Hearsay along the track had revealed nothing. Yet she and Indigo Rose had witnessed something mysterious in a shared vision a few nights earlier. They thought they had recognized the lost crystal, regal in its broken beauty, found at last in a most unlikely place. Whether what they had seen was wishful thinking—or perhaps too much Crystal Cordial—they believed they had watched the jagged amethyst edges fit back into Aubergine’s original necklace, and the hammered silver circlet made whole, uniting all once again with a power great and terrible.
Could it be that the influence of the Twelve was beginning to resurface after so many years? The only one of them able to verify this possibility would be Lavender Mae, except nobody knew where to find her. She was the only one of the Twelve who knew each crystal and its properties. When they had scattered, Mae had become morose, a tiny figure muttering in the back room among the crystals and dyestuffs or smoking in the kitchen garden with Indigo Rose. Unable to shed her deep funk, she finally fled north to the abandoned mining camps of her youth. From time to time she had been spotted foraging among the freshets that pooled and repooled above the Crystal Lakes, searching for a gemstone to replace the lost one. Finally, she had disappeared.
Later people reported sightings of a scavenging river rat with fierce claws and a mane of flying hair that shielded a pouch, said to contain rare crystals, slung around its neck. Stories also surfaced of a genderless old creature, skin burnished brown by the fierce alpine sun, who smoked the crazy weed that grew in the shadows of the Northland Glacier. Esmeralde could not imagine how this could be their beloved Lavender Mae, the sweet being who had ground the crystals into Potluck powder.
Esmeralde’s eyes clouded. There might not be an interloper at all. There might still be a traitor among them, one other than the dark one who had fled south to the Lowlands when the circle broke. If Aubergine no longer had the sense to shush Smokey Jo when she spoke out of turn in the yarn shop, or if Lilac Lily was not able to keep quiet about the Potluck secrets, Esmeralde would know soon enough. This very evening, she and Indigo would seek to reveal the infiltrator. This was the reason she carried all the potions and vials in her pouch. Yet Esmeralde was worried. While she was bringing everything, many of the labels had fallen off, many of the blown-glass vessels looked alike, and some appeared empty, their contents dried up from neglect. In the old days, she knew what was in every bottle without a second glance. Now she was not certain.
The wide trestle bridge that crossed the River Runne into Bane-bridge loomed to her right. Esmeralde broke away from the midday crowd, turning toward the familiar track with relief. Across the river stood the Trading Post and Granary, where flatbed wagons backed up to loading docks. The mules hitched to the wagons were held by boys too young to be swallowed up into the Northland Guard.
Ever hopeful, Esmeralde scanned the opposite bank for her favorite fossickers. Although she saw none, it looked like a small group had made recent camp under the shelter of the bridge. She had formed a grudging truce with the ragtag boys after several had tried to rob her one evening as she traveled alone from Banebridge to her cottage. Though these youths were able to elude the recruiting soldiers, they were no match for the contents of her Possibles Bag. In the end, they had given up far more than they had stolen to be cured of the pox in one of her glass vials.
Among the plunder the boys had fossicked from the riverbeds, mostly small crystals and relics that had melted free of the Northland Glacier, Esmeralde found a few useful bits. She had made the young thieves an offer they could not refuse. Now the band that roamed the river valley sought her out for the newly minted silver she was willing to pay, as well as the remedies she could provide. Often Esmeralde would go out of her way to cross paths with this band of misfits, who were led by a slight but fierce boy called Trader. As always, she looked among their findings for shards of cold-fire crystals or any other sparkly fragments. None of the fossickers had come to her this past fortnight. She feared that they had been caught. Esmeralde went so far as to leave word at the Trading Post. This was risky, for sometimes soldiers lay in wait for fossickers, eager to round them up and transport them by caged wagon to the Bordertown garrison, where they would be trained and fit for Lowland fodder.
By the time she reached Banebridge, Esmeralde decided to stop at the Trading Post for a short rest and to slake her thirst. The first floor of the lodge was cool after the heat of the midday sun. Esmeralde lingered near the cases of crystal jewelry and silver bangles before she began to finger the beaded pouches and bags. Nothing caught her eye. She glanced through the vials of snake oil and other so-called medicinal herbs.
“What’s in the satchel?” the storekeeper asked, pointing to her heavy Possibles Bag. Esmeralde knew him well. He had a penchant for hard cider and mind-numbing herbs to counteract the eyestrain he caused himself by going over ledgers in poor light.
“Nothing for sale, Ozzie,” she replied, with an eye toward the barroom and the cold cup of cordial she felt certain awaited her there.
A handful of foreign coins lay on a tray behind the counter. Ozzie slid them toward her without comment. Obligingly, she rummaged through them until her fingers came across the likeness of the Dark Queen, a newly stamped circle of gold.
“Where did this come from?”
“Dead Lowland soldier,” Ozzie shrugged. “One of the body-pickers brought it in.”
Esmeralde eyed him keenly. “A fossicker?”
“Yes, but not the ones you seek,” he replied.
Esmeralde fingered the likeness of Tasman, already seeing the haze of thinly veiled magic. “How much for the coin?”
“What’s in the bag?” Ozzie repeated, rubbing his eyes. “Headache powder? A vial of mind-ease, perhaps?”
Grumbling, Esmeralde pulled out a roll of felt and unwrapped a pair of ground-crystal spectacles linked by thin metal. “These will calm your eyes forever.”
“Never in my life had I hoped to cast my weary orbs on a set of magnifiers.” Ozzie lifted the glasses reverently and snagged the hooks around his ears. He blinked at her through the lenses. “I can see all,” he declared.
“I know,” Esmeralde said. “I’ve been saving them for a special trade.”
“How much?”
“Not so fast,” she said. “Such spectacles are worth more than ten pieces of your Lowland gold.” She fingered the coin. “But I’ll take it.” She turned toward the tavern.
Ozzie ushered her toward the bar with a sweep of his hand. “Drinks are on me.”
“As always.” Esmeralde flashed him a cunning smile before pushing open the double doors of the mead hall. “I’ll let you know what else.”
After a brief rest and a few drops of Crystal Cordial at the bar, Esmeralde left the Trading Post. Soon she turned off the track for the steep hike to Indigo Rose’s greenhouse and cottage. Nothing had come of her inquiries in the bar. There was no news of the fossicker known as Trader.
This beginner-skill-level medicine bag comes in one size with finished measurements of about 8" square, after felting.
Get the pattern from PotluckYarn.com/epatterns
“You don’t run after ponies!”
CHAPTER 3
TWO GUARDSMEN WHOM SKYE DID NOT recognize barred entry to the Middlemarch bridge. With Niles as her escort and her traveling cloak wrapped around her, though, she had little difficulty crossing.
“Our wagon has cracked a shaft,” she explained in an easy lie to the gray-clad foot soldiers. “I must fetch my father.”
The guardsmen looked toward Niles, who waved them off. “It is as she says. Let her pass. She must ride into the mountains past nightfall as it is.”
After they reached the checkpoint on the far side of the river, the lanky young man slid from Shep’s back and handed Skye the pony’s lead rope. He scanned the clouds that were beginning to form and whistled quietly. “It looks like rain. You’ll not make it to your Notch before full dark.”
/> Skye eyed him silently, remembering her mother’s instructions. Could she pass by The Falls without turning up the familiar road toward their farm? Wouldn’t she do better to ignore her mother’s wishes and ride home to tell her father what had happened? Surely Kendrick would know how to rescue her mother.
“There is a flour mill in the Lower Notch, just up the turnoff to our track,” Skye began, her face growing hot as she again searched for a way to forge a lie from truth. It was more difficult to tell a falsehood to someone she was tempted to trust. “Did you see the Mill on the Rill at the fair? Their stall is in the main tent.”
“Under the purple banner,” Niles nodded. “I tasted their honeyed scones.”
“Nothing compares,” Skye said with a wistful smile. “They are friends of my family. The grandfather, Gaffer, stayed home to mind the mill. I may overnight there with the ponies.”
“Overnight there with the ponies,” Niles echoed, agreeably. His eyes had the same glassy look they had on the Middlemarch bridge this morning, when he had been under Sierra’s spell. Skye flushed, pleased. She decided to test the persuasive powers of her traveling cloak even further.
“It’s a good idea,” she suggested.
“A good idea,” Niles confirmed. “Take care of yourself, then. If I find Warren, I will try to get word to you.”
“And I you,” Skye replied.
“To Top Notch,” he conjectured. “Or mayhap your Mill on the Rill.”
Skye nodded, thinking that she would be unlikely to see Niles ever again. With a satisfied wave, he loped back toward the bridge.
With every step, Skye fought the traffic that streamed into Middle-march. She and the ponies were forced to a walking pace up the side of the muddy track, as she rode one and led the other. She had a feeling that she would need both ponies if she came upon the soldiers who had arrested her mother, so she plodded on with determination. How far ahead of her were they? Did they have a cart or horses? Had they even taken this crowded track? Skye knew that a private military road wound through the Western Highlands, on the far side of this valley. The steep trail was well maintained and less trafficked than the public thoroughfare, but closed to all who did not wear the Northland Crest on a tunic or jacket or possess a special token that allowed passage. If you knew how to avoid the Northland Guard, you could travel swiftly on the broad, empty military roads. Skye knew that Warren had often used the army’s sled trails beyond Top Notch, always returning to the farm winded and elated. Even when the Guard had spotted him, he had eluded capture by guiding his bobsled off the road and onto one of the moose trails that twisted and turned and petered out into drifted snow. He knew the area well and they did not. In the end, Skye realized sadly, the Northlanders had conscripted him to fight their war anyway.
As the day waned, traveling vendors no longer clogged the muddy track, although food traders still lined the road. With afternoon chores done, a few farm families drove buckboard wagons south, while others passed by on foot, hurrying to join the festivities around the May Pole as the fairgoers welcomed spring to the Middlelands. Most of the men looked old or infirm and the boys very young—no older than Garth. Could the Guard really have taken all others, as they had Warren? If so, they must have seized all the able-bodied men while her family was trapped at Top Notch over the winter. Last fall, when she and her father and Garth had traveled to Banebridge for provisions, there had been plenty of men in the Trading Post barroom. Boys her own age had been loading sacks of feed at the Granary. Now they were gone.
As the sun dropped in the sky, the clouds she and Niles saw gathering earlier began to roll in and the wind picked up, prompting some food-vendors along the road to hastily dissemble their stalls, while others merely boarded up for the night and left. Fewer and fewer folk passed her, until finally Skye had the road to herself.
The temperature began to drop quickly. Skye fastened her traveling cloak tightly around her throat, but even that warmth could not quell the fear that gripped her heart. When she reached the foothills in the valley below the Notch, daylight was only a dim halo on the horizon. By the light of the rising moon she searched for the turnoff to her beloved Lavender Rill Farm, but in the half-light nothing looked familiar.
The River Runne thundered by on her right, as turbulent as the silent battle inside her head. Sierra’s words urged her to forsake family and farm, and to flee up the long road north to Bordertown. Her own thoughts pulled her toward home and what should be safety. The ponies were tired. They instinctively slowed as they approached the fishing hole below the falls, which marked the track to the Notch. Frosty breath came in ragged mist from their nostrils. Skye hesitated, too. How would she fare on the mired thoroughfare to Bordertown? She carried scarcely a day’s worth of food and had no way to defend herself from soldiers or roving bands of fossickers. Her quest seemed careless and foolish. Yet her mother was neither. Skye called into memory Sierra’s words, trying to piece them together as exactly as she could: There is a yarn shop in Bordertown in the borough of Merchants’ Row. It is called Potluck Yarn, and you will find it near the end of the main thoroughfare. Go to the side gate through the herb garden and bang on the summer-kitchen door until someone lets you in. There will be a gnome called Smokey Jo. Have her take you to Aubergine.
Skye wondered if anything in the bundle of knitted garments tied to Shep’s back possessed any magic that might help her to journey to the Northlands without being waylaid or robbed. If so, she wished her mother had offered her a clue. She was not sure how far her newfound skills in lying would serve on the journey, and she was unsure of her ability to pass unseen. As she approached the Lower Notch road, she paused the ponies and calculated the short ride to Katarina’s family homestead and the grain mill. Gaffer would have a mug of hot tea and buttered bread for her, plus a warm stable for the ponies.
But as she neared the falls, Skye sensed that something was wrong. The Lavender Rill did not arch gracefully from the falls to the river. It thundered, and great chunks of road had washed away. She guessed that her father’s prediction had been right: the Teardrop had spilled, inundating the rill. The track to her family farm was submerged under churning water.
The ponies snorted and backed away from the roiling torrent. Even if she wanted to, there was no way to get home. She thought of Garth in his red barn sweater and her father in his Potluck hat, and wondered if they had been able to herd the goats to higher ground or if all had been lost. She hoped that they had all climbed the Notch to the Sleep Out, where the goats and alpaca had higher pasture. Maybe in a week or so the spring runoff would subside and all would be as before. The sharp odor of smoke in the valley quickened her heartbeat, and the rising wall of brown water left her feeling that nothing would ever be the same. The Lavender Rill looked like muddy sea spitting dirty foam. A sickly haze rose over the water, like mist or the halos she sometimes glimpsed around magical things. There’s your answer, she told herself, reining Chuffer around and urging him forward, then bidding Shep to follow. Hugging the edge of the track Skye turned toward the border, regaining the main road by the light of the moon.
The next village north was Banebridge. Many times Skye had traveled there in the wagon with her family to buy supplies at the Granary. Next door at the Trading Post, they always heard news of some sort.
Missives and parcels could be posted there for further passage on mail coaches headed north or south.
Lingering before the cases in the Trading Post, Skye and her mother might spend an hour marveling at the wares others had brought for barter. Skye loved to finger the handmade birch knitting needles, the crochet hooks carved from bone or antlers, and the pins and darning needles forged from precious metals. They both admired the bobbins of bright threads and the yarns plant-dyed with logwood or cochineal. After much haggling with the nearsighted storekeeper, Skye and Sierra would trade their own crystal-dyed alpacas and mohairs, tinged lavender and light blue, for the knitting and spinning s
upplies they would use over the winter.
Skye remembered how Kendrick had waited months for the ponies’ hand-hammered silver bells to arrive at the Trading Post from a smithy in Coventry. Often he had shipped a bundle of moose hides north to sell to a tannery in Woolen Woods, where they were fashioned into leather jerkins and breeches, gloves and laces.
As important as it was in their lives, Banebridge was in truth nothing more than a small outpost, its defining feature a large trestle bridge that crossed the River Runne. Attached to the Trading Post was a barroom, frequented by locals and travelers alike. Upstairs there were rustic rooms for hire. Beyond the village, a few scattered farms dotted the lush valley.
All looked bucolic, but hiding out in graveled shallows along the riverbank and in thickets beyond the tangled Copse were fossickers. These teenage boys eluded conscription by the Northland Guard by staying on the move. According to her father, fossick boys supported themselves by stealing and scavenging. They raided fields and orchards at night, and spent their days picking through the riverbeds for bits of crystal and relics washed south from the Northland Glacier.
Whenever she sighted fossickers, even one or two, Skye steered clear of the river.
Even if she could reach the outskirts of Banebridge village by dark, Skye knew that it would be difficult to cross the creaking bridge at night. It was a narrow span, with only low rails between her and deep water, and was best traversed by daylight. She would need to wait until morning, because she needed supplies. Perhaps Ozzie, the storekeeper, would have heard news of her mother. It would be likely that somebody at the Trading Post had.
Riding slowly as the darkness grew ever deeper, she searched for shelter, careful to keep a safe distance from the tumbling water. Here above the Lavender Rill Falls, the river was not as angry, although the water was high along the banks and the current rushed along. Young trees torn from their roots sliced through the water like boats torn from their moorings, and Skye knew that to slip into the icy river would mean almost certain death.
The Broken Circle: Yarns of the Knitting Witches Page 6