The Broken Circle: Yarns of the Knitting Witches

by Cheryl Potter

“We’ll die of old age first.” Esmeralde waved away the thick, sweet wisps of smoke. “Do you have to puff that inside?” Reaching for the jug, she glanced around the cluttered kitchen. Finding no mead cup, she took a swig directly from the earthenware vessel.

  “I’ll stop smoking when you lay off the jug.” Indigo found two used mead cups, which she swiped at with a dishcloth. “Pour me some.”

  “We need to send our own sign.” Esmeralde filled their glasses. “Isn’t that clear? There’s talk of the Twelve all up and down the track, and you and I are not saying anything.” She turned unsteadily. A little cordial slopped onto the floor. “Knots and tangles,” she swore.

  “Never mind that,” Indigo said, with a wave of her hand.

  Esmeralde settled onto a kitchen stool. “Unless we discover the interloper, we will be found out and rounded up and banished to the Burnt Holes.”

  “Or the traitor among us.”

  “Exactly.” Esmeralde reached to clink her mead cup against the one Indigo lifted toward her. “Let us call all to ourselves as Aubergine would have done, and see who comes.” Her eyes glistened. “Or doesn’t.” Merrily she shook the contents of her Possibles Bag onto the table. “Like I said, I brought everything.”

  “So you did,” Indigo’s laugh released a trail of smoke as several blown-glass vials rolled to the floor. The stopper fell out of one, which emitted a peculiar odor. “Shards, what was that?”

  Esmeralde shrugged and bent down to retrieve it. “Something gone bad.”

  “I don’t think we have the power to call all to ourselves,” Indigo cautioned. “But there’s another way to find out who among us has loosened her tongue.”

  “Go root around for your packets of herbs,” Esmeralde waved her off. She pulled the stoppers from more glass tubes, sniffing them for rot. “We’ll find a way to make our own fire in the sky.”

  “By the shards and cracked crystals that made them,” Indigo swore, searching the cupboards. “How do you propose to do that? None of us is Aubergine.”

  “Not even Aubergine is Aubergine,” Esmeralde argued, grimacing at odor emitted from an open vial before she replaced the cork a bit overcarefully. “Anymore.”

  “My point exactly. The brew pot will tell us who is not herself, and we will find our traitor.” A green cloud rose from the lip of another tube. Indigo eyed it warily from across the room. “We don’t need to attempt any fire in the sky.”

  “The brew pot will reveal the traitor only if she is one of us.” Esmeralde said, watching the haze from the vial curl into a lazy S. “I’ve a feeling she is not. That is why you keep on saying traitor, but I say interloper.”

  “Semantics.” Indigo blew a smoke ring at the green fog and it dissipated.

  “Not really.” Esmeralde set her empty glass aside. “What if this interloper is a he, not a she?”

  Indigo took a long puff. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  Esmeralde gave her a crafty look. “And that’s another reason for us to renew the power of the Twelve. Let us dawn the day with fireworks and see who comes, if any.”

  “We have no cold-fire crystals. Even if we did, we have not the skill to use them!”

  “We have raw amethyst culled from the Crystal Caves.” Esmeralde shook a vial of rocks. “And amber.” Her voice drifted off. “I used to know what was in this one.” She glanced at Indigo, who was now rummaging in a deep chest for her trove of herb packets. “It was something interesting that one of those fossicker boys found in the riverbed of the Trickle.”

  “Fossickers,” Indigo muttered.

  “The fossicker boys have not been by, have they?” Esmeralde asked, hopeful. “The one called Trader?”

  “Esmeralde, we don’t even have half the ingredients we need for a cold-crystal fire, let alone fire in the sky. Did you bring any hematite?”

  “No, but I have red ocher.”

  “It’s not the same.” Indigo finally found her bundle of herb packets and cleared space on the table. She laid out the folded papers like playing cards in an intricate game of chance.

  “It’s not as difficult as Smokey Jo and Aubergine try to make out,” Esmeralde insisted. “You will see.”

  But even though they tried all through the night and into the next morning, neither Esmeralde nor Indigo did see. They had searched through Esmeralde’s glass tubes and Indigo’s dried herbs, but somehow they did not have the right ingredients, or, if they did, they could not find the exact combination.

  “I used to know what was in every vial,” Esmeralde said blearily after they had emptied the jug of cordial.

  “And I, these sorted papers,” Indigo added. “I can put pen to paper—why didn’t I think to scribe things along the edges? I could at least have given myself a clue.” She unfolded a twist of parchment and shook out a few yellowed leaves. “I have no idea,” she admitted. “This no longer even has any scent.”

  Esmeralde continued to unstopper vial after vial, upending each. “I think there is nothing more inside any of them.”

  As morning dawned, they had stumbled to bed, discouraged, only to repeat the entire process when they had risen from sleep in the afternoon. There had been no fire in the sky, just a fire in the hearth under the iron brew pot, hanging from its hook. From time to time, Indigo swung the bubbling pot away from the blaze to add more water, hoping that finally they would come across the combination of herbs, dyestuffs, and crystal that would promote heavenly fire.

  But there was nothing.

  Outside the cottage door, after her retreat to the greenhouse for a smoke that took longer than it really needed to, Indigo sighed. It was past midnight again. She took a deep breath of damp air and checked the sky. There was nothing up there but darkness, which meant there was nothing to do but get back to work, despite her misgivings. Summoning what little resolve she had left, Indigo pulled the cottage door open to reveal the chaos within. The brew pot, boiling over onto the hot hearthstones, hissed steam into the fetid air. Smoke rolled into the room, forced downward from the chimney’s half-closed damper. Unmindful, Esmeralde sat sweating at the table, sorting sprinkles of crystal, like colored sugar, into piles: powdered green malachite, rare jet ground into silt, milky crushed opal, golden amber.

  Coughing loudly, Indigo adjusted the damper so that the smoke rose up the chimney. Even though it had begun to rain, she opened the windows to clear the kitchen and inhaled deeply as a cool rush of night air filled her lungs.

  “Aren’t you hot?” she asked.

  “I am hungry,” Esmeralde said. She stuck her finger into a trail of rock flour that had spilled across the table, and brought the granules to her lips. “Do these crystals resemble rock candy to you?”

  Indigo suddenly realized that they had not eaten all day. “We have salad greens.” She peered into the pantry. “Early tomatoes. I can heat some soup.”

  “Swing out the brew pot.” Esmeralde ignored her, motioning toward the fireplace. “I think I have concocted it right.” She swept the crystals into an untidy pile.

  “Esmeralde, you will blow up the cottage with that lot.” Wild-eyed, Indigo watched the colored grains begin to smolder. “Don’t you dare burn a hole through my hardwood table.”

  “I will not. Just get out of the way!” Esmeralde scooped the whole mess onto a dinner plate, where it snapped and crackled with a sulfurous stench.

  Laughing, she tilted the multicolored grains into the brew pot. “It’s working!”

  They watched the crystals fizzle and then spark out as they submerged. The simmering water turned a cloudy green.

  “It is going to work,” Esmeralde insisted. “It might take a moment or two.” She watched the pot expectantly.

  “Right,” Indigo said, letting one minute pass, and then another. “Right,” she repeated.

  “I did everything right,” Esmeralde said. “I did!”

  “You mucked up the water is what you
did.” Indigo swung the brew pot out away from the fire. “Do you want to start over? Again?”

  “I forgot to add the jet,” Esmeralde brushed the black silt into the pot. She grabbed a large wooden spoon from the sideboard and stirred vigorously. “It makes all the difference.”

  Slowly at first the pot began to simmer again, and then to boil, until it suddenly burst into a roil, spewing green bubbles that burst into sparks.

  “Holey socks!” Indigo shouted, quickly swinging the iron pot back into the fireplace, where it clanged against the stonework. “Stand back!”

  “It’s working,” Esmeralde cried with glee, as licks of green leaped from the pot, sending flames up the fieldstone flue. She gave her friend an anxious look. “Isn’t it?”

  “It is not.” Indigo pulled the spoon from the pot. Half of the wood had been eaten away, and the rest was on fire. Hastily she threw the remains into the fireplace as tendrils of the burgeoning emerald flame licked the hearthstones, threatening to scorch the floor. “Can you quell it?” she shouted over the roar of the blaze. The heat became stifling.

  “No,” Esmeralde cried, sweating profusely. “I thought only to get it started.”

  “The chimney is burning up,” Indigo coughed. “Shards! What if the kitchen is next?”

  “We better get outside,” Esmeralde scurried to the front door. They watched in the rain outside the cottage as great green flames leaped from the chimney top like fairy dancers.

  “So much for my fire in the sky,” Esmeralde muttered, as rain soaked her beret and drenched her dress. She turned her sooty face to Indigo. “It is more like a fire in the chimney.”

  “A chimney fire,” Indigo agreed, gulping breaths of cool air. “And not even red.”

  “Hopefully the rain will put it out.” Emerald sparks spit from the lip of the stonework. “But just in case, you do have baking soda?”

  “Some place,” Indigo slumped onto the stone bench with her back to the cottage, facing the greenhouse.

  “The day will dawn soon.” Esmeralde sat down heavily next to her. The rain was abating. “What will we do next?”

  “Who knows,” Indigo said. “But we are done with this sorcery— promise?”

  Esmeralde nodded without complaint. “I used to be pretty good with diseases. I could put a pox on a whole village.” She paused. “Cooking with magic crystals just was not my strength.”

  “Nor mine,” Indigo said. “But if you want tea that makes you sleep like the dead, or a flavor you can only dream of, or a smell from your childhood to help you remember. . . .” She yawned. “If you want those things, I am your witch.”

  The rain tapered to a drizzle. Sobering, Esmeralde turned toward her friend. “Remember that vision we had over the brew pot the other night?”

  “Vividly.” Water dripped from Indigo’s gray braids and soaked her vest.

  Esmeralde eyed her closely. “Was that real, or just the cordial talking?”

  “I believe it was real. I don’t think that crystal is lost. We both saw it, the one from Aubergine’s necklace that Teal broke away as Tasman fled. Teal had the amethyst in her hand just before she disappeared.”

  “When we saw it, the gem was not broken, either.” Esmeralde turned to face Indigo. “We both know the amethyst is broken.”

  “Or was broken,” Indigo reminded her. “That was decades ago, and no one has seen it since.”

  “I wish we could find Lavender Mae. She would know.”

  Indigo looked toward the chimney top, merely sputtering now, sending an occasional spark of green to drift outward from the roof and then fall toward their booted feet.

  “Do you think she would have come if our fire had been red in the sky, instead of green in the chimney?” Indigo asked.

  Esmeralde shook her head. “They say she is nothing but a crazy old hermit now. She can answer no one’s call. She is too far gone.”

  “Mayhap we all are.” Indigo yawned.

  “Crazy?”

  “No,” Indigo heaved herself to her feet. “Just too far gone. Let’s go to bed.”

  Esmeralde rose and pulled her wet skirts away from her legs. She paused. “Do you hear that?”

  Indigo froze. “Sounds like hoof beats.”

  “Horses,” Esmeralde said. “Just before dawn.” She raised her eyebrows. “That can’t be good.”

  “Soldiers, or somebody hurt. Did you bring your medicines?”

  “Always,” Esmeralde peered into the predawn light, looking down the slope past the greenhouse. “But we won’t be needing any. I don’t see riders.”

  Indigo walked to the edge of the hill. “Just horses?”

  Esmeralde nodded. “Two runaways, all bridled up. Not even horses.”

  They stood back as two chunky mountain ponies cantered up the steep trail and came to a halt, lathered and spent, in the cottage clearing. The sturdy ponies’ sides heaved as they fought to catch their breaths.

  “I know these mounts,” Esmeralde said. “If I’m not mistaken, they are Sierra Blue’s wagon team, from Lavender Rill Farm. Stolen, I’ll bet.”

  As she spoke, the air rippled and a slight figure, swathed in a cape and mounted on one of the ponies, became visible. Throwing back the hood of the traveling cloak, Trader smiled broadly. “Hiya!”

  “I should have known,” Esmeralde laughed. “The same fossicker I’ve been seeking, delivered to me in a found traveling cloak with a pair of ponies. Trader, boy, where have you been hiding?”

  “Sometimes in the high rocks, other times in the dell,” Trader said nonchalantly, dripping water.

  “Looks like you’ve been up to the Teardrop,” Esmeralde said, eyeing Shep and Chuffer.

  “There, too. Handsome prizes, are they not?”

  “That traveling cloak was crafted by Sierra’s hand,” Indigo murmured quietly to Esmeralde. “She would not offer it willingly to the likes of him.”

  Esmeralde nodded shrewdly. “What say you, Trader? Are any of these prizes of yours unchallenged?”

  “Prizes?” The air stirred again, and a second cloaked figure materialized, perched on the other pony’s back. Loosening her hood, Skye gave Trader a scathing look. “I lent him the cloak. And these are my ponies, Chuffer and Shep.” She threw back her hood. “Esmeralde, it’s me.”

  Trader’s jaw dropped. “You know the witch?”

  “Skye!” Esmeralde hurried to the pony’s side. “Look, Indy!”

  “So it is!” Indigo exclaimed. “Skye, I’ve not seen you in ages. How are you, child?”

  “Cold,” Skye admitted. “Wet.”

  “You know both witches,” Trader said, glumly.

  “Esmeralde is no witch, just a remedy woman.” Skye gave Trader a withering glance. “The one I told you about from the fair. And Indy is a gardener.”

  “They are witches.” Trader insisted.

  “They are friends of my family.” Turning, Skye tugged hard at something they could not see and the air rippled once more. Her hand came away with a pink Potluck Hat and another figure appeared behind her. “Look who it is!”

  “Hey, Esmeralde!” Garth slid off Chuffer’s back onto the ground. “Indy.” He rubbed his backside. “That was a ride. I’m cold and wet, too.”

  “Sierra’s own,” Esmeralde grinned. “What a surprise! But where is your mother?” She eyed Trader fondly. “And how did you come to travel with this ruffian?”

  “The soldiers arrested Mother at the fair,” Skye said. “They accused her of using magic. I barely got away with the ponies.”

  “See?” Indigo nudged Esmeralde. “I was right about the fair.”

  “You’re always right,” Esmeralde admitted.

  Indigo smiled. “Well, I may not always be right, but I am never wrong.”

  “Trader saved me from the flood,” Garth interrupted, and then frowned. “But then he tried to rob my sister.” He turned to Skye. “Yo
u’re not still mad at him, are you?”

  Skye shook her head wearily. ”I’m way past that.”

  “Sierra’s been taken,” Indigo said glumly. “Shards, I knew it.”

  “So much for calling the Twelve.” Esmeralde turned to Indigo helplessly. “There’s less and less of us all the time.”

  “We barely escaped the guard just now,” Trader said. “They came for us under the bridge after nightfall and our band had to scatter. We ditched the soldiers in the Copse.”

  “Branches everywhere,” Garth said, gesturing with his hands. “They grab at you and grab.”

  “You’ve got to stay close in the Copse,” Esmeralde nodded.

  “Let’s unsaddle these poor ponies and put them in the shed,” Indigo said as it began to sprinkle once more. “They look hungry and tired, and we’re getting wet.”

  “I’m starving,” Garth said. He and Trader pulled the packs off the ponies. “I haven’t eaten since midday yesterday, and then the Guard chased us all night.”

  “Well, then, we shall cook a big breakfast!” Esmeralde said.

  “If you can concoct something without blowing up the cottage,” Indigo replied, helping Garth lead the ponies into the shed.

  Trader glanced up. “What happened to the chimney? What’s all that green stuff?”

  “Just a fire.” Esmeralde shrugged. “It was supposed to be red.” She eyed the packs Skye and Trader carried. “Did you bring truck to trade?”

  “Did we ever!” Trader said. “I have what we think is a Possibility Bag, and Skye has . . .”

  “It’s a Possibles Bag,” Skye interjected, flashing Trader a look. “You’ll not scam Esmeralde. She has the only real Possibles Bag I’ve ever seen.”

  “Well, I’ve some kind of bag,” Trader grumbled. They all trooped inside. Skye quickly tapped Trader’s hand, brushing past as if by accident, and Trader got her message: Now was no time to mention the silver box.

  “This whole thing has gotten out of hand,” Esmeralde complained to Indigo, once they were all settled around the table with mugs of tea.

  Indigo nodded, clearing away herb packets and broken vials to make way for plates. “The Northland Guard probably took Sierra to the Burnt Holes.”