"The Flowers of the Moon" (Short Story, Part 3/4)

Start at the beginning of this short-story here:
https://steemit.com/writing/@whymonkey/the-flowers-of-the-moon-short-story-part-1-4

Or you can find Part 2 here:
https://steemit.com/artzone/@whymonkey/the-flowers-of-the-moon-short-story-part-2-4

---

By the time Pui and Lok turned sixteen, a particularly hot Summer had cast a terrible drought upon the little island, withering whatever few crops had been carefully planted over Spring. The livestock was consigned to the lethargic shadows of their shelters and even the sea became barren in places that were once teeming with fish.

Early one morning, after weeks of helplessly witnessing the village bearing this arduous scarcity, Chan approached young Lok who kept persevering, as usual, by weaving fishing nets under a grove of palm trees by the seaside, and placed by his side a strange white bolt of a soft sparkling thread.

"You have knitted the finest fishing nets these old eyes have seen”, he said, “so I entrust you with this task. This here, my child, is a magical thread weaved in places so far away and so long ago, that today their existence is but a myth…”, Chan looked tired as if his next words weighted heavily on him, “The people of these lands… They always warned me that with magic comes a price and, for the sake of me I had hoped that the people of this village would never have bear it”, he sighed, “but I fear that if we don't put it to use now, there will soon be nothing left to save."

Lok discarded the incomplete work he was laboring on and held the strange shimmering spool, studying it for a moment, then, nodding in silent agreement started to unravel the magic thread that seemed to flicker as it was stretched and bent.

Throughout the day, Lok knitted hastily. Movement followed movement in complex patterns the inexperienced eye could not follow nor comprehend. When afternoon came, splattering the skies in a fiery-red, his fingers already hurt and blistered, but he never stopped.

The moon rode high when Pui came to see him, holding a candle to light her way, a firefly carried by the night breeze.
"You must rest, Lok. Come. We'll have something to eat and tomorrow you’ll return to work", she urged him, an affectionate hand resting on his shoulder.

"No! Tomorrow it must be finished, so we can throw it at first light", his tone and resolve were adamant.

"My stubborn, stubborn friend...", she sighed half-expecting this outcome, "then you leave me no choice, I'll stay here and keep you company."

His reply was the unending movement of his hands.

She sunk the candle in the sand and sat beside him, telling new tales and remembering old stories as the moon navigated the diamond-encrusted seas. His fingers worked uninterruptedly to the sound of the waves rolling on the shore and, as the firmament shifted in its imperceptible twirl, Pui gently lost the battle to sleep and went silent, her long hair like a river of melted silver flowing through the dark sand. Finally her candle burned out leaving him only the faint light of the stars and yet he never stopped. He only needed the soft strain of the thread and the slow-paced breathing of Pui's dreams.

When morning came Lok had too dozed off, but his work was completed. The ample net laid spilling from his lap to the sand where Pui still slept, scintillating to the first rays of the Sun. He was the first to get up, waking to the sound of the waves and cacophony of the many birds. Unsnarling himself from the net, he walked to the sea to wash his face, finding the taste of salt on his tongue quite agreeable.

"Lok?!", he heard a soft call from behind him.

When he looked back he didn't understood why Pui was all covered in the magical net.

"What are you doing?", he reproached her, "stop playing, you're going to get all tangled up!", but however she wriggled around, she couldn’t seem to extricate herself from the net.

Looking more closely at the net, hanging from her head like a veil, he understood what Pui already knew, but was unwilling to put in words - in the darkness of the night, he had somehow weaved her long hair into the net, alongside the magical thread.

"Pui! I'm so sorry!”, he asked, desolate, “What are we going to do?"

She had no answer. Her hair was so tightly woven in the net that it was now impossible to say where one began and the other ended.

"The way this is knotted...", he said after looking closely, "it will be impossible to untangle”, and the following words came hard and heavy, ”...without cutting your hair".

An uneasy feeling made him nauseous.

As morning progressed, the whole village had heard of the magical fishing net and gathered at the shore to see it firsthand. When what transpired during the night became common knowledge, the argument escalated like wildfire, leading to angry words and people pushing people - they needed to cast the net at the sea, otherwise they would starve, but they could not use it without cutting Pui's hair, lest they slice the magical thread into a thousand little strings and make it useless. Furthermore. there was Pui’s strange nature. What would happen if they actually cut her hair? Would she die? And what if they didn't cut it? Would they starve? The argument between both side continued well into the noon and was still being debated as red shafts pierced through the clouds and the sun plunged once again into the ocean.

---

(End of Part 3/4)