Episode 24

The year 2002 dawned with a crisp, Lithuanian chill that bit at exposed skin, but inside Danguolė’s small workshop, a different kind of warmth bloomed. The scent of lanolin and woodsmoke mingled with the faint, sweet perfume of dried herbs she kept tucked in the corners. Her apprentices, a gaggle of girls aged ten to fourteen, sat hunched over their needles, their small faces earnest in the flickering lamplight. The rhythmic click-clack of their work was a soothing counterpoint to the wind whistling outside, a familiar melody that had underscored Danguolė’s life for decades.

Elžbieta, her hands still a little clumsy, fumbled with a dropped stitch. Her brow furrowed in concentration, a tiny replica of Danguolė’s own when she was learning. Danguolė watched her with a gentle smile, the kind that creased the corners of her eyes. She remembered that feeling, the frustration and the eventual triumph of correcting a mistake, the small victory that felt monumental. “Easy, child,” she murmured, her voice a low rumble like the purr of a contented cat. “See? You just need to coax it back.” She moved with the unhurried grace of someone who knew the language of yarn and wool intimately, her fingers demonstrating the delicate maneuver.

Agnė, older and more confident, was already working on a complex cable pattern, her needles dancing with a practiced ease. Danguolė admired her quick hands, the way she seemed to intuitively understand the flow of the yarn. Agnė’s grandmother had been a weaver, and Danguolė saw echoes of that legacy in the girl’s focused intensity. She wondered, not for the first time, what stories these girls carried within them, what threads they would weave into their own lives.