The Weaver’s Loom

The October wind carried the scent of pine and something older, something like damp earth and rust. Our group of eleven women arrived at the Ironwood Lodge, a sprawling structure perched on a cliff overlooking the Black River. The lodge had been in the Whittaker family for over a century, and the current owner, a frail woman named Ethel, had warned us with a thin smile: ‘The house remembers.’ We laughed it off, unpacking our bags and claiming our rooms.

I chose the original wing, a crooked corridor of low ceilings and uneven floors. The wallpaper peeled in floral patterns, and the air was thick with dust. The others mocked my choice, preferring the newer additions with their modern amenities. But I was drawn to the weight of the place, the way the floorboards groaned like tired bones. That first night, as we sat in the parlor drinking wine, I felt a prickling at the back of my neck. I turned, but there was nothing—just the long, empty hallway behind me.

The next day, we explored the grounds and found an old weaving shed by the river. Its roof had collapsed, but inside, a massive loom still stood, its wooden frame warped and covered in cobwebs. A single shuttle, carved with spirals, lay on the bench. One of the women, Maria, joked that she could weave a story on it. She picked up the shuttle, and for a moment, I saw a flicker of shadow at the side of her eye. I blinked, and it was gone.

By the third night, the atmosphere had shifted. We had set up my laptop on the dining table, the webcam pointed at the empty chairs. We wanted to capture something, anything. We played cards, talked over each other, and laughed too loudly, as if to fill the silence that seemed to seep from the walls. At 2:17 AM, the laptop’s LED blinked, and a soft hum emanated from the speakers. I looked at the screen—the room appeared empty, the chairs pushed back. But beneath our own voices, I heard a muttering, a low, rhythmic sound like a lullaby sung by a throat full of gravel.

We stopped talking. The muttering stopped. Then it started again, louder, and I saw the shuttle from the shed resting on the table. No one had brought it back. A voice, clear and male, said, ‘Happy.’ We all stared. The temperature dropped, and the candles we had lit flickered as if someone walked past them.

The next morning, we reviewed the footage. There were hours of it. Our conversations, our whispers. But layered over everything was a constant, barely audible drone, like far-off machinery. And there were visual anomalies—static shapes that seemed to form a long, segmented column, like a spine. Rachel, who worked as a radiologist, said it looked like a human vertebra, but elongated, alien.

We should have left then, but the road had flooded, and the bridge was out. We were stranded. That night, we huddled in the parlor, the laptop between us, recording. The voices came more clearly. They called our names—some of them names we hadn’t told the others. They asked about our children, our jobs. They seemed to know our secrets.

At midnight, I felt a pulling sensation, a tug from the direction of the shed. Against my better judgment, I walked outside. The moon was hidden behind clouds, and the garden was a dark labyrinth of shadows. The shed door was open. Inside, the loom was clicking, a rhythmic, clacking sound. The shuttle moved on its own, weaving a dark thread that seemed to absorb light. I watched, frozen, as the pattern grew—a spiral, like the one carved on the shuttle. And in the center, a face formed, a woman’s face, ancient and sad.

Then the face turned, looked at me, and disappeared. The loom stopped. I stumbled back to the house, but I couldn’t sleep. I sat by the laptop, staring at the frozen frame of the spine-like shape. In the reflection of the screen, I saw a figure behind me—a tall, gaunt woman with stringy hair. I turned, and there was no one. But my own reflection in the window seemed to lag behind, coated in a film of dust.

The final morning, we decided to leave no matter what. The water had receded, but the bridge was still gone. We called for help, but no one came. And then we heard the loom again, louder, from inside the house. It was coming from the original wing, from my room. I ran, but the door was locked. I pressed my ear to the wood and heard a soft, rhythmic chanting. It sounded like a lullaby I remembered from childhood, but the words were wrong.

We broke the door down. My room was cold, and the air smelled of sour milk. On the bed lay the shuttle, and beside it, a small bundle of what looked like woven hair—black, gray, and red, curled into a pattern. I screamed and threw it against the wall. It unraveled, and from within, a tiny, dry sound escaped, like a sigh.

We gathered in the parlor and decided to burn the shuttle and the weaving. But as we lit the fire, the voices in the laptop grew to a cacophony—dozens of voices, all pleading, all angry. ‘You can’t leave,’ they said. ‘You’re part of the pattern now.’ The screen went black, then white, then blurry. When it cleared, the webcam had captured a face—the same face I had seen in the loom—grinning, with teeth like needles.

We ran to the cars, but they wouldn’t start. The keys were gone. We searched, and in the kitchen, we found them, arranged in a line on the counter. And on the nearest wall, someone had written in dark, greasy letters: ‘The weaving must continue.’

We are still here, months later. The seasons have changed, but the lodge is the same. We take turns sitting before the loom, our hands trembling. The shuttle weaves on its own, and we have learned the pattern. It is a long, spiraling column of light and shadow. And at the end of each row, the face appears, and it says, ‘Happy.’

I think of the women who came before us, who vanished from these woods. We found their names scratched into the cellar wall. One of them was Ethel. She was the first to be woven, and she became the keeper. And now, as I write this, I feel the threads tightening around my ankles, pulling me toward the shed. I have started to forget my own name. But I remember the face, and I remember the sound of the loom, and I know that on the webcam, if you listen closely, you’ll hear us, all of us, whispering in a language that is not ours. And we are happy.