she remembered her mother wearing it to every Autumn Celebration. She remembered the way it had clung to her upper body and hugged her hips, but fell loosely around her legs to the floor. It had sleeves that hung like butterfly wings over the shoulders and a band of beaded fabric that ran under the bust.

Effie stood from the bed and pulled a hanger from another box she had found; she placed the dress on the hanger and placed it on the bathroom door, looking at it in deep thought. Her mother had had exquisite taste in clothing, and the dress before her was a tribute to Theola's style and Effie knew that she had found the exact dress she would wear to the Autumn Celebration.

Surrounded by memories, Effie fell back on the bed and took a deep breath, closing her eyes. The soft mewling that signalled Nimbus had found her way up the stairs did not stir her from her place. She waited for the kitten to find her on the bed, and when the feline climbed her way up Effie's leg and onto her stomach, she smiled and ran her hands over her head. She closed her eyes and fell asleep, enveloped in the smell of her mother.