This flash fiction is extra fun because I combined two different prompts for it, the Wednesday Words prompt “I used to practice weaving” and a dialogue prompt I got from The Muse Writers Center from one of their write-in nights. I had to start the story with, “I think you should sit down.” Honestly, I’m rather pleased with how this turned out combining both prompts.
“I think you should sit down,” she says, her voice raspy as she struggles to breathe.
Not one to deny my grandma, I scramble into the seat next to her and grip her frail, shaking hand. Her touch is cold, as if her heart no longer has the strength to pump. I rub her stiff fingers, trying to give her my heat.
“I used to practice weaving.”
I inhale sharply. My grandmother had always been such a stern woman, strict even in her devotion and love. Magic was forbidden. Not allowed in the home. But to hear that she had once dabbled in it, in weaving? Impossible.
“As in magic?” I ask.
She hisses, but it turns into a cough.
“Don’t say that,” she pleads, glancing around the room.
“Sorry, Grandma.”
“No one else can know. It’s a curse, dangerous.”
“I promise, Grandma.”
She tutts. “It’s all my fault, Jean. All my fault.”
Her fingers still in my grip. I swallow, not liking the tension in the room.
“What do you mean, Grandma?”
She shudders. “It’s because of me that they’re watching, waiting for when one of my daughters tries to weave. They want our bloodline. Jean, please, promise you’ll never weave. Your children will never weave. It’s too dangerous.”
My gut sinks. My first blanket hangs on a smuggled loom in my bedroom, shimmering from my first attempt.
“It’s too late, Grandma.”
Tears streak down her cheeks, and she gasps a final time. “Then they’ve already found you.”
For more enchanting Wednesday Words by other authors, check out the official Wednesday Words page!