The Broken Circle: Yarns of the Knitting Witches

by Cheryl Potter

  The only other things that Sierra had managed to salvage were her stockings, which she had been wearing when she was captured. Her feet had been hidden inside her sheepskin boots and her knee socks had gone unnoticed. She called these her Secret Socks. They looked ordinary enough, knit from fine yarn in an easy ribbed pattern that a child could master. Their similarities to normal socks ended at that. She had spun the yarn from down she had gathered one spring after arctic goats had migrated through. The fine hairs of their shaggy ruffs had caught on thorn bushes as they blew their winter coats. Sierra had never seen such loft or staple length in any fiber this fine, other than pashmina. Painstakingly, she had plucked out the guard hairs and plant matter until finally only the downy undercoat remained. This she infused with dyestuffs ground from fossilized insect shells found in glacier shards, as well as logwood and cochineal that streaked the fiber with rich plums, burnt oranges, and grays. Then she had spun and plied the yarn with the high twist levels suitable for socks. Even after they were knit, Sierra rarely wore the uncommon footwear, saving them for just the right day. For some reason, she had picked the pair of socks from a drawer and slipped them on, just before leaving Lavender Rill Farm to come to the fair. Thinking back, she must have had an inkling of what was to come, without knowing she knew. If need be, these socks might allow her to scuttle beneath these bars, snake through the walls, and roam the dark tunnels of this glacier, just as ancient insects did.

  After the soldiers had marched Sierra from the fairgrounds, they had veered off the main track just outside of Middlemarch. On a secret road, waited a rolling cage, a jailhouse on wheels like gypsies might use to transport wild beasts. This one, however, had bench seats and sat empty but for her. Sierra knew the military road ran north to the glacier, for she had seen it being laid when she had ventured past the back side of Top Notch, but she had no idea it came this far south. The wide, level track had been carved out of the valley for the swift passage of many feet and heavily laden wagons. It made for quick travel, even in the rain.

  The sturdy pair of draft horses hitched to the cage pulled it steadily up the wet road until the track turned into a rivulet that widened into a stream. As the day waned, the wheels mired so badly that the soldiers had to abandon the wagon in the rutted track. They tied Sierra’s hands before her and perched her on a horse, which they led through the sucking mud. Only when they reached the backside of Top Notch did Sierra learn the source of the rushing water. The dam had ruptured at the top of Teardrop Lake. Hands tied and led on horseback, Sierra gazed at the deluge, hoping Kendrick and Garth were safe, although she feared otherwise. The flotsam in the churning river told of uprooted houses, tumbled barns, and fences torn from fields. Her little Lavender Rill Farm would have been no match for this much water.

  Sierra searched the roaring wreckage in silence, seeing no sign of her husband or youngest son. Maybe they escaped to higher ground.

  Perhaps they had herded the goats up to the Sleep Out to wait out the spring rains, as in years past. Her lion eyes rested on the dirty water, spitting foam as it carved a new channel into the mountain and spilled over the military road. Her hopes faded as the carnage rushed by, dead chickens and bloated goats, drowned in the river.

  Sierra had known she would not find her family here, for she sensed they had scattered. In her heart, she suspected that Kendrick had crossed to the side of the Dark Queen long ago. Possibly he had used the rising water as an excuse to her youngest son that they should flee south. Or possibly Tasman had been in the Middlelands all along, hiding in plain sight, as was her custom. Sierra could see the Dark Queen’s hand everywhere. Even this raging river was no natural disaster. As they passed the torrent on horseback, Sierra could see the aura of dark magic rising like a fog from the angry waves.

  Sierra could not guess how long they trekked. Once clear of the Notch, the broad road became passable again and they traveled swiftly through the night. She must have dozed—or maybe the soldiers put something in her tea—for when she woke, they had fresh horses and were approaching yawning caverns, charred black. Sierra knew without asking that they were approaching the Burnt Holes, in the foothills of the Northland Glacier. She had seen these dark caves before, but only in her mind’s eye. The Burnt Holes had been raided by Lowlanders in the first skirmish of the Glacier Wars, and many years later were torched by the Dark Queen’s minions searching for magic crystals. Now the Northland Guard used them as an outpost. Within them existed a prison from which it was said no one ever returned.

  Since yesterday, Sierra had been sequestered in a holding cell near the mouth of these caverns. She had been treated with deference, segregated from the other inmates. She had seen them walking by. They were a motley assortment of dissenters and deserters, perhaps a half-dozen pretenders who claimed magical powers.

  As far as she could tell, the Burnt Holes held none of the Twelve but herself, although Sierra sensed someone closer than she had imagined possible: one of her fellowship skulking through the glacier above, far beyond these walls of burnt ice. Wondering who it might be had kept her awake this evening past, bringing on a nagging headache. She felt the tickle in her brain like the mice she heard back at the farm, scuttling almost inaudibly in the pantry at night or in the rafters overhead. But every time she tried to cast her mind’s eye, she instead heard voices, like the mutterings of the ancients over and over inside her head. Finally the voices subsided, and, glad for the respite, Sierra sought them out no more.

  Instead, she turned her gaze toward Garth, fearing that, like Warren, he was lost to her. But miraculously she could sense him—oddly enough, safe with his sister. She was sure of it, because the girl’s aura of raw magic was unmistakable. Thankfully, Skye was far from here, her faint trail a wispy question mark within the landscape of Sierra’s watch. She glimpsed the two of them wending their way north, and hoped Skye would heed the caution Sierra had given her and would journey to the Potluck in Bordertown. She concentrated on her precious bundle of magical garments, and the seamless box hidden inside, but could see nothing. She desperately hoped that Chloe had hidden them from the soldiers and that Skye had them. She hoped passionately that they had not fallen into the wrong hands.

  Doors clanged down the corridor. Hairy rose from his chair to unlock the antechamber for the cook and the kitchen wench. Soon it would be time for bread and tea. Prisoners from the other cells began to stir, asking to use the latrine. Sierra watched them file by as one by one Raven led them to the lavatory near the mouth of the cave.

  Was it night, or was it day? She had not slept. The guards were about to change once more. Sierra sensed that it was the dawn of another day as, alone in the dark, she felt Aubergine’s call. The summons was so strong that Sierra found she was rising to her feet unbidden. Waves of heat washed over her and left cold sweat behind. The rough blanket slipped from her shoulders and fell to the stone floor. Feeling faint, she lurched toward the cell door. Her moose mittens gripped the iron bars for support. Her stomach churned. She tasted sour bile rising in the back of her throat. Raven, mistaking her behavior for a need to use the latrine, approached the bars with a basin of warm water and a clean rag for her toilet.

  “Stand back,” he ordered, unlocking the door.

  Sierra swallowed hard, trying to quell her heaving stomach. Sweat slicked her face and she gripped the bars harder. “I cannot,” she breathed, her eyes cast to the stone floor.

  With a look of concern, Raven set the basin on her bench. “Are you not well?”

  “Not at all.” Shaking her head, Sierra sagged against the door, letting the cold metal bars press against her feverish face.

  Shouts rang out down the corridor from the mouth of the cave. Raven turned toward the mayhem, uncertain. Sierra steadied herself, trying to regain her legs and quiet her nausea. But the call came again, this time worse. She felt as if a great hand pulled her heart from her chest. It jerked her forward like a puppet, yanked by invisible strings.
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  “What in cracked crystal. . . .?” Raven’s voice trailed away as he watched her in alarm. Seeing that she could escape, he tried to push her back into her cell. But whatever was pulling Sierra forward was too strong for him.

  “Hairy,” Raven screamed down the dim corridor, unwilling to release his grip on Sierra, who did not so much struggle as drag him along.

  Sierra held her hands before her face, watching herself as if from afar, staggering down the hall like an alehouse drunk. “I have been called,” she whispered, with dawning realization.

  “Hairy, I need some help here!” Raven yelled. The bench overturned and the basin of water spilled across the floor. “The witch is possessed.”

  Sierra shrugged him off and strode past the antechamber. “Come,” she hissed. “Quickly.”

  Keeping a safe distance, Raven scuttled behind her.

  Sierra moved swiftly down the corridor. The day had not yet dawned, although the mouth of the cave was bathed in a rosy light. As she reached the opening, she saw Hairy and the two second-shift jailers standing transfixed around the cook fire with the cook and kitchen wench. All eyes were turned skyward and mouths hung agape.

  There was no sunrise.

  Instead, night warred with morning in an explosion of stars. Cold-fire crystal burst into battle again and again, first to the east, then to the west, and finally directly over the glacier.

  Sierra did not need to glance up to know what was happening. Why now? What had come to pass?

  The turmoil in the sky crackled and popped so much that the kitchen wench cowered and covered her head as an earsplitting bang released showers of sparks and the sky glowed blood red. “It is the end of the world!” she screamed. “We shall die!”

  “Fire,” Raven said slowly, remembering his card game. “Fire thrice.” Fearfully, he turned to the burly guard. “Hairy, the Skells foretold this day, last night.”

  “Shards smashed to smithereens!” Hairy swore with a nod of his shaggy head. “Fire and ice!”

  “No,” Sierra let her lion eyes graze the horizon. “You know the oath you swear, cracked crystal? It really is cracked crystal.”

  “I’ll never be married!” Sinking to the snow, the kitchen wench began to weep uncontrollably. “I’ll never bear children.”

  “Hush,” the cook soothed. “Hush up, I tell you.”

  “Cracked crystal is magic,” Hairy said stubbornly. “It is forbidden in all the lands.”

  “So the story goes,” Sierra murmured, her eyes on the sparks overhead. “And who knows the yarns better than me?”

  “I do.” The cook gave her a haughty glance. “I know my yarns.”

  Sierra scanned the horizon. She recognized the cold-fire crystals from Aubergine’s tinderbox, freed finally to startle the heavens into ruby brightness. Even now the starbursts were lessening to spitfires whose tendrils chased each other like comets as the sky faded to a deeper red. The crystals would dull down and burn out before nightfall, mimicking the death of the paired suns. Answering fire lay inside her own seamless box, a box she had long hidden from Tasman and her subjects. It was up to her to send the answer, to let the Potluck know that the Twelve had seen the signal and would answer its call.

  But she didn’t have the tinderbox.

  The call came again, seeming less urgent now that the crystals looked spent, although Sierra knew that was an illusion. She braced herself, barely able to resist the impulse to slip away from the guards under the shadow of the glacier. She glanced around furtively. No one had noticed the beckoning, even though she had almost lost her footing in the snow. Hairy stood at the cook fire near the mouth of the cave, yammering with the two day-shift guards. They all conjectured wildly, shrinking from the sky whenever the dying crystals spit fire. The cook set the tearful kitchen wench to work at small tasks: boiling water, steeping tea.

  As Raven trudged over with a steaming mug, Sierra fought her impulse to break and run. She had to keep convincing herself that fleeing would be folly. She had no cloak. With only a small blanket, she would not get far in the cold. She could not guess how far south Bordertown was, but she had a feeling she would not arrive there alone.

  “We were wondering,” Raven began, handing her the mug.

  The others had fallen silent, watching expectantly. Even the kitchen wench had put up her hood against the falling cinders and ceased her sobbing.

  “You are one of the Twelve, are you not?” Raven asked quietly. Overhead, the sky crackled red. Ash began to drift down like dirty snow.

  Sierra blew on the hot tea and took a grateful sip. Sighing, she gave a slight nod.

  Raven beamed at the others, as he guided Sierra back to the cook fire. “I was right.” The call pulled her forward again, and he steadied her as she stumbled. “First about the dice and then about her. She really is a witch.”

  Sierra raised her eyes. “You cheat at Skells,” she muttered.

  Raven hooted with laughter.

  “I know one of your yarns,” the old cook announced, looking Sierra up and down. “Once near this very spot, the world ended in ice.” Sierra smiled. “Or so the story goes.”

  “Aye, I had the tales of the ancients drilled into my head before I could season a stew or even boil water,” the cook declared.

  “What tales?” the kitchen wench asked. Wiping her reddened face, she eyed Sierra curiously. “No one tells such stories any more.”

  “And the world is the worse for it,” Sierra sighed.

  The cook nodded sagely. “Right here,” she told the young kitchen girl, “at the foot of the glacier—even before there was a glacier, for in the times of the First Folk, the world was nice and warm—there was no such thing as darkness, because two suns lit the world.”

  Hairy stared at Sierra and crossed his arms before his chest. “Like broken shards they did.”

  “Oh, they did,” Sierra said. “Look at the painted symbols on your Skell cards. They are steeped in this lore. They bear the lidded eye of the older sun, Re, as well as the bright halo of the smaller sun, Rah.”

  Raven pulled the playing cards from his coat pocket. “She’s right!” He shuffled through the deck and held up the cards of each sun. He showed Hairy the lidded eye. “This is the one I beat you with last night. She’s right.”

  Hairy nodded. “But she also says you cheat.”

  “Never mind the cards,” the kitchen wench sniffled. “What happened to the real suns?”

  Not to be outdone, the cook jumped back in. “Well, it’s a sad story, I’m afraid. The pair of suns died. The one was getting old and the First Folk expected considerable too much of him. That second sun was not yet ready to warm the world alone, and he hadn’t the strength to survive. Without help, I mean.” She looked at Sierra anxiously. “All he needed was help, right?”

  Sierra nodded.

  The cook bobbed her head vigorously and slurped tea before continuing. “As the lands of the First Folk grew dark and cold, the braided rivers. . . .” She trailed off. “Did I mention there was twin rivers, too?”

  “No,” the kitchen wench said.

  “Well, there was,” the cook said, “two rivers twined together like snakes—don’t query me how that happened—right here in this valley. And the First Folk lived in the fertile farmlands between, in a nice patch of bottom land shaped like a crescent moon.”

  “Tigris!” Raven shouted, showing all the Skell cards depicting the rivers. “And Eye.”

  “Tiger Eye.” The kitchen wench took the painted parchments from him and examined them closely. “I’ve heard of that.”

  “I have forgot how the story ends.” The cook squinted in the glare of the red sky, trying to remember.

  “Ice,” Sierra prompted.

  “Yes, yes, of course,” the cook nodded, back on track. “The Tigris and Eye froze for the first time ever,” she said. “And thus began the age of ice. A deep freeze commenced to
blight everything, first crops and wildlife, fish and fowl. Finally, the First Folk. It started with the elders and then the children, and they were entombed in limestone coffins decorated with the signs of the sun, here long ago. When all had died and none were left to honor the dead, this great Northland Glacier began to form, burying the whole lot.” Rasping, the cook cocked her head at Sierra. “Some say the final few were laid to rest by the Guardians in a vast chamber of colored rocks.”

  Sierra’s breath caught in her throat. “The Crystal Caves,” she murmured.

  “No such thing,” Hairy interjected.

  Sierra turned upon him. “Where do you think the cold-fire crystals came from, the ones that shade this sky? Now hush,” she scolded, turning to the cook. “Go on.”

  “Supposedly there’s lots of things left over in these caves of colored rocks,” the cook whispered. “All the remains of the ancients’ way of life, along with their secrets, the secrets of the days of old.” She paused. “Not all of it good. For the suns did not die of old age. They died of the First Folk’s poison and greed. The ancients had a foolish wish to rule all nature, human and other. These last few First Folk are buried deep inside the walls of magic crystal, where it is said they are never to be disturbed. They can’t be. The Watchers see to that.”

  Grumbling, Hairy threw another stick of wood on the cook fire. “I hope these so-called Watchers know the Dark Queen has sent her Lowlanders to burn out the glacier.”

  Raven nodded, watching the cook dole out bowls of porridge from a cast-iron pot. Bits of ash floated on top. “That’s what this pointless war is all about, isn’t it?” he asked Sierra. “The Lowlanders fight to get in, and we fight to keep them out.”

  “I thought they just wanted water.” The kitchen wench collected their empty teacups.

  “The Dark Queen wants all,” Sierra said. “She seeks to bend nature to her will as the First Folk did.”