The Broken Circle: Yarns of the Knitting Witches by Cheryl Potter

Author:Cheryl Potter
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-9856350-7-7
Publisher: Potter Press

These intermediate-skill-level socks are knit from fine yarn in an easy ribbed pattern, and will always keep you on the right path, even if you are lost. This pattern is sized for women.

Get the pattern from PotluckYarn.com/epatterns

After settling Mamie on a threadbare settee, Ratta tended her animals and washed herself in Esmeralde’s basin.

CHAPTER 13

THE BUCKBOARD WAGON THUNDERED INTO the clearing in front of Esmeralde’s cottage, churning mud as the wheels splashed through puddles. Ratta slowed the sweaty mules to a halt and sat back heavily on the bench.

“For the love of the Lost Caves!” She swore loudly.

There was no need to check the house. No light shone from the windows. No smoke rose from the chimney. The flower boxes had been planted for spring, but had not been recently tended. Nobody had been home for some time, and of course she knew why.

She turned a worried glance toward Mamie, who lay wrapped in the never-ending shawl and had barely stirred since yesterday. Ratta put a roughened hand tenderly to the old woman’s lined face. The skin on Mamie’s cheek felt hot and papery. Donning her soft, ruffled mitts, Ratta peeled back the shawl, searching for the rhythm of breathing, which came so shallowly she could not tell if it was real or she was willing it so.

“Broken shards!” She glared at the dark house. Then she gently gathered Mamie in her arms, caressing the old woman’s face with the fine Merino wool that encased her hands, begging Mamie to live. Ratta pulled on the extra-fine hand coverings when she had tender work to do, such as handling Mamie. The lanolin that had been left in the yarn softened her chapped skin, and what’s more, the slightly frivolous design made her feel up to any task.

All morning long Ratta had studiously ignored the telltale red in the sky, willing the hue to be gone, to be replaced by blue or even gray-clouded rain. But the feverish color had merely faded to a rosy haze over the landscape, echoing Aubergine’s words of warning when they had gathered around the table at the Potluck on that last day. Only Teal and Tasman had been missing, although traces of Teal, remained if you knew where to look.

There would be a sign, Aubergine had said, looking tired and somehow smaller without the circlet of heavy amethyst stones around her neck; and not all would heed its warning. No doubt this fire in the sky was the summons Aubergine had prophesied.

Ratta remembered that Lilac Lily had warned her that she would come, because she would have no choice. Well, Ratta told herself, she did have a choice and she wasn’t going, no matter how strong the call, because she strongly suspected that Smokey Jo was behind the summons. Such a flamboyant show of fireworks smacked of Smokey Jo, who had never been able to keep her stubby hands away from a cook fire or a tinderbox. Perhaps Smokey had finally figured out how to open the seamless box and had lit the cold-fire crystals as a lark before Aubergine could stop her.

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