The Threads of Earth

By Joyce Allen

As The Threads of Earth begins, Jane needs time to learn all she needs to know in her destined role as one of Those Who Hold the Threads. This time will be cut short by new challenges in the form of a vengeful Titan goddess, the god who crosses impossible boundaries, and a threat from the past that could put all Earth at risk—perhaps even more than Earth. Could Adam Night be at the heart of this threat?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joyce Allen
• Release date: Jan 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9780970224996

Joyce Allen

Joyce Allen’s publications include Hannah’s House (Wolf’s Pond Press, 2008) and Those Who Hold the Threads(print edition,Wolf's Pond Press 2012) as well as various short stories and essays. She has taught writing classes in the Duke University Continuing Studies program, in the OLLI program at Duke and at the ArtsCenter in Carrboro, North Carolina, has given a number of writing workshops, and teaches a private workshop. For some years she was manager of the student program of the Department of Epidemiology at the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (now the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health.) She lives in Carrboro, North Carolina.

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The Threads of Earth

Joyce Allen

Smashwords Edition

Copyright ©2013 Joyce Allen

All rights reserved.

Published by Wolf’s Pond Press

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2013955401

Joyce Allen, 1931-

ISBN 0-9702249-8-2

ISBN 978-0-9702249-8-9

ebook ISBN 978-0-9702249-9-6

1. Young Adult - Fantasy - Myth- Fiction.

2. North Carolina 1. Title

Book design by Kelly Prelipp Lojk.

Cover art by Anna Crawford, used by permission.

Ebook publication managed by Lystra Books & Literary Services

Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

Table of Contents

1: A Visit from the Waters

2: Hear Me, Little Fate

3: Peril Alert

4: Quicksilver

5: Nobody Home in There

6: Little Fate

7: Immediate Action Required

8: All His Programs

9: Where Even Hermes Can’t

10: We Come in Peace

11: There Are Stories

12: Orange at Least

13: Our Home Is Your Home

14: I’ve Told You the Truth

15: He Was Out in the World

16: Lachesis Calls the Circle

17: Reconfiguring, Recalculating

18: I Bring a Message

19: Something Completely Different

20: Pulling Rank

21: It’s Time We Met

22: There’s More I Want from You

23: Ghost of a Knowing

24: They Did Matter

25: A Little Magic

26: Starbursts

If you’re interested...

With deep thanks to...

Also by Joyce Allen

For some very important people in my life,

with my love: Ella Brandford, Caitlin Crawford,

Rachel Crawford, Rebecca Crawford,

Maggie Redick, Emme Redick,

Michael Whittaker, Claire Whittaker

1: A Visit from the Waters

It sounded as if the Gulf of Mexico was out there hurling waves against the front of Granny Clo’s condo. I was still barely awake, but I knew I wasn’t supposed to be hearing this. White Dolphin Villas Retirement Estates was about as far away from this kind of water as you could get and still be in St. Petersburg, Florida. I left my bagel in the toaster and ran for the door.

It wasn’t the Gulf of Mexico I saw when I made it onto Granny Clo’s front stoop, but there were definitely waves out here. The whole front yard had disappeared under a lake of dirty, gray, angry-looking water that thrashed and heaved and hurled itself at the stucco and over the steps onto my bare feet. I stared at it.

Normally Granny Clo’s yard was exactly like all the other ones in White Dolphin Villas—a square of short-cut grass with a dinky fish pond in the middle and little strips of pretend-wood fence along each side to sort of divide it from the adjoining units. The only water was in the fish pond, and that was barely big enough for the five bored-looking goldfish that circled around in it. Now the pond and everything else was swallowed up under this.

I peered into a sky that was a clear morning blue. If there had been a storm overnight there was no trace of it now. Besides which a storm would have to be hurricane-level to do this. Then I noticed something else. Only Granny Clo’s yard was under water. The lake ended exactly at the curb in front and exactly at each fence—just stopped, as if there were invisible glass walls around it.

Was I the only one who saw this? I looked around. Nobody driving by, nobody in the other yards. Except for a few morning golfers, people in White Dolphin Villas didn’t get up till hours from now.

In the middle of the yard, where the fish pond used to be, the water had started thrashing around even more violently, shooting up in all directions, hurling out bits of gravel, hunks of torn-up lawn, and even one of the fish, which splashed down, flopping desperately, not far from where I stood. Then in the center of the turmoil I saw something slowly rising up. Something that wasn’t a fish.

Not something. Somebody. I saw the top of a head, then the whole head, facing away from me. Silvery long hair with a clump of dark green weeds caught in it. Then the shoulders appeared, then bit by bit the rest of her. A woman. The tallest woman I’d ever seen, and definitely not a human one. She was wearing one of those draped robes like you see on statues of the old goddesses. Maybe it had been white once; now it was the mud-gray of the water. Weeds had pasted themselves all over the cloth, and there was a smear of yellow-green down the side that looked like pond scum.

She was out of the water now from her lower legs up, and that seemed to be as far as she intended to go. She shook her head hard, spraying drops everywhere off that long hair, then she turned and looked straight at me. Her eyes were like Aunt Lacey’s and Aunt Attie’s, and mine, too, now that I’d been Qualified—greenish blue, and that electric look.

She raised an arm and pointed at me. YOU! she roared in a voice like a storm coming up. YOU ARE THE ONE!

The door banged open behind me and Granny Clo was there. She had on the floaty peach-colored bathrobe with the lace, and her hair was wrapped in a purple towel. Tethys? she asked. Tethys of the Waters? What in the name of ever-living Athena are you doing here and why are you yelling at my granddaughter? And I need you to get rid of this filthy mess." She waved a hand at the lake.

The woman combed the weeds out of her hair with her fingers, and looped it into a knot at the back of her head. Well, Clo, she said. She’d notched down her voice a little, but it was still loud. Or I suppose I should go back to calling you Abigail now that you’ve retired. Are you saying this meddlesome Fate is your granddaughter?

Of course she is, Granny Clo said. As you must certainly Know—or you would if you ever paid a speck of attention to anything outside of those waters of yours. And as you also certainly Know, I’ve been retired for nearly a century, not that you bothered coming to my retirement party. Now send all this sludge back to wherever you brought it from. It looks polluted. And those goldfish belong to White Dolphin Villas Retirement Estates. If you’ve killed any of them you’ll hear from the Appearance Committee.

I’ve killed nothing, Tethys said. And it’s perfectly good clean mud in this water. Those poor fish are just getting some freedom for the first time in their lives. But if it bothers you that much... She made a rippling motion with her hand and the water shrank in a little from its edges, leaving a rim of wet grass around it. It was still mud-brown, though, and looked deeper than it could possibly be in this flat yard. It sloshed around Tethys’ legs as she scooped up the fish, which now was stranded on the bottom step. She held it close to her face and murmured, Did-ums get lost? Swim away now, little dear. Straight down, then turn left and you’ll come to a nice creek. She slid it into the water, then she picked something black and slithery off her wrist—something that looked like a leech—gave it a kiss and dropped it in after the fish. Then she said, We’ll go inside now, Abigail. We have to talk.

We’ll stay right where we are, Granny Clo said. I’m not letting you bring that muck into my condo. She squeezed her eyes shut for a second. When she opened them, two plastic lawn chairs stood on the grass beside her, and a third was in the water next to Tethys. Tethys ignored it and remained standing.

Granny Clo gathered her robe and sat down. As you do seem to know, Tethys, my granddaughter is Clotho, of Those Who Hold the Threads. She has only recently come into her destiny, so she’s still more used to her human name, Jane Smith. She’s here this summer for her training.

"Jane what?" Tethys looked at me as if I had dog doo all over me.

Smith. Granny Clo stared at Tethys with what I call the Angel-of-Death glare—the one that tells you that you’re in big time trouble. That glare runs in our family. Aunt Lacey does it best, but Mom isn’t bad at it. This was the first time I’d seen it on Granny Clo, but she had it down.

Ah, yes, your little Jane Smith is Clotho now. Tethys lifted a dripping bare foot out of the water long enough to kick the lawn chair onto the grass. The place that used to be yours, Abigail.

She turned those electric green eyes on me, and when she spoke again it was in the storm-voice. CLOTHO OF THOSE WHO HOLD THE THREADS, she said, KNOW THAT I AM TETHYS OF THE WATERS. I AM OF THE ANCIENT AND HONORED RACE OF TITANS, THE OLD ONES, AND WITH MY HUSBAND OCEANUS I RULE THE WATERS OF EARTH. YOU HAVE OFFENDED ME DEEPLY, LITTLE FATE. YOU MAY FEAR ME.

Since she wasn’t sitting down I kept standing too. I don’t see any reason to be afraid of you, I said. That was a mile from the truth, but I wasn’t about to let her know it.

YOU THINK NOT?

Then she lowered her voice again to a normal loud. As I told your grandmother, I have far too much to do to waste my time Seeing every one of your trifling events in the world above the Waters. However, I visited one of my Naiad daughters yesterday, she who takes care of the Everglades. It was she who told me that her sister Tyche now has a son. My grandson! And at the same moment I learned that you Fates have banished the boy from Earth.

"Adam? I could hardly get the name out. You’re talking about Adam Night? You’re his grandmother?"

I most certainly am, Tethys said. Tyche didn’t bother to share this news with me herself. She takes after her father’s side of the family—all storm waves and riptides, no sense of responsibility. Still, she is my daughter, and this boy is of my blood.

Blood schmud, Granny Clo said. That boy is a monster. And I thought Zeus was Tyche’s father, not Oceanus.

Tethys shrugged and picked a weed off her chest. One hears those stories. But I assure you that all of my daughters are full-blooded Titans. As is this grandson, whom your little Jane Smith has helped to banish from Earth.

I wasn’t sorry for sending Adam Night away. Alcor 3 was the right place for him, circling its suns out there in the tail of the Big Dipper. He couldn’t do any harm there, and he’d get the friendship he needed. Our only other choice would have been to end his life, but I wasn’t about to tell Tethys that.

As it happened, I didn’t have to tell her anything. The air next to Granny Clo started doing that shimmer, like air over hot pavement on a summer day, and a moment later both Aunt Lacey and Aunt Attie took shape there. They’d been for their morning swim, I saw. Aunt Lacey had on her no-nonsense black swimsuit and Aunt Attie was in the one with the little skirt and big red and yellow flowers that looked like a swimsuit version of everything else she wore. Both of them had towels around their shoulders.

Granny Clo opened her mouth, but before she could say anything Aunt Lacey put a hand on her arm. We Saw what’s happening, Mama, she said. We’ll handle this.

Aunt Attie wiggled her fingers, and when two more lawn chairs appeared she spread her towel over one of them and sat down on it. Aunt Lacey sat down too, leaving her towel where it was. I pulled my chair closer to theirs and perched on the edge of its seat.

Tethys of the Waters folded her arms and glared. She could do a pretty good Angel-of-Death herself.

We don’t owe you any explanations, Tethys, Aunt Lacey said, but for your information, Jane saved your grandson’s life. If it had been up to Attie and me, we’d have snipped his life thread in two before we took the next breath.

That boy was trying to take over the Threads, Aunt Attie said. For a while he actually managed it—had control over every human life. Not the way we have, of course, through the Universe, but it was bad enough. It was all that new human business—codes, programs—oh I don’t know all those terms. She flapped her hands. "Technology." She said it, as if it was a bad word.

He wants power, Aunt Lacey said. Total power. And he knows how to get it, on a human level. What Attie’s saying is that he can do real damage, even if he’s not Joined with the Universe the way we are.

Nonsense! Tethys said. Adam Night is a child. He’s no older than this Jane Smith you’ve gone and made into One of you.

Jane is fourteen, Aunt Lacey said. "Old enough, and destined. Her Qualification was not our decision to make. What is given cannot be ungiven. It does please us, however."

And you can keep calling Adam Night your grandson all you like, Aunt Attie put in, but that’s hardly what he is. He did come from Tyche—that much is true—but he’s not a real son of hers, or a real anything. He’s a Shadow-being, who seized his life from a dream she had. Now he’s out of her control.

So you say. The fact remains that you have sent him away from Earth.

Tethys turned to me again. Another leech was running up her arm. I watched it wriggle into that long silver hair. Either she didn’t notice or she didn’t care.

She examined me from head to feet, then up again. Her gaze stopped at my chest. You wear the cornucopia. It is the symbol of my daughter Tyche.

My hand went to the pendant that hung from its chain around my neck: the horn of plenty, with its carefully carved fruits and nuts and breads. She gave me this for my birthday, I said.

She did, did she? Well, it’s not likely to help you now. Tethys waded a step closer. Now hear what I have to say.

She raised her arms to the clear Florida sky, and when she spoke again, it was with a voice like the roar of a hurricane. HEAR ME, LITTLE FATE. HEAR ME, ALL YOU FATES OF THE PRESENT AND OF THE PAST. HEAR ME, O GREAT AND NOBLE RACE OF TITANS. THIS I SWEAR: I WILL GET MY GRANDSON BACK!

Then so swiftly I barely saw it happen, she sank into the dark water and was gone.

Immediately the water itself began to go. I stared as the lake grew smaller and smaller, as the stones that circled the fish pond came into view. Then the little pond was all that remained, as clear as bath water, and, shallow enough that I could pick up gravel from its bottom and not get wet above my elbow. The goldfish swam their slow circles around it as if nothing had happened here at all. Except that there were four goldfish now, not five.

2: Hear Me, Little Fate

‘Can she really bring Adam back?" I asked as soon as we were inside.

I don’t see how, Aunt Lacey said. When we connect our power the way we did that night we sent him away—you remember how hard that was, how much it took out of us—

And Tyche, Aunt Attie put in. The poor girl was already near death that night.

We were all afraid for her, Aunt Lacey said. But let me finish, Sister. Jane, a deed done by that kind of force can only be undone by one of those who did it. She looked at Aunt Attie, then at me. You. Me. Attie. Tyche.

Aunt Attie nodded hard. This is Known.

Tethys seems so sure she can do it.

Granny Clo hmphed. Trying to scare us, that’s all. That’s her—forever trying to make you think she’s special because she’s a Titan. I could remind Madam Tethys of the Waters that we Fates are daughters of Night and of Erebus, the dwelling place of Death. We’ve been around just as long as they have. And Tyche is her own daughter.

She pulled the towel off her head and fluffed her hair out with her fingers. She’d been redoing her gray streaks, I saw. They were whiter now, and they went all the way to the roots again. Granny Clo always kept some gray in her hair so she wouldn’t look too out of place in White Dolphin Villas, where you had to be at least sixty-five. Her glasses were supposed to have the same effect, I thought. She always wore them dangling around her neck, but I’d never seen her put them on.

Neither the hair nor the glasses stopped all those old guys who kept hanging around her at the White Dolphin Villas pool. She was older than the oldest of them by quite a few centuries, but they probably thought she was the age of their daughters.

She patted her hair into place. Well, I’m up early today, thanks to Tethys, and I need my breakfast. Do we still have some of that cereal with the little marshmallows? She hurried off to the kitchen without waiting for an answer.

Is Tyche really that Titan’s daughter? I asked when she was gone.

Oh, she could be, I suppose, Aunt Attie said. There are thirty-thousand daughters. Naiads and Oceanids—you can’t go for a swim without bumping into two or three. And every one of them is in charge of something or other. Mostly it’s lakes and rivers and such things, but in Tyche’s case, it’s Luck. Which suits that girl perfectly.

Put Tethys of the Waters out of your mind, Aunt Lacey said. We need to get something to eat, then we have to work on your training.

In my day, we had a full year of training, Granny Clo called in. You had a year, Lacey; so did Attie. I don’t know why Grace insists on having Jane go to that high school at the end of August. What on earth does One of us need with high school?

It’s a different world now, Mama, Aunt Attie said. Jane needs the human learning too.

Aunt Lacey hurried us through breakfast, then we sat down in the main room with our computers. We were still on Money and Life Goals. We’d been in St. Pete for a couple of weeks now, ever since the school year ended, and we’d been working on Money and Life Goals that whole time. When you have to figure out what kinds of learning experiences a particular life needs, it seems like money always gets into it. Anything about money can change a life—getting it, or losing it, or having any other kind of thing happen with it—and the effect is going to be different for every life you work with. At first it was sort of interesting, but by now I’d learned way more about it than I ever wanted to know. I was ready to get on to Love Affairs.

We’d better take up Sudden Riches today, I think, Aunt Lacey said. We haven’t done much in that area yet. Investments that take off, inheritances, the lottery...

That Kansas City woman again, don’t you think, Sister? Aunt Attie asked. The one with the uncle?

I stared at the screen of my laptop, where the many-colored threads twisted slowly along their paths. Each thread a life, each life needing its experiences. It would be another long day. I do have the Memory, I said. Why isn’t that enough? Do I really have to do all this too?

Aunt Lacey kept her eyes on her screen. "We have Memory of all