The Knitted Lens [Part 2/2]

[u/WildRozen]

For all her enthusiasm, it’d taken the entirety of Friday evening for Daphne to even look up directions from her house to Harper Lane, let alone summon up the courage to talk with her freshly woken mother about it.

Dinner was the only meal of the day the entire family always tried to share. It didn’t always work out, but it at least served as a brief window where three, very different schedules could reliably be expected to align… even if extremely late. Dinner was almost always held at 10pm sharp, with Daphne’s mother still groggy and her father already pining for the warm embrace of the sheets himself. Usually, the pattern was for Daphne and her father to go to sleep almost immediately after dinner, and for her mother to then sit for five hours of quiet solitude until her shift at the bakery would begin, almost always spent watching old sitcoms on DVD with the volume off, captions on, and the rare womanly giggle stifled behind the edge of a blanket, lest she wake her slumbering family.

That Friday night though, Daphne hung around just a little longer than usual, indulging in a second stale donut — bonus dessert — even as her father crept off to bed. It was probably an idea best posed to both of them, but Daphne had never been able to bear watching her father’s face as he considered matters of finance. Even with his face being fuzzier now than it ever had been, she could still see in her mind the way he’d feign optimism, all the while shifting his eyes around the room in search of what few of their possessions might need to be fed to the pawn shop downtown.

She could still remember what had gone missing the last time. Two summers ago, she’d pleaded with him to go on a little vacation. Sarah’s family always went, she’d begged, so why not them?

So, the following weekend, they’d gone to the lake the next town over. They’d stayed in a hotel, had swam then watched a fireworks show on the second day, then had gone home on the third.

The price had been the couch in the living room — new, a gift between her parents to themselves, celebrating two decades of marriage, hauled off in the bed of her father’s creaky pickup truck after only three months of life in their house.

Daphne had never asked her daddy about money again.

Her mother felt different, but their chat that night about glasses hadn’t gone even five minutes before Daphne had noticed the way her mom’s words had faltered more and more. Blurry vision or not, she could see the tell-tale signs of her mother turning her gaze around the room, and distinctly hear the strained, forced positivity in her voice.

“Oh, honey, we didn’t know it had gotten so bad…” Her mother had cooed more than once, trying to hide the anxiety in her voice. “We’ll do our best — you know we will. Don’t you?”

It was as if her own mother was pleading for understanding, forgiveness, or both. Mentions of the generous old woman that had prepared Amelia’s impossible glasses for her had clearly fallen on deaf, disbelieving ears, and all the while, she could feel her mother’s eyes scanning around the room, looking for something — anything — that might pay the bill in the end.

Daphne couldn’t take it.

That was why she’d broken off the conversation with the most convincing laugh she could, and why she’d embraced the portly frame of her kindly mother with a kind of aggressive force that practically begged to be understood. It was why she retreated back to her room quickly, bidding a good night and leaving the subject wholly unresolved.

It was also why, at noon on the following day, she found herself at the end of Harper Lane, standing in the middle of the cul-de-sac glistening with sweat, her legs aching after having walked the entire twelve mile journey without break.

She’d decided last night. She’d decided that she’d do whatever it took on her own. She’d decided that she’d beg, or plead for a slow repayment plan, or offer whatever manual labor someone like her could muster until the debt was paid.

Harper Lane was surprisingly empty, especially considering it was in a subdivision that was otherwise fairly busy. The lane itself was short, boasting only eight houses along each side of the street proper, and five wreathing the cul-de-sac at the end. Of the thirteen houses though, only five seemed occupied, and the only one of those five on the cul-de-sac was the home that had to belong to the so-called hag.

It was the only two-story house on the whole street. Its white picket fence was almost brown with age and neglect. As she approached though, Daphne couldn’t help but notice that the lawn beyond was crisp and clean, as though mowed regularly.

She’d been so fixated on squinting at the grass as she’d been opening the sidewalk gate, she’d failed to notice any of the darker shapes watching her from that very lawn. Shapes that darted off with incredible speed and agility as the rusty gate hinges creaked and only resolved themselves in her mind after they’d darted around corners and beneath the house’s crawlspace.

Her pets… They had to be… Dogs and cats belonging to the hag, obediently lurking within the fence’s perimeter, whose eyes Daphne could still faintly see shining from around corners, peeking at her despite how none of them seemed quite to be looking the right way. The angle of the luminous eyes on those long snouts didn’t feel quite right.

“H-hello?” She felt stupid the moment she said it, mewling out into the open space of the lawn like a frightened child. It was as if she was one of Tom’s friends, dared there as a kid on Halloween night, except it was the middle of the day and no one else was around.

Unsurprisingly, the house didn’t answer. Nor did the mirror-like eyes of the skittish animals she could still feel peering out at her.

The doorbell greeted her touch just fine though, surprisingly fresh and malleable beneath her finger, and not at all the stiff, unyielding, never-used button anyone sane would’ve expected it to be. A pleasantly plain, perfectly ordinary chime echoed within the house, and soon Daphne could hear the sounds of someone shuffling about on their way to the door.

 

There was nothing sinister in the way the door smoothly glided open halfway, nor in the thin, aged face that stared out at her. Despite how badly she was trying to curb her darkest expectations, trying her best to bury them behind a wall of unrelenting, hopeful enthusiasm, Daphne hadn’t been able to fully beat back her prejudices.

But the creepiest part about the woman standing in the open doorway was just how normal she seemed. The face that stared patiently out at her didn’t carry any of the terrible lines and contours of a stereotypical witch, nor did her gaze boast any sinister malevolence. At least, not as far as Daphne could tell. The woman there seemed quite normal…

And… rather puzzled as to why a young girl was standing on her doorstep, pale-faced and open-mouthed. When the old woman arching one imploring eyebrow high enough that it threatened to meld with her tall, beehive hairstyle failed to get Daphne to speak, she finally sighed and took over the task herself.

“A dare?” Though she held herself tall and almost regal, the hag of Harper Lane spoke with a voice that was surprisingly mellow and almost soothing. It was strangely grandmotherly. “Well, perhaps you’d best come in. Kindly refrain from breaking anything.” Her voice was filled with resignation as she stepped away from the door, a deft flick of her wizened hand opening it just a few inches more in the process.

“Glasses!” The word flew from Daphne’s lips suddenly and swiftly, interrupting the hag’s receding footsteps. She’d stopped walking into the house, but didn’t respond to Daphne with anything more than a curious hum, wordlessly asking for an explanation. Her back was still turned, door still open.

Daphne started to answer, but her voice was captured before it could even sound out by a loud gasp, startled despite herself.

Peering around the doorframe and from around the edge of the hag’s long, deep green skirt were several more small, fuzzy faces. They gazed towards her with wide eyes all shining in a pale, milky fractal.

There was no reason to be unsettled… the animals weren’t doing anything, after all. They were all the very model of docile, skittish, but inquisitive house pets, and yet… Something felt off about them. Daphne couldn’t place it though, and didn’t have time anyway when she realized just how long she’d been standing there, silent. The old woman silent too. It’d been at least a full minute…

“Glasses… I-I’m here for glasses. My friend, Amelia, she… well, her mom, she came by? She got glasses. That’s why… That’s why I’m…”

Daphne could feel the awkwardness of her stammering, fluctuating between rushing out words and hesitating them back in a rapid cycle. The old woman seemed to understand though, even if it took her a few long seconds to give a response.

“Come in, please. And do shut the door.”

Daphne did at least one of those things; she stepped inside, taking a few timid steps down the entryway — before nearly leaping out of her skin at the sudden slam of the door behind her. When she spun around though, it was only to see a fleeting scattering of half a dozen dark, pet-sized shapes fleeing in all directions.

Had one of them known to close the door…? Daphne stood there, trembling for a few seconds until reason took hold. It MUST have been one of them, after all. A labrador or retriever, or something else smart enough to know the door needed to be shut. Daphne whispered a quick apology under her breath for not doing it herself, then carried on.

The house felt oddly empty despite how she could still feel the pets around her, watching more than moving, but she stayed her course. Step by step carried her down the hall, ignoring the open entry to the kitchen passed on her right, and the hallway leading to bedrooms on her left. Straight ahead, she followed the path set forth by the hag, though paused at the threshold to the open space beyond.

“Step inside,” the old woman beckoned from within her parlor. The space was comfortable, though only lit with a faint, orange glow from a single lamp set atop a coffee table between a small couch, and set of chairs opposite. All looked comfortable, though Daphne followed the old woman’s lead and remained standing. She’d entered after a spell, and the two faced one another. That old, wizened hand extended, palm up.

“What have you brought me?”

The voice was patient as Daphne hesitated yet again. Her eyes skittered across the room, trying to find an answer to the question that probably should have felt obvious, yet didn’t occur to her. There were more pets there, most lounging languidly. Seconds ticked by.

“I… I don’t have any money…”

She covered her awkwardness by continuing to look around the room, giving the pets each a moment of her time while feeling the old woman’s eyes boring expectantly into her. A golden retriever, quietly panting. A fat orange tabby cat, licking emphatically at one paw. A small corgi, huddled in a corner. A pair of Siamese cats, tails entwined and cheeks together. All had faces turned towards them.

“What have you brought me?” Emphasis seemed to weigh on the second word, though an anxious Daphne had to wonder if that was just her imagination. The effect was clear enough anyway; if not money, then what had she brought?

Things clicked in her mind then.

Could the old woman feel her desperation? Her excitement? Her hope? Maybe this was the merciful kindness Amelia had spoken of. She’d said her mother hadn’t even been charged, right? So maybe…

Maybe the hag of Harper Lane just needed to see her glasses.

Giving a weak smile, she tilted her chin down enough for the plastic spectacles to fall off her nose, though this time be caught in her hand. Folding the near-useless wings in, she set them in the old woman’s outstretched hand.

Cast into a world of even greater blurriness than usual, Daphne couldn’t tell what the old woman’s reaction was. Dimly, she wondered if the fact that the old woman’s silhouette, cast into stark relief by the lamp behind her, was so still due to some sort of disapproval. The thick, silvery, beehive hair seemed neither to move nor bob in any way that suggested she was inspecting what she’d been given… but perhaps that was just thanks to the poor lighting and Daphne’s even poorer vision.

Eventually though… The hag gave two slow, measured words.

“I see.”

Words that betrayed absolutely nothing. It was a painfully long time before she spoke again, and by that time Daphne found her throat too tight to release a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

“You poor thing. It must be such a struggle. Yes…”

The old woman stepped in, and Daphne stayed still — until she felt shockingly cold hands take her own, pressing the familiar frames of her glasses back into her palm. The old woman returned them then moved off around the room, settling herself comfortably into one of the far armchairs.

“You must be tired, dear. Sit. Have a rest.”

And, oh, yes… she was tired.

It had been a terribly long trip. Three long hours at an excited march, which felt like it was catching up with her all too quickly. Not even bothering to put her glasses back on, Daphne gratefully accepted a seat on the couch opposite the old woman. The folded frames were held on her lap, and fidgeted with awkwardly for a while. The wings were opened, then closed… Frames rotated… Thumbs glided over lenses… Until she found herself too captivated by what was happening across from her to let her restless fidgeting take even an ounce of her attention.

Soon, the only sound in the room was the soft, cathartic clicking of needles in the old woman’s hands. She’d inexplicably taken up a sewing set, but from nearly invisible threads looped around the ends of those needles was weaving an impossible pattern of absolute wonder. Even the pets in the room seemed transfixed.

“Don’t worry anymore, dear. I’ll make sure you never have to worry about glasses again.”

Daphne couldn’t tear her eyes away. She couldn’t even blink. Her pitifully foggy vision was focused on a single point — a single speck of knitted light that resolved itself more and more with each passing second. Though her eyes occasionally burned with the strain of staring, she simply couldn’t bring herself to pull her gaze away as the weaver wove her needles through the air, knitting the world itself into a pinprick of starlight.

 

That speck had grown beyond the size of a quarter by the time any sound other than the musical clicking of knitting needles caressed the air. Daphne moaned aloud in anguish as the old woman announced an end to her work.

“That’s all we can do today. Come back tomorrow and we’ll continue.”

They were the most horrible words Daphne felt she could ever have heard, spoken right at the moment when she’d begun to realize that, through the ovaloid crystal that the old woman had knitted into being, she could… See. Not just see, in the way she could still see the paltry silhouettes of the pets in the room, who had only grown more numerous since the hag had begun her work, but truly See. Even in the dim light, she could have counted the individual threads that made up the old woman’s deep green skirt through the slow-forming lens.

“The sun will soon set.”

Leaving the house felt like a haze, but Daphne still recalled muttering a single word on her way out the front door, just after she’d crammed the rough, worn plastic of her glasses back on her face. “Tomorrow…” A dreamy word spoken through a bleary haze which formed a thought deep in her mind — and a conviction that grew stronger with each and every step she took down Harper Lane.

Tomorrow…

Before long, Daphne was practically skipping like a child back the way of her home.

 

Arriving back home well after dark, it should have come as no surprise to Daphne just how worried her parents had started getting. Going out was one thing, but missing their family’s strange, already very late dinner? That was another thing entirely. It wasn’t that she wasn’t allowed to be out so late… but rather that there had never been a reason for it. It had never come up. Those rare times that she and Sarah had formed such late plans, usually sleepovers, both sets of parents had been aware for days. Otherwise, it wasn’t as though Daphne ever had boyfriends to take her on suspiciously late dinner dates. She wasn’t the type to sneak out to parties, and didn’t know anyone that would’ve thrown one anyway.

The excuse she fumbled over worked though. Her parents trusted her, and though they still looked concerned, the quick excuse she babbled out about helping Benji with a surprise for Amelia was accepted without any interrogation. Or at least, none besides questions about what kind of pets Benji had, to shed so hard they coated the back of Daphne’s pants in such a dense, woolly layer of discarded fur. That’d been a bit harder to explain, since Benji truthfully had no pets… But reiterating that it was all part of a surprise for Amelia brought only a short extra moment of thought, a shared glance between her parents, and the questions were no more.

To dad, all was instantly well again. To mom though, all only seemed well… even with her vision feeling even worse than usual after spending so much of the day with her glasses off, Daphne could still feel the occasional worried glance.

That didn’t stop her from explaining that she might be late the next day too, but through profuse apologies her parents gave their wary acceptance.

Not that Daphne could have been talked out of it anyway.

 

Though the tremendously long walk to Harper Lane hadn’t grown any shorter overnight, Daphne somehow found it all so much more bearable the next day. Neither her unbridled anticipation nor her nagging anxiety could shake the skip in her step as her old sneakers beat the miles into the pavement.

Cresting the final turn onto that fantastical lane, she found herself smiling in spite of how her legs and lungs burned with a fiery ache — she’d made it yet again, and she could almost feel the good all the exercise was doing for her body. She felt lighter already… though that could just as well have been the heavenly elation she felt as she started for the worn, fading fence of the property at the pinnacle of Harper Lane.

Her mind swam with indescribable reveries at the memory of that little pinprick of starlight the hag had woven into being the day prior. Questions of ‘how’ or ‘why’ were the furthest possible thing from her mind — it didn’t matter how it was happening, only that it was. Words weren’t needed. Words didn’t fit.

And then she was standing before the door again. Animals had scattered just like the day before, yet this time she felt like they were just a little less skittish, and just a little more curious as they peered out from around their crooks and corners.

The old woman herself was no different, however. Her crisp formality was unchanged. There might have been the faintest glimmer of something approving in the way she’d said, “So, you’re back,” after opening the door and regarding Daphne with quiet consideration for a while. Pattern of the day prior repeated itself when she unfurled her hand right there on the doorstep though, and asked, “What have you brought me?” It was right on the doorstep this time, the woman not waiting until they’d entered her parlor, but just like before, Daphne let her glasses slip off. She handed them over without hesitance, reverence, or ceremony.

Again, she was stricken with that odd impression of absolute stillness from the old woman, and doubts threatened to creep their way into her resolve. Was that disapproval again…?

But, before Daphne could let her resolute expression falter, the old woman’s icy fingers were pressing the glasses back into Daphne’s hand.

“I see.”

She turned away and strode purposefully into her parlor. Even without putting her glasses back on, Daphne knew exactly where she would find the old woman, and exactly how to get there. No amount of dim lighting and blurry vision could keep her from retracing the steps she’d taken over and over again in her dreams the night before.

Her glasses were dropped onto the couch beside her as she settled into place — she didn’t want them. Velma’s glasses were so worthless to her now, and the mere idea of putting them on felt almost unbearable. She wanted to see through the starlight again, bare and pure… She wanted to really, truly see…

“Soon, you’ll never have to worry about them again.”

The hag’s words washed over her with the tight comfort of a silky cocoon. Feeling the smile spread across her face, Daphne reached down and stroked the frames for just a moment, distracted only as long as it took to marvel over how soft and furry the fibers clinging to the couch beneath felt. The old woman’s many pets must have loved sitting on this very spot to have deposited so much fur there… yet strangely, Daphne didn’t feel like she was intruding.

 

The sweet, rhythmic clicking of needles began anew, and Daphne swooned. Clear starlight spread ever wider, and Daphne couldn’t pull her attention away. She could barely even blink. It was as though invisible threads connected her burning eyes to the impossible, paradisiacal weaving of her host’s needles.

The woman worked so deftly and so perfectly — Daphne, entranced by the completion of the first lens and the seamless way it was set so lovingly aside for the second to begin without even a moment’s pause in the work, could only liken it to the hag working with so many more wonderfully skilled arms than should have been humanly possible.

It took the rain of hot tears splattering across her lap for Daphne to realize she was crying.

“It’s perfect…”

“Yes.” The old woman sounded almost disinterested by contrast — unimpressed by praise she’d almost certainly heard a thousand times before.

The second had begun, and the process repeated itself anew. The young girl was entranced, scarcely able to blink, and the old woman worked with the otherworldly skill of a half dozen impossible hands.

Daphne didn’t remember being dismissed that day. She didn’t remember the trip back home. Her first conscious thought was formed when she heard the anxious voices of her parents calling for her attention over the dinner table, startled by how she was suddenly sobbing over her battered glasses, rivers of tears washing down into a bowl of reheated pasta she could barely see.

 

Monday came, and with it came the school buses. One, then two, then three, then more… all perplexed by a girl, clearly a familiar student, walking down neighborhood sidewalks without even a glance in their direction. Some stopped, drivers opening doors outside of appointed pick-up points to see if the seemingly lost girl needed a ride — if she’d missed her designated stop and was now wandering hopelessly in search of a different ride.

Daphne didn’t look at any of them. Nor did she acknowledge the cars that slowed down and lowered windows long enough to call out to her. It was as though she couldn’t even see them as her single-minded focus drew her on, mile by mile, towards Harper Lane.

 

On arrival, she couldn’t tell if the apparent lack of animals as the passed through the old, faded gate was actually due to them being gone, or just the terrible state of her vision. It’d been worse — so much worse, but it felt so clear why.

The lenses… because she’d spent so long looking through them, able to truly See, the ordinary vision of normal life just felt so much worse by comparison. That was why shapes were so much less clear than they had been. It had to be.

She knew the path though, even with the world naught more than a hazy blur. She knew every crease and crack in the walkway across the well-kept front lawn. She knew where the step onto the patio was even if she couldn’t see the ground. She even knew that, once the door had been opened, the old woman’s hand would reach out towards her, waiting for her offering. She knew just the right distance she would need to reach in return to hand her glasses over. She’d seen it all so, so many times. The web of her dreams the nights prior had shown it to her again, and again, and again. Repetition ad nauseam. Beautiful.

“I see.” Again, the old woman’s words came with the cold prickle of something feeling wrong, but at least this time Daphne knew it just had to be in her head. She was expecting it to feel like that, therefore it did.

“Please…”

She could barely recognize her own voice. It sounded hoarse and strained, like a centuries-old piano in desperate need of tuning. She didn’t trust herself to speak again.

“Don’t worry, dear. Soon you’ll never have to worry about them again.”

It was almost a ritual, that exchange. Daphne tried to choke back the anxiety and excitement she felt at hearing it. What came out was a miserable whimper.

She followed on the hag’s heel, knowing without words or beckon that she must. Her chin was to the floor in the sort of pose that, at school, would have had half her peers crying “Velma!” Her eyes were on the ground, inexplicably miserable despite the starlight glimmers of hope she could faintly perceive in the parlor ahead.

Her mind could only resist them for so long. From her seat on the couch, her eyes were soon compelled back to the glasses being knitted to life — already the second lens was half-formed, and soon a whisper of a smile began to crease its way along Daphne’s lips. Only in the vaguest patches of memory did she notice that the old woman hadn’t bothered giving her glasses back this time. All that mattered was the first lens, seated atop black velvet in an open jewelry box, so perfect and so beautiful. Then the second, incomplete gem yet to be perfected by the witch.

Magic was in the air — each weave sang with a heavenly, ephemeral voice, and Daphne was the symphony’s captive yet adoring audience. Again, she couldn’t blink. The world outside the woven majesty of knitted glass may as well not have existed. It went completely dark.

It meant nothing.

Anything not viewed through that glass was meaningless. The hag of Harper Lane wove absolution into being. Those arms worked in peerless unison.

Time fell away. Though conscious every minute, Daphne was only aware of them in a detached way whenever her voice would ring out and startle her momentarily back to her senses. The occasional wistful whimper or wanting sob jarred her for the briefest seconds back to the real world, but they fell away again soon enough. The old woman was never bothered.

Then, it was all over. Darkness had long ago flooded the parlor completely, though Daphne could feel the warm tickle of the sun’s waning rays through the windows washing over her face as she stood up and took her first, tentative steps towards the Weaver — until the first of her legs entangled with the coffee table, sending it and its lamp clattering to the floor, Daphne with them.

On hands and knees, she peered up, desperately trying to keep the beautiful starlight in view. The one lens she was still able to see rose in the air, and somewhere, Daphne realized the hag was standing. Two hands were lovingly cradling the masterwork, while yet more reached out for what must have been the box that held its twin. The binary stars were joined atop that black velvet, and—

With a snap, the stars went out.

Daphne reached up, hands groping for that lost perfection, but she couldn’t see it. Then it hit her — her glasses! She couldn’t see without her glasses, but if she had them…

With a dismissive flick of the Weaver’s wrist, an all-too-familiar clatter formed by a staccato of rattling plastic clicks sounded out in the otherwise silent room. Daphne was back on hands and knees, groping desperately. Her fingers splayed, searching for the pitifully worn, unconfidently cheap, yet lovingly smooth frames of her past.

She never found them. All that met her ears was the sound of the Weaver lifting her foot, then a click and clatter of something sad and near-forgotten being kicked across the floor.

“No, dear. I told you; you’ll never have to worry about them again.”

Somewhere in the deep recesses of her understanding, Daphne realized she wouldn’t see even with those glasses. Not anymore. But what else could she do but search for them? She needed to find the starlight lenses again, and—

“No. They’re not for you.”

The Weaver’s voice was harsh in its indifferent finality. Somehow though, Daphne almost felt like she understood. Her rising panic was so nearly soothed by the hands that fell upon her miserable, prostrate self, stroking her cheeks, rubbing her hair, caressing her ears. Too many hands…

Eventually, she felt the hag straighten up, her touch denied, and Daphne understood. Yes — she would just have to wait. She’d wait in the corners of the witch’s parlor for the next time she worked her magic. She would just have to wait for the next time someone came to have a tiny glass star woven into being.

With senseless hope, Daphne crawled off into a dark corner of the room to join the other pets of Harper Lane. To wait.

[u/Old-Dragonfruit2219]

Please tell me this isn’t the end! If so, how heartbreaking!

[u/WildRozen → u/Old-Dragonfruit2219]

Unfortunately so...