- Chapter 7 -

Busy noises sounded from all around

The morning sunlight coated the whole “Kingdom” with a saffron-golden glow. Busy noises sounded from all around. Tutu looked forward to this day of learning. Refreshed from her dreamless night, she started singing and swaying. Too bad Mirror Boy is not with me. How quickly my situation has changed, from very bad to absolutely delightful. She relished some clover nectar, smoothed over her sugar thread hair, short and almost white, in it little sugar diamonds sparkling and blinking; put some order into her lacy tutu, and stepped out into this clean new day.

Brocade already had gone over to the family of glowworms to hire their services. They lived in the hawthorn thicket in their own private world. It was hard for Brocade to communicate with them because they spoke to each other in light signals. But they had set up a nice lucrative business with their lighting services and they always had somebody on duty. Today she requested a group of five. She had set up a system with them, so that she paid with golden cups after a certain amount of services. They, in turn, would trade those cups for things they needed.

The five young, strong glowworms joined her now to wait for Tutu on her front porch. Brocade lived inside one of the birch trees on top of the ridge above the big burrow of the rabbits. Some day in the past, a lightning strike had carved out a nice enough hollow for Brocade to set up house. She had reinforced the inside walls with her spun silk and her spun gold, divided the place up into sleeping and working areas. Also, on the side of evening lay a gilded room with a harp standing right in the middle. Brocade played it often, then the rabbits would come and listen quietly. She left some protected wall spaces open for ventilation and to see the outside.

When Tutu arrived, they changed a few polite words and went right to work. The shaft entry lay on the other side of the ridge, opposite the home of the rabbits. A vista of painterly beauty lay before them when they had reached the other side of the ridge. Fields of bright yellow rape stretched as far as the eye could see. Through the fields snaked long sandy paths lined with trees and hedges. Way up in the air, almost touching the clouds, a lark trilled his song, one verse after the other. How peaceful, thought Tutu. Momentarily she drifted off just drinking in the beauty.

“So, there we are”

“So, there we are,” said Brocade in her gravely voice. She pointed to a big rock that had a little tree struggling to grow in one of the crevasses. “This tree is very strong, looking at it, you would not think so, but it's roots are firmly anchored into this rock. What I will do, is, fasten my silk thread there around that tree, you young fellows can climb on my back.” The young glowworms were familiar with the procedure and hopped on her back. “And Tutu, you can just copy what I am doing. You think your thread is strong enough to hold you?”

“I am very sure of it, I have let myself down from high heights quite often in Lady Roses' Story-Castle.”

“Later, you have to tell me about that. But now let's go.”

Brocade lowered herself over the rim of the entry, descending slowly into the deep. Tutu had fastened two of her sugar threads to the tree, just to make sure that she was safe. Under herself, between her toes, she saw the light of the glowworms dancing on the walls of the earthen downward tunnel. It felt warmer and warmer. Stuffy really. Suddenly the light vanished, then she hit ground, the lights were back in front of her, a little distance away. She could walk now, tethered to her threads.

Small prism flashes surprised her, then she realized that those were the crystals that the rabbits used. Then there were veins of golden color, small and imbedded in the rock. Brocade had stopped now, the glowworms had stationed themselves ahead illuminating a small niche that obviously had been worked on before. The spider lady walked to the niche, lifted the front part of her body so she stood only on the last pair of legs. Slowly a liquid oozed out of her mouth, dissolving some of the gold. She then drank that liquid, repeating this process for some time. Her body bloated to double her normal size until she was half as big as Tutu now.

“This is all I can carry,” Brocade said in a rather squeezed voice, “but I will put this dissolving liquid of mine onto the gold so you can drink it too.” And so she did, and Tutu drank, carefully, as not to wet her lips. Tutu's belly swelled up too, a strange warmth settled into her limbs. But it felt not too bad. When she tried to walk, her knees almost buckled under her. With tremendous effort the whole party turned home to Brocade's place. The glowworms left with a polite nod of their heads. Now the two spinners sat with each other, heavy, exhausted.

* * *

“I work constantly to improve my art”

“What is this liquid, that you use to dissolve the gold with?”

“Many spiders produce poison to kill what they need to eat. I do too. But I also can use it to dissolve gold. I found that out by sheer coincidence. And since I am an artist, it was a natural to try to apply this discovery. It has given me much satisfaction, I work constantly to improve my art and there is not a day that goes by when I don't think of some new application for this wonderful medium that I work with.”

They sat a while longer, lost in their own thoughts. They where so comfortable with each other that not every moment had to be filled with some chatter. “Now let me show you how to make some use of all this effort we have put into this already. You know how I spin my silk normally. When I have swallowed all that liquid gold, the two of them mingle naturally and the gold becomes very strong which it would not be without the addition of the silk. You really could not use it in its pure form. Things don't hold their shape, especially when you handle the object, just like the chalices I create for the rabbits. I don't know how your sugar will hold the gold together, but I think it might work.”

So both of them started to spin in their own unique way. Brocade rolled up her threads into a big ball for later processing. Tutu let the threads weave themselves into herself, just like she did with the sugar. She felt a tiny bit heavier now, but not as heavy as with the liquid that was in her before. It must have evaporated. Then they sat down to take a brake, eat something and be fresh for the rest of the day.

“How absolutely stunning you look”

“This gold thread woven into you is particularly becoming, how absolutely stunning you look. Your next performance will be quite enhanced by it. And - oh, you should see your eyes - they are full of gold flecks now. Even your hair looks more like the sunlight than moon glow, the way it did before. Your Mirror Boy will not get enough looking at you. Soon you will be home with him and Lady Rose. Tell me about her, she does sound like my kind of person. She is human, right?”

”Yes she is. She is one of the best people you could ever meet. After this lady, that Sam had brought home, put me down on the door steps to the Story-Castle, Lady Rose, I still call her that to show my respect, stepped out of the door and almost onto me. I was wrapped up in this towel and could not see what was happening. I just felt lifted up and when she unwrapped me I sat on the kitchen counter.

“She gave me that almost amused look over the rim of her purple reading glasses. “What a precious little thing you are, can you speak?” I hummed some notes, but I did not know many words. ”There is hope. Do you have a name?” I did not know what she meant. She took me by my hands, stood me up on my legs, looked up and down on me, spun me around and said:“One day, you will be the greatest dancer in the world, you are built for it, you have got strength in your eyes, you are not afraid. I think I will call you Pink Cotton Candy Tutu Doll, no wait, Girl. That is a fitting name for a dancer. Now let me take a closer look at you, so I can give you a nice bed where you will feel at home.“

Symbol of waves, stars, sun, seahorses. Divider.