The Three Sisters

“…Let us put tears and memories away,
While the fates sleep time stops for revelry;
Let us look, speak, and kiss as if no day
Has been or yet will be;
Let us make friends with laughter 'neath the moon,
With music on the immemorial shore,
Yea, let us dance as lovers danced of yore­
The fates will waken soon! “
Lucy Maud Montgomery 1874-1942

The snow was still and silent. The icy air glimmered. A single, silver crescent hung in midair like an untimely moon or a Cheshire cat’s smile. Then the air parted like a doorway and two women stepped through. The old one was shrouded in black, a scarf drawn around the bottom half of her face, a hood swathed around her head, and her body engulfed in a long, black robe. Only two things stood out from the sea of blackness - a pair of eyes, ancient with knowledge hidden from most men and a blade of the moon’s liquid silver, with odd words in an unreadable language etched in the blade.

The younger (as neither could be called young) was fair-skinned. Her brown hair was peppered with a few wisps of grey and pulled back in a severe bun which was well-contained under a khaki broad-brimmed hat. Her clothes were the simple, severe garb of an explorer with sensible boots and well-worn khaki slacks and shirt. She wore a very full knapsack and held an odd-looking spyglass over one eye, which she lowered after looking about. “That way,” she said decisively, snapping it shut. Two mountaintops later, they spotted the young girl, wrapped in white fur, huddled against the clod, watching them approach. Looking at her, the older one pointed, after the younger gave a surreptitious nod. “Clothos…” The girl looked startled as the two women each grasped a hand, leading her toward their crescent portal...

In a way, I think of my life before as an odd sort of dream. There were…objects…which could harm or help. Some of these were quite powerful, and the men of our tribe studied these with great care. The objects were important because they kept the evil ones at bay.

Even as a child, I knew it was important to keep the sinister ones contained. Looking down into the dark, smoky maw with sulfurous fumes pouring forth with reckless abandon, I could hear them hissing, slithering, with sibilant whispers trying to creep into the shadows and escape their own dark home. Sometimes one would break free but with an explosion the sky would rain smoke and molten metal, and the beast would be driven back inside. The fiery thunder was only temporary though, and we lay awake at night, desperately longing for peace and for control over the dark ones. Perhaps that is why I left so easily.

I was not a warrior. Small and slight, not to mention feminine, there was never the briefest consideration that I might battle on the front line. I learned self defense, as we all must, but I was drawn to the objects of ancient civilization with glittering metal, clear walls that shattered with a blow, and odd structures that each day lost more to the ravages of time.

One winter’s day, I had been digging. Tired, I sat on a rock near the site, staring into the depths I had just exited. I felt the air shift, and I saw a swirl and a parting, a rending of the very air in front of me. Terrified, I grabbed a knife and was startled when two women stumbled through. The older one had silvery hair and a long, white robe. She pointed silently with a smooth, curved blade that had strange characters etched into the blade. “Clothos,” she whispered, pointing to me. The dark one next to her grasped me, and before I could respond, pulled me through the opening. I tumbled down onto soft, green grass and the younger one pressed an object into my hand. Curious, I looked down and saw a long, alabaster-white bone needle. “Close it,” she whispered, pointing to the opening.

“Wait!” I began, about to argue. They had taken me without question, without request. I should just walk back through and leave. I turned on my heel and took a step. Then I heard it, faint at first, then building. The dark ones were shifting, shuffling, whispering, and coming closer through the very opening I was about to enter. I stopped short.

“Close it!” The old one was more insistent, her intensity fierce as a strange wind began to blow. There was no thread, nothing attached. I had only the strange bone needle and no inkling what I was supposed to do, but my hands drove me to act, so without much more thought, I drove the tip of the needle to the edge of the opening…and began to sew it shut…

We reached the portal, and I pushed the girl in white through. Just as the dark one had done with me so many years ago, I pressed the bone white needle into her hand. “Close it.” I am Lachesis now, the middle one. I find the rifts that must be opened. One day, I too will be Atropos, and the spyglass will pass to the young girl in white, so uncertain, who struggles to stitch closed the yawning chasm that seems impossible, yet will yield only to her hand. The job does get easier, but there is always a moment as you stand, needle poised that you wonder, “What if it does not close this time?”

To this day, I do not know what drives us. The needle closes the rifts. The spyglass, which I now carry, can see where rifts should open to avoid them rupturing on their own. Think of it as lancing a particularly nasty boil. And of course, there is the curved blade, which opens the rifts. We open the rifts, we find the rifts, and we close them again, and as long as we are able to complete our task, the world is safe. There has always been the three, though through time we change, yet we remain, and we are.