"I see someone," he said, his voice low. He handed the flask to Ivy, keeping his gaze fixed on the figure.

"Probably just Old Fucking Pervert Sam," Ivy said dryly, taking another swig. "Out here looking for little victims." She shook her head. "Are we sure he isn't dead yet? How old would that motherfucker be by now..."

Coop didn't respond. He thought about his dream. That girl... Caroline's niece... Old Sam had been stalking her in his dreams a little while ago. Old Sam was the town's boogeyman, though no one had ever proven a damn thing about him. He was just... there. Always lurking on the edge of things, always giving off that feeling like you shouldn't turn your back on him if you crossed him.

Though people seldom did cross him...

The figure vanished into the trees, and Coop let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"Yep. Probably Sam," he echoed, though the words didn't feel quite right. There was something else about the way the shadow had moved. Something that crawled under his skin like a spider.

Then, Ivy said something that would change their lives forever:

"I had a dream about him recently. Him and Helen's kid."

Coop shivered.

What?

How?

"Me too," he said after a moment.

The air hung thick. He noticed Ivy shivered, too.

They locked eyes with one another. They didn't have to say a word. They both knew what it meant. The same force that had brought them back together had given them the same dream. It was all connected, somehow.

And neither of them were ready to talk about it yet, but what they both knew in that moment was, as they locked eyes, their lives were redirecting forever.

"You hear about Willy?" Coop asked, hoping to shift the conversation, to lighten the mood before it sank any deeper into the dark. "He'll be back tomorrow."

Ivy raised and eyebrow. "Willy? As in our Willy? I thought he was long gone! Ran off to California... or some shit..."

Coop nodded, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Yeah, well, he's just coming to town for a visit, I think. Maybe he needed to slow down, needed some quiet, simple, small town vibes?"

Ivy snorted, handing him back the flask. "Quiet, sure. But this town's anything but simple. I don't get why anyone comes back to Gossamer Loom. Feels like a trap. Like it's got its claws in you, and the second you leave, it just pulls you right back."

Coop didn't argue. She wasn't wrong. He loved the place, but Gossamer Loom had a way of wrapping itself around you, making it impossible to leave. Sure, people tried—like Willy, like Ivy herself once—but somehow, they always came back. The town didn't let go.

Ivy sighed, leaning her head back against the tree. "Maybe it's that old legend. The one we used to hear about... the bitch with... the... dead kids and the... witch hunt... I think?"

"The Weaver," Coop said, the name sending a chill through the night air.

"Yeah, the Weaver," Ivy echoed, her voice low, almost reverent. "The one who ties all our fates together in her loom. Maybe that's why none of us ever get out. We're stuck in the tapestry. Or was it a web?"

"It was both, I think." Coop took another swig from the flask, feeling the burn of the whiskey mix with the unease Ivy's words stirred in him. He remembered the stories about the Weaver, the town's dark little secret passed down through generations. A ghost from the town's past, they said, unseen but always present. Pulling the threads of our lives together like the threads of a tapestry.

Or a spider web...

"I used to think it was bullshit," Coop said, his voice quieter now. "But sometimes... sometimes it feels real. Like there's something bigger than us, keeping us here. Holding us back."

Ivy didn't say anything for a moment, just stared out into the woods, her gaze distant. "Maybe it's not bullshit," she said finally. "Maybe that's why we're sitting here right now. After all these years. Because we can't get away from each other, no matter how hard we try."

Was Ivy just trying to get it on with him again? Or was she being philosophical? He could never tell with her. Flirt Ivy and Professor Ivy sounded a lot alike. Underneath her cool girl facade, she was a total nerd, just like her brainiac parents.

"Maybe the Weaver is real," Coop said, his voice barely above a whisper. "But what if we don't have a choice? What if we're stuck in this web for good?"

Ivy's eyes flickered toward him, her expression playfully seductive. "Then I guess we just keep moving. Keep pretending we're not caught."

They both went quiet after that.

He couldn't deny that he had felt pulled to Ivy ever since his dream about Caroline's niece, and now here she was. He didn't know what to call that feeling. Maybe God, or ghosts, or fate...

But whatever it was, it wasn't letting them go.

Coop was suddenly pulled from his thoughts. 

A flicker of movement in the trees just to his right caught his eye. 

A face, impossibly still, was staring back at him.

It was Old Sam. 

Well, we're halfway through Thread One. Don't worry though, there's seven more threads to go after this one. So... Will Old Sam attack Coop, or what? What role do you think the Weaver will play in the story moving forward?

Let me know what you think in the comments!

Thank you for reading.

-K.R.H.