I thought of my rock samples, the vast eons of time measured out in mica and feldspar.
‘But it is not. Summer follows spring because I spin it. Tomorrow follows today because I have kept its thread steady and even. Like any thread, if it is spun too thin it can fray and snap, become knotted or coarse. I untangle the snarls.’ She went to the wheel and began to turn it, taking up the thread in her other hand. ‘Here, I will show you.’
The wheel rotated at a steady pace, the spokes blurring into softness and the cloud of gold spreading out from the spindle over all of it, even the Witch, who was picked out in lines of yellow and orange like a sunset, like a field of marigolds, like honey or wine or sunlight on water.
I remembered my mother working delicate tufts of fleece into smooth locks of wool between two paddles as big as her hands and covered all over with metal pins. Then from this carded wool, she would do some magic I never fully understood, and connect the fibre to the old-fashioned drop spindle I carried with me still. A neat twist in the thread and soon she was spinning, the wooden bulb bobbing up and down as she teased her way from sheep to yarn.
It was all magic, I thought, in its own way. The mundane alchemy of craft work, turning one thing into another as much a miracle as the strange magic the Witch wove with her wheel. I looked at the Witch and the power in her hands. The power I had seen Berchta work, frightening and terrible and impossible.
‘That is how time flows,’ said the Witch. ‘And I am its keeper.’
The wheel slowed, and she tucked up the slack of the thread. The fleece on the distaff was a little more depleted.
‘What is that material?’ I asked.
Her eyes went to the thin tuft of golden light then to me. ‘The raw stuff time is made of.’
Before I could ask what that meant, she said, ‘Get a stool, I have a long piece of work ahead.’
She gestured and there was a stool set against the wall that I had not seen before. I brought it to what seemed like a respectful distance.
‘What do you want me to do?’
She gave me that wry smile again, full lip curling. I thought about kissing it, grazing it with my teeth, and quickly looked down, crossing my legs and squeezing them against the feeling that had flared.
‘Why, are you not my companion? I want you to keep me company.’
Had it truly been that simple all along? Her companions were exactly what she called them: fellowship across the long, dark years of her work. I had lived in a place of ignorance and fear, and there were still things I did not understand but today felt like a peace offering. The companions were companions, and the bones in my garden were the inheritance of an ancient castle. And the Witch was my Witch.
As the wheel started turning again, a warmth spread through the room like sunlight breaking through the clouds, like a fire in winter, hazy and hypnotic.
‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Tell me about your rocks.’
I roused from the strange trance the warmth had snagged me in.
‘You’ve seen all my collection.’
‘No, tell me about thebigones. Like in the hall.’
‘You mean the mountain?’
She smiled again and my stomach rolled over. I wanted something that was too big to put words to. Something perhaps no one had ever taught me the words for.
I talked to her about everything I knew as she worked, speaking until my mouth was dry and still the stretch of thread didn’t seem to have lengthened in her hand. I talked about anything and everything until finally she stopped the wheel, and we went down for a dinner eaten in blissful silence. I drank enough wine to give me the confidence to put my hand on her leg that evening as we read by the fire. The soft-and-hard feeling of skin and muscle under her skirts, the tickle of her hair in my nose, the light, breathless feeling of something teetering on the edge of happening. Iwantedher.
When I touched myself in bed that night, I came almost immediately then lay there, hot and flushed and a little ashamed. Perhaps she did not lust after me in the same way. Perhaps I would seem so mortal and beastlike to her, my golden Witch. She never initiated anything, but hardly turned away when I did kiss her. I could not understand what it was she did want.
I took a supply of books to the tower the next day, and a jug of water so I could read to her. When I ran out of pages, I told her stories: of my father’s travels to Berlin, of the war with France, of Klara’s engagement, of the time I had visited Nuremberg and eaten so much cherry ice cream I had thrown up red vomit and they’d rushed me to the doctor, convinced my stomach was bleeding. The Witch laughed so much at that story, she lost control of the tension in the thread and had to unwind a small section from the spindle, grumbling.
I asked her once if she would teach me a little magic but her expression went cold, and all she said was, ‘I would never burden you with that, Mina.’
On the third day, I thought it was time.
‘How old are you?’ I asked, pausing in the middle of a fat translated English novel about a plain girl who marries a wealthy man but finds out his previous wife is still alive and locked in the attic.
The Witch spluttered. ‘I thought the one thing a princess might have is manners.’
‘Sadly I have been raised most shockingly.’ I tried again. ‘Your legend goes back quite a way.’
