The silk moths danced in spirals around Eleanor’s head as she sat beneath the ancient oak, their wings catching the last golden rays of sunset. At seventeen, she felt an inexplicable anxiety stirring in her chest, watching their ephemeral beauty.

“They only live for a few days, you know,” came a voice behind her. Thomas emerged from between the trees, his dark curls wild as the moors themselves. “But they keep coming back, generation after generation.”

Eleanor traced her fingers along the rough bark. “Like us, perhaps? Sometimes I feel I’ve lived this life before.”

Thomas settled beside her, close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating from his skin. “You sound like your aunt Marianne. She used to say similar things before she…”

“Before she disappeared into these very woods,” Eleanor finished. The silk moths continued their hypnotic dance above them. “I dream of her sometimes, wearing a dress made of silk cocoons, beckoning me to follow.”

“You won’t disappear too, will you?” Thomas’s voice carried an edge of fear that made Eleanor’s heart ache.

She turned to face him, taking in the fierce intensity of his gaze. “I don’t know, Thomas. Something pulls at me, like threads of silk winding around my heart. Don’t you feel it too?”

“I feel you,” he whispered, reaching for her hand. “Isn’t that enough?”

The wind picked up, carrying the sweet scent of heather and something older, wilder. Eleanor’s long dark hair whipped around her face as she stood, moths still circling. “Look at them, Thomas. So anxious to live their brief lives to the fullest. They know their time is precious.”

“Eleanor…” Thomas rose too, reaching for her.

“I understand now, what Aunt Marianne meant. The cycle never truly ends.” Eleanor’s voice took on a dreamy quality. “We’re all silk threads in a greater tapestry, weaving and unweaving ourselves through time.”

“You’re talking in riddles,” Thomas protested, but Eleanor could see the understanding dawning in his eyes.

She stepped closer to the treeline, moths following like a shimmering veil. “Next time, perhaps you’ll be the one waiting, and I’ll be the one emerging from the woods to find you.”

“There doesn’t have to be a next time,” Thomas pleaded. “Stay. Be here, now, with me.”

Eleanor smiled sadly, touching his cheek with butterfly-light fingers. “But don’t you see? I already have, countless times before. And I will again.”

The moths swirled more frantically now, their wings creating a silvery curtain between Eleanor and the darkening world. Thomas reached for her, but his hands passed through nothing but air and dancing moths.

Where Eleanor had stood, a single silk cocoon hung from a branch, catching the last ray of sunlight.

Years later, a young man would sit beneath the same oak tree, watching silk moths dance in the twilight. And from between the trees, a dark-haired girl would emerge, feeling as though she had kept him waiting for far too long.

The cycle continued, as it always had, as it always would, written in silk threads across time.