The Broken Circle: Yarns of the Knitting Witches

by Cheryl Potter

  It was true that Sierra’s garments were warmer than most and windproof, but Skye attributed this to the way her mother boiled and finished the pieces in the clean mineral waters that trickled south from the glacier. Water and snow failed to penetrate Sierra’s felt, but then their alpine goats yielded finer fibers than most, and the mohair yarns they made had a higher twist than other homespuns. The natural blues, lavenders, and grays that colored the yarn made the wearer almost invisible against icy outcrops and snow. Perhaps this was because the snow itself looked blue in shadows, and the appearance of invisibility was nothing more than an optical illusion, but perhaps it was not. Some said that when Sierra was accepted to study at the famed Potluck Yarn Fiber Cooperative as a child, she apprenticed to the legendary dye mistress, Aubergine. In those times magic had flourished, and Aubergine was the undisputed queen of the magical crystals she had gleaned from the underground rivers that flowed south from the Northland Glacier.

  Aubergine’s Potluck Yarn, a fiber arts trade school for girls, provided craft education for all, but hardly any were chosen to learn how to meld crystalline dye to fiber and how to harness the resulting magic. These handpicked few were allowed to circle the great pot that simmered in the back room of the dye shed and to witness the swirl of colors called luck of the dye pot. Such apprentices were commonly known as knitting witches, but in more knowledgeable circles they were referred to as the Twelve.

  Skye did not know now if Aubergine ever existed. Sierra always claimed that the Potluck Yarn where she was working when she chanced to meet Kendrick was just a simple fiber cooperative. There was no witchery, and there was no Twelve. There were merely classes where students spun yarns and knit garments to sell in a studio not bigger than a glorified yarn shop. Although Sierra was free with fanciful “yarns” she told as bedtime stories before the fire at night, Skye learned not to ask her mother more about her past. When she did so unbidden, she received a warning glance from her father.

  What unlikely forces had brought her parents together when they were young? Kendrick had no family or friends in the Middlelands, the Western Highlands, the fisheries of the Far East, or even the Northlands. He seemed to have appeared out of nowhere during Sierra’s apprenticeship at the Potluck. Soon after, she had forsaken the life of a magical witch for the bucolic existence of a fiber-farm wife.

  “This is the last of it.” Sierra loaded her bundle into a secure space in the wagon. Skye slipped into the knitted cloak that matched her mother’s, both garments spun from a combination of alpaca and llama down dyed in the opaque shades of sun-touched frost flowers, a color-way they called Glacier Ice that blended with the snow on this spring morning. Skye pulled on her moose mittens and climbed up to join her mother in the wagon. Sierra’s hair was tied back in a practical ponytail with a multicolored strand of yarn. The only sign of age around her unlined face was a touch of gray hair at her temples, a few lighter strands mixed in with honey blond.

  “Better get a move on,” Kendrick said, with an eye toward the fields. From the hillside a patch of red approached; even in the glare, Skye knew it was Garth, in his old red barn sweater, on his way back from feeding the goats.

  “We’ll at least say goodbye.” Sierra accepted the reins from her husband as Garth slammed the gate and rushed over, his cheeks flushed from running and the empty grain bucket banging against his legs.

  “Can’t I go?” he begged his father.

  “Maybe next year,” Kendrick said gently. “By the look of the rill, I think we will have to move the goats to higher ground before dark. Did you see the rim of the Teardrop from the slope?”

  “Higher yet,” Garth admitted, with a quick nod, dragging his eyes from the wagon. “And the water’s darker, almost purple. It’s flush with the top of the sluice board.” Chuffer nuzzled at the grain bucket and Garth stroked the pony’s head, letting the small, soft muzzle sniff his felt mittens.

  “Then there is your answer,” Kendrick said. “Dark water means that the caves deep in the glacier have flooded and even the Crystal Lakes are not able to hold back the water.”

  “It happens every spring,” Garth muttered.

  “Not like this.” Over the top of Garth’s head, Kendrick gave his wife a worried glance. “I smelled smoke last night.”

  “And I as well,” Sierra said. “It had the fishy odor of something rotten burning.”

  “The rank smolder comes from the smudge fires the Lowlanders light to burn out the glacier,” Kendrick said. “I’ve seen them time and again.” He gave Garth’s shoulder a rough squeeze. “We’ve already lost one son to this war. We’ll not lose another.”

  Garth said nothing, just looked down and stroked the pony’s neck. Skye could see that although his eyes were rimmed with tears, he would not let them spill over in front of his father. It had been months since Garth had left the pass, too, Skye reminded herself, and he sorely missed his older brother—to say nothing of the added chores that he’d had to shoulder.

  “See you in three days?” Sierra asked it like a question.

  Kendrick seemed not to notice. “Be careful,” he reminded her. “And you,” Sierra replied, then, more gently, to Garth, as she paused to lay a hand on his arm. “And you.”

  She slapped the reins and the ponies stepped out surefootedly. The wagon wheels creaked in the snowy ruts.

  An unsettling fear gripped Skye as they left the yard and she looked back at the little farmhouse with its sturdy stone foundation beneath its timbered walls and cedar-shingled roof. Lavender Rill Farm, her parents had named it, after the river that ran the length of the pass. After building the main house the summer he and Sierra had first moved to the Notch, Kendrick had added a chicken coop and a livestock shed. A few years later, after the children were born, he had built a little ell onto the kitchen. Skye had never lived anywhere else.

  Skye put her hands to her cheeks, for her face felt flushed. Warm feelings were always coming over her whenever she wore her traveling cloak. This one panicked her, for she felt as if she would never return to her family life at the Notch, and would never see their farmhouse again. But the feverish thoughts were gone as quickly as they had come. She shook off their aftereffects with a shiver, and pulled her cloak tighter.

  The sun rose in the sky and burned through the morning mist that hung over the valley. As they made their way toward the Lower Notch, the road widened into a muddy track and the snow disappeared. The Lavender Rill rumbled off to their right as it spilled grape-colored water down the mountain. A cluster of stone buildings hugged the narrow defile of the lower pass, dwarfed by the great grain mill that straddled the river. Mill on the Rill it was called, and almost everyone in the lower valley had something to do with it. Skye flung back her hood, breathing deeply of the aromas of winter wheat and cherry that scented the air from the bread ovens. The delivery wagon was missing from the mill yard, and there was no sign of Katarina or Averill. Their grandfather, the Gaffer, was at the wellspring near the hitching post. Sierra turned the ponies into the low enclosure and halted at the watering trough.

  “How goes it, Gaffer? What news?” She called, as the ponies drank deeply.

  “If it isn’t Sierra Blue,” the old man smiled, bringing them a pitcher of water. “And young Skye Blue, the perfect image of her mother.”

  “Where is everyone?” Skye’s smile faded to a frown, as she looked around at the deserted mill yard.

  “Gone,” Gaffer’s blue eyes flashed under snowy brows as he retrieved the pitcher from Sierra and handed it to Skye. “Katarina and her mother left before daybreak, to set up their stall at the fair while the loaves of bread were still warm.”

  “And Averill?” Skye asked anxiously.

  “Gone, too,” Gaffer said, and this time there was no light in his eyes. “The Northlanders took him away this past fortnight. With barely sixteen winters behind him.”

  “Younger than our Warren,” Sierra nodded sadly. “Warren�
��s two months’ gone and we’ve had no word.”

  “Nor us. They say the Northland border is where they take conscript recruits.” Gaffer gave a bitter laugh. “I guess they figure it’s too far to run home. I’ve never been to Bordertown, but ’tis a rough place, from what I hear. Full of water fouled by the glacier burn.” He gave them an unblinking stare. “How can you live in a place where you can’t drink the water? I don’t care what they say about magic being forbidden. That whole city’s full of it. And it’s bad.”

  As Gaffer ranted on, Skye saw something flicker in her mother’s golden brown eyes. A knowing look? A glimmer of fear? It couldn’t be fear.

  “Well, it’s old magic, anyway.” Gaffer said. “The rest of your men? Safe, are they?”

  “Hiding,” Sierra said brightly. “Tending the goats.”

  “You’ll have that.” Gaffer nodded, looking toward the swollen river and the mountains beyond. He took off his hat and swabbed at his forehead. “The air is warm, too warm this time of year. There’s smoke in the valley, which bears no good tidings. Take care on the road.”

  “And you,” Sierra replied, picking up the reins, and backing the ponies away. “It would not surprise me if the Teardrop Lake spills over the dam this day.”

  They made good time through the lower valley and before long they were able to turn onto the main road, where their mountain ponies fell in behind heavier wagons pulled by mules or teams of oxen, headed south from the mills of Woolen Woods and the trading-post town of Banebridge. The junction was known as the Falls, for here their fierce Lavender Rill emptied from the hillside into the River Runne below. The waterfall was a favorite fishing spot, and the ledges were nice for picnics, for you could watch the pretty purple water dilute instantly to a near-colorless hue as the rill splashed into the wide, flat Runne. Skye scanned the makeshift food stalls and tents set up along the river’s edge, and caught a whiff of fried eggs and bacon that made her realize just how long ago they had eaten breakfast. She glanced at her mother, but she knew Sierra would not want to lose their place in the line along the crowded track. She dug a handful of dried apples out of their lunch basket.

  The going was slow along the main road. Everywhere Middlelanders like themselves rode horseback or trudged on foot, driving sheep or leading a prize bull or calf. Ahead of them and behind, as far as Skye could see, carts and wagons were piled high with handmade quilts and jars of mountain berry jams and jellies, as well as crates of protesting goats and lambs, yipping shepherd puppies, and piglets. There were spinning wheels and looms, iron pots and hearth brooms, and even a wagon bearing a portable forge and blacksmith’s bellows. But something was amiss; and whatever it was involved more than the stench that grew stronger as they headed into the valley—a fetid scent of rot and disease.

  “Mother, there are no men,” Skye realized all at once. “No men at all, and hardly any boys.”

  “As I feared.” Sierra nodded grimly. “The world is about to change again. Do you smell that smoke?”

  Skye wrinkled her nose and nodded.

  Sierra turned to scan the sky behind them from beneath the brim of her hat. “It looks to be coming from the northwest. A glacier fire, I believe, though many would deny that to keep the peace.” She shook her head in frustration. “No matter that we hide in the mountains of the Notch, change still reaches us. We are sadly unprepared.”

  “What are we to do?” Skye asked. “Conscriptors march down from the Northlands and arrest our men. Raiders sneak from the south to steal our water and foul our air.”

  “It is the sad plight of the Middlefolk,” Sierra said, attempting to soothe her daughter without dismissing her concerns. “We are forever caught between the north and the south, through no fault of our own.”

  “Then why do we hide?” Skye asked. “Are we more leery of the north or the south? I’ve yet to set eyes on a Lowlander. Are they really terrifying?”

  “No, no, not as a race,” Sierra said, her lion eyes scanning the distance as the ponies slowed to a stop behind the train of wagons that snaked toward the Middlemarch bridge. “But there is one person who rules the South, one who would drive the Lowlanders to mine the glacier in the hope of stealing the secrets of the ancients at any cost.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Not he, but she.” Sierra’s gaze assessed the hold-up at the bridge. “They are inspecting wagon loads ahead. Ready yourself.”

  “She?” Skye searched her mother’s face. “Do you mean the raven-haired girl you mention in your yarns? The one who stole the necklace and left in the night? She is real?”

  Sierra nodded. “She is a grown woman now. And she controls the South.”

  “I thought those were just old stories,” Skye said, recalling nights by the fire, the enchanting tales of the Potluck Twelve. “The Guard controls the north. The Lowlanders control the south.”

  Sierra shook her head.

  “So you spin your yarns from the truth?” Skye asked in disbelief. “Your Tasman is real, as is Aubergine? All the rest of them, too?”

  “Shhh,” Sierra hushed her as their wagon approached the entrance to the bridge. “Do not name them aloud.” She watched as a young soldier wearing a gray uniform beckoned them toward the checkpoint. She lightly slapped the ponies’ reins and the wagon pulled forward. “This is neither the time nor the place.”

  Skye stiffened as two men of the Glacier Guard approached, one on either side of the wagon. Chuffer snorted and backed away, almost pushing the back of the wagon into the mule cart behind them, until Sierra calmed him. The men wore short tunics embroidered with the white crest of the Northland Glacier, and stiff leggings tucked into nailed glacier boots. Skye had seen such garb just once before. Men like these had taken her brother.

  “Good morning,” Sierra said, coolly.

  “And you.” The taller soldier’s distinctly Northland accent reminded Skye of her mother’s way of speaking. Climbing gear hung from his leather belt: an ice pick and a length of thin braided rope. He must have been a scout in the Northlands, or maybe a sledder like her brother.

  “Where do you drive from this day?” he asked.

  Sierra appraised him. “The top of the Notch.”

  The tall guard cast a questioning look at the other soldier.

  The shorter man explained. “It is a small mountain pass here in the Middlelands, which begins at that grain mill and goes up to the Teardrop Dam. A handful of families raise mountain goats and hunt moose along the lake. There are a few farms and a sleep-out lodge at the top of the Notch, and not much else. A forsaken place.”

  “Teardrop Lake,” the tall soldier repeated. He gave Skye a curious look. “There is good sledding up there, I have heard.”

  The short soldier held only a long pike, although he had a wicked-looking knife strapped to his waist, and a shield and a broadsword were propped against the bridge abutment. This one had the look of a bully, Skye thought.

  “What is your purpose here?” The short soldier began to swat his pole at their bags and bundles.

  “We’ve come to sell our garments and yarns.” Sierra turned in alarm as the short bully stuck his pike into a bag of fleece. “Take care,” she warned. “You’ll spoil the roving.”

  “We have a stall in the main tent every year,” Skye said, feeling her anger begin to rise. She watched as the taller guard unlatched the top of one of the twig baskets, spilling hanks of lavender and blue yarn into the wagon bed. He jumped back as if stung.

  “Shards!” he swore.

  “Why do you spit oaths and spill yarns?” Sierra asked, ever calm.

  Skye reached out quickly to save the skeins.

  The short guard flicked a hank away from her with the tip of his pike. “Are these not dyed with magic crystals?” he asked slyly. “I hear you folk up in the Notch do things your own way. You guide Lowland parties disguised as moose hunters to hidden sleep-outs. You sled on the Military Road w
ithout a pass.”

  Sierra gave him a sharp glance but said nothing.

  Skye took the bait. “Do you know of my brother Warren? Warren Blue of Top Notch?” She asked. “You must have heard of him. He won the Winter Games last year. He is the best sledder in all of the Middlelands.” Her eyes turned from the short soldier to search the face of the taller guard. She sensed that the tall foreigner from the Northlands was not mean-spirited like his companion. He looked out of place here. “Do you have any news?” she decided to ask. “Any word at all?”

  “We know of your brother,” the tall guard confirmed before the short one cut him off.

  “Warren Blue the great sledder, is a now a deserter.” The short soldier’s curled lip exposed a row of crooked teeth as he laughed. “He is wanted, perhaps by both sides.”

  “Warren would do no such thing,” Skye shot back.

  “It must be that you get no word at all up at your Notch,” the short soldier mocked. “Magic has been outlawed in all the lands. Traveling the Military Road without a Northland Pass is a punishable offense. Lowland guides and defectors alike are considered traitors with prices on their heads.”

  “Enough, Maynard,” the tall soldier warned.

  The short soldier snapped the tip of his pike again, and the hank of yarn impaled there seemed in danger of being tossed into the river. His eyes narrowed as he glared at Sierra. “Using magic crystals for any purpose is forbidden. You could go to the darkest chamber of the Burnt Holes for this.”

  The tall soldier reached out a sturdy hand to stay the short one’s pike. “Enough, I said.”

  “These are not crystal-dyed,” Skye said hotly. “And they have no magic.” She picked up a skein of yarn and shook it at the guards. “Watch closely. Nothing happens.”

  “Our goats drink from the freshets spilling from the Teardrop,” Sierra explained, stilling her daughter’s arm. As her lion eyes gazed at the short guard, she spoke slowly and carefully. “These glacier waters are most pure. Some ponds are blue and purple, even pink from the rock flour that swirls through the water. This powder tinges the locks of hair on the mountain goats. That is all.” She pulled her traveling cloak tighter, her eyes on the taller guard. “It is just natural dye, not magic.”