Daughter of Necessity by Marie Brennan
It’s been a while since Tor posted a short story that I definitely want on my Kindle, and this is one of those. Here you have a twist of the Greek tale of Penelope and Odysseus – she who weaved by the day only to undo her weaving by night, every night, to keep her suitors at bay as she awaited her husband’s return.
The twist here is that things were not that simple. Here you get a female character that was not passively waiting decades for her absent husband to return; you get a character with a trace of divine power running through her veins, fighting for her own fate. Penelope had the power to create a future of her own weaving – but not enough to reorder time completely to her own liking. Every choice ultimately leads to an outcome as undesirable as the one before, and thus she unpicks her weaving night after night, in this quest to find a future in which all will be well.