There was something comforting about curses. The Dreamweaver's daughter sat at the ancient loom, pulling spiderwebs with thin fingers. As the light caught in the shining threads, she wondered if she might smile.

Not even the simple pleasure in her work could crack the stiff nature of her face.

The curse continued to spread. It had started as the faintest bloom over her heart. Now a scaly bark stretched from her hip to her left eyebrow. The rough wood even was crawling across the back of her left hand, making it harder and harder to work the loom. The tiny joy of pulling silvery spiderwebs was not strong enough to break the petrified corner of her mouth.

Somehow her frown always made itself plain.

Their constancy, she thought firmly. That is a comfort with curses. She looked away from the awful mottling stretching toward her fingers and focused on the strands and the light caught in them.

Around the tiny cottage, spools of gossamer thread and bolts of ethereal fabrics decorated the walls. They piled from the floor to the ceiling, a palette of shining colors. Spinning wheels and looms clicked and hummed with activity. Even the spider silk in her hands seemed to weave itself. As the clouds meandered through the sky outside, they let in rays of unfiltered sunbeams that set the room aglow.

Despite the cheery interior, the buzz of activity, a certain sorrow filled every corner of the cottage. It was in the small unmade bed, the bare pantry, the dusty floor. But mostly, it was that when the weaving stopped, a harsh silence of solitude thundered throughout the tiny room.

The curse continued to spread. As it grew, her company shrank. Gone were the days of laughter. Gone were nights of stories and dancing. Good, the weaver thought. I want to be alone. It is better this way. But even she did not believe the lie in her human heart.

Bitter tears burned at her beetle-black eyes. She would not let them fall. How many tears had she already shed for this fate? Don't you dare cry. Her vision blurred anyways. The cottage seemed to swim for a moment before it faded into the terror of dark memories.

"You've stolen a human child, Dreamweaver! Who did you leave in its place? Such an act, without permission from your queen? Ah! But I am tenderhearted in the ways of love. You will not watch it grow old and die, as humans are so fond of doing. I will preserve it for you, dear one."

She rubbed the spot on her chest where the fae queen had placed the barest whisper of her finger. The memory of the icy prick above her heart seared at the thought the Dreamweaver, begging and pleading to remove the curse. The lovely laughter of the fae queen seemed to ring in the cottage.

Stop thinking about it, stupid fool. She shook the cobwebs of those painful images from her head and brushed away the unshed tears with her uncursed hand.

This is what is. It is what will be. And there is comfort in knowing. There is comfort in constancy.

The sudden rap on her door was not an expected part of constancy. She tangled the thread in her surprise. No one visited her.

"Hello?" A voice called hesitantly from outside.

The autonomous work of the looms and wheels shuddered to a halt, some clattered to the dusty floor. So much for pretending no one was here, she thought wryly, opening her mouth to speak. The cracking and twisting of the wood along her lips pained her. There had been no conversation for so long—was there even a voice left?

"Go away," she rasped. Her voice was autumn leaves rustling, a snowbank shifting on a mountainside. It was the hiss of impending surrender, a far cry from the voice she remembered having.

Even with the hideous voice, how lovely it was to have a conversation! Perhaps my heart has not yet turned to wood. She felt it flutter in hopeful delight, a tiny spark.

Her good ear pressed to the door, she heard a long sigh, a shuffling of feet.

"Please, I need help." Another pause. "Well, I need to help someone."

The thoughtfulness struck her as insipidly human. She nearly laughed at the thought. There are no humans in Otherworld. None except for me.

The weaver opened the door the smallest crack, peering with a single eye. Outside, bright as brass, stood the strangest man she'd ever seen. She had met pixies and high fae, pookas and brownies. This swampish monster, however, was unlike any of those strange creatures.

Tall as fae gentry, but covered in a layer of sticky mud. Leaves and branches sticking at odd angles from a head of wild, dark hair. In his arms, a hideous cat meowed plaintively.

He gestured with his head toward the angry little thing, golden eyes warm behind the layer of filth.

"He led me here," the swamp man said cheerily. "I figure I should repay his favor. The very least I can do is clean him up."

She thought to inform him that following a cat into a bog, even to get to Otherworld, was not a favor worth repaying. Deals were binding in the faerie realm and she supposed she could not fault him. Though it looked like a cat, meowed like a cat, one could never truly be sure if a cat was just a cat.

Pulling her silvery shawl over her head, draping her left side in shadows, she opened the door slowly to let the muddy thing and his ugly cat inside.

"Back to work," she whispered to the spinning wheels, the looms. They returned to their bustle, the gentle hum filling any awkward silence sure to come. She hoped their clicking and swaying would keep any curiosity away from her.

The swamp boy's eyes were wide as they took in the flurry of activity in the room. He still cradled the equally dirty animal in a scaffold of strong arms as he turned a slow circle.

"Are you the Dreamweaver?" he asked, awe touching his voice.

"He's gone." It was easier to keep the answers short. It was easier to keep her cursed face turned away.

"When will he return?"

"He's dead," she answered hollowly.

Suddenly the conversation felt like a horrible burden, a reminder of all the misery and despair she carried. Memories of the Dreamweaver were painful. This human creature wanted nothing to do with her, the cursed daughter.

Above the bustle of the weaving, the sound of humming pixies, the buzzing of their iridescent wings, echoed. They normally avoided the cottage, but their interest in the newcomer must have drawn their attention, their chime-like laughter. It was a sound she had almost forgotten. They pulled themselves to sit on the window sill, shimmering with mischievous joy at the stranger and his cat.

"Please, lady. I've a quest on which only a dreamweaver can help me."

She glanced at the loom, the growing swathe of spider silk from which she made her dresses. The fabrics tucked into the shelves made her weaving look clumsy and childish in comparison. Their perfection only made her attempts that much more obvious in their forgery. She was no dreamweaver.

"I cannot help you. You should go." Her throat ached from speaking. Her sorrow was for them both. Sorrow in her miserable state, sorrow that she could not help, sorrow that her last words would be ones of such sorrow.

From the darkest corner, she watched as he used his shirt to wipe the sticky mud from the cat's paws. Its yellow eyes met hers balefully–the evil, ugly thing–but it was still as a statue for its rescuer. Its black fur was matted and mangey, its face squashed into a permanently irritated expression, its tail crooked and bent. And yet, this swamp thing, a human beneath all the filth, crooned softly to it. As if he did not notice how painfully unpleasant the little cat was.

Wrapped in spider silk and darkness, he had not mentioned her otherness yet. At the very least, he was polite. At the very best? Maybe he does not notice how painfully unpleasant you are, she wondered.

From a pile of fabrics, she found a leftover swathe to clean the creature. Perhaps to wipe off his face so she could see him more clearly. She considered offering him a spider silk shirt, breeches woven from thunder clouds. Shame washed through her. It would be cruel trickery to tether him to her with faerie gifts. Gifts were binding things. He was kind enough to accept them, human enough to accept them without question.

He had released the cat to wipe off some of his own filth. But so slowly! She wondered if he was lingering, watching the autonomous weaving with curious eyes, waiting for her to break the quiet.

"Why do you need a dreamweaver?" she finally asked.

"It's a matter of love. Of love and of curses." His tone was sunlight and daydreams. It held nothing of the bitterness that filled her mind when she thought of curses.

It burned her like a brand. It sparked a wildfire of anger. How dare he speak of petty human troubles as if he knows curses! How dare he come to my door! In a moment of wild fury, she threw back her hood and stepped into the golden shafts of sunlight so that this foolish child might understand the true nature of curses. Let him see my face and flee!

There was no scream.

There was no flight.

He blinked once. Twice. Those honey-colored eyes focused on the right side of her face. If she were capable of it, she might have blushed. What does he see? Me? Or the tree?

"You're not afraid of me?" The question was barely a whisper, but it broke through the tense silence louder than a rainstorm.

He shook his head, those warm eyes never leaving hers.

"Should I be?"

"Everyone else is." She gestured idly to the swarm of pixies that had scrambled away from her window in a frantic flurry. The cat's tail twitched, its yellow eyes focused on the fleeing balls of darting light.

"Why?"

It was an earnest curiosity. It wasn't the horrible gawking and prying of the high fae when they played their tricks and games. Nonetheless, it bothered her. The hot tongue of humiliation and fear was safer when hidden behind a prickly exterior.

The left side of her mouth cracked into an ugly sneer.

"I am cursed, stupid human."

"Faolan."

"What?"

"Faolan. Call me Faolan."

The weaver clapped her human fingers across his mouth. Her inky eyes darted frantically. The cat screeched in displeasure at her sudden movement, scrambling under the bed.

"Idiot boy!" she hissed. Her thoughts buzzed louder than the distant pixies. Does he know nothing?! Thank the spirits those wretched creatures won't tolerate my presence.

"You're in Otherworld! Don't you know the danger of true names here?"

"I'm sorry," he answered when she slowly released him. Despite her flurried irritation and fear, his voice was all calmness. He held his hands up in apology. "I didn't know."

"You should leave this place before you find something worse than me."

The silence was brittle as new ice.

"I cannot," he finally said. "Please help me, lady."

"I'm no lady."

"Then what shall I call you?"

She had not owned a name for many years. The fae queen had cursed with her true name. The only names after were insults and jeers.

"I am no one."

The man-child, Faolan, did not seem to like her evasive answer.

"I will call you Siofra," he decided. Siofra, changeling. The uncanny choice twisted her heart. But how lovely to have a name!

"I supposed I am Siofra then, swamp boy."

"And you'll help me, Siofra?"

She looked at her hands, the inevitable stiffening of brittle fingers that was to come. If he truly needed a dreamweaver, the clever weaving would be a painful task, an impossible task. Her last task. But it's such a gift to die with a name, she thought. And there were no gifts in Otherworld.

"I can try."

"Sunlight, moonbeams, and stardust?" Siofra sneered once he finished his story. "Which idiotic faerie cursed her with something so asinine?"

Faolan shrugged from the floor as he repaired her rickety stool. She had gestured for him to sit quietly, but he'd taken to inspecting it and finding materials to strengthen its joints.

His clever hands at work were almost like watching weaving. They danced in a hypnotic pattern. The ugly cat seemed to agree: it had crept from its hiding place to sit contentedly in the beam of sunshine. It pulled itself across the floor, trilling when it had not received enough attention.

"She's not a faerie," he answered, looking up from his task. He returned the little cat's chirp with a few clicks of his tongue and an affectionate smile. "At least, I don't think she's fae."

"Then it isn't a curse."

"What about my curse?"

"Your unlucky family?" Siofra looked at the mirror she'd hidden behind swathes of fabric. She thought of how she avoided looking at her hand. "Not much of a curse."

Faolan snorted in a disbelieving huff, but beamed. "You're not very helpful for a good faerie."

It was Siofra's turn to snort. "I'm not good and I'm not a faerie."

"What are you then?"

She looked up from the spools threads she was sorting through. She could almost see her reflection in those sunny eyes. The pale bark that grew across her left side, the inky darkness of her insect eyes, the spindly limbs and fingers.

"Same as you. Just slightly more cursed," she replied wryly.

"If you're human, why live in Otherworld?"

Anger kept the tears at bay. They'd run you out, her mind hissed. No pity for something like you. She turned away from that inquisitive state to rummage through the spools, adding to the pile in her arms at random.

Faolan seemed to adapt to the strange combination of awkwardness and sarcasm that escaped her stiff mouth. Siofra had not expected that she would be one to share so much, so quickly. It was just so wonderful to have something more than silence.

"You must be lonely here."

Siofra couldn't bear to answer him. She did not even dare look at him. For such a foolish idiot boy, she lamented. He sees more than one would expect.

Worried that he'd keep dissecting her, Siofra attempted to draw the conversation away from her own sorry existence. Peeling away the layers of her unhappiness to stare at her rejected, aching center would not convince him to return.

"Do you truly love her, your princess?" she asked. The thought of love pierced her heart, jealousy boiled in her gut. How lucky and how distinctly un-cursed this princess was. To have something as grand as love.

"Well, I will love her," Faolan started slowly. "I certainly like her."

Siofra stifled a derisive bark of laughter; she muffled it into toneless inquiry. "And does she love you?"

The question gave him pause. He scratched the cat's ears, the left of which missing a significant chunk, as he considered it.

"I'm not sure, if I'm honest. She asked me to marry her, so I think she likes me quite a bit."

"You've come to Otherworld and you don't know if you're in love?" Siofra couldn't help the dry incredulity that stained her words.

"Well, yes, but–"

"You've wagered everything on a risky chance to win her hand. Do you even want to be king?"

"Not really, but–"

"Are you truly so foolish?"

He gave her a sheepish smile at the censure.

"When you say it like that, it sounds rather idiotic." Siofra grunted in agreement. "But our love will grow. Love is built on risks, my mother used to say. Maybe a bigger love requires bigger risks."

His light tone, the comfortable self-deprecation, twitched the right corner of her mouth. It was fleeting. Idiot boy asking for things he doesn't understand. All for an idiot girl he isn't sure he loves. She watched him test the stool, a satisfied smile on his face.

"Love shouldn't be about grand gestures," she breathed, keeping the painful edge from her voice. "And don't touch that!"

Faolan, finished with his project, had reached a hand out to prod one of the self-weaving looms. It bobbed and floated through the gaps in the draped fabric that hung in lazy scallops from the rafters.

"If you're human, how are you doing all this?" He gestured to the bustling activity of the room.

"The looms and wheels are magic, not me," she replied. "They'd spin for you too, if you took the time to convince them."

"Do they spin sunlight? And stardust?"

Siofra shook her head. "They spin simple things. Sunlight and moonbeams and stardust are too fragile in their raw form."

"But you can do it, right?"

"Of course," Siofra lied, her heart skipping a beat with a flash of anxiety. She silently commanded herself to relax. You know the theory. It's not such a big lie. "But I'll need your princess here for the first weaving."

Faolan shook his head. For the first time, he seemed uncomfortable. "I can't drag a princess through the woods for a week following wisps and jumping after cats into ponds."

"You followed wisps?" she asked, aghast. He's lucky he didn't end up lost. Or worse.

Siofra had been so enchanted by the prospect of company and conversation, she hadn't thought to ask how he'd found his way to Otherworld. It would be too absurd to expect he had followed a cat the entire way.

"Widow Aine, the one who spoke the curse, remember? She told me that 'the wisps know the way,'" he defended, rubbing the back of his head.

He must be the luckiest 'cursed' human to ever live, Siofra thought fondly, in disbelief. He finds a cursed princess to rescue. The witch tells him how to rescue her. He doesn't drown in a bog. Even with barely half a face to express that emotion, Faolan squirmed under the look of incredulous reproach.

"Well," Siofra finally answered. "There are safer ways to bring your princess here."

She fumbled through an assorted mix of glass vials and bottles until she found a fat, round, empty jar. Siofra brought it to the mirror and gritted her teeth before pulling away its dusty cover. Avoiding her reflection, she reached into the mirror as if it were the surface of still water. It only took a moment to find what she was looking for. In her long, skinny fingers, she removed a shining ball of light to seal within the jar. Faolan watched in wonder.

"It's a wisp-charm to place on your own mirror: it'll create a sort of door," she said, answering the unvoiced questions. "Otherworld is but one reflection of the human world and–"

"The pond," Faolan breathed. "I fell into my reflection. How incredible."

He looked at her, eyes still filled with that same amazement. The silvery glow from the charm illuminating his gaze as she placed the jar into his hands. For a moment, he seemed to let his fingers linger on the rough bark and warmth exploded in Siofra's heart.

For the first time in years, Siofra felt the left side of her face crack and shift into a smile. She did not notice the pain of it. The warmth of his hand drowned out everything else. 

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