Chapter 2: Tea with a Talking Fox

Lina wasn’t entirely sure if she was following the fox, or if the cloak was leading her instead.Either way, the path tugged her forward, winding gently uphill through tall thistle-grass that brushed her knees. Branches arched above like vaulted beams, hung with what looked like laundry lines spun from light itself—yes, actual light, strung as if for a festival. When she craned her neck, she could swear the threads shimmered with faint constellations.

A butterfly stitched from lace darted past her ear, fragile wings leaving a faint rustle as though paper had brushed against her cheek.

The fox—Thimblewick, as he had so grandly introduced himself earlier—moved with the easy confidence of someone who had spent a lifetime hosting imaginary guests. His red coat gleamed like burnished thread under the filtered light, his white-tipped tail flicking this way and that as if conducting an unseen orchestra. He did not look back until the path ended.

What waited there was a cottage.

It crouched at the tangled roots of an ancient oak, shaped like a teapot that had been left too long on the stove: rounded, bulging in odd places, its chimney curling upward like a wisp of steam. The windows blinked. Not figuratively. They blinked—soft lids of glass lowering, then lifting again as though the cottage were rubbing its eyes awake.

Lina froze. “Did… your house just wink at me?”

Thimblewick tilted his head as if she had asked whether the sky was blue. “No, no. That’s simply the cottage saying hello. She gets lonely, you know. Eliwyn’s been gone for some time.” He bounded up the crooked steps and shouldered open the door. “Come along, child. There’s tea.”

Inside was a warm, curated chaos.

Shelves sagged under bolts of fabric wound like scrolls, spines of books leaned against them in defiance of gravity, and chairs were draped with half-finished scarves that looked as though they had wandered there on their own. A spindle turned lazily by the hearth, its wheel ticking with the rhythm of a heartbeat. Above the mantel, a row of porcelain teacups hopped and shuffled into neat order, sorting themselves by color with the gentle clink of glassy feet.

At the center of the room, on a pedestal that made it seem more idol than tool, sat a sewing machine. It was squat, armored with brass plates and rivets, and bore the weary scowl of something that had endured centuries of stubborn work. When Lina crossed the threshold, it sneezed—loudly, and with the indignation of a dragon roused from sleep.

“That’s Grumblebob,” Thimblewick said with a dismissive flick of his tail. He trotted to the kettle that was already boiling over a candle flame. “Pay him no mind. He dislikes newcomers. And meringues.”

Lina’s wide eyes swept the room. “Is everything enchanted here?”

Thimblewick poured steaming tea into mismatched cups, his whiskers twitching. “Not enchanted. Alive. There’s a difference, though you’ll learn it in time.” He slid a cup into her hands. Its rim was etched with bold letters that read: STAY CALM AND SEAM ON. The tea smelled like cinnamon, mint, and—most unnervingly—something that tugged at her memory, a fragrance she almost recognized from childhood.

She eased herself onto a chair carved in the shape of a curled-up cat. It purred under her weight, vibrating softly through her spine.

Lina clutched her cup like a shield. “Alright,” she said, drawing a deep breath, “I need answers.”

“Of course,” Thimblewick said lightly, stirring his tea with a needle-thin spoon. “Ask three questions. I’ll answer one and a half.”

Her brow furrowed. “One and a half? Why?”

“Because mystery is half the magic.” His teeth flashed in a grin.

Lina groaned into her cup. “Fine. Then—what is Tetherwood?”

The fox’s ears twitched. He took his time, sipping before he answered. “A seamspace,” he said at last, his tone slipping into something like reverence. “A place stitched between worlds, born of forgotten crafts and remembered kindness. It exists because people believe in mending. And, naturally, tea.”

“That… doesn’t make sense.”

“It rarely does at first.”

Her second question pressed harder on her tongue. She leaned forward, almost spilling the tea. “Then why me? Why am I here?”

Thimblewick stilled. He turned his spoon over in his paw and watched the tea drip from it, golden in the firelight.

“The cloak chooses,” he murmured. “It always has. Eliwyn made it, long ago. A gift for whoever might carry the final stitch.”

“The final… stitch?”

But Thimblewick’s silence said enough. He busied himself by tugging a dented biscuit tin from behind a cushion and setting it between them. He pushed it toward her with the air of someone changing the subject.

“Ginger buttons?”

Lina plucked one warily. “That’s one and a half questions answered.”

Thimblewick’s grin returned, sly and pleased. “See? You’re learning already.”


🧵

Later, as the sun dipped low behind the trees and the cottage windows blushed with amber light, Thimblewick led Lina up the narrow staircase. The steps creaked with the kind of memory that only old wood carries, each groan a reminder of footsteps long gone.

At the top, he opened a door with a flourish of his tail. “The tailor’s room,” he announced.

Lina stepped inside—and caught her breath.

It was like walking straight into someone else’s imagination. The walls were lined with spools of thread, each spool glowing faintly, as if spun from captured dawns and dusks. Needles were pinned across one wall in neat constellations, their silver tips catching the last light of day. A long worktable stood in the center, its legs shifting and adjusting with a polite creak as she approached, as though it were bowing to greet her.

But it wasn’t the table or the glittering tools that held her attention.

In the corner stood a cloak stand. Empty. Waiting.

Her own cloak, draped over her shoulders since the moment she had stepped into Tetherwood, stirred faintly—as though it recognized its place. Before she could think better of it, the fabric tugged her forward. She slipped it from her shoulders and hung it on the stand.

At once, the patches stitched along its back shimmered—faintly, briefly—like a choir of soft voices acknowledging home.

“Sleep well,” Thimblewick said from the doorway. His silhouette was dark against the amber glow. “You'll have a long day tomorrow. The Cloud-Herder is expecting a new tunic, and sky-fiber is stubborn stuff. Needs patience.”

Lina’s eyes widened. “But—I don’t know how to sew.”

The fox’s whiskers twitched, his smile hidden mostly in his eyes. “You didn’t. But the cloak remembers.”

With that, he padded back down the stairs, his humming trailing behind him—a tune that seemed to count in threads, steady and soothing, like a lullaby spun from numbers.

Lina turned back to the room.

The bed was quilted, naturally, with patches that shifted color under the moonlight filtering through the window: one square fading to twilight blue, another brightening into soft gold, a third deepening into forest green. On the shelf, a pair of tiny scissors danced idly, snipping the air in time with some silent rhythm. A jar of needles glowed faintly, each one a pinprick of light, as though fireflies had been coaxed into glass.

She sat on the bed, her hand brushing the quilt’s patchwork. It was soft beneath her palm, softer still beneath her thoughts. She looked around at the strangeness—the threads, the tools, the impossible wonder of it all.

And she admitted, silently, that she didn’t understand a single stitch of it.

But the bed cradled her like an embrace. The tea still warmed her belly. And somewhere inside her, something that had been wound tight for years—tight as a spool of thread pulled too far—was beginning, ever so carefully, to loosen.

Lina lay down, letting the quilt settle over her. The shifting patches glowed faintly, breathing with the rhythm of the night.

In the hush that followed, she closed her eyes.

And in the cottage below, unseen in the dark, a drawer eased itself open. Then closed again.

A quiet, sleepy breath.

The house, too, was resting.



🧵End of Chapter 2