Flightless Stars

Flightless Stars

Kore Yamazaki

 

Five dry cocoons rolled across my palm.

 

“What’s with these?”

Eugene, the well-built man seated next to me on the bench, folded the cloth bag that’d held the cocoons and laughed. He sounded proud of himself.

Helsinki in early October was a little chilly, but the trees in this seaside park hadn’t yet changed color, and the sunlight warmed things considerably.

“Silkworm cocoons,” he said.

“I can see that!” I glared at him, adjusting my glasses. “I’m asking why you have something like this.”

My shoulders were half as broad as Eugene’s, so no amount of glaring on my part would ever intimidate my friend.

Laughing, Eugene took a wallet from his backpack and counted his money. The man had never owned a credit card, so he always paid in cash. I’d have preferred he wire me the money—it was easier, and the fee was pretty cheap—but he was twice my age, and his lack of credit cards likely had something to do with his papers. That was a whole other mess.

“Don’t get so upset, Jonathan. Few months ago, I stayed at an inn with…can’t remember if he was Chinese or Japanese. Either way, an Asian guy gave ’em to me. Said these were rare cocoons, and if you spin ’em they’ll shine like silver.”

“Silver?”

He made a show of groaning and glaring at his wallet, looking from his backpack to the pile of receipts and the calculator. He could afford this amount, honestly.

“A different shine to ’em than your average silk.”

“If these were that valuable, why give ’em to you?”

I shoved a receipt toward him. He scowled. His already narrow eyes narrowed further and then softened in relief. I guess he had enough.

“Well, he said he had no use for ’em. Didn’t know how to reel ’em, and only had five. I thought they might be more up your alley, Jonathan.”

“Well, if you’re giving ’em away, I’ll take ’em.”

I glanced down at the empty cloth bag and carefully put the five cocoons back inside. I felt it would be wrong to treat them roughly, probably because they clearly still carried pupa.

Just as I’d finished putting the bag in my backpack, Eugene thrust a thick bundle of Euros into my hand. He then slipped a few bills into his wallet and returned the wallet to his backpack. Euros didn’t need to be exchanged, which was helpful for life on the road.

“Well, my livelihood does depend on this sort of thing, but I’ve never reeled a cocoon before.”

My livelihood? Yeah, that was the word for it.

I made a living selling special cloth to mages and alchemists. I’d occasionally finish the item myself and cast a spell on it, but it wasn’t a common practice. It was easy to attach spells to the cloth I made, so I bought the vast majority of it as a material for subsequent use.

These backpacks were a major product of mine. With magic energy woven into the fabric, they could hold ten to twelve times more than their size suggested. Lots of magic folk lived on the road and needed to haul around research materials, essays, cursed items, etc. I myself used them to carry products, sewing machines, knitting needles, assorted looms, multiple types of thread, yarn, cloth of all colors. Other than how hard it was to find the one thing I actually needed, the packs were quite well made, if I did say so myself.

Eugene gripped his jacket with both hands and grinned proudly.

“Your cloth really is perfect for casting spells. Look at this jacket you tailored for me; I’ve been wearing the thing ten years, and it ain’t frayed at all. I got stabbed the other day, and it straight up deflected the blade! You’re a good mage,” Eugene said.

“That’s all I can really do though.”

I ignored his alarming anecdote. Getting stabbed wasn’t uncommon for anyone who lived in the world’s back alleys.

“What are you talking about, kid? You ain’t even fifty yet. You can try your hand at anything you want.”

“It doesn’t suit me, you know. Living for decades looking this young.”

I glanced down at the cocoons in my hand.

I’d stopped aging around sixteen, or maybe eighteen.

No wrinkles or spots, no bony arms and legs. No need to worry about my eyesight or blood pressure. My father had had high blood pressure. My little brother and sister were just like him, so they might be getting real worried about it.

My brother married a girl from our hometown. When I heard he’d had a grandkid, I stopped making yearly ­visits home.

Four years after I set out on my journey, the master who’d spotted my talent and taught me all manner of things vanished without leaving so much as a letter of explanation. By now, I felt sure he was dead.

 

Through no desire of my own, I was always left behind.

 

I sensed someone looking at me, and a few seconds later Eugene patted me on the back. I could feel the heat of his palm through my jacket.

“It ain’t good to think too deep about these things. It’s just what fate has in store for us,” he said.

I didn’t answer, but this didn’t seem to bother Eugene.

If I lived as long as Eugene, maybe I’d come to see it that way.

I sighed. Eugene gave me another fatherly pat.

“Here, now, don’t look so gloomy. Let’s go down this hill, grab a bite at a stand somewhere. There’s a festival on today! We can grab some meatballs, maybe some salmon cream soup or fried muikku. Good eats drive the bad things away.”

This was a blatant attempt to cheer me up, but the corners of my mouth twitched anyway, and my stomach growled.

Even depressed, I still got hungry.

I didn’t know whether to smile or feel sad about that. Either way, Eugene and I went down that hill together.

 

With his tab paid up and my purse full, I could have easily gotten a room.

But for some reason I felt hesitant to sleep in a comfortable bed, so I took a sleeping bag and passed the night in the woods near town.

Moss was soft on my back and under my head.

The city noises were faint on the night air. The chilled breeze carried the sounds of the surf from the Gulf of Finland. My bespelled sleeping bag kept the cold out, warm as a sauna. Soon, I felt very sleepy.

If my nights were too peaceful, I felt as if I wouldn’t wake in the morning.

I opened my eyes and saw the stars twinkling.

Their hard light resembled the color of the cocoons I’d seen that afternoon.

I’d never reeled a cocoon; had barely seen one before. I couldn’t be sure just how unusual the cocoons in my bag really were.

Even after nearly fifty years on this earth, I still knew almost nothing.

That fact came as a relief somehow. I closed my eyes for good this time. Tomorrow I’d research how to reel silkworm cocoons.

 

Hurry.

 

For a moment, I thought I heard the stars speak.

The voice was faint but vibrant. There was something about it I couldn’t ignore.

I stood, searching for the voice’s source. It was closer than I’d imagined.

Like the stars above, a metallic gleam spilled around my feet…from my backpack.

I hastily bent down and scooped the light’s source from the bag’s side pocket.

It was the cocoons Eugene had given me.

Hurry, hurry.

Hurry, hurry.

As the voices whispered, the bluish light shimmered like smoke.

“What’s the rush?” I said, lacing my voice with magic so the cocoons could understand me.

 

Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry!

 

The cocoons began shrieking.

“Come on, work with me. Hurry to do what?”

Hurry, hurry.

Hurry, hurry.

 

Hurry and reel us.

 

I felt cold, smooth fingers brush against my face.

I jerked backward and fell on my ass. The cocoons seemed to calm down a little, as the shimmering slowed.

“You said to reel you? But…”

I didn’t deal in weaving, sewing, and trading cloth for nothing. I may not know the exact process required to reel silk from a cocoon, but I knew how to pull the thread.

You put the dried cocoons in boiling water to loosen the threads, leaving the pupa inside.

Don’t worry.

I could sense no sadness in the voice.

We know what will become of us.

Yes, yes, at last.

We must become that.

At last we’ve found a man who will turn us into thread.

The voices sang and laughed as the cocoons’ light flickered. Something about the voices reminded me of a child’s lullaby.

“Let me look into it.”

I glanced at the phone by my sleeping bag and saw the time.

Both sleep and dawn seemed far away…

 

The world had certainly become more convenient, I thought, skimming the search results.

I found the recipe to make silkworm thread much faster than expected, but the work would be nigh impossible in the dark. I talked the cocoons down and waited patiently for dawn. The sky to the east then began turning slightly red. It was time to prepare.

I took a portable gas stove and pot from my backpack, poured in a bottle of water, and lit the burner. There weren’t many cocoons, and the pot was small, so it would boil quickly.

Meanwhile, dawn seeped across the sky.

I won’t be thread.

One of the cocoons suddenly called out to me. I squinted, wondering which, and saw the largest one twitching.

I’ll lay eggs instead.

I hadn’t asked if they were alive. All the cocoons should have long since been dead, but since they were talking to me I thought it best to listen.

“Then you sit here,” I said, laying it on my sleeping bag, atop a pile of leaves I’d gathered from the nearby brush. The cocoon seemed delighted, but it may have been my imagination.

I heard the water start to bubble and lowered the gas so it wouldn’t boil over. The rising steam soon faded into the cold morning air and the darkness of the woods.

Oh, oh, at last!

At last we can become thread! Oh, oh!

The cocoons’ voices sounded like the residents of a snow-locked land greeting the arrival of spring.

I picked them up with shaking hands. For some reason, my throat felt parched. I gritted my teeth, shook the voices from my minds, and dropped them into the boiling water.

 

Plop.

 

Such a dull sound.

I could no longer hear the cocoons’ voices. They were as quiet as they’d been originally. Nothing about them indicated they’d ever given off such a beautiful, bluish light.

I boiled them a while, turning them with a tiny broom made from fallen twigs. The sticky surface loosened. Threads began spreading out in the water, so I gathered those threads on a twig. As it was still fairly dark, this was easier said than done.

Groaning, I finally got all four. I pulled the threads, gathered them together, and reached for the empty spool. I spent quite some time simply winding away.

A cocoon could produce up to 1,500 meters of silk thread.

Between the water’s heat and the tension, sweat ran down my brow and back.

“Why did you want to become thread?” I asked, without realizing I was saying it aloud.

 

That is what they want from us, a soft voice answered.

Not the vibrant voice I’d first heard at night. This one was more graceful, gentler.

Forgetting to watch my work, I looked toward the voice. Something silver lay on my sleeping bag.

A pair of feelers, like two combs, emerged; silver hair, and silver eyebrows. White skin, like cotton.

The eyes looked almost human but were a solid, glittering black. I saw no mouth.

Its clothes boasted large, fluffy sleeves. The entire outfit appeared to be made of fur, with shining silver flecks dancing all over it—were they scales?

Its belly looked swollen, like it was pregnant.

“You’re that silkworm?” I asked.

Please, keep working.

I remembered I was supposed to be winding thread and quickly looked back to the pot. If I boiled them too long, that would be awful. I only had these four cocoons.

Thank you for hearing our request, traveler from the far, far west.

“I just boiled all your friends to death.”

The silkworm laughed softly.

Our insect lives ended long before you boiled them. But this is their proper destiny, just as mine is to lay these eggs.

“But why?”

I spoke to the cocoons. This time, I didn’t stop my hands… No, that’s not right. It wasn’t that I didn’t stop them; I couldn’t. It was like someone else was moving my hands for me.

We are born of human hands.

The silkworm laughed. It seemed to do that a lot.

Because we are boiled and turned into thread, our numbers increase. We are venerated, and we are valued.

Wind, wind, wind. The spool turned.

If we do not become thread, we can no longer be ourselves. If we do not leave children behind, we can create no more thread.

A gust of salt-tinged wind darted between my hands, and the winding threads wavered.

“Even if that’s true,” I gasped, the words forcing themselves out of me. “If you want to live, you can eat mulberry leaves, become pupa in your cocoons, then emerge from them. Isn’t it scary to have someone else decide who becomes thread? To have that choice taken from you?”

 

Someone had decided I should be like this.

I’d never wanted magic talent, to have that potential.

All I’d wanted was to stay in my hometown, be normal, put down roots, live with family and friends, and grow old.

 

Perhaps we felt that way once. Perhaps even now.

The silkworm didn’t seem upset. It spoke with a soft, musical voice.

We consume mulberry to live, weave cocoons to live, emerge from them to live, and lay eggs before we die.

The silkworm didn’t move at all. Its unblinking eyes stared fixedly at the pot. I could feel its gaze even as I reeled in the thread. Those eyes showed no pity, no sadness, no anger—just joy.

Human hands changed us. Though we can no longer live without human hands, we go on living. Even if our lives can only be fulfilled like this, we continue as long as we can.

The thread wound on, turning, turning, and turning some more. I’d lost all sense of time.

We know, and we remember.

Beyond the forest depths, I glimpsed growing trees I’d never seen before.

Somehow I knew they were mulberries. I strained my eyes and could faintly make out strange wooden houses. Between the mulberries, people went to and fro, clutching large bundles of leaves. Sweating, laboring, smiling…Oh, I thought.

This is where these cocoons came from.

 

Human houses are warm, comfortable, free from predators.

It was warm inside those wooden boxes. The silkworms would never freeze. They were fed all the mulberry leaves they could eat.

 

There were many delicious mulberry leaves. From time to time, a large cat would look in, eyes gleaming.

 

The cats would catch the awful rats.

 

Gnarled human fingers touched us gently, carefully.

 

Hands that reeled so much silk they changed shape, turned red.

 

So very warm.

 

The silkworm never moved, yet I felt it looking up at the sky.

Ah… I hear the sound of flutes.

In the distance, a ship bound for foreign lands issued a steam whistle.

That’s the festival song.

Around us, the trees rustled in the wind.

Spring comes, bringing warmth. We hatch, our children hatch.

Behind me, cloth rustled. Was the silkworm dancing? Or was it crying, crying while smiling?

Sleep, sleep, green, green, soft leaves…

 

Before I knew it, I’d reeled all the thread.

If I left it like this, the threads would stick to each other. I needed to re-reel them on the spinning wheel. Where in my backpack had I put it? I’d made enough stock that I hadn’t touched it in a while. Worried, I turned toward my pack.

The humanoid silkworm was gone.

A dead silkworm remained, fully emerged from the cocoon, its wings outstretched.

Not one egg had hatched from its large, glistening belly. And without mating, the eggs wouldn’t live even if released. Even if the worm had mated, there was no mulberry here for them to eat.

 

Silkworms cannot live without human hands and homes.

 

Moaning, I took the pupa from the bottom of the pot, dug a little hole at the base of a tree, and buried them. I tried convincing myself they’d been dead long before I boiled them, but even if that were true, boiling them had killed them once more. No matter what anyone said, I had boiled them. I had turned them into thread.

I buried the silkworm that had rested on my sleeping bag in the same hole.

I filled in the dirt and patted it firm.

The burial complete, a noise escaped me.

Even if our lives can only be fulfilled like this, we continue as long as we can, it had said. It had smiled. Yet it hadn’t left the eggs it wished to. Not here.

“I have to reel it.”

I searched my backpack and drew out a small spinning wheel. The thread probably required a proper machine, but this was all I had with me. I had to re-reel it quickly.

I had to give meaning to them.

Applying just a little magic so the thread wouldn’t snap or tangle, I spun the wheel. There should’ve been far more thread than this, so if an ordinary human had tried, it would’ve been ruined almost immediately. Without magic, I could never have done it.

 

It’s just what fate has in store for us.

 

As my mind spun, Eugene’s words from yesterday flooded my head. Oh. That was right. I felt like laughing out loud.

The past thirty years of drifting had led me here. I’d left my family, my friends, lost my master. Because I couldn’t use suggestive magic or transformative magic, I had no home, and drifted from town to town, country to country.

To save silkworms that wished to fulfill their purpose.

 

I was sure, almost sure, that was why.

 

“You’re right, Eugene.”

The wheel spun on, as if my words had spurred it.

The thread came along. It did, indeed, gleam like a silver star.

I’d gathered only a small amount. I wondered what I should make from it, my head hazy from lack of sleep. Buy a little extra silk, weave it on a loom? Use it for embroidery? Weave it into an accessory? Even though I hadn’t asked for the responsibility of reeling them, I knew the final result had to be something good. That’s just how I was.

“If I didn’t think like that, I could never live an unending life.”

I chuckled. There was a desperation to it that surprised me.

Being forced into an awful role for thirty years was hardly pleasant. Yet the morning had brought a beautiful blue sky. I was starving after my sleepless night, and my rumbling stomach thought that coffee and cinnamon rolls sounded very appealing.

When I finished this work, I’d return to the harbor.

Maybe I’d find Eugene snoring in front of the Havis Amanda, having been unable to afford a room for the night. Maybe I’d kick him in the ass and force him to buy me breakfast as punishment for foisting all this work on me. Who cared if he refused?

I spun the wheel faster, relying on the magic.

In the bright morning light, the thread glittered like laughter.

 

The End