The Silent Isle

The Silent Isle

  By Zoey Brouthers

  Copyright 2013 Zoey Brouthers

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you, Melody, Mom, Elizabeth, Brittany, and Rachel for being my first readers. Colin, thank you for the cover!

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter One

  And the silent isle imbowers

  The Lady of Shalott…

  There she weaves by night and day

  A magic web with colors gay.

  Adele lifted her latest creation to the light, eyeing the colorful scene critically. She’d finished it so quickly, with so little trouble, that her suspicions were roused. There had to be a mistake somewhere, one she hadn’t yet caught. A loose thread, a mangled knot in the back, warp showing where it should be weft or vice versa. But no matter how closely she looked, how carefully she ran her fingers over the fabric, she found nothing. The piece was perfect, her only one so far to come out exactly as she’d imagined it.

  Frowning a little, she laid the afghan over the massive bench in her workroom.

  She usually wove natural scenes, unless the commission called for something different. Fields of flowers, stately trees, mist-shrouded mountains, even a starkly beautiful desert, once. This was completely different. It was a riot of color, vibrant and wrenching, a story told in fabric. She’d woven in the style of medieval tapestries before, by request, and this had some similarities, but it depicted no tale she’d ever heard before. Elements of other stories appeared throughout; a brilliantly armored knight on a horse, a flaming dragon, a white stag all leapt from the blanket. But what about the little boat floating gently down a river, or the weeping lily?

  She didn’t know what made her weave such disparate images into the afghan, only that she’d felt compelled to do so. And she’d done them all easily, despite having no pattern or conscious plan. Without a single mistake.

  Shaking her head at the mystery of it, she turned to her desktop to see what orders had arrived while she was ensconced in her art. She scrolled through the long list of e-mails and read through the important ones. One company wanted three new designs and prototypes for their winter collection, a Seattle store owner asked for an original to replace the most recently sold, and four requests for personalized gifts. The timing would be a little tight, but she could do it. With the holiday season fast approaching, she’d have to or risk losing business. Considering that she had to live most of the year off her holiday profits, she couldn’t afford to lose any business. Of course, there was always her not-too-shabby savings account, but that was for emergencies. At least she had a few originals neatly packed away for Mr. Hannon to sell, creations from the summer that took some of the pressure off.

  Padding from the workroom to the kitchen, she mentally organized the next few weeks while she prepared and ate a turkey sandwich. The silence of the house was restful, allowing her to work without interruption. Sometimes she missed her mother’s quiet presence, but on the whole she was satisfied with her solitude. Thank God for phone and internet. They made everything so much easier. She no longer had to leave her work to go to the grocery store or library, to keep in touch with friends and clients. Everything could be delivered to her or picked up from her doorstep, and she could focus on her art. When the occasional bout of loneliness did hit her, it was a simple matter to schedule a Skype call with a friend. And her dedication to her work, her choice to stay inside as much as possible, only added to her “eccentric artist” persona. It was amazing what some people would pay for the chance to say they owned something by the reclusive Lady A.

  Her lips twitched as she thought of that ridiculous name. It had been a joke, a silly stage name to label her as the artist of her first blanket, instead of her mother. She’d been fourteen and afraid that no one would like a first attempt by a teenage girl, so she and her mother had come up with Lady A, an ageless moniker to disguise her youth. They’d giggled about it. But her work had been an instant hit, and Lady A became the identity of the woman behind the weave.

  Wiping crumbs from the table into her cupped palm, Adele dusted them off into the compost bin and quickly washed the few dishes she’d used. Then, making sure her hands were free of soap, crumbs, and anything else that might mar the threads she used, she went back to work.

  Chapter Two

  And moving thro’ a mirror clear

  That hangs before her all the year,

  Shadows of the world appear…

  “I am half-sick of shadows,” said

  The Lady of Shalott.

  Her friend’s words reverberated in her head. Go outside, take a walk. Who knows, maybe you’ll find yourself walking all the way to North Carolina!

  She couldn’t. Could she?

  Adele paced around her workroom, possibilities nagging at her. The holiday rush was over, the deadlines all met. She’d even made headway into the next few months’ orders. She should have felt accomplished and proud; she should have been weaving for the joy of it. But lately she’d felt a pull, something calling her away from the loom. She spent more time at her computer, e-mailing colleagues, reading news stories, watching videos, and sometimes wishing for another person with whom to share all that.

  She stopped in front of The Tapestry, as she’d taken to calling it, its riotous color hanging splendid on the wall. When she looked at it, which she did far too often, the pull grew stronger. If she wanted to return to her normal life she should take it down, fold it up, and tuck it away. Or better yet, send it in to Mr. Hannon to sell on commission. Reaching up to the dragon, she gently stroked its streaming red tail.

  No, she’d never sell it, nor hide it away.

  The mail slot clanged open and shut, breaking the thread of her wandering thoughts. Her heart picked up and she headed eagerly toward the sound. Maybe he had finally written again.

  But only bills and advertisements rested in the wire basket. That was a month without word from him, when he used to reply once a week, regular as clockwork. They’d been pen pals when they were younger, her mother’s attempt to keep her from total isolation. She didn’t even know how her mother had found him, a boy who was willing to write – actually, physically write – to a girl two years his junior whom he’d never met. It hadn’t lasted long, of course, their correspondence dropping off week by week, then month by month as he advanced through high school. She hadn’t cared much at the time, too caught up in the thrill and concentration of weaving. In fact, she hadn’t thought about her pen pal in probably ten years or more when, about a year ago, a new letter had suddenly arrived.

  They’d been doing much better the second time around, exchanging letters once a week, even during the busy holidays. His were full of daily adventures; a run-in with a crotchety old lady at the supermarket, raucous game days with groups of friends, the latest family drama, troubles in his work as a detective. Her letters to him seemed pale and anemic in comparison. But he didn’t seem to think so, even going so far as to mention how much he loved receiving and reading them. Though they’d never met, never exchanged pictures, never spoken to each other, Adele felt he was the one person in the world who really knew her. And she felt that through his letters, she knew him: gentleman, good-heart, fierce, and loyal.

  Now he’d missed three weeks in a row. She hadn’t. No matter that he hadn’t responded as usual, she’d continued writing to him. After all, mail was lost or misrouted every day.

  That excuse had lost its efficacy the week before.

  Tucking away the ache threatening her heart, she returned to her loom, her truest companion. There was an itch in her fingers that said
she had a weave to create.

  ~~~~

  For days she wove, watching the motions of her hands, hardly noticing what colors she chose or how they intertwined. Her thoughts were elsewhere, abnormally focused on the world outside. Every once in a while she’d stop to gaze at The Tapestry, certain there was something she should understand about it. Whatever that might be continued to escape her, and so she returned to her work in progress, never noticing what she wove.

  Her hands finally dropped away six days after she’d started. Adele stared at them, feeling drained, too weary even to look at what she’d made.

  The mail slot clanged open and shut and she rose without thinking, moving toward the door and what might await her there.

  A thick stack of mail met her, several days’ worth collected in the basket. Through a sense of floating, of her mind not fully seated in her body, she shuffled through the envelopes and magazines. What little hope she had the energy to muster had begun to fade when one of the pieces of mail seemed to leap into focus.

  It was from him.

  All the other mail fell to the floor, sharp corners bending as they hit her feet and the hardwood. She tore into the letter without noticing and read the few lines written there. A sigh of relief escaped her and she became aware of how tired she was, how long it had been since her last meal. It happened like that sometimes, her work pressing on her until she forgot to take care of herself properly. Heading to the kitchen, she let the contents of his letter simmer in her mind.

  He was well, or soon would be. A bullet, a medically induced coma, and a stay in the hospital had kept him from writing, but he’d finally convinced his brother to give him pen and paper.

  Knowing what had kept him from writing was a relief, but it didn’t lessen the strange urge to step out of her comfortable bower. In fact, she mused as she devoured her hastily prepared meal, his letter seemed to have strengthened the pull. Visions of knights riding against dragons invaded her mind, the images as clear and vibrant as those on The Tapestry. One knight in particular, clothed in bright silver armor, his face hidden behind a slitted metal visor, fought with particular skill and courage. As she watched him battle a blood-red dragon, nimbly dodging bursts of flame, something flickered at the edge of her vision. The white stag bounded away and she followed, unable to do anything else. Somehow she knew that following the stag would lead to the answers she needed.

  It led her through verdant forests, thick with the scent of earth and pine, past towering fields of rich yellow corn, over bridges both quaint and stately, into mountains, and beyond. For a while she kept pace with him, but as their journey continued the stag drew further and further away. Yet she felt no misgivings. He was clearly leading her somewhere, and when he disappeared for good she would be left in that place.

  At last, after many twists and turns on a vine-shrouded path, she stood on the bank of a gently flowing river. The stag was gone. A small boat was tied near her feet, as pure a white as the stag’s coat had been. She was supposed to get in and let it take her.

  For some reason, that thought unnerved her, enough that she jerked awake to find herself slumped over the kitchen table. She straightened slowly, stretching protesting muscles and surreptitiously wiping the drool from her cheek. The dream, so real, stayed with her as she ordered herself to bed and much-needed rest.

  But instead of going to her bedroom, she turned into the workroom once more. Before she knew it she was staring at The Tapestry, a shiver running down her spine. The knight, the dragon, the stag, and the boat…all were exactly like their dream counterparts. She’d never dreamed about her work before, not like that. Inspiration had come in her sleep, that wasn’t too unusual, but never after a work was completed did it invade her rest. Shaking off the chill of that thought, Adele turned resolutely away.

  The mirror startled her, the sudden appearance of her reflection in her workroom shocking enough that she backed up. Her back hit The Tapestry before she realized what she saw.

  Not a mirror. Her loom.

  Her loom, with its finished work still stretched between its beams. A self-portrait.

  “What made you weave that?” she murmured as her heartbeat calmed, the sound of her voice loud in the hushed house. Carefully, she approached again, studying the image of herself. Tall, slender, with long honey-blonde hair and blue eyes, even features and cupid’s-bow lips: everything matched what she saw in the mirror. No wonder it had startled her. But the more she examined it, the more upset she became.

  The woman in the loom was unsmiling, but even more than that, she was cold and alone. All around her was murky darkness, a striking contrast to her pale beauty; a striking consistency with the sadness in her eyes.

  “Is this me?” she asked the air. Her chest ached with dismay. “Am I really so lost in shadows?”

  No one answered.

  With a final glance at that disturbing mirror, she walked slowly from the room. Her thoughts whirled, everything she thought she knew about herself crumbling in the face of that portrait. How long had she been burying the dissatisfaction that was now revealed? How long had she hidden her own feelings and wishes? Surely she would have recognized them sooner if it had been very long at all. Could this explain The Tapestry and the pull she felt when she looked at it?

  Yes, her heart whispered, and just like that Adele knew what she was going to do.

  She was going to break out.

  Chapter Three

  He flash’d into the crystal mirror,

  ‘Tirra lirra,’ by the river

  Sang Sir Lancelot.

  She was ready when Mr. Hannon knocked, having checked and rechecked that she had everything on her list. Gripping the suitcase handle firmly, she took a last look around at her quiet house, her refuge and her prison. She’d told her clients that she was taking a long-awaited vacation and that she’d be back by the end of three months, but really, she had no plan.

  No, that wasn’t quite true. Her plan was just too vague to set into a timeline. Leave the house. Travel, have adventures, meet people. And maybe, just maybe, meet one particular person.

  How could you put those into an itinerary?

  She opened the door. “Thank you,” she said to the gray-haired man who stood there. “I really appreciate you coming all this way.”

  “My pleasure. Besides,” he said with a grin, “how could I turn down the chance to finally meet Lady A in person? You’re younger than I expected.” He swept a look up and down, as if he were comparing the reality to what he’d imagined. His pleasant face showed nothing but curiosity; if he was disappointed, he hid it well. “I don’t suppose I could convince you to let me see your studio?” he asked wistfully, the question stopping her in the midst of locking her door.

  Adele pictured him in her house, walking through her workroom, seeing The Tapestry hanging on the wall and her self-portrait draped over the bench. She’d expected it would make her uneasy, imagining another person, essentially a stranger, in her space. Instead she felt only a strange excitement. What would he make of her unconventional pieces?

  “Yes, you could,” she answered, and led him inside. She left her suitcase on the porch and the front door open and wondered if this was her first adventure.

  Mr. Hannon followed eagerly as she entered her workroom, his entire face lighting enthusiastically when he saw her warp-weighted loom. He peppered her with questions, technical and personal, and carefully kept his hands locked together behind his back. When he spotted The Tapestry he almost drooled, staring at it for long silent moments, much as she often did. Then the questions started up again and she told him the truth: she didn’t know what made her weave it. They both gazed at the colorful blanket a while longer before turning back to the rest of the room. He glanced at the self-portrait and frowned, looking back and forth between Adele and her image. His mouth opened as if to speak and she waited keenly for his opinion…but he shut his mouth without a word.

  “Well,” he sighed eventually, “That was a pleasur
e. Are you sure you won’t sell The Tapestry?” he wheedled, adopting her name for it without pause.

  “I’m sure,” she answered firmly. It had been hard enough, deciding not to take it with her. But it would require a suitcase all its own, and it made no sense to carry two when everything she’d need fit into one.

  “So you’re traveling by train, eh?” Mr. Hannon inquired as they settled into the car. “Going anywhere in particular?”

  “Oregon and California, at least. Then…we’ll see.” There were a lot of states between Washington and Georgia, a lot of people.

  “Train and car are the way to go if you want to see the sights,” he told her, and launched into reminiscences of college road trips. She listened interestedly, laughing and wincing in turn at his stories. Hopefully she’d have stories of her own to tell when she returned.

  The hour-long drive into Seattle passed quickly, and before long she found herself standing at the Amtrak station, waving farewell to her ride. Her courage faltered briefly as he disappeared into traffic, the magnitude of what she was doing hitting her as she stood alone once more. She’d never realized how bolstering the presence of another person could be, yet after spending less than two hours with Mr. Hannon she missed his cheerful friendliness. Listening to him had distracted her from nervous thoughts and uncertainty, but now he was gone and that was all she was left with.

  Adele straightened her shoulders, reminding herself that though she was nervous and uncertain, she was also excited. Curious. Perhaps even adventurous.

  Hefting her suitcase, she moved up the platform to watch for the train.

  ~~~~

  “Is this seat taken?”

  The question drew her from the letter she was perusing and she looked up to see an attractive blonde man smiling down at her. The dining car was emptying out after the last sitting, both of her tablemates having left already. There were several vacant tables.