Becoming

The air didn’t fold around Azrael, it snapped. His conscious arrived before his body, buckling his knees and forcing him to catch himself against a freshly painted doorframe.  Azrael straightened and looked at his hand pressed against the pale grey paint.

The familiar weight began to condense in his chest again, bringing a new flavor of tension this time.

This had never happened before.

Azrael closed his eyes, waiting for his legs to remember how to work without assistance. He looked around the room and tension spread through his shoulders. He noticed the flowered teacup sitting on the cracked windowsill first.

A single yellow shoe lay tipped on its side near the hearth where the fire was banked low in the ornate stone. Azrael took a step toward the fireplace and breathed deep. The smell of wool and cedar hung in the air.

He almost smiled.

“You show up, you look around and say nothing, brother.”

Azrael’s head snapped toward the voice. Clotho held a golden thread between her fingers. She was looking at Azrael in the window’s reflection. Azrael watched the spindle move, crossing his arms over his chest.

“You weren’t around three seconds ago, Clotho,” Azrael replied without moving.

“I was here, you just didn’t see,” Clotho murmured, setting the spindle aside.

“Clotho, you can stop now,” Azrael said.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on vacation?” Clotho asked, arranging her pale pink skirts.

Azrael froze for a split second.

“My vacation was interrupted,” Azrael said stiffly.

“Kenji. Yes, he was…faster than anticipated,” Clotho replied.

Clotho ran her hand along the golden thread that dangled in the air. Her eyes traced a path on the wooden floor.

“Come, sit before you scare the cat,” Clotho said, patting the worn cushion next to her.

“You don’t have a cat,” Azrael said, looking around the room, stepping toward Clotho.

“I don’t have a cat yet,” She corrected, patting the bench beside her.

Azrael crossed the room and sat next to Clotho, the wood creaked with his additional weight. Clotho raised her left hand guiding the dangling thread to the already spinning spindle.  Azrael watched the thread pull long and even through her fingers.

“Az, tell me about the bar,” Clotho said, concentrating on the thread. She was looking beyond the thread into something else.

Azrael watched Clotho spinning, the corner of his mouth twitching. For a single breath, it felt like nothing was wrong. The different flavors of tension radiating through him faded as he watched his sister.

The temperature in the room dropped, but it had nothing to do with the dying embers in the hearth. Another door opened somewhere down the hall and a cool gentle breeze rolled through the sitting room.

“What has happened?” Lachesis purred, not moving closer. Lachesis stood at the edge of the room, just inside the door.

Clotho’s spindle turned slower making the thread uneven. Lachesis raised her perfect eyebrow.

“Nothing has happened, Lachesis,” Azrael said, realizing the thinness of his voice as it left his throat.

Lachesis studied him. Her gaze swept his whole body and her eyes went cloudy. She was looking beyond.

“Lachesis, stop,” Azrael grumbled, allowing the authority of Death to edge his voice.

Lachesis’s eyes were unclouded, but her expression remained unreadable. Atropos stood at the threshold. Her yellow dress swayed in an absent breeze as she leaned one shoulder against the doorframe with her arms crossed over her stomach.

Azrael met her gaze and the slow realization that she had been there, not saying a word washed over him. The flavored tension in his stomach and chest grew into his shoulders when he looked at Atropos. She was not surprised.

“Your hands aren’t shaking, Azrael,” Lachesis sighed heavily, “but they want to.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Azrael said, furrowing his brow.

“Neither do I,” his sisters said in unison.

“Bullshit,” Azrael mumbled looking at each one of them.

“Bullshit?” Lachesis repeated.

“Yes, bullshit and you know it. You know what is going on, you three always know because you are you,” Azrael said, his irritation begging to bubble over.

“We have ideas and suspicions. But little brother, we do not know, not absolutely,” Atropos whispered.

“Then tell me what you know,” Azrael said, standing fully and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Can’t,” his sisters said in unison. The vibration in their voice forced him to sit heavily.

“Fine, then Atropos, why hasn’t any of this surprised you?” Azrael said, facing his youngest sister fully.

Atropos adjusted her skirt and took a seat next to the dwindling hearth. She folded her hands in her lap and glanced around the room.

“Az, I’m always surprised when you visit,” She sighed, “and you always want something.”

“That isn’t what I’m talking about, and you know it,” Azrael said, pointing a finger at Atropos.

Clotho glanced between them. Her thread and spindle hovered just over her left shoulder, completely forgotten.

“Maybe it’s a good thing,” Clotho mumbled.

Lachesis glared at Clotho and her eyes widened.

“Do not,” Lachesis said.

“It could be —”

“I said DON’T,” Lachesis growled with ancient authority.

Clotho looked at the floor and began spinning again, pulling her thread tight. Atropos tilted her head with a slight frown.

“You all three know something is happening,” Azrael said in a whisper, “And not one of you will say a damn thing.”

Atropos stood and walked to him. She stood in front of him and brushed dark strands of hair behind his ear.

“Little brother, we don’t know what is happening,” Atropos said quietly.

“No body knows, Az,” Clotho murmured.

Lachesis moved to stand beside Atropos.

“Brother, it’s not that something is happening…it’s more that it’s never happened before.”

Azrael’s eyes widened and the constellations began to spin and drift into ancient patterns.

“Never. Happened. Before,” Azrael breathed.

“We’re more scared of what happens when someone else figures it out,” Clotho whispered from her chair, leaving the spindle to spin without thread.

“Who else?” Azrael asked, looking between his sisters.

“We don’t know yet,” Lachesis said.

Azrael snorted and shook his head.

“How can fate not know what is fated?” Azrael’s voice was sharp and dripped with authority.

“You misunderstand what we do and do no know,” Lachesis said, holding her head higher.

The room was quiet except for the periodic swoosh of the spindle as it turned in the air. The siblings stared at each other for a moment before the sound of water dripping caught their attention.

“Want me to fix that while I’m here?” Azrael said after the second drip.

The sisters looked at each other and Clotho stood slowly. Clotho turned to face the spindle hanging in the air, somehow spinning thread that wasn’t being guided in. Each sibling turned and started until the drop of water sounded through the room again.

The thread began to pulse.

The sisters held their breath and Azrael took a step closer.

“It’s awake,” Azrael said, taking a step closer and extending his finger toward the thread.

Azrael could feel the thread pulse like a heartbeat. It traveled through the air before it hit his ears as a hum followed by one long drop. The sound was low; the hum was lower.

“Not possible,” Lachesis said through gritted teeth, “It has never hummed.”

“Oh, it’s humming,” Clotho said, her eyes wide as she circled her spindle. She was staring at the spindle like she was seeing it for the first time.

Azrael took another step closer and the temperature in the room plummeted.

“Az, Don’t,” Atropos said, grabbing his elbow. Azrael looked at her hand on his arm and back up at her.

Atropos hadn’t moved from her perch. She was staring at the spindle, making sure it was still there.

“You’re the one touching me, sister.”

Atropos kept her grip on his elbow and met his gaze.

“Azrael, you need to be careful. And that’s from your sister,” Atropos warned.

Azrael raised an eyebrow and stepped back. He crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed his eyes.

“Not one of you has ever told me to be careful. Especially as a sister.”

Lachesis, Atropos and Clotho glanced at each other before resting their gaze on Azrael.

“You’ve never needed it before now, Azrael,” Lachesis replied, as if the declaration would solve everything.

“Azrael, you don’t need warnings, most of the time,” Atropos said in a whisper.

“But this time, we have questions,” Clotho said without looking at anyone.

“Questions,” Azrael said, but it was not a question.

Azrael leaned back against the wall; his arms still crossed over his chest. He was silent for a long moment before he sighed loudly.

“So, you three have questions. And I don’t know what in hades is going on,” Azrael mumbled, “Now I have something that is disturbing the fabric of existence and you three, the fates, the ones in control, have questions. You have got to be kidding me.”

Lachesis’s eyes narrowed when Azrael’s expression relaxed.

“Brother, what are you thinking?” Lachesis said the moment his expression changed.

“I’m thinking that the three of you are no help and I need to talk to Anamnesis,” Azrael said, pushing off the wall.

“Az,” Clotho said, frowning slightly.

“What? I came for answers, none of you have answers,” Azrael said with an overly casual shrug.

“We don’t have the answers you want Azrael,” Lachesis retorted.

Azrael walked toward the door and paused before he left, looking over his shoulder.

“You mean you don’t have answers you can tell me, like always,” Azrael said as he disappeared over the threshold.

Atropos, Lachesis and Clotho stood still longer than needed. Lachesis spoke first.

“Well, that went as expected,” she said, walking across the floor, kicking at the yellow shoe.

“It always goes as expected, sisters,” Clotho said, sinking into the couch.

“Indeed, it does,” Atropos agreed, staring at the spindle.