The Broken Circle: Yarns of the Knitting Witches

by Cheryl Potter

  “Natural dye, not magic,” Maynard repeated, looking a bit dazed.

  Skye was growing warm in her traveling cloak, whether from her anger or just sitting here in the balmy air before the bridge she did not know. She began to unfasten her wrap, but her mother’s hand reached out again to stop her.

  “I don’t like it,” the short guard murmured to the tall one. “What with new fires from the glacier and the sledder gone missing.” He motioned to a pair of foot soldiers loitering at the checkpoint. “These are two of the ones we seek. Detain them.”

  Skye began to sweat but could not shrug out of her cloak. Her mother’s hand gripped her arm hard. When she opened her mouth to speak nothing came out.

  Sierra’s lion eyes focused on the short guard. “You do not seek us,” she told him calmly.

  He gave her a quizzical look, and held his hand up to slow the approaching soldiers. “No?”

  “No,” she answered. “We are mere goat farmers. Hand spinners and knitters who know nothing of magical dyes.”

  “Nothing?” The guard motioned the foot soldiers away. “Nothing at all?”

  “Nothing,” Sierra confirmed. “There is nothing to fear.”

  Skye felt a surge of warmth flowing from her mother’s fingers.

  “Our yarns are entered in the Goat to Garment contest,” she heard herself telling the guards. “If they harbor magic, we will be disqualified and detained.”

  “Let the judges decide,” Sierra suggested. It was not a question. “Let the judges decide,” the tall soldier echoed as the other guard gave a slow nod.

  Sierra pointed down to the colorless water that thundered beneath the bridge, waiting until both guards glanced down at the swollen river. “Up at the top of the Lavender Rill, the water really is purple.”

  The tall soldier nodded to his companion. “The judges decide, then?”

  “They don’t know anything.” The short soldier sneered. He lifted his pike to let them pass. “Women.”

  Skye stayed silent until their wagon clattered across the bridge and passed under the arch of the fairgrounds. Above them flapped the blue and pink banner of the Middlemarch World’s Fair, held each year as a celebration of spring.

  “Mother, I’ve seen you do that before,” Skye said softly, looking straight ahead. Soldiers were everywhere, dotting the sodden grounds with short tunics of gray. These were simple foot soldiers, she could see, with short swords or knives strapped to their belts, or pikes in hand. She saw no others dressed for climbing or sledding, like the tall guard who had detained them at the bridge.

  “Do what?” Sierra brought the wagon to a halt before the grand hall, a great tent adorned with pennants snapping in the breeze.

  She smiled, knowing their empty stall stood within, waiting to be stocked with their garments and yarns as it had been for twenty years without fail.

  “Get people to do what you want,” Skye said. “Is that part of the magic that ugly soldier was yelping about? Did you see his twisted teeth? I know when Father wears his Potluck hat—” She broke off, not wanting to reveal the conversation of this morning. “Well, things just seem a bit different.”

  Sierra shrugged. “I just used a little power of persuasion.” She paused. “It is a womanly ploy.”

  “But I grew so warm,” Skye complained, shedding her outer garments at last. “And you wouldn’t let me take off my cloak. I could not speak.”

  “Well,” Sierra laughed, also laying her cloak aside. “Mayhap there is a little magic simmering in the dye crystals yet?”

  “You’ve known all along,” Skye accused, as they got down from the wagon and began unloading their bundles. “There was more to that Potluck than yarns!”

  Sierra sought out her precious bundle of garments, while Skye strapped on the first of the twig baskets. “Yes, there was,” she said at last.

  “You’ve known forever.”

  “I’ve known since my days at the Potluck,” Sierra admitted. “But that meant nothing until now, and now I fear nothing I do will matter.” She turned to face her daughter directly. “Skye, I cannot protect you here. If anything happens to me, you must make your way north to the border. Promise me.”

  “But what of Father?” Skye asked. “And the farm?”

  “There will be nothing he can do,” Sierra said, calmly. “It will be too late.”

  “I thought I saw him shedding tears this morning,” Skye murmured.

  Sierra nodded without comment. “There is a yarn shop in Border-town, in the borough of Merchants’ Row. You will find it near the end of the main thoroughfare. The sign does say Potluck Yarn. Go to the side gate through the herb garden and bang on the summer-kitchen door until someone lets you in. That someone will be a gnome called Smokey Jo. Have her take you to Aubergine.”

  “Aubergine,” Skye breathed. ”You mean she is real as well?” She gave her mother an appraising look. “It must be they all are.”

  “She will know you on sight,” Sierra assured her daughter. “Now let’s go see who is about.”

  Inside the main tent, the air was rich with the smell of lanolin and sheep’s wool, of fresh bread and eucalyptus soap. Skye breathed deeply, listening to the festive trill of flutes and pipes from one of the booths.

  “Katarina!” She called, spying her friend at the bread stall just inside the east entrance. A familiar small banner strung over the booth announced Mill on the Rill, with its emblem of a stone hut straddling a lavender river.

  The dark-haired girl looked up and wiped her floury hands on her gaudy show apron and came around the wooden table to hug Skye. She smelled of rye and honeyed oats.

  “Skye,” she said, stepping back out of the hug to look at her friend. “How have you fared? I have been so worried since the soldiers. . . .” She trailed off, glancing at the line of buyers surrounding their table. “Oh, let me cut you a slice of bread. It’s still warm.”

  Skye glanced at Sierra, deep in conversation with Katarina’s mother, who was weighing sacks of milled grain for a waiting farmer’s wife. “But you’re so busy!”

  “Those soldiers, they are ravenous.” Katarina plopped a half dozen tarts onto a scrap of paper and twisted it loosely before handing it across the counter to a guardsman, who began to eat as he walked away. “And they have Northland silver.” She showed Skye the newly minted coins stamped with the glacier on one side.

  “But aren’t you afraid?” Skye asked, accepting a slice of bread spread thick with honey. “They are everywhere.”

  Katarina shrugged. “They have to eat.” She paused. ”You heard about Averill? I know you cared for him.”

  ”Your grandfather told us.” Skye demolished the bread, realizing that she hadn’t eaten since the handful of dried apples, hours ago.

  “He wanted to go, that is the truth,” Katarina said, slicing more bread. “He couldn’t wait to leave, ever since father died.”

  “I hope he comes back,” Skye said. Two years earlier, the miller had died in a terrible accident, when the great grinding stone split and heaved to the ground, crushing him.

  “Averill has been gone only a fortnight,” Katarina shrugged. “Maybe he’s still in training at the great garrison in the Northlands; who knows?”

  “We’ve heard no word from Warren. But did you see that guard at the crossing, dressed as a sledder?”

  “Really tall,” Katarina nodded, refilling the breadbasket.

  Skye took a big bite of bread. “He seemed to know something. And he wasn’t from around here.”

  “Lots of folk aren’t from around here, silly.” Katarina shook her head, and smiled as she waited on another customer. “We’re at the World’s Fair. I’ve seen Northlanders, Middlelanders, folk from the Western Highlands, and even from the fisheries of the Far East.”

  “He knew more than he was saying. I thought maybe he knew something about Warren.”

  “Did you get in
to trouble for your yarns?” Katarina asked, distracted, as she turned to open another jar of honey. “They have been throwing people out of the fair left and right for supposed use of magic.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Skye said, with growing worry.

  Sierra appeared to summon Skye back to the tasks at hand. “Come, we must let these ladies do their work and get to ours.”

  A group of armed soldiers passed them as they reached the center aisle and turned the corner toward their stall. “Trouble is brewing,” Sierra murmured to Skye. “Be watchful of the Guard.”

  As they reached their booth space, they saw that the stand to the right of theirs, which sold buttons and clasps handcrafted of metal and wood, shell, and bone, was already half set up, but the spot on the left that usually sold herbal remedies stood empty.

  “Chloe,” Sierra greeted the robust lady in the adjoining booth, “All is well with you?”

  “Sierra!” Smiling, the woman looked up from arranging cards of matched buttons. She wore a huge black shawl, fastened with a stickpin of hammered copper, over a flowing crimson dress. “Yes, and you?” She forged out into the aisle to give Sierra an ample hug. “I wondered if you would show this day.”

  “Nothing could keep us away.” Sierra glanced toward the empty booth. “But where is Esmeralde?”

  “Never showed yet,” Chloe replied. “Every year she is here before me, already selling herbs and teas while I set up. Many have been looking for her.” She lowered her voice. “Not all of them friendly.”

  “Oh, Mother, Esmeralde is so old,” Skye said. “You don’t think she passed on?”

  “No.” Sierra’s eyes flashed. “Did soldiers come looking for her, too?”

  The plump woman nodded slowly. “Word is she’s afraid of being arrested for misusing magic in her colored syrups. Some say she was one of those Potluck witches way back when.”

  “So Northland soldiers would arrest an old woman for selling cough medicine,” Sierra said in disbelief. With a quiet shake of her head, she covered their table with a cloth and stowed her precious bundle underneath. “These are strange times.”

  They had almost finished unloading the wagon when trumpets sounded and they heard the announcement for the Always Alpaca judging.

  “Should I still enter my shawl?” Skye asked as they hurried back to their stall with the last of the burlap bags of roving. In the main aisle of the tent, a stream of soldiers passed on their right, while others walked behind them, checking vendors for contraband crystals. Inside their booth, Skye’s Suri lace shawl laid airing across several baskets of yarn.

  “Of course.” Her mother lifted the featherweight garment of shaded amethyst. “It is your winter’s work. Take it to the judge’s stand.”

  “They will say it is crystal-dyed,” Skye whispered.

  “You will just explain,” Sierra replied, handing her the shawl as a group of soldiers turned down the main aisle and headed for their stall. “Everything will be fine.”

  Skye looked up in alarm, recognizing the short Guardsman from the bridge who was leading the pack. “Go,” Sierra shooed her away with a wave of her hand. “Go!”

  Skye hurried from the booth with her shawl and made her way to the judges’ pavilion. As she waited in line to enter the contest, Skye saw that in addition to yarns prepared for the Goat to Garment Competition, the craft tables were already loaded with fleeces and furs for the Sheep to Shawl, the Moose to Mittens, and the Bear to Blanket. As she surveyed the array of shawls and scarves at the Always Alpaca table, Skye’s breath caught in her throat. None of the projects were naturally shaded like her own. She was about to step out of line when abruptly it was her turn to stand before the judges. Perched behind the table heaped with garments, they gazed at her expectantly. She focused on the one with snowy eyebrows. He reminded her of Katarina’s grandfather, the Gaffer.

  “I would like to enter the Always Alpaca judging,” she faltered, spreading her shawl across the others.

  “Nicely knit,” the old man admitted, fingering the intricate Fair-Isle pattern. “But crystal dyes are forbidden, under the new guidelines. We cannot qualify you under the World’s Fair rules.”

  “The yarn is not crystal-dyed, it is natural,” Skye said. “Our animals drink from the colored freshets below the Teardrop Lake, and their locks keep the color. Have you heard of the Lavender Rill? It flows right by our house and the water really is purple.”

  “I have never heard of it,” the judge replied. He turned to another old man, seated at the next table. “Have you heard of naturally dyed fleeces, pink and blue and purple?”

  “I have heard,” the other man acknowledged, giving the garment a cautious glance over the top of his ground glass spectacles. “It is nothing but an old woman’s tale. Take the shawl and hide it well,” he admonished Skye, “before you are thrown out of the fair.”

  “But last year. . . .” Skye began.

  The first judge raised his hand. “There is nothing that likens this year to the last,” he insisted, not unkindly. “Do you not see the soldiers and smell the sour smoke in the air? The Middlelands have fallen under the rule of the Northland Guard; we just do not know it yet.”

  “We will not admit it—is more likely,” the other man agreed with a nod. “Times will get worse before they get better. Some say soon you will see signs that say: Do not drink the water, for fear of pestilence and death. Do not drink the water!” He pushed his eyeglasses up the bridge of his nose and shooed Skye away with a wave of his gnarled hand. “Now go.”

  Skye’s eyes stung with tears as she made her way back to the main tent. One glance at the judging table had told her that her patterned shawl was easily the best-executed wrap in the competition, and the most original. Skye had worked out the motif herself, following the web of fine-lined frost flowers that had decorated her windowpane on winter mornings. It was a fanciful design that she called Elfin Lace. Lost in her disappointment, she failed to notice the commotion at the east entrance of the main tent. Katarina was standing watch outside and pulled her into the bread stall as soon as she walked through the door.

  “Katarina,” she said woodenly, as her friend parted the drape so that they could crawl under the table. “The judges disqualified my shawl. They said it looks like magic.”

  “Skye,” Katarina hissed, as they hunkered under the stand, hidden behind the tablecloth. “The soldiers have arrested your mother. They’re looking for you!”

  “What?” Skye exclaimed, hitting her head on the underside of the table. “This day can get no stranger.”

  “Shh,” her friend cautioned. “They say Sierra uses magic. They say she was one of the Potluck Twelve, from the old stories.”

  “Mother worked at a yarn store at the Northland border when she was young. She was an apprentice at a fiber cooperative. That was all,” Skye said stubbornly, remembering her mother’s earlier admission. “Where are they taking her?”

  “To the Northlands, most likely, everyone says,” Katarina said. “Even Bordertown maybe. Nobody really knows.”

  Katarina’s mother lifted the cloth. “Shh,” she said. “Soldiers.”

  The girls watched the rough boots approach. They were so close that Skye could touch one. Then the questions began. Who was Sierra Blue? Where was Skye? Where were they from? Katarina’s mother offered frightened one-word answers until finally the boots stepped away.

  The tablecloth lifted and the girls stumbled out into the dim light. Katarina’s mother took Skye’s shoulders. “You must go,” she insisted, “Quickly, before the soldiers find you.”

  “But where?” Skye asked with terror. “Where should I go?”

  “Home to Top Notch?” The older woman asked. “To your father? Perhaps he will know what to do.”

  Skye shook her head tearfully. “No,” she said quietly, remembering the promise she had made to her mother such a short time ago. “He would not.” She untied
her show apron and wiped her face with the edge of it. “Mayhap I should follow my mother to the Northlands.”

  “You cannot walk all that way. And the soldiers will find you with the wagon.” Katarina began to cry. “Skye, I fear I will never see you again.”

  “Nor I you.” Skye trembled. She turned to Katarina’s mother. “Will you unhitch the ponies? I will ride one and lead the other in hopes of finding my mother.”

  Moments later, Skye stole to the side entrance of the main tent, the hood of her traveling cloak pulled low over her eyes. Wooden stools held back the great canvas flap; on one of them sat Chloe, the button lady.

  “I managed to save these,” she said, pulling Sierra’s precious rucksack of felted garments from under her crimson skirts with a grunt. “The soldiers took all else.”

  Skye hugged the knotted bundle to her chest. “Did you overhear anything? What did they say?”

  “Sierra is to be detained for misusing magic. They will take her to the glacier and imprison her with the other witches in the burnt part of the Crystal Caverns.” Chloe frowned. “I do not know what any of that means, do you?”

  “The Burnt Holes,” Skye said slowly. “Of course I’ve heard of them, but I didn’t think they were real. I thought they were a make-believe place your parents threatened to send you if you were cross to your brothers.”

  “Oh yes, to scare you with the spirit voices of the ancients,” Chloe nodded. She fixed Skye with an earnest look. “I think these soldiers were speaking of different caves. They sounded like a jail. Now look,” Chloe lowered her voice and patted the rucksack. “Your mother said: Let nothing happen to these, no matter what.” She studied Skye intently. “They took her cloak away. They said it was magic.” She narrowed her eyes. “Sierra was one of those knitting witches, wasn’t she? And Esmeralde, too.”