“I’m afraid we have a dangerous road ahead.”
CHAPTER 15
ESMERALDE LURCHED FORWARD. “The call is strong,” she breathed, gripping the edge of the kitchen table for support.
“It’s the cold-fire crystal.” Indigo braced her hands against the doorway, fighting the urge to leave her cottage. “As long as it burns in the sky, we won’t be able to resist the summons.”
“Well, we can’t leave yet.” In the awful pink light, Esmeralde surveyed the ruined kitchen and the bedraggled youths, half asleep at the table. “These children rode through the night and we’ve barely slept in two days.”
Garth yawned. “I could sleep all morning.”
Trader gave the witches a resigned look. “I bet there are chores to do.”
Indigo nodded to Esmeralde. “We don’t have to heed the call just yet.”
The two witches needed to make arrangements before they could leave the greenhouse garden behind. Esmeralde asked Skye to help her set the cottage to rights, while Indigo took Trader out to water the greenhouse plants. Garth was sent to the barn to feed Indigo’s laying hens and her pair of oxen, and to muck out the pony stalls. As soon as Indigo’s hired girl arrived, Indigo offered to let the young woman stay at the cottage if she would take care of the plants and animals while they were gone. “Just a week,” she told the girl.
“Maybe two.” Esmeralde adjusted the beret that never seemed to leave her head.
“Or three or four,” Indigo admitted, with a swing of her gray braids beneath her bandana. “Actually, we don’t know.”
Watching their banter, Skye felt restless and irritated. It seemed to her that the five of them should have left by now, if they were to have any hope of catching up with Sierra’s captors. Yet no one had yet packed anything for the journey, and they were all tired. The excitement of the night before had yielded no time for sleep.
After morning chores, Trader spread out the bedrolls in the loft, and soon she and Garth were snoring softly among the fragrant bales of hay.
Skye wandered back to the cottage, where Esmeralde and Indigo were planning the trip to Bordertown. Just listening to them made her more anxious. She also felt an unpleasant tightness in her chest that made her heart pound.
“I can’t sleep,” she said, slumping into a kitchen chair near the window.
“What’s wrong?” Esmeralde asked.
“I’m too worried about everything. The Northland soldiers took my mother away, for no reason. And now, just listening to you, I’m afraid we have a dangerous road ahead. How will we ever find my mother without being caught ourselves?”
Indigo brought Skye a cup of chamomile tea. “To soothe your nerves,” she said. “We’re witches. You don’t have to worry.”
Skye nodded, but she was unconvinced. “I am glad that Garth is safe,” she continued. “When we escaped the Guard in the Copse last night, I could scarcely believe our luck. Those armed soldiers were afraid to follow us through the forest. If it wasn’t for Trader, we would still be lost in the woods.” Skye shivered. She had been so relieved when Trader had known the way to Indigo’s cottage after they galloped out of the pitch-dark Copse. “We barely made it here,” she said, blinking back tears.
“Sip the tea,” Esmeralde said. “Take slow, deep breaths.”
Skye held the warm cup close to her face, trying to quell her anxiety as she listened to Esmeralde and Indigo squabble over packing for the trip. Esmeralde thought she had to take everything she owned, because there was no way to tell how long they would be gone. Indigo kept reminding her that they would be guests at their childhood home, where there had always been plenty of pillows and bed linens, crockery and cutlery, and wash basins with soap and towels.
“I doubt they have thrown out that big bathtub in the washroom downstairs,” Indigo remarked, examining her smoke-stained hands, and her fingernails rimmed with potting soil. “I could use a hard scrub with plenty of hot water.” She wrinkled her nose at Esmeralde. “So could you.”
“I bet they don’t do laundry,” Esmeralde said darkly, stuffing two shifts into a pantry sack already overflowing.
“It won’t even take one shiny piece of Northland silver to get a washerwoman to come by the back alley and do all of our laundry.”
“Fine.” Esmeralde tied the pantry sack, grumbling. “I guess I’m packed.”
“We’ll take my produce wagon,” Indigo decided.
“With us on the ponies behind?” Skye asked.
“No, all five of us should ride together,” Esmeralde said. “If we run into soldiers or checkpoints, we can pose as a farm family returning from the fair.”
“Do you think that would work?” Indigo asked. “Magic is easier.”
“Magic is exhausting, and calls attention to itself,” Esmeralde argued. “The fair just ended. There will be plenty of carts returning north today and tomorrow.”
Indigo nodded. “It will be easier to lose ourselves in the throng than to use magic to try to pass unseen.”
“We could always make the journey separately,” Skye suggested.
Esmeralde dismissed this idea with a wave of her hand. “Traveling apart, we’re two witches and three children, all easy prey for soldiers looking for any of the Twelve or for new recruits. We will fare better together.”
Skye knew that the Northland Guard was already searching for her and Esmeralde and Indigo. Getting what they thought were two teenage boys into the bargain would just sweeten the pot.
Though the wagon was just a rough flatbed, with removable sides for loading baskets of vegetables and sacks of potatoes, it was large. Garth thought he could easily hitch Shep and Chuffer to it in place of Indigo’s oxen. The fact that soldiers might take Garth and Trader as conscripts could not be helped. If it came to that, Esmeralde and Indigo planned to don their traveling cloaks and plead like old farm wives. They would use their powers of persuasion, coupled with copious tears, to argue that, as their husbands and older sons had already gone off to war, they needed their younger boys on the farm. If that did not work, they could take stronger measures. Esmeralde stowed these in moss-wrapped glass vials within her Possibles Bag. Although Trader remained silent, Skye wondered how much longer she planned to masquerade as a boy. Skye bet the disguise would not suit Trader for much longer, especially if the Guard tried to detain her.
When Indigo paused from packing to enjoy a smoke and Esmeralde poured herself a cup of cordial, they questioned Skye closely about the events of the past few days. It did not take Skye long to relate what had happened since she and her mother had left Top Notch, although the three days felt like a lifetime. Neither witch appeared surprised that her mother had been abducted or that her father had gone missing. Skye wondered whether they had seen the events foreshadowed in one of Esmeralde’s portents or illuminated in Indigo’s visions above her dye pot.
What did astound the two witches was the fact that Skye and Garth had chosen a fossicker as a traveling companion, especially a ruffian like Trader. Esmeralde had taken a cursory glance at the ruined medicine bag Trader had thought so valuable. She declared it nothing more than a glorified first-aid kit, lost off a military wagon. A few of Trader’s riverbed finds had interested her, however, and Skye had seen Northland silver change hands over what looked to her like a handful of dead leaves and fishing line tied to a bit of burnt wood. Skye had seen Trader look longingly at her mother’s rucksack of knitwear; but they both knew that there was no way Trader could sell, nor Esmeralde and Indigo buy, any of that truck, knowing it was Sierra’s—even the curious silver box. No one would want to challenge Sierra’s ownership, even though she was not there to defend it. The witches would consider the magic hats and bottomless bags and traveling cloak stolen.
Besides, it became evident that they already owned garments like these. Each witch had laid out for the trip a traveling cloak identical to those owned by Sierra and Skye, along with Potluck
Hats in shades of pink, blue and green. The children had watched Indigo load a felted market bag full to bursting with dried fruit, shelled nuts, and beef jerky, and still be able to wedge in half a wheel of cheese and a dozen hard-boiled eggs.
“Of course I wanted to mind my booth at the fair,” Esmeralde explained to Skye as she finished packing her Possibles Bag. “But all signs pointed north, and now the red sky above the glacier confirms it.” She lurched forward.
“What’s wrong?” Skye said.
“Did you feel that?” Esmeralde asked Indigo.
“Aye,” Indigo replied. “It’s like a hand coming down from the clouds, beckoning me. It makes me act like a puppet.”
“Well, it’s not going to stop until we either show up at the Potluck or someone sends the answering fire, to let Aubergine know we’re coming.”
“Fat chance of that.” Indigo handed Esmeralde a basket of apples. “Are some of the Twelve not coming?” Skye asked.
“Who knows? Everyone’s supposed to,” Indigo said. “We’ve all been called.” She gave Skye a quizzical look. “Do you feel anything? It’s like rosy fingers; they reach in and pull you.”
Skye shrugged. “My chest hurts. She touched a hand to her breastbone. “Here.”
Esmeralde nodded. “There’s nothing to take for it. Believe me.”
Indigo set her market bag by the door. “I doubt we’ll see your mother,” she said. “The chances are slim to none that she can escape the Guard without her traveling cloak, or these garments of hers you managed to save.” She gave Skye a shrewd glance. “Don’t let them out of your sight. Or let that no-good Trader talk you into bartering them or selling them for silver.”
“I won’t,” Skye said. “They are worth far more to me than you know.”
Esmeralde glared at Indigo. “Indy, why do you badmouth Trader so much? You like the odd thing he brings you. Especially if those things happen to include pipe weed.”
“He’d sell his own mother for a copper,” Indigo said.
“I don’t think Trader has a mother,” Skye said. “Mayhap he’s an orphan.”
“A runaway’s more like it,” Esmeralde observed, and Indigo laughed.
“He’s neither one of the Twelve, nor one of our own,” Indigo said. “I don’t see why we’re taking him. The Potluck is no place for such boys, unless you need the firebox filled or the walkway shoveled.”
“I felt the same at first,” Skye said, in a small voice. “But Trader saved Garth from the flood, and all of us from the Guard as well. He is not mean spirited, and he is not who he seems to be.”
“He is just a lost boy.” Esmeralde narrowed her eyes at Indigo. “You should take pity.”
“There is someone he wants to find,” Skye decided to tell them. “That’s why he left his band. He thinks this person might be a prisoner of the Burnt Holes, along with my mother.”
Esmeralde adjusted her beret over her unruly curls. The fine merino was dyed jet-black shot through with bits of fuchsia, emerald, and amethyst crystal powder in a colorway she had named The Northern Lights, and it suited her perfectly. Whenever she wore the simple beret, she felt fine about traveling alone or in the dark or on a track she did not know. “Indy, let Trader alone,” she said quietly.
Indigo sighed and waved her hand. “Go tell the boys to hitch up the wagon and bring it around front,” she said to Skye.
Just then, Esmeralde took another involuntary step forward, Skye put a hand to her chest, and Indigo grabbed onto the table.
“We’re coming, already!” Esmeralde yelled at the sky.
Skye roused Garth and Trader from the haymow and helped Garth harness the ponies to the single pole. Garth drove Shep and Chuffer around to the front of the cottage with the wagon. They quickly stowed their belongings in the bed under a piece of oiled canvas, to keep everything dry if it rained.
Indigo settled herself on the wide plank bench, lifted the two sets of reins, and peered up at the sun, an orange disc in the pink sky. “We’re more than a day away,” she said to no one in particular as she urged the ponies into a trot.
“Hopefully we’ll make it to Woolen Woods tonight.” Esmeralde said. “Remember that little mead hall there, where they brew their own beer and hard cider?”
“That was years ago,” Indigo replied. “I’ve heard Woolen Woods has turned into a tannery town, full of the stink of sheep dung.”
“The smell is the urine they cure the hides with,” Esmeralde said. “Whatever it is, it reeks,” Indigo said. “I hope we can make it farther.”
Sitting just behind the two, Garth had been following their conversation with great interest. His head bobbed between them, drinking in every word. “I can’t wait to see and smell it all,” he exclaimed, gripping the wagon’s low sideboards. “Indy, I’ve never been farther north than Banebridge.”
“Nor have I,” Skye said, watching the scenery go by. She sat comfortably propped against the rails of the wagon behind Indigo, cushioned by her mother’s rucksack. The light of this strange day dressed everything around them in a pink haze, as if it had been dusted with colored sugar.
Trader lay sprawled in the back, head resting on a bedroll at the foot of the wagon, chewing on a piece of dried sweetgrass. “Woolen Woods is nothing more than a tannery with a few hired-men’s houses surrounding it. It isn’t much.”
“There’s not much to this town, either,” Garth said, as the wagon rumbled down the hill and onto the flats toward Banebridge. “But I always liked coming here.”
Soon they were at the Trading Post, where Indigo turned the team of ponies toward the high trestle bridge that crossed the River Runne.
“There’s Ozzie,” Skye said, and they all waved at him.
The storekeeper waved back, looking a little bewildered. They saw him take off his spectacles to rub the lenses clean with his apron.
“He didn’t know we all knew each other,” Garth smiled. “He can’t believe his eyes, even with his magnifiers.”
On the main track, they joined the cartloads of folk going home from the fair. There were farmers and craftsmen, food vendors and artisans. Even in this strange light, the atmosphere was more merry than fearful, because most of the wagons contained nothing but folding tables and empty baskets. Even in these hard times, the fair had been prosperous. Many farm families had been able to sell their surplus winter stores of root vegetables and animals for slaughter, exchanging their goods for Northland silver, which almost overnight was becoming the coin of the realm.
The witches decided to rest Chuffer and Shep at the Forks, a well-known bend in the River Runne, where the water flowed east but the main track followed a smaller tributary, called the Trickle, which flowed down from the north through Bordertown. The Trickle was pure glacier run-off, and popular with fossickers. In cold weather, the water did not run at all, Trader explained. Even during some springs the riverbed was dry or just a tiny flow, thus the stream’s name. Today the Trickle thundered into the Runne, spewing foul water. A huge wooden sign posted at the entrance to the Forks campground warned, Don’t Drink the Water.
“The water is unsafe to drink,” Skye said in disbelief, recalling the prediction offered by the hoary-eyed judge’s prediction when she had tried to enter her shawl in the Always Alpaca competition. “Would you look at that?”
“That’s why I always carry plenty of my own drink,” Esmeralde nodded, patting the flask of cordial at her side.
Indigo cleared her throat loudly, as she swung the wagon off the track and into the Forks. She pulled up alongside several other carts. Travelers on horseback or foot had also stopped for a bite to eat or a rest. She nodded toward an old man dipping buckets into the Runne just before the bend in the river. “Only the Trickle is fouled,” she noticed. “The water upriver seems fine.”
Garth hopped down and Skye handed him the ponies’ water buckets. Across the way, she saw an old woman pouring cups of sweet t
ea from the tailgate of a tiny pony cart, and a young family hunkered over cold roast chicken in a large covered wagon, pulled by a mismatched pair of draft horses. There was even a vendor popping kettle corn in an oiled pot over a small blaze, offering rolled paper cones and sprinkles of sugar to anyone with a few coppers.
Small children and farm dogs frolicked through the new grass and budding flowers along the riverbank, but little frivolity disturbed the group of men smoking around the fire pit. Skye guessed that they were talking about the bloody sky and what it might mean.
Indigo wasted no time to get in on the gossip. As soon as the wagon rolled to a stop, she handed the ponies’ reins back to Skye and pulled out one of her foul-smelling, hand-rolled Smokies. Soon she was striding across the clearing to join the travelers smoking at the edge of the fire pit. Esmeralde hopped down from the bench and took a nip from her flask before rummaging under the canvas tarp for mead cups. She handed the heavy market bag of food up to Skye.
“Break out something for your lunch,” she said, collecting two crockery cups and her Possibles bag. She nodded toward Indigo. “I’ll be back in a few.”
It wasn’t until Skye began laying out their places for lunch that it occurred to her that Trader had disappeared. She had slept the whole way to the Forks, but now she was gone, and so was her knapsack.
Skye scanned the folk along the riverbank. Trader wasn’t with Garth, who was dipping water for the ponies, and she hadn’t joined Indigo and Esmeralde, palavering with the group around the ring of blackened stones. She wasn’t hanging around the corn vendor or the tea seller. Skye was about to give up looking when she caught sight of a new group from the corner of her eye. There was Trader, with her packsack of odds and ends spread out on the ground in front of a few old men gathered around a string of riding horses at a hitching post. Whatever she had, it looked like the men wanted it. They picked through her items with interest. Skye was so mad that her face flushed red. What if Trader called attention to herself? What if she got them all in trouble just to make a few coppers? Holding the ponies, Skye watched helplessly, waiting for Garth to return with the water, while the two witches chatted away and Trader hawked her treasures. At last Garth returned, slopping water over the rims of the buckets.
The Broken Circle: Yarns of the Knitting Witches Page 21
