Chapter Twenty-Two: A Web Woven with Lies
At precisely midnight, the townspeople gathered at the northern clearing—where the Hollow Root once stood. In its place, a new structure had been erected: the Tether Circle.
Seven pillars made of carved stone stood in a ring, each etched with symbols ancient and new. Between them, a spiderweb of threads—silver, red, and gold—was strung by the Tenders. At the center, a raised platform stood waiting.
Ellie stepped onto it first.
"This is not a confession," she began, her voice amplified by the gentle thrum of resonant threads. "This is a joining. We are not here to unburden ourselves—we are here to connect."
Granger nodded beside her, holding the spool of living thread. "The web does not ask for the truth," he added. "It only demands that we carry each other's."
One by one, people approached the pillars and tied threads between them.
Each tethered memory shimmered briefly in the air—projected like heat through mist.
A father's shame at striking his child during grief.
A daughter's buried fear that she'd caused her mother's death.
A priest's quiet abandonment of faith.
The web grew heavier—but it did not sag.
It sang.
Until one thread snapped.
And silence fell.
---
Ellie flinched. The severed thread—red, fine, and vibrating—curled like a worm on the stone.
It had come from the fourth pillar.
Assigned to Marta Dean.
A quiet woman in her sixties. The town librarian. Always gentle. Always supportive.
Ellie turned toward her. "Marta, do you need assistance?"
Marta didn't answer.
She stared ahead.
Unblinking.
Frozen.
Her mouth opened, but no words emerged—just a slow, hissing hum. Low and mechanical.
Granger stepped forward. "That's not hers."
The humming grew louder. The thread near her foot burned black.
Then—
> Snap.
Another thread broke.
This time from a boy tethering the memory of hiding during the Hollow Root's collapse instead of helping his injured sister.
The blackness slithered up from the stone and licked his ankle.
He didn't scream.
He smiled.
---
Ellie's breath caught.
It was spreading.
Not the memories.
The falsehoods.
The lies that weren't even conscious anymore. Stories people told themselves to function. Quiet revisions. Self-defenses.
Marta's body trembled.
Then she began to speak—but not in her voice.
> "Truth is too heavy.
Let me carry it.
Let me wear your blame."
Ellie backed away. "That's not Marta. That's the Other."
The child-shaped shadow—seen before only in dreams—stepped from the air behind her. Not walking. Unfolding.
It stood beside Marta.
Mirror-shard eyes flashing like broken glass.
It looked at Ellie.
> "You never told Mei you pushed her."
Ellie's blood ran cold.
She had pushed Mei.
When they were ten.
Into the ravine.
Everyone thought it was an accident.
Even Ellie did.
Until now.
> "I held that memory," the shadow whispered. "You gave it to me."
Threads around the pillars began to snap in succession—popping like wet twine in a fire.
Dozens fell to their knees, clutching their heads.
Screams.
Echoes.
Fragments.
Then Ruth shouted:
"Pull the core line! Break the ritual!"
Ellie turned to Granger.
He hesitated.
"Do it!" she screamed.
He yanked the golden anchor thread at the center of the web.
Light flared.
And everything went still.
---
They awoke scattered on the grass at dawn.
The web was gone.
The pillars stood intact—but now darkened, scorched where the threads had connected.
Marta sat in the center, eyes closed.
She was breathing.
But her threads were gone.
Every one of them.
Ellie knelt beside her.
"Marta?"
The woman opened her eyes slowly.
They were clouded—but not empty.
"I remember everything," she whispered. "Even the wrong things."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know which memories are mine anymore."
---
In the council hall, the elders met in silence.
Granger laid out the facts.
"During the web tether, an invasive entity—likely the same child-shaped shadow—used our shared vulnerability to inject falsehoods into the collective network. It fed not on guilt or grief, but on revision."
Ruth nodded grimly. "It weaponized forgiveness."
Ellie clenched her fists. "If we can't trust our own memories—how do we fight something that knows what we're trying to forget?"
Elder Price spoke for the first time.
"We don't fight with memory anymore."
They all turned to him.
"We fight with witnessing."
---
A new ritual was born.
Pair-tethering.
One person would anchor the memory.
Another would carry it—not as a confession, but as a living witness.
They would remember together.
Because the shadow could infect silence.
But it couldn't fake shared recall.
---
Liam volunteered first.
He tethered the final memory of Mira—the one where he failed her.
And Ellie stepped forward.
"I'll witness."
The thread formed between them.
No projection.
No song.
Just the two of them—sitting. Hands clasped.
And when the memory passed through the thread, Ellie gasped—not at the horror of it, but the weight.
Not guilt.
Not shame.
But truth, unedited.
When the thread pulsed and cooled, they both nodded.
"I carry it with you," Ellie whispered.
"I don't deserve that," Liam said.
"You don't have to," she replied. "That's what makes it real."
---
By nightfall, more pair-tethers formed.
No broken threads.
No false visions.
But outside town, in the hollow beyond the trees, the child-shaped shadow watched.
Unblinking.
And it whispered to something darker, something still crawling up from the deep soil beneath the old Hollow Root:
> "They think they can share their truths.
They haven't yet tried to share their lies."
---