The Wicked Thread

The first time Jasper touched the thread, the world didn’t ripple—it fractured. For a breathless second, it was as if the air cracked around him, spilling a silence so heavy it threatened to crush him.  

He crouched in the ruins of Silwood’s old tailor shop, where ivy draped the stone like a shroud and ash coated the floor from a fire no one remembered. He wasn’t supposed to be here. No one was.  

The villagers whispered about the tailor who had vanished years ago, leaving behind nothing but ruined fabric and stories of a curse. Some claimed the thread could stitch together dreams. Others swore it could unravel lives. Jasper didn’t believe in curses. Curses were for those with something to lose, and Jasper had nothing.  

The thread glimmered in the dim light like molten silver. It shouldn’t have been here, not after all these years. It felt as though it had been waiting.  

His fingers hesitated before he reached for it, the echo of an old warning in his mind:  

*"The maker's gift undoes the unworthy."*  

When his hand closed around the spool, a spark of pain shot through his palm. He pulled back, expecting to see blood, but his skin was unmarked. The thread burned cold. He should have left it where he found it, buried under the rubble of the tailor’s table. Instead, he slipped it into his pocket and disappeared into the night.  

---

The next morning, Silwood bustled with market day energy. Stalls spilled over with produce, trinkets, and scraps of gossip. Jasper sat at the edge of the well, needle in hand. His cloak was patched and frayed, his boots worn through at the toes.  

He threaded the needle with the glimmering strand, wincing as it nicked his fingertip. A bead of blood rolled down the thread, disappearing into its silken length.  

The first stitch whispered as it passed through the fabric, leaving a faint shimmer. He worked with focus, oblivious to the world around him, until a familiar voice cut through the hum of the square.  

“What are you doing, rat?”  

Jasper didn’t look up. Marlow’s voice carried the sharpness of someone who had everything to lose and hated being reminded of it.  

The blacksmith’s son loomed over him, his broad shoulders blocking the light. Jasper ignored him, tugging the thread through the fabric. Marlow’s shadow didn’t move.  

“Oi. I’m talking to you.”  

“Not stealing,” Jasper muttered.  

Marlow crouched, snatching a scrap of fabric from the basket beside him. “Sewing like some old maid, huh? Didn’t know rats had hobbies.”  

“Leave him alone.”  

Lydia’s voice softened the tension. She stood a few paces away, her basket of herbs balanced on one hip.  

Marlow smirked. “Ah, Lydia, always the saint. Maybe you can patch him up when someone decides to teach him a lesson.”  

“Maybe you should mind your own business.”  

Marlow’s laugh was cold, but he let the fabric drop and walked away. Lydia lingered, her gaze shifting between Jasper and the faintly shimmering thread in his hand.  

“You shouldn’t mess with things you don’t understand,” she said quietly.  

Jasper didn’t reply.  

---

That night, in the attic where he slept, Jasper worked by the flicker of a tallow candle. The thread hummed faintly in the silence, its glow casting strange shadows on the walls.  

His stitches were faster now, the needle moving with an ease that felt foreign. The fabric in his hands transformed, becoming something softer, richer, alive with a light that pulsed like a heartbeat.  

When the cloak was finished, he draped it over his shoulders and turned to the cracked mirror leaning against the wall.  

What stared back wasn’t him.  

He was taller, broader, his eyes glinting like polished amber. The scars on his hands were gone. He looked like someone who mattered, someone who belonged.  

He didn’t sleep that night.  

---

By morning, the square was alive with whispers. Jasper stepped into the light, the cloak billowing behind him. Conversations stopped mid-sentence as heads turned.  

Lydia was the first to approach him. “Where did you get that?”  

“I made it.”  

Her eyes narrowed, flicking to the cloak, then back to him. “No one makes something like that, Jasper.”  

He smiled, but the warmth didn’t reach his eyes. “Maybe they just don’t know how to look.”  

Marlow appeared, his voice louder than necessary. “What’s this, then? The rat thinks he’s a king?”  

Jasper didn’t flinch. “Think what you want. Doesn’t change what’s true.”  

Marlow’s jaw tightened, his fists curling. “Watch yourself.”  

But he didn’t touch Jasper. No one did.  

---

The cloak changed everything.  

For the first time, people noticed Jasper. They invited him to their tables, offered him food and drink. Marlow’s taunts grew quieter, replaced by forced smiles and thinly veiled envy.  

Each night, the thread called to him, urging him to create more. His stitches became faster, the garments more intricate. Gloves that never tore. Boots that never wore out. Scarves that shimmered like starlight.  

The villagers clamored for his work, paying him in gold, in promises, in admiration. Yet the more they praised him, the heavier the silence inside him grew.  

“You don’t even like them,” Lydia said one evening, finding him alone in the ruins of the tailor’s shop.  

Jasper didn’t look up. The needle moved in his hand, stitching a pattern into a tunic that glowed faintly in the moonlight.  

“It’s what they want.”  

She knelt beside him, her voice softer. “Or what you want them to want?”  

He hesitated, the needle faltering.  

“You’re better than this,” she whispered.  

But Jasper couldn’t stop.  

---

The festival was his chance to prove himself. For weeks, he worked on a single garment: a gown of silver and gold, so radiant it seemed to hum with life.  

When he unveiled it, the villagers gasped. Even the mayor, a man who rarely praised anything, declared it a masterpiece.  

Jasper felt, for the first time, that he belonged.  

But as the applause faded, something shifted. The gown began to unravel, threads unspooling into the air like wisps of smoke. Jasper tried to grab them, but they dissolved in his hands.  

The villagers recoiled.  

“He’s cursed,” someone hissed.  

“Just like the old tailor.”  

“He’ll bring ruin to us all.”  

Jasper fled, clutching the empty spool.  

---

In the ruins, the thread whispered to him. Its voice was darker now, hungrier.  

*"The maker’s gift is the unmaker’s curse."*  

Jasper didn’t understand, but he couldn’t let it end like this. He began to sew again, faster, more desperately, the needle piercing his skin as often as the fabric.  

The cloak he created was unlike anything before. It shimmered like a living thing, wrapping around him with a will of its own.  

When he looked in the mirror, he saw not a boy, but a king.  

He returned to the square, stepping into the light with a confidence that wasn’t his own. The villagers froze, their whispers dying as they stared.  

But the cloak had a will, and it was not kind. Threads lashed out, binding the nearest villager, then another, their cries piercing the air. The spool in Jasper’s hand grew heavier, pulling him down as if it were filled with stones.  

Lydia was the last to speak. “You wanted them to see you. Now they can’t look away.”  

The threads tightened, dragging Jasper to his knees. The villagers turned away, their fear eclipsing their pity.  

As the cloak consumed him, Jasper’s reflection shimmered in the mirror of his mind—tall, broad, and empty.  

The thread whispered its final words:  

*"The unworthy unravel themselves."*