Silver Strings

By Phoebe Brinkley

Popi has spent the last three years traveling and using her gift to help the people she meets. She has reached the last town on her trip and is surprised to find a large number of people in need of what she can offer. The more Popi finds out about this town the more she can’t help but wonder why so many people are in pain, how she can help, and what’s going on with the chatty guy at the bar.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9781365625527

Book preview

Silver Strings

SILVER STRINGS

Phoebe Brinkley

© 2017 by Phoebe Brinkley.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: 2016

ISBN 9781365625527

This book is dedicated to those who have been hurt and turn to books for solace. You are not alone.

Chapters:

1: POPI’S GIFT

2: STRANGER AT A BAR

3: THE BET

4: ROYALTY

5: THE BLIND

6: HEART

7: TRUST

8: TRICK

9: AMBUSH

10: THE SOURCE

11: SPANGLED COTINGA

12: HIDDEN

13: DINNER

14: THE PRINCE

15: TRUTH

16: FEELING

17: LOVE

1: POPI’S GIFT

Since the age of five, Popi had sat on her father’s lap and listened to him as he took the time to teach her. She had run through his philosophical questions in her own mind, sometimes asking some of her own or telling him her answers in order to get feedback.

An outsider might think she would know all of the answers; she was nineteen after all. But the questions hadn't changed much and neither had her gift. And she had always known the questions were being asked to help her to master her gift.

This was the last time Popi and her father would have this talk, because it had become her time to go out and discover the world on her own. So, Popi sat across from her father in her large burnt-red, wide, low-backed leather chair. She had picked it out herself for her ninth birthday. Her favorite part was how the cushion was so large that she could sit cross-legged with room to spare. She felt her body sink in deeper as she scooted back in her chair to observe her father.

His chair was a slightly darker shade of red and had a higher back that was wider at the top. The back of his chair had metal tacks running across the edges while hers was poufy and soft.

Popi twirled her long, black corkscrew curls in her fingers. She watched her father as he pulled up the control panel embedded in the arm of his chair to adjust the settings of the chair to cool. Dad was hot-blooded. Popi had her chair set to warm.

Her father had always moved slowly and deliberately, even when he was younger. Popi was used to patiently waiting while he got himself settled in.  Time spent with her father had always been worth the wait.

Popi’s stomach was contented from the evening’s meal. The low, orange light from the lamps was comforting, like a warm blanket was settled on the entire room. The musty scent of books wafted through the air from the three walls that housed them. The fourth wall, to her left, was her favorite view in the early mornings; though it was pitch black with the lamp light reflections glowing from it now. That wall was made entirely of one thick window pane.

Popi and her father had often spent time discussing the world and how it worked, and her gift and how she could use it to better humanity. He always started off with questions. Each question was followed by a long pause for Popi to have a chance to think. Her father had always asked her to think.

Once he settled in, her father asked the first question, Why is love so elusive for some and so readily available for others? His voice was smooth, sweet, and comforting like warm, maple syrup.

She knew he would answer these questions in his discussion with her, so she gave them minimal time and thought during his short pauses.

How do you fall in love? Why are some people seemingly so determined to destroy the love around them? Why do others appear to foster, multiply, and grow love without effort? These questions had been in her mind since she could remember. Popi had pondered them as she walked through the garden and while she journaled in her room.

Popi’s father continued, Abuse hinders love, it lingers with the abused...and silently does all it can to sabotage the natural loving tendencies of humans. And the abused do not see that. It's all in their unconscious. All they know is that despite their greatest efforts to love, things keep going wrong. And that's where your gift comes in...

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Three years of traveling was eye-opening. Of course it was much easier for a girl whose father had prepared her for it all her life. Nonetheless, for Popi, it was surprising to see all that he said she would see in person.

One of the hardest parts was understanding why people did what they did and at the same time seeing that those people could not see it. And Popi knew that when people could not see the why then they could not change their behavior, even if they wanted to. Popi's gift helped her see exactly why.

Popi could see strings. That was her gift. The strings weren’t yarn, or thread, though she could see those just fine; Popi could see the strings of abuse. She could see them attached to each person who carried them. They were silver and cursive; and each one floated in the air behind where they were attached. They were made up of words. The words were the beliefs the abuse had attached to that person. No one else that she knew of, except her father and her late grandmother, could see strings.

It was late afternoon and she was making her way on foot from the outskirts of this new town toward its heart. She began to see people again and she began to see the strings again. As she walked the wet, hexagonal patterned streets, she began to pick out patterns in the strings: repeats used to hold person after person.

You're not good enough, read one string that trailed behind the neck of a sandy-haired, blue-eyed boy of about twelve.

The same string trailed behind the wrist of a woman crocheting a washcloth as she sat by her booth full of washcloths. Popi thought about how it was rare for someone not to use digital crochet needles. Here this woman was with this amazing ability to crochet the classic way, yet she believed she wasn’t good enough. Popi frowned.

Another repeat string trailed behind the head of a young brunette man, his dark hair had receded too far for his years.

As Popi walked, she enjoyed the soft drizzle of rain drops that reached her cheeks slightly below the reach of her moss-green, velvet cloak. She looked for other outward manifestations of the abuse here. She tried to see the source of the strings. She wanted to know where they originated.

As she looked and pondered she noticed the houses she passed. Each house had a well-manicured front lawn, a bed full of colorful flowers, and what appeared to be a new coat of fresh paint. It looked like the town was built yesterday and there hadn't been time for any of it to naturally weather. But this town had been here for at least a century. In fact, the whole town looked uncharacteristically clean.

From the naked eye, no one would think anything fishy was going on in this town. Only Popi could tell that there was, because of her gift. Even the people, who were so down-trodden, managed to look well kept. Their clothes and hygiene didn't reflect the thoughts holding them back. That was puzzling to Popi.

Popi remembered how all of the areas where the most strings were in the last towns had been strewn with trash. And the people were poorly clothed and did not take care of their bodies. It didn’t make sense for them to when they didn’t believe life was worth living. That was how the philanthropic groups she had often joined knew where to help. But here, where there were way more strings, there was no physical manifestations at all. Popi wondered how an outsider could possibly know that help was needed.

Popi turned away from the houses and began to make her way up Main Street. It was lined with shops so tightly packed there were no alleys. Each side of the street was one continuous building from the bottom slightly up the slope to the top.  The only way you could tell there were separate shops within those buildings was the different pastel colored squares of paint that marked the front dimensions of each shop; as a whole it brought to Popi’s mind a spring checkerboard. White, post-top, four-sided luminaires lined the sidewalks with their digital flames barely visible through the rain.

Main Street was full of people on their way home from work. Everyone was walking up and down the streets. Popi saw that there were many strings here as well. She picked out a different phrase being repeated among people frequently: Everything bad that happens is my fault.

She saw that string trailing behind the lower back of a businesswoman in a black pencil skirt, the elbow of the baker locking his shop up to go home for the day, and the shoulders of a little four-year-old girl and her mom.

Popi took a deep breath and switched off her gift so she could continue along without seeing strings everywhere she looked. She had seen enough to know she would spend a lot of time reading strings if she didn't focus on the task at hand: she needed to find the source of the strings.

A few shops ahead, Popi could see a tavern. It appeared to be busy, and possibly a good source to look for information. Under the front awning Popi saw a few men meet up and embrace before going in.

As she got closer she could see there was a green crest above the front door that read: P & R Tavern. She could make out the smell of grilled burgers as it wafted down the street toward her nose. Her stomach got excited for melted cheese on cow, as her dad always affectionately called cheeseburgers.

She opened one of the glass double doors and took a second to adjust her eyes to the low-lighting while the bell sound above her faded. She was in a small entryway squared in by brown booths on either side of her. A round, ruddy-cheeked man, about eight inches taller than her, greeted her. His light brown beard spread wide around his smile, highlighted here and there with bits of silver.

Welcome to the P & R Tavern! he exclaimed as he grabbed her hand and shook it vigorously.  I'm Paul, and in a low, conspiratorial voice he whispered behind his hand to Popi, I represent the P on that sign. And with a wink and a chuckle to himself that made Popi smile, he changed his tone back to normal and said, My sweet wife is the R seeing as her name's Rebecca and all. Just one?

Popi nodded and Paul led her to the right, past low booths lit by low-hanging red lamps that lined the tinted windows to the front of the shop.  There were small, two-seater tables with chairs along the middle of the room and to the far left was a long mahogany bar. Paul pointed to one of the tables and then to the bar. I'll let you pick your poison.

Popi didn't really want to sit out in the open with an extra empty seat to represent her solitude, so she smiled at Paul and sat herself in one of the comfy, tan, leather barstools. She felt like a child they were so tall and wide, with high-backs and arm rests. Popi took off her cloak and put it behind her back to help her sit more forward. She could see how Paul managed to make money, he kept his customers so comfortable they would never want to leave.

Paul had gone off to seat another customer, leaving Popi to herself to put her order in. She leaned forward and swiped the two fingers of her left hand across the surface of the bar directly in front of her. The screen embedded in the table top awoke and automatically pulled up a digital menu for her to look through. She ordered a cheeseburger with fries and a strawberry banana smoothie. Then she sat back to take in her surroundings and thought about how to get some answers.

She could hear Paul behind her giving someone the same pick your poison option she had been given. She was seated three away from the end of the building to her right and two seats away from a couple to her left. She realized with the way she was seated that her strategy to talk to townspeople wasn't going to work. Maybe Paul or his wife would come chat her up.

She was feeling hot from the kitchen and being inside so she adjusted her seat to cooler settings and decided to relax and enjoy herself as she waited for her food. Then someone sat in the seat to her right. And not just any someone, a guy.  She realized he must have picked the same poison she had.

2: STRANGER AT A BAR

Whoa, he said as he looked over and saw her. I didn't see you here, from behind these chairs it looked like no one was here. Glad I didn't sit on you!

She'd always been short, and she was fine with it. She was amazing at hide-n-go-seek because of it. He was tall.

She smiled. I'm glad you didn't sit on me either! What would I tell my father? ‘I went to a new town and the first thing I did was get sat on.’ He'd be very disappointed.

He grinned. Oh, you're new to the kingdom of Hidina? he said the last part mockingly and with a grand gesture of his left hand above his blonde mop of hair. 

"Yes. I just got in today. Thought I would try a local eatery and see