“I can roll out a batch of soda biscuits,” Lily said.
“I’ll do it,” Lorna replied, reaching into the flour bin. “You look a bit peaked.”
“A headache,” Lily said, feeling the familiar tightening across her forehead. “A small one.”
“I did stop by the remedy woman’s booth for more of your headache medicine,” Lorna said. “The button lady said she did not show this year.”
Lily smiled weakly, troubled at the news of Esmeralde. “I’ll set the table, and then have a lie-down with a cool cloth.”
Her sister nodded absently, busy with the biscuits. “Don’t forget the extra china and silver. We’ve a full house.”
In the dining room, Lily opened the cupboard. Out came the cloth napkins and serving pieces, the teacups and tall mead glasses. Pausing, she put her hand to her temple, hoping to still the growing ache. She really should take something, or she would not be able to finish setting the table, let alone serve supper.
Her first few years here at the inn had been fraught with headaches like the one now building. The day-to-day adjustment to hosting on a smaller scale had only been part of the difficulty. She didn’t have to freshen as many rooms as there were at the Potluck, which threw her timing off. She set the table for too many guests, somehow expecting there would be twelve, and she prepared far too much food. Yet what had bothered her most had been the secrets that milled around in her head, still looking for a way out to do good or bad. But she could do nothing. Like the wild animals she had seen caged at the fair—striped horses no one could ride, and great arctic birds with wings too small for flight—Lily had lived these past years imprisoned in a foreign landscape, devoid of magic.
“It is the end of the world as we know it,” Aubergine had told them all.
That last day at the yarn shop, just ten of them remained around the table. The shop was closed, as it had been since the night when Tracery Teal vanished and Tasman fled south. All eyes were on Aubergine’s. No one was knitting.
“It may take years, and it may take longer, for Tasman to strip the South of all that is true and good.” Aubergine’s eyes simmered from blue to violet with anger. “Magic will be outlawed. Men will once more come to think they rule the world through death and war.” She paused. “And we must let them.”
“I won’t stand for it,” Esmeralde said. “Middlefolk will die needlessly without my magic tinctures.”
“Without my herbs and teas, they will no longer remember childhood dreams, or even the scent of happiness,” Indigo added.
“What of our remaining crystals?” Smokey Jo asked anxiously. “And the shared visions we seek above the great pot? I love the magic of my traveling cloak and my bottomless bags!” She pointed an accusing finger. “Aubergine, even you enjoy passing unseen. It is our way.”
“Without belief in magic, how will people heed the yarns?” Sierra asked quietly, before Aubergine could say more. “The legends of the First Folk will be lost. All lore will be lost.”
“That is what you think,” Ratta glared at them all, her hands gripping the back of Mamie’s wheeled chair. Mamie slumped like a sleeping baby, her head resting on the table. “I know tales of old that none of you can tell. Not even you, Sierra, and you think you’ve heard them all.”
“Enough of such talk,” Wheat snapped. She pointed her staff at Mamie, who was beginning to snore. “Why don’t you hush up and put your mistress to bed?” The amber crystals tied to the crook danced and sparked.
Lily remembered how Ratta had shrunk away from Wheat’s cabochons.
Then Lavender Mae let out a howl and clutched the pouch of precious stones that hung around her neck.
“No,” she shrieked in Aubergine’s direction. “No, no, no!”
Above the din, Aubergine had to shout. “I am not telling you to abandon the magic of the crystals and the dye pot.” Standing, she held up a hand for silence. “Magic will be outlawed, and so you must go about your lives in secret. Search for the lost crystal. Practice your lore. When it is time, watch for the sign. There are many things I don’t know about the strange events we are about to witness. But one thing I do know is that for this time, only women’s magic can stop the world from ending once more in fire or ice.”
She turned to Lilac Lily, the only one—other than the dozing Mamie—who had not yet spoken. “Lily, what say you?”
Lily shook her head. “I have said too little at times, and then too much. For that, I beg your forgiveness.” She had given Aubergine a pleading look. “I dare not say more.”
“Is that all?” Smokey Jo asked impatiently. Even though she perched on stacked cushions, her chin just cleared the table edge. She reached up to smack its wooden surface with the flat of her hand. “You have not even given us a clue. Aubergine, make Lily tell us what we would ken!”
Aubergine gazed at Lily, who looked down at the table. “We need to hear what you would have us know.”
“Then you must ask a question,” Lily said.
“What else will come to pass?” Aubergine asked gently.
“All that you have predicted and more,” Lily answered dully. “Tasman has fled to the South where she will use her powers to bend the Lowlands to her will, along with the laws of nature. She will squander everything. In time, she will be known as the Dark Queen. All will fear her. Conquering the Lowlands will cost her dearly, and will take time. First there will be fire and famine and death. Then a great thirst will come across their lands, for they will have no water that has not been fouled by their own hands or salted by the seas. The folk of the Lowlands will march north. They will seek water, and power, and plunder.”
Aubergine nodded, and seemed unsurprised. “They will try to breach the Crystal Caves in search of the secrets of old,” she guessed.
“And more,” Lily nodded. “The first attempt will be unsuccessful and the caves will ice over, leaving great black holes. I have heard. . . .”
“You are under oath not to say,” Ratta spat. “No one has asked such a question.”
Lily gazed levelly at Ratta. “It has been asked and I will answer.”
“By whom?” Ratta demanded, glancing around the table.
Esmeralde glared at Ratta. “I thought you were told to hush.” Indigo turned to Sierra, ignoring Ratta. “Is there such a tale of these ancient tombs?”
“Yes,” Sierra said. “The dead guard the caves with the usual assortment of spells and curses. Additionally, familiars called Watches protect Tombs of the ruling class.” She frowned. “But I don’t know what will happen when the graves are disturbed.” She glanced at Mamie sadly. “She never said.”
“She never said to you,” Ratta sneered. “I alone know all.”
Winter Wheat stood and pointed her staff at Ratta. “You had your chance,” she said. The swinging amber crystals came together and Wheat focused a beam of light on the sleeve of Ratta’s shift. Fabric sizzled and a black hole formed. The room smelled of burned wool. A few chuckles were heard as Ratta wheeled Mamie’s chair from the table and swiftly retreated toward the door.
“What else can you tell us?” Aubergine asked Lily.
Lily glanced at Ratta, who lurked in the doorway. “I dare not say, lest I tempt fate again. But Aubergine, you know the time will come when you alone must choose whether to save the world we are left with or let it end again.”
“When last it ended, it ended in ice,” Smokey reminded them all. “The ancients wanted it that way.”
“The ancients wanted no such thing,” Sierra objected. “Men who wielded the power of the crystals fought among themselves as we do now, and the end happened.”
Lily nodded. “Remember that.” She pointed a finger at Ratta, who lingered just outside the door to hear Lily’s final words. “You may think you know all, but sadly you don’t. And what you do know unchallenged, you would be wise to share. The ancients fought over twin suns. In the end, both went out
and the world was plunged into frozen darkness.” She turned to the others. “Watch for fire in the sky at dawn.”
“That will be the sign?” Aubergine asked. “Are you certain?”
Lily met Aubergine’s violet eyes. “You will call us all with cold-fire crystals. When we see red sky in the morning, all of us will take warning—even the one who will become the Dark Queen. There are only enough stones in the tinderbox for you to summon us once.”
“I know where the box is, and the crystals,” Smokey interrupted eagerly. “When do we make the call?”
“You will know when the time has come,” Lily replied, before turning toward the rest of them. “Sadly, not all of you will be able to answer.” She laid a gentle hand on Lavender Mae’s arm. “They will need you. Try to come.”
“See if I come!” Ratta sneered from the doorway.
“I don’t give a smashed shard whether you come or not,” Esmeralde said. “We’ve plenty of magic crystals and tales of old to go around without your two coppers’ worth.”
“Me, neither,” Indigo added. “Take that never-ending shawl you never finish knitting and frog it, for all I care.”
“You will come,” Lily told Ratta coldly. “And gladly, for otherwise you will have to watch your mistress die with no hope of passing to the land of dreams.”
Ratta yanked Mamie’s chair away from the doorway and wheeled the slouched form toward the kitchen garden.
“I need a private moment,” Sierra whispered to Lily. They rose and went to the back of the yarn shop. Lily listened to the talk of the others as Sierra broke down in silent tears, mouthing fears of what Lily already knew. There was one yarn that Sierra still did not know, which seemed impossible, because she would be named Keeper of the Tales on Mamie’s passing.
“Pay the kitchen wench no mind,” Lily heard Wheat saying. “Ratta’s always having a knit fit.”
“You must stop burning holes through her garments,” Aubergine said.
“It’s just a little sting,” Wheat grumbled. “Just enough to keep sheep in line.”
“Ratta talks so out of turn,” Indigo complained. “She arrived as Mamie’s nursemaid, and now she acts like one of us.”
“Her and her private language,” Esmeralde added, as Sierra and Lily returned to the table. “She cannot read Mamie’s mind.”
“I fear she can,” Sierra murmured. Everyone could see she had been crying. “I can never become Keeper of the Tales if some are known only to Ratta,” she explained tearfully. “I should know the yarn of the ancient tombs. I do not.”
“Yes, you do. You will remember it in time,” Wheat said. Her eyes blazed at Lily and she reached for her staff. “Lily, what did you tell her?” she demanded.
“Only what Sierra asked,” Lily said. “And no more. So you can keep your clacking crystals to yourself, unless you want me to tell everyone your unsavory thoughts.”
Sierra rose. “I am taking leave of you all, now and forever. Another path has been chosen for me, a simpler, narrower, safer path, and I will take it.”
“Sierra, things are not what they seem,” Lily said. “Try to come when you are called.”
Tears still streaming down her face, Sierra hurried out of the room and up the stairs to the dormitory. Esmeralde and Indigo stood to follow her. Outside, Ratta pulled up to the garden gate driving a pair of mules hitched to Mamie’s old covered wagon.
Taking her staff, Wheat moved toward the kitchen garden, while Lavender Mae ran through the shop and down the hall into the dye shed, howling in dismay.
“Everyone’s leaving,” Smokey said, when only she and Lily and Aubergine remained. “Everyone’s mad.”
“We’ll not leave,” Aubergine said. “And they will come back.”
It was then that Lily stood to take her leave as well. “No one will come back for a long time,” she said. “Maybe never. If Tasman ever comes back here to war with the Northlanders,” she hesitated. “If she breaches the Crystal Caves. . . .” She shut her mouth. “I can say no more. But you must call us back to the circle. You must.”
“You said that not all will come.” Aubergine had a grim look on her face.
“No,” Lily replied. “You will be surprised at who does not arrive. And who does. We all will.”
And so events had come to pass, Lily mused, somewhat as she had predicted. The Glacier Wars began with the Battle of the Burnt Holes, and the men in charge decided to fight with might rather than magic. Women suspected of using crystals were detained and arrested. During the first years, smoke constantly drifted up from the Lowlands. Then it also blew down from the north.
Even though she knew the world was ending, Lily had not yet seen fire in the sky. Perhaps Aubergine had decided to let the world die down as it had before, without summoning anyone for help.
Lily had practiced her lore in the intervening years, forming unspoken answers to the questions she hoped the others would ask her. She alone knew how to quell the ravaging fires, but with no one to tell, she could only watch helplessly as Middleland soldiers marched north up the track, past her rooming house and toward certain death. If she was right, the crystal was not lost. If she was right, it was merely damaged and hidden in plain sight—in a place no one would think to look. Without Lily’s guidance, Lavender Mae’s wild foraging among the Crystal Caves to cull amethysts for a replacement necklace would go unrewarded. Without Lily’s insights, Esmeralde’s and Indigo’s shared vision to locate the original would be fruitless.
But if she found the courage to offer the others clues, without actually telling tales or breaking oaths, would any of them heed her warnings? The problem was that they had to ask her and she had avoided them all, because she was afraid they would not like the true answers to their questions.
They would ask if she could loosen Tasman’s death grip over the lands.
Although she could not, Lily knew that the Dark Queen’s hold could be unraveled like the split seams of an old sweater—if she could find a way to show them how. But the original Twelve would not be there, and that was another problem. There had to be twelve—and there could be—but two of them would arrive unwanted, and perhaps too late. To this day, untold secrets gave Lily such headaches that sometimes she felt as if she had drunk an entire flask of Esmeralde’s Crystal Cordial.
Coming back to the present, Lily quickly finished setting the table and returned to the kitchen to fetch a cool cloth for her forehead. Lorna had set the biscuits out on the sideboard, ready for baking, and wiped the counter clean.
As she often had before, Lily questioned her role at the inn. Although she knew that Lorna and her husband, Evan, wanted her here, she was not needed. It had been the same at the Potluck. After the Twelve disbanded, Aubergine and Smokey had invited her to stay, and for a time she had, but finally she could not bear walking into the dusty rooms or seeing Aubergine’s neck bare of the amethyst crystals and their power.
Dipping a washcloth in a bucket of cool water, Lily wrung it out and pressed it to her eyes. She could tell the cloth wasn’t going to help. Her head was pounding as if it would explode from the inside. Desperate, Lily reached into the back of the spice cabinet for the bottle with the last of Esmeralde’s tincture. She drank the bitter syrup straight, without diluting it. The ache abated, but only slightly.
Shaking, she took off her apron and hung it on the pantry door. It was time to do the other thing she had known all along she would do some day, fire in the sky or not. She must head north to the Potluck. The secrets wanted out. They would be told around the big pot once more, and she understood finally that she must let the questions be asked and answered. But why now? Had the catalyst been Sierra’s idle glance at the fair? Or the throngs of Northland soldiers roaming the midway? Or perhaps the fact that Esmeralde had failed to show to tend her booth?
Lily slipped up the back staircase to her room in the attic. She opened the lid of her dusty trunk and shook out
her traveling cloak. She stuffed everything else she needed into her market bag, and snuck back down the stairs. The kitchen and back porch were empty. She could not explain her departure without telling secrets. Lorna and Evan knew nothing of the Potluck. For all those years, they thought that Lily ran an inn over a yarn store, which explained the myriad garments and yarns she brought home on holidays. Lily quietly made her way up the garden path toward the main road.
Inside, Lorna hurried from the dining room to the front room, where her husband was filling the firebox. “Something’s wrong with Lily,” she said. “She set the table for twelve. She knows we have six guests.”
Evan looked out the side window toward the street. “There she goes. Did you send her to the root cellar?”
“No, we’ve got the cream and butter for supper,” she said, heading toward the kitchen. She returned with Lily’s discarded apron. “Did you ask her for an errand?”
“Not I.” Evan watched Lily in her traveling cloak swing her market bag into the front of a milk wagon and then climb up herself. “Lorna, love, she’s leaving.” He turned with a troubled glance. “I don’t think she’s coming back tonight.”
This is an intermediate-skill-level bag with wooden handles and a button, designed to carry your purchases on market days. It measures about 28" around and 13" high.
Get the pattern from PotluckYarn.com/epatterns
“It might be her time to pass into the land of dreams.”
CHAPTER 7
RATTA TUCKED THE SPARKLING SHAWL around Mamie Verde and left the old woman to sleep in the sun at the edge of the garden while she finished her morning chores. She threw bread crusts to the chickens, then swept the coop and refilled the water bowls, all the while with a watchful eye on Mamie. She gathered the eggs. There were more than a dozen.
The Broken Circle: Yarns of the Knitting Witches Page 10
