The spinner came whenever he could, and his visits were always long. He would sit in silence, or else he would tell me the smallest details of his day. He told me when his mother returned, and how she was teaching him the ways of their craft again, now that it was safe. He told me when she died: too young, but happy to have seen the curse lifted from her fellow spinners. He did not ever touch my hand. I missed his touch, though I understood why he could not give it, and I used his freely given words as fuel in my struggle.
When he could not visit, he always told me why he was gone. He went often out into the world, looking for the magic that would set me free of my demon and free of my sleep. He remembered the stories he had learned, and spoke words for the boy who could not, and he believed for all of us. He told our story to everyone he met, and the words moved across the world. They changed, as stories do, and the truth warped like strings on a broken loom, but it was enough to learn what he needed to know.
It was years before he found the answers he sought, far away in the desert kingdom where our ancestors had once lived. My father was dead, and my mother was old, and my kingdom had no one else to take the throne. Yashaa was old too, which was enough to break my heart, except I needed a whole one to finally quell the demon. To fuel my fight, I used the thirty years of lit candles and spoken promises, the days that my friends had spent beside me, the attention of the piskeys and the sprites, and the memory of the boy who had died in the desert but who always knew the right story. I brought to bear the full force of my will, made strong beyond human measure by myself and those who loved me. The demon, though it had plagued me for almost as long as I could remember, was gone between one breath and the next, so pitiful it was when faced with me, the focus of the will for everyone who had ever lit a candle at my shrine.
I felt the piskey alight on my chest, felt it look inside me and see that I had been victorious. The curse was broken, and now I could safely wake from the piskey’s gift, if what Yashaa had learned was true. I felt the surge of happiness tinged with melancholy from my friends, who had watched me for this long, and who I would soon see with my waking eyes. I felt their children and grandchildren, eager to meet me and see if I was as interesting as their parents had said.
And I felt my Yashaa, bearded and wrinkled, when he pressed his lips to mine.