Warped (Maurissa Guibord)

On a hillside stood three figures. Black cloaks billowed over them from head to toe, while hoods cast a pall of darkness over their faces. These walking shadows were the Norn. Some called them by another name: the Fates, the three sisters who eternally spin and weave and cut the threads of human life. They had lived and worked here forever, beneath the huge ash tree named Yggdrasil, whose branches reached up so far they seemed like roots embedded in the sky.
    The one called Spyn knelt beneath the twisted tree. She scooped her hands together and gathered a mist that drifted down from its branches. The mist was the color of snow, holding prisms of winter sun trapped within. Her spindly fingers jabbed and twiddled and pulled at the translucent material until it became a gauzy mass. From this, Spyn drew one long, shimmering thread. She passed it to Weavyr. Weavyr took it, and her dark fingers flew as she wove the thread into a fabric that lay upon the ground. This fabric flowed out in all directions from the hill, turning and folding, coiling into whorls here and twisting spirals there. This was the Wyrd. The threads of human life were here, endlessly woven and tended by the Norn. Each thread was a mortal soul whose destiny was made by their thread's winding path in the Wyrd.
    "Something is not right," Weavyr announced. She crouched lower over one spot in the Wyrd and tugged, redirecting the threads. In the moments that followed, throughout the world hearts were broken, brilliant careers were launched and dreams were dashed. A volleyball serve also went awry.
    "No," Weavyr muttered from beneath the folds of her hood. "Still wrong."
    Spyn drifted closer to examine her sister's work. Beneath the cloak her bony shoulders shrugged. "Life is often messy."
    "You sound like one of them," Weavyr observed.
    "Human, you mean? Don't be vulgar," Spyn retorted.
    "What is it?" A deep voice, like an echo from an empty crypt, interrupted the discussion. The third sister was called Scytha, and her tall form loomed over the other two, eclipsing them in her shadow. From the sleeves of her own cloak Scytha's hands hung down: large, thick-fingered and pale. Scytha held a pair of heavy shears whose razor edges glinted so brightly that it stung to look upon them. "Why do you stop your work?" Scytha demanded.
    The calloused pads of Weavyr's fingers tapped together in irritation. "It's all wrong," she said, pointing to the troublesome spot in the vast fabric. "But it's not my fault. It's the missing threads."
    "The missing threads," Spyn repeated in her thin, wavery voice. "Five hundred human years have passed and still they plague us. Out of the billions, the myriad, to think that seven threads could matter so."
    "They do," Weavyr replied. "You know they do. The loss of those threads created rifts, knots and tangles in the Wyrd. Things that were not meant to be have come to pass. Proper destinies have not been fulfilled. I've had all I can do to maintain order."
    Spyn's answer came on a whispery sigh. "Yes. You're right, of course." Her long fingers knit the air. "But what can we do?"
    "Nothing," said Scytha. "The threads are lost. They are gone from the Wyrd and therefore beyond our control." She dragged one pallid finger across the fabric, and in the human world, a hundred souls shivered, as if each had felt the tread of footsteps over his grave.
    "Not lost. Stolen," Weavyr said, with a bitter snap.
    "Yes. The threads were stolen." Scytha pronounced this slowly. She did all things slowly, except for one. "Let us hope that someday they will be found."
    "And whoever stole them ...," Weavyr began.
    "Will be punished." Scytha's fingers inched over the shimmering threads and then stopped. She plucked up one of the threads and pulled it taut. "But for now, Sisters, we have work to do." As if to demonstrate, Scytha's fingers moved with a quick and dreadful economy. The flashing blades gaped. Hssst . The thread was cut. A human life was ended.
    The other two Norn nodded and returned to their duties as Scytha had bidden them. Spyn's nature was energetic, and full of drama. Weavyr was careful and workmanlike, just like her fingers. Scytha was final.
    "Still," said Weavyr. The dissatisfaction rang clear in her tone, even as her dark fingers worked, weaving the paths of human lives. "The stolen threads. I do wonder what has become of them."

Chapter 1

Cheever's Fine Auction House was packed on a stormy spring afternoon. The auctioneer's voice carried