‘I thought your work on the wheel prevented this sort of thing?’
I couldn’t help but fear for myself. Whatever magic the Witch had worked to keep me safe had failed.
‘I’m spinning the thread too thin. It keeps breaking, snarling.’
I thought of the small tuft of golden fleece left on the distaff.
If the loop in the market was what happened when the thread of time was spun too thin, what would happen when she ran out of fleece to spin at all?
‘Can’t you get more material?’
The Witch searched my face, a look of anguish making her appear all of her four hundred years. Then she sighed, closed her eyes and sank back into the cushions.
The candles burned down and the moon, a distant, winking disk, took the sky, but she didn’t say a single word.
b
It was as though once she had admitted she was running out of fleece to spin, time slipped its leash entirely.
It became a game the castle played with us.
Walls didn’t shift, staircases stayed fixed, but still the Schloss became a labyrinth I was forever racing to learn to navigate before the route changed again. When a section of the kitchens became unstuck from the present, the door to last Tuesday was the only way I could get to the ever-summer room to tend my tomatoes and cucumbers, though it meant always working a week behind where I thought I was. The snowy room I had turned into an icehouse was a little more accessible, but it required a route skirting around the long gallery, which had become stuck in a five-minute loop at midnight, the bells forever chiming in the old grandfather clock. The Witch had snatched my collar and dragged me back just as I had been about to go in and inadvertently trap myself in a frantic five-minute gaol cell. After the Witch had to disentangle three maids in three days, all remaining staff and workmen had been dismissed from the castle. The Witch spent all her time in the tower, spinning, or holding her callipers to ever-dwindling thread. When I brought her tea or soup, I caught glimpses of ratty, floss-like thread fraying around the spindle, and only the smallest wisp of fleece on the distaff. The Witch hunched in concentration as she fed onto the spindle filigree strands of golden light as fine as dew and cobweb. The warm golden glow had faded and it seemed as though the Witch spun nothing but air and hope. She turned me away when I offered to stay with her. I was no longer forbidden from the Tower, I simply wasn’t wanted.
Instead I began to patrol the castle, making note of the more minor snags and putting up signs to warn of the most dangerous sinkholes. I visited the village too, watching for any loops or other indications that the problems were spreading. There were minor things – fences that wouldn’t stay mended, felled trees that regrew overnight – but nothing as horrifying as the loop that had swallowed the market. In the castle, I was frustrated to see the work I had put into the great hall peel away like a discarded rind. Flagstones refractured, dust and dirt accumulated in the corners at a frightening rate, and the newly rehung tapestries unmade themselves, stitches unfurling, thread fraying, the chaos of their bloody battles collapsing into ruins. No matter how hard I had fought to make the castle a home for us, I was never better than King Knute, commanding the tide to turn back. Time was against me, and it was a battle I would always lose.
I thought of Berchta showing the Witch what happened when time unravelled. Of the fine, fragile spiderweb thread the Witch eked out in her tower.
I couldn’t help thinking time was unravelling now.
If anything, my Witch’s decline was more rapid than the disintegration of the castle. She wore a dirty shift days in a row, the hem ripped and cuffs stained, her hair was a greasy nest, tangled and wild and her beautiful face was gaunt, hollow eyed and chapped lipped. I sent her to bathe, brushed out her hair and washed it, brought fresh clothes from her rooms: a strangely long corset and a sensible skirt and shirt. If she meant to work herself to the bone, she could at least do it clean and suitably dressed.
Before she could disappear into the Tower, I looped her arm with mine and led her from the castle.
‘You need fresh air.’
‘Ineedto spin. What part of “duty” don’t you understand?’
‘What part of “exhaustion leads to deadly mistakes” don’tyouunderstand?’
She grumbled, but let me lead her on a gentle path overlooking the river, leaning on me heavily as though she drew strength from the warmth of my body against hers.
The Witch had insisted on going barefoot, no matter how much I lectured her on the stupidity of such a move. The more I insisted, the more stubborn she became. I loved her for it, and wanted to shake sense into her at the same time. At first the going was easy as we crossed soft, mulchy forest floor where the only thing to prick her comfort were stray pine needles carried down from the mountain top, but then we came to rockier ground and she moved slower and slower, hissing and cursing under her breath.
We stopped to refill our waterskins at a slow-flowing stretch of river. ‘I told you to wear shoes.’
‘As there is no use in reminding me now, I can only presume you say this to gloat.’ The Witch was sat on a flat-topped rock, examining the filthy soles of her feet. I was not sure how she might tell if there had been any damage done given their usual state, but then I saw a flash of red, a single drop welling up before she brushed it hastily away.
‘You’re hurt.’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘I can see you bleeding,’ I said in exasperation.
‘It’s a scratch.’
‘That can easily become infected. You might be stubborn, but I know you are not stupid. Let me look.’
I kneeled before her and examined the rough skin. The Witch looked away, something stormy in her face. As I had thought, despite the callouses and rough, weathered skin, something had sliced through and a bright trickle of blood stood out.
