Chapter 29: The Weaver's Door

"Where is this house?" I shout over the roaring wind, squinting against the gale that whips my hair into my eyes. I look around desperately but see nothing but desolation. "I do not see anything but rock and death out here, Hitane."

Hitane stops abruptly at a precipice that looks exactly like the rest of the deadly drop, her coat flapping violently around her frame. "It is not something you see with your eyes," she shouts back, her voice sharp and commanding against the storm. "You have to look with your gift. Here. Look right here."

I stare at the empty space she is indicating. There is nothing there but the sheer drop to the ocean crashing against the rocks hundreds of feet below. "Juiro," Hitane says, stepping closer to the edge than any sane person should. "Use your sight. Feel the space. Is it correct? Does it feel like the rest of the world?"

I close my eyes and reach out, not with my hands, but with the heavy anchor in my chest. The static of the world usually hums, but here, it screams. I feel the wind, the rock, and then, something else-a knot. It feels like a tangle in a ball of yarn, a place where space has been folded and twisted in on itself until it screams in protest. It is not a natural formation. It is a construct, a pocket dimension similar to the one Hitane created, but infinitely more complex and stable. It has been here for decades.

"I feel it," I say, my voice trembling with the effort of perception. "It is folded. It is twisted in on itself like a puzzle box."

"Can you open it?" Hitane asks, her eyes locked on the empty air.

I step forward and place my palm against the nothingness. It meets resistance, a rubbery, dense barrier that pushes back against my hand like a living thing. "It is locked," I grind out, pushing my weight against the invisible wall.

"Knock," Hitane commands simply.

I push harder. I do not try to tear it this time, remembering the sickness that followed my last attempt to rip the world. I do not want to destroy this place; I want to enter it. I visualize a door handle in the empty air. I visualize turning it. Let us in. I push my anchor into the knot, asserting my reality over the folded space. We are here. You are here. Open.

The air shimmers like heat haze rising from asphalt in the summer. The scenery ripples, the image of the ocean distorting, and then, like a curtain being pulled back, the rock face vanishes. In its place stands a house. It is a traditional Japanese house, weathered and gray, perched precariously on a ledge that defies gravity and logic. A lantern hangs by the door, glowing with a ghostly blue light that seems to repel the wind.

"It was invisible," Minaki gasps, clutching my arm, her eyes wide with wonder.

"Time dilation and spatial folding," Hitane says, her voice filled with a grim respect. "The ultimate camouflage."

We walk across the threshold, passing through the invisible barrier. As soon as we cross, the sound of the wind and the ocean cuts out completely, replaced by a dead silence. The air is still and smells of old incense and dust, a scent that speaks of centuries. The door of the house slides open with a smooth, silent motion.

A woman stands there. She is tiny, hunched over, leaning heavily on a gnarled wooden staff. Her hair is a cloud of white, much like Minaki's, but thinning and brittle. Her face is a map of wrinkles, a landscape of a thousand years of living and seeing too much. But her eyes are the most striking thing about her; they are milky white, blind, yet they track us perfectly as we approach.

"The Triad," she croaks, her voice sounding like dry leaves scraping together on a pavement. "You are late."

"We are sorry," Hitane says, bowing respectfully, a gesture of deference I rarely see from her. "We were delayed."

"Delayed," the old woman cackles, a harsh sound that echoes in the stillness. "You were lost. You were broken. And now you bring your broken pieces to my doorstep expecting me to glue you back together." She turns and shuffles into the gloomy interior of the house, tapping her cane. "Come in. Before the Gray Men catch your scent and bring their shears."

We follow her inside. The house is filled with clocks. Hundreds of them cover every surface. Grandfather clocks, cuckoo clocks, digital clocks, hourglasses. They are ticking, tocking, humming, and dripping sand in a chaotic symphony. But none of them show the same time. Some run backwards. Some are frozen. It is a maddening rhythm that makes my teeth ache. The Weaver leads us to a main room where a fire burns in a central hearth and sits down with a groan of old bones.

"Sit," she commands, pointing to the cushions with her staff.

We sit. I look around at the clocks, trying to find a pattern in the noise.

"You are the Anchor," she says, pointing a bony finger directly at my chest. "You are the one who ripped the sky and left a scar on the world."

"I did," I admit, feeling the shame heat my neck.

"Clumsy," she scoffs, spitting the word out. "Like a child playing with a razor blade. You have power, boy. But you have no finesse. You tear when you should untie. You break when you should bend. You are a sledgehammer in a world of glass." She turns her blind eyes to Minaki. "And the Heart. You are leaking. You are bleeding emotion all over my floor like a stuck pig. Clean it up."

Minaki flinches, pulling back as if slapped. "I am trying," she whispers.

"Try harder," The Weaver snaps. "Empathy is a shield, not a wound. Stop letting the world bleed you dry." She looks at Hitane, her expression unreadable. "And the Mind. The prodigal daughter. You peered into the dark, did you not? You saw the end of the line."

"I saw enough," Hitane says steadily, meeting the blind gaze without flinching. "I saw the Cleaners. I saw what they do to people like us."

"They prune," The Weaver says, staring into the fire. "They are gardeners. And we are the weeds."