The Weaver of Thorns

In the autumn of 1999, I was nineteen and sharing a cramped hostel room with two others in the hill town of Ranikhet, far from the bustling plains. My friends, Vikram and Arjun, were my escape from the drudgery of engineering lectures. Vikram was a wiry, restless soul from a Kumaoni family, and Arjun was an easygoing Bengali with a fondness for ghost stories. We often skipped classes to wander the pine-clad slopes, but our favorite haunt was Vikram’s ancestral home in a remote hamlet called Jharokha, nestled in the folds of the Himalayas. It was a decrepit, two-storied structure with a slate roof, surrounded by overgrown rhododendrons and a crumbling stone wall. Vikram’s grandmother had died there a year ago, and the place had been locked ever since.

It was the last week of October, and the hills were shrouded in a cold mist. Our college had declared a brief holiday for Diwali, and Vikram suggested we spend a few days at Jharokha to escape the noise and prepare for exams. Arjun and I agreed, lured by the promise of solitude and the eerie tales Vikram spun about his grandmother’s weaving loom. She had been a master weaver, he said, and had left behind a half-finished rug on her loom, untouched since her death. We arrived at the house on a gray afternoon. The air was heavy with the smell of damp earth and old wood. Vikram unlocked the heavy oak door, and it creaked open to reveal a dim interior lit by a single bare bulb. The house was sparse but clean, with wooden floors and high ceilings. The loom stood in a corner of the main room, draped in a dusty cloth. We dumped our bags in a bedroom upstairs and settled in for the night.

The first evening was uneventful. We cooked a simple meal of dal and rice on a kerosene stove, and as darkness fell, we sat by a lantern, talking and laughing. But by midnight, I began to notice a faint, rhythmic sound, a gentle clack-clack-clack, like a shuttle moving across a loom. I dismissed it as the wind rattling the window frames. Arjun, however, went pale. He said he heard it too, coming from the main room where the loom stood. Vikram laughed nervously and said it was probably a rat. We tried to sleep, but the sound persisted, growing steadier. I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, my heart thumping. Then, just as suddenly as it started, the clicking stopped, replaced by a low, mournful humming.

The next morning, we found the dust cloth on the loom thrown aside, and the half-finished rug had a new row of dark, thorny-looking patterns. Vikram frowned, saying his grandmother used to weave such designs for certain rituals. He quickly covered the loom again, and we spent the day exploring the nearby forest to shake off the unease. But as dusk approached, a strange lethargy settled over us. We returned to the house, and that night, the sounds returned, but this time more insistent. The humming was louder, and we could hear footsteps pacing the main room below. Arjun was trembling. He said he saw a shadowy figure through the window, a woman in a white sari, moving her hands as if weaving. Vikram’s face was ashen; he confessed that his grandmother had a reputation as a witch in the village, and she had died with a curse on her lips because she was forced to stop weaving.

On the second night, we decided to leave at first light. But sleep claimed us early, and I woke up in the dead of night to find myself alone in the bedroom. Vikram and Arjun were gone. Panic surged through me. I ran downstairs, and there, in the glow of a single candle, I saw them standing in front of the loom, their hands moving in weaving motions, their eyes vacant. The loom was now covered with a thick, dark fabric, and a figure sat behind it—a gaunt old woman with hollow eyes and long, skeletal fingers, her face half-hidden in shadow. She was humming the same tune, and as I watched, she looked up and smiled, revealing blackened teeth. She gestured for me to join. My legs moved against my will, and I found myself sitting at the loom, my hands gripping the shuttle. The old woman’s voice hissed, ‘Weave, child, weave the thorns of fate.’ The shuttle moved on its own, threading through a pattern of interlocking thorns, and I felt a sharp sting in my palm. I looked down, and my blood was soaking into the fabric, turning it crimson.

The next morning, I woke up on the floor of the main room, with daylight streaming in. Vikram and Arjun were sprawled beside me, breathing heavily. The loom was bare, the half-finished rug gone. In its place was a single, perfectly woven thorn, made of black wool, sitting on the bench. Vikram shook his head, saying he had a nightmare. Arjun refused to speak. We gathered our things and left immediately, not once looking back. On the bus ride back to Ranikhet, I noticed a small, red mark on my palm, like a thorn prick. When I asked Vikram and Arjun, they showed similar marks. None of us could explain it. We never returned to Jharokha, and we gradually drifted apart. To this day, I often feel a strange compulsion to weave, even though I’ve never touched a loom in my life. And sometimes, in the quiet hours of the night, I hear that faint, rhythmic clack-clack-clack, and I know the old woman is still weaving, and she hasn’t finished with us yet.