In the plague-ridden village of Hollow’s End, where the gravediggers’ shovels rang against frozen earth and the church bells had been melted down for bullets, the people whispered of a bird that sewed the sky back together at dusk.
They called it Nimblethread , a swallow with wings like shears and tail feathers that left faint silver trails in the air—as if the very atmosphere were a torn garment it was repairing. Children born during the Great Sickness often had one gray lock of hair exactly where Nimblethread had brushed past their cradle.
The bird worked ceaselessly, darting along the ragged edges of reality:
— Where old widow Cress’s memory leaked out (stitched shut with spider-silk thread)
— Above the mass graves (patching the whispers of the dead into harmless wind)
— Around the abandoned plague doctor’s mask (closing the eye-holes so nothing could look out)
But Nimblethread’s true purpose revealed itself each time a villager neared death. The swallow would plunge its needle-like beak into their chest—not to harm, but to sew their last breath into the sunset , turning the sky crimson with stolen vitality.
The dying never protested. It was said you could hear your whole life humming in those final stitches.
When the mayor’s daughter lay feverish, the villagers caught Nimblethread in a net of human hair and silver thimbles. They caged it in the church confessional, certain its magic could be harnessed.
That night, the sky unraveled .
Without the swallow’s repairs, the village saw things not meant for mortal eyes—the frayed edges of time, the loose threads of forgotten tragedies, the gaping holes where stolen futures had been. By dawn, seven people had vanished into the seams of the world.
They released Nimblethread with offerings of thimbleberries and scissors rusted shut. As it took flight, the villagers noticed something new— a lock of the mayor’s daughter’s golden hair now woven into its nest under the eaves.
Now when someone in Hollow’s End lies dying, they open all the windows. And if you listen closely as the soul departs, you’ll hear the faintest snip of celestial scissors—
—and spot one more crimson thread woven through the twilight.
