Page 6 of Fated
Atropos pulls the fabric from the well, inspecting it. The pulse of the fabric is faint in spots. She touches the dimming, drawing her hand back as though burned.
“Do you even know what it is you’ve done?” she asks.
Clotho says, “Zeus will kill us all for messing with his precious humans.”
Lachesis laments, “Nothing so precious as humans.”
Atropos adds, “Nothing so fragile, so delicate so?—”
“If you hadn’t returned early I would have fixed it properly. I can do it! Why are you here anyway?” Eris interrupts.
Lachesis points at her sister, “Clotho forgot the eye.”
“The eye,” Atropos echoes.
“Ah, the eye,” Eris laments.
In chorus the Moirae shout, “Get out of our well and GO HOME!!”
Eris begins to beg, her words tripping and spilling desperately, “Please, please, let me repair what I’ve done! I promise I can do it. I promise I can fix this. Besides I sublet my cottage for a week, I have nowhere to go?—”
Clotho stares at Eris’ hands in a fugue comparing them to the fabric in her hands.
“Clotho? Please?” Eris says.
In a hushed and reverent voice Clotho says, “The threads have imprinted her.”
Eris brushes her hands together, trying to wipe the light away to no avail, “I’m sure it will come off. Besides don’t you have to?—”
“She’s the map!” Atropos yells.
“—return to Zeus?”
Lachesis responds, “She must stay.”
Eris is confused. Atropos melts to the floor in front of her, taking her hands. Inspecting the color and Eris takes the opportunity to try again, “I can do this. I can restore them.”
Eris tugs her hands away and Atropos grunts at her.
“That’s what has to be done, right? I have to reconnect the souls?”
“What would yo know of a soul?” Atropos hisses, to whit Ribbon scowls.
Atropos stands and the sisters turn to a circle of their own, unintelligible whispers floating between their shoulders.
Their crooked fingers motion in and out of the circle. Pointing and threatening.
They turn back to her; twitchy and anxious and in their lyrical chant…
Atropos, “You’ll reconnect the threads.”
Clotho, “Return them.”
Lachesis, “You’ll reconnect the souls.”
Atropos, “Take care of them.”
Clotho, “And the brood.” She shakes a gnarled finger in her face.
