Ch. 2 – No. 4.2: Weirder Than Fiction
Terris finds a curious tome in a dark corner of an old bookshop.
When Clove and Terris weren’t peddling herbs and spices with their families in markets, they explored their respective interests in each new town they visited. Clove spent her free time in libraries, book shops, and archives, while Terris sought out local musicians. A budding interest in any variety of obscure, surreal fiction led Clove to the dusty, secluded corners of bookshelves in buildings that creaked underfoot and sheltered more spiders than people. When she wasn’t reading, she was penning short stories. Meanwhile, Terris’ musical skill was far beyond their years, and they often found themselves busking alongside locals and traveling troupes, or otherwise burning the midnight oil onstage in cafes and taverns.
Despite diverging lifestyle preferences, Terris and Clove remained close as their teenage years dwindled. Clove would sometimes take a seat in the dim, crowded venues where her cousin plucked their mandolin onstage while the hands of others tapped drum skins and danced across piano keys. Sometimes, Terris convinced her to hop onstage with her flute. And at times, Terris joined Clove in the quiet recesses of bookshops.
On one such day, Clove was sat on the floor at the end of two rows of bookshelves, back against the worn brick wall, sunbeams streaming in through the window above her head. Dust motes danced in the light while Clove turned the pages of the book propped against her knees. She saw Terris’ curly, dark mohawk approaching over the top of her book and looked up to see a devious veil of satisfaction on her cousin’s pale face, thick brows raised as they handed a thin hardcover book down to Clove.
Joining Clove on the floor, crossing their legs and knitting their fingers together, Terris sat tensely, eagerly observing their cousin as though they’d just given her a magnificent wrapped gift and suffered great impatience waiting for her to open it.
“No title,” Clove observed the blank cover and spine, cocking a brow at Terris. The first page was blank but for one elegant, handwritten word, or perhaps a name, scrawled in the bottom corner: “Aria”. No title page. Opening it at random, Clove discovered handwritten pages, then brought the book to her nose and sniffed it, looking to Terris. The two nodded in tandem as though sipping cups of tea and silently agreeing on its pleasantness.
Flipping forward a few pages, then backward several more, it became clear that the entire book was handwritten, seemingly in a more intentional fashion than a journal might be. Looping text danced across the aged paper in perfectly straight lines, though the highly stylized scrawl was indecipherable upon first glance. The language did, however, seem to be that of the cousins’ native tongue. Turning the pages with curiosity, observing the book’s layout, Clove began to find diagrams and illustrations depicting imagery very familiar to her. It took her a moment to realize why, and when she did, it was as if her blood froze.
“Terris…these are them.” Clove whispered, looking to her cousin with wide eyes. “These are the fibers.”
Clove quickly purchased the book, and the two left the store. Though the shopkeeper appeared apathetic about the brief transaction, a deep-seated sense of fear and shame churned in Clove’s stomach. Though she had wanted to ask the shopkeeper if he knew anything about the book, she hadn’t done so, already apprehensive that this interaction had revealed the bizarre truth of her nature to someone else.
The two emerged from the side street where they’d found the bookshop and sat on a nearby bench in the early evening’s sinking sun amid a scant crowd ambling along the main street of storefronts. Terris pulled a wrapped piece of bread from their satchel while Clove studied the book.
“So, uh…anything interesting?” Terris eventually asked, hesitantly, as they nibbled on the stale crust, sensing Clove’s air of overwhelm and unsure if they ought to fill the silence or leave their cousin to her thoughts.
“I’m a Scavenger,” Clove said simply.
“Elaborate,” Terris requested, setting the bread on its wrapping in their lap. Clearing her throat, Clove thumbed back through the pages.
“I must first define a litany of dense terminology in order to do so,” Clove said. “Are you ready?”
“Ready and sweaty, cousin,” Terris clasped their hands and sat up, at attention, angling themselves toward Clove dramatically.
“Um, yuck,” Clove retorted. “Same, though.” She cleared her throat again. “Essence: the essence of a person encompasses all of the intangible aspects of a person. The essence interacts with the person’s tangible physiology and vice versa. Intangible aspects include characteristics both simple and complex, ranging from one’s favorite color, to one’s inherent distrust due to past trauma, to one’s sense of security due to existing in a strong community, to one’s favorite food, and so on and so forth.“
“Makes sense,” Terris nodded.
“The essence is made up of three components which are collectively called fibers. The three types of fibers are called luma, whim, and umbra. Fibers are modulated by electricity. Electrical signals in the body are the primary force which drives the behavior of luma, whim, and umbra. Each type of fiber responds to different aspects of the body’s natural electrical signals.”
“This shit’s weirder than fiction,” Terris mumbled, wide-eyed, taking a slow bite of their bread.
“These components, when woven into essence, form an intricate tapestry. A person’s essence sheds some of these fibers upon change in their life, whether big or small. The essence also sometimes obtains new fibers in response to change. All of the essence’s fibers are shed when a person dies. Those fibers that are shed due to either change or death are called stray fibers. Stray fibers float around the world’s atmosphere. We do not currently have a concrete answer for where fibers initially come from, but we know that the human body itself does not generate its own fibers. Scant information suggests that they do not originate from our world at all, a highly abstract topic upon which I will expound later in this book.
“Contrary to that statement,” Clove interjected, “I haven’t been able to find further writings on the matter. It almost looks as though the book ends abruptly. I don’t think the author finished it.” She fanned out the remaining pages, revealing that approximately a third of the book was blank.
“Anyways, where was I…Nonetheless, this is the principle question we seek to answer: where do the fibers come from? For the purposes of discussion, we will refer to the fibers’ source as ‘the Abyss‘.
“And those are what I see,” Clove looked to Terris, awe etched into her expression, and to her surprise and dismay, her wide eyes were nearly on the verge of tears. This was the first time she had discovered any knowledge of this nature. “Stray fibers. Pieces of people that have been cast aside as they morph throughout life. Like a snake shedding its skin, over and over.” And now Clove was witnessing this phenomenon in real time. She was integrally changing on a drastic magnitude, this newfound wealth of knowledge bringing with it a catharsis of sorts; validation that she was in fact experiencing something real, something with a name, with a shared history. Fibers leaked from her skin, spirited away into the world on the light breeze.
Terris’s brows were knit as they gazed into the sky, slowly chewing their stale bread. “It seems like this stuff has intentionally been scrubbed from the world,” they pondered. “No one talks about it. I’ve never even heard fanciful folktales about it. Like, every one of countless songs I know is just a weird folktale put to music. And the first instance of information we find isn’t even complete? It’s just odd…
“And that book, it couldn’t have been more stowed away. It was in the dustiest, darkest corner of that shop. Smelled weird over there. I mean, look, it’s even riddled with wormholes,” Terris gestured to the perfectly round holes and paths forming constellations on the open pages and the fore edge.
“I was thinking the same…” Clove mumbled. “Well, that finally brings us to Scavengers. Scavengers are people who can absorb stray fibers and effectively ‘digest’ them, sending them back to the Abyss, so that they may be returned to the cycle, like vultures eating carrion. Only Scavengers can perceive stray fibers. Scavengers have an additional type of fiber, called limina. All aspects of their abilities and quirks come from the interaction of limina with their physiology and with the world.
“As with the other three types of fibers, limina is periodically shed. Unlike other fibers, it can be intentionally channeled outside of or within the body, resulting in deliberate manipulation of the physical world and/or the Scavenger’s body. Manipulation of the physical world by a Scavenger via channeled limina is called an internatural ability. Scavengers typically develop one or two specific abilities of this nature, the character of which is related to the core essence of the person, which holds their strongest proclivities. A Scavenger’s internatural ability can often, but not always, be traced back to a formative experience or memory from childhood. I believe that the purpose of internatural abilities lies in the need to release excess limina. Built-up limina is known to cause physical and psychological problems. Internatural abilities vary widely. Examples that I have witnessed include water manipulation, soundwave manipulation, shapeshifting, fire manipulation, interspecies communication, and manipulation of solid rocks and minerals.
“After limina has been channeled in this way, it becomes stray limina. The body obtains new limina from the Abyss, and the stray limina is absorbed by other Scavengers. In this way it is returned to the abyss. Stray limina that has been floating free in the atmosphere for a long time, without coming into contact with a Scavenger, has the potential to affect physics and energy transfer in odd, nonsensical ways.
“Alright, my throat’s getting dry. You can read on for yourself later, but there’s one more thing I want to mention; this is where it really gets interesting,” Clove said, raising her brows.
“What do you mean gets interesting?” Terris laughed.
“Stray fibers that do not come into contact with a Scavenger for a long period of time become Oddments. Stray luma, whim, and umbra must all be present for an Oddment to form. These three types of fibers are naturally attracted to one another. The accumulation of matter is necessary to build the physical components of an Oddment’s body, which can take days or weeks once fibers have converged and the process of Oddmnet formation has begun. Bits of physical matter from the natural world are taken up by the Oddment as it forms, of which water is the most vital. Oddments show up in a community as an abandoned infant.
“An Oddment is able to have one child. That child will always be a Scavenger. This is the only way Scavengers are born. Scavengers cannot bear children.“
“Oh. My. Stars,” Terris whispered. “It’s all connecting!” They clapped their hands excitedly, then snorted a laugh as a new thought cropped up. “Your parents certainly put the ‘odd’ in Oddment.” The two doubled over laughing, then recovered themselves, and Clove donned an air of seriousness.
“Oh, sorry, one more thing,” Clove held up her forefinger. “It says here that I should be able to shoot lightning from my nipples.”
“…really?” Terris, whose curiosity was boundless, could never truly, clearly tell whether Clove’s characteristically flat tone carried jest or truth, and Clove knew this.
“No,” the corner of Clove’s mouth curved into a grin as she shut the book, and Terris playfully but forcefully shoved her, the two descending into laughter once more.
But then, Clove’s expression shifted to something unmistakably, earnestly solemn as she turned to face her cousin.
“You don’t have to help me with this, you know.”
“I know,” Terris said. “I love you, and I want to help you. But also, it’s simply fascinating to me. The weird shit I’ve learned as I’ve tried to find any shred of information about this…digging through the unknown, the unexplainable, trying to make connections and piece things together…it scratches an itch in my brain, y’know?
“Like, did you know that some lady up north successfully resurrected a bog mummy? And she did it with lightning that she can just make with her bare hands!” Terris popped the last of the bread into their mouth, then sat up with a sudden spark of realization. “I bet she’s a Scavenger!” they exclaimed through a mouthful of bread and wiggled their whole body like a dog wagging its tail, before shrinking back into the bench and glancing around at the street which now lay mostly empty, remembering Clove’s desire for secrecy on the matter.
“Weirder than fiction,” Clove grinned. “I love you too.
“…got any more bread in there?”
“Nope,” Terris put a hand on their satchel.
“Steed shit,” Clove grinned, and the two fell into a half-hearted wrestle before Terris shoved another piece of wrapped bread toward Clove, then retrieved another for themself. The two sat, contentedly snacking as the sun began to set, and chirping crickets awoke from their beds of cracked brick and resilient leafy weeds which sprang up from between the cobbles.
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