Lilac Lily filled the stoneware pitcher with fresh cut daffodils to set on the harvest table in the dining hall. She and her sister Lorna had spent all morning shopping the stalls at the Middlemarch Fair and returned with a bevy of spring blooms in their market bags as well as bulbs and seeds to plant the summer garden. Their lovely old rooming house just past the fairgrounds would be packed to the rafters with out of town guests tonight and she had just enough time to set the table before seeing to supper. Lorna had come across a basket of tender early greens in one of the food stalls and Lily had been delighted to discover a flask of wine vinegar among the vendors outside the main tent to dress it. This along with a nicely salted ham and sweet potatoes from the root cellar would make an ample supper for the half dozen guests plus Lorna's family and herself.
Lily pressed her damp hands to her apron and slipped into the overheated kitchen to check the oven. The ham was crisping nicely and it was time to add the sweet potatoes. She plunged them into a bucket of cold water and scrubbed the dirt off with a stiff hog bristle brush before giving each a prick with a fork and settling it around the ham in the oven. Helping her sister run the country inn these past dozen years was a far cry from managing the large and boisterous household of the potluck twelve, but it kept her busy. She liked her simple life, for now she could imagine no other.
That was not quite true. She could imagine her previous life alright but she dared not dwell on it. Even at the fair, she avidly avoided the center aisle of the main tent, afraid to run into Sierra or Esmeralde and she studiously ignored the exotic breed tent for she wanted nothing to do with Wheat whatsoever. Or earthy Indigo Rose or crazy Lavender Mae. The thought of Ratta pushing mute Mamie around in a chair and what she knew about their odd relationship often threatened to send her into a panic attack. For though the potluck broke up years ago, and all said they had forgiven her, she could not help what she still knew: their secrets.
Years ago, when Lily was the Potluck housemother, all had confided in her freely. It was part of her job to keep the peace or stir the pot as she saw fit. Like the fresh flowers Lily so favored, all opened up to her in time, revealing hopes and dreams, plots and schemes. As the warden of the potluck and its secrets, Lily's own power lay in gentle persuasion. She could suggest who to approach for answers or where to find something amiss. Because she knew all alliances and disputes within the house, she could mend or build fences. Confessions she was under oath not to reveal brought on headaches so extreme that even Esmeralde's strongest tinctures and teas could at times not soothe them.
Lily's gift was a blessing and a curse for she knew all but could reveal nothing unasked without tempting fate. The one time she had broken her oath, potluck magic had turned on her and Tasman's plot had gone down twisted. Lily blamed no one but herself. Because of her desperate foolhardiness, the potluck broke up and life had never been the same again for any of them.
Lily remembered that night like last night, although she tried never to think of it. Aubergine's amethyst necklace had flashed in her mind's eye along with Tasman's consuming avarice for the power it held. She knew Tasman would make a play for the circlet of crystals and flee south with the precious jewels this night leaving naught but destruction in her wake. But instead of going to Aubergine right away, Lily waited and watched. Tasman's scheme to steal the necklace from right under Aubergine's nose was unbelievable and the veiled threats Tasman shot her way petrified her. Mesmerized, she let time get away until it was too late. As Tasman fled with the prize, Lily made a desperate move and placed nearby Teal in her path which ended up costing all dearly. In the fray, the necklace was sundered and one of the crystals broken from its setting and lost. No one had ever seen traces of Teal or Tasman or the amethyst necklace again.
The door creaked as Lorna stepped from the back porch into the kitchen with the greens. "All cleaned," she told Lily, handing over the basket and paring knife. "It smells like the baked ham is well under way."
Lily nodded. "And the sweet potatoes as well."
"Too bad we did not pick up any sourdough bread, or yeast rolls," Lorna said. "That Mill on the Rill's just inside the main tent. How did we miss it?"
"The line was too long," Lily explained easily, knowing otherwise. When she had peeked inside the tent, there had been Sierra plain as day with her young daughter conversing with the owners. The fact that Sierra had looked her way, her serene face revealing nothing, sent a searing stab of anxiety through Lily's breast. Turning, she lost herself quickly in the throng, conscious of the large felted market bag she carried, a bottomless pit of a bag made by Sierra's own hands. Lily had jokingly called it her Going to Market Bag, for no matter how much truck she stuffed inside, it never got full or any heavier and had been much needed at the potluck. "I can roll out a quick batch of soda biscuits," she offered her sister.
"I'll do it," Lorna said, going to the flour bin. "You look a bit peaked."
"A headache," Lily admitted, feeling the familiar tightening across her forehead as she caught her sister's swift glance. "A small one."
"I did stop by the remedy woman's booth for more of your headache medicine," Lorna said. "The button lady said she did not show this year."
Lily smiled weakly, troubled at the news of Esmeralde. "Mayhap I'll set the table and have a lie down with a cool cloth," she ventured.
Her sister nodded absently, busy with the biscuits. "Don't forget to set the extra china and silver. We've a full house tonight."
Her first years back at the inn in Middlemarch had been difficult and fraught with headaches such as the one building now. It wasn't just the day to day stress of not having to freshen so many rooms, still setting the table for too many guests, or preparing too much food that troubled her. It was the secrets that milled ceaselessly in her head, looking for a way out to do good or bad as Lily saw fit. But she could do nothing. Like a wild animal caged at the fair, Lily had lived these past years imprisoned in a foreign landscape devoid of magic.
"It is the end of the world as we know it," Aubergine told them all that last day at Potluck Yarns almost twenty years ago. They were sitting around the knitting table in the yarn shop and the yarn shop was closed as it had been in the days since Teal disappeared and Tasman left. All eyes were on Aubergine's. No one was knitting.
"It may take a year, it may take longer for Tasman to destroy all that is true and good in nature." Aubergine continued, her eye going from blue to violet with anger. "Magic will be outlawed. Men will come to think they rule the world once more through death and war. And we must let them."
"I won't stand for it," Esmeralde argued. "Folk will die needlessly without the magical essence of my tinctures."
"They will no longer remember childhood dreams or even the scent of happiness without the magic of my herbs and teas," Indigo added.
"What of my magic dye crystals?" Smokey asked anxiously. "And the dye pot? I love the magic of my Traveling Cloak and my bottomless bags. Aubergine, you yourself enjoy passing unseen in plain day. It is our way of life."
"Without magic, how will people learn their yarns?" Sierra asked quietly before Aubergine could say more. "The tales of the First Folk will be lost. All will be lost."
"That is what you think," Ratta glared at her, standing behind Mamie's wheeled chair. Mamie sat slumped over like a sleeping baby, her head resting on the table. "I know tales of old that you will never tell."
"That is enough of such talk," Wheat told Ratta. She pointed her shepherd's staff at Mamie who was beginning to snore. "Why don't you just hush up and put her to bed." She directed as the amber crystal of her staff hit and sparked.
Ratta shrank away.
Lavender Mae let out a howl and clutched the pouch of precious stones hung round her neck. "No," she cried at Aubergine. "No, no, no!"
"I am not telling you to abandon the magic of the crystals and the dyepot," Aubergine shouted above the din. Standing, she held up a hand to silence them. "Magic will be outlawed and so you must go about your lives in secret. Look for the crystal. Practice your lore. When it is time, look for the sign for only we can stop the world from ending in fire or ice once more."
She turned to Lilac Lily, the only one of them who sat silent. " Lily, what say you?"
Lily shook her head. "I have said too little at times, and then too much. And for that, I beg your forgiveness." She looked at Aubergine. "I dare not say more."
"Is that all?" Smokey asked impatiently. Perched on stacked cushions, her chin just cleared the table edge and she was able to smack its wooden surface with the flat of her small hand. "You have naught even given us a clue. Aubergine, make her tell us!"
Aubergine gazed at Lily, who looked down at the table. "We need to know what you would have us know."
"Then you must ask the questions," Lily murmured.
"What else will come to pass?" Aubergine asked gently.
"All that you have predicted and more," Lily said dully. "Tasman has fled to the south where she will use her powers to bend all in the Lowlands to her will, including the laws of nature. She will squander everything to become their dark queen and all will fear her. It will cost her dearly to conquer all and it will take time. There will be fire and famine and death. Thirst. If she succeeds, he minions will march north seeking water, and power, and plunder."
Aubergine nodded, unsurprised. "They will try to breach the Crystal Caves and gain passage into the tombs of the ancients."
"And more," Lily said. "Much more."
"You are under oath not to say." Ratta spit at Lily. "No one has asked such question."
Lily gave Ratta a level gaze. "Asked and answered," she said.
"By who?" Ratta demanded.
Esmeralde glared at Ratta. "I thought you were told to hush, kitchen wench."
Indigo turned to Sierra. "Is there such a tale of these ancient tombs?"
"Yes," Sierra said. "The dead guard the caves with the usual assortment of spells and curses." She frowned. "But I know not what will happened when the graves are disturbed." She glanced at Mamie sadly. "She never said.."
"To you," Ratta sneered.
Wheat stood and pointed her staff. "You had your chance," she told Ratta.
As the amber crystals came together a beam of light focused on the sleeve of Ratta's shift. Fabric sizzled. A few chuckles were heard as Ratta pulled Mamie's wheeled chair from the table and beat a hasty retreat toward the door.
"What else can you tell us?' Aubergine asked Lily, ignoring the stench of burnt wool.
Lily glanced at Ratta, who lurked in the doorway. "I dare not say. But you know the time will come when you must choose whether to save the world, or let it end again in fire or ice."
"When last it ended it ended in ice," Smokey reminded all. "The ancients wanted it that way."
"The ancients wanted no such thing," Sierra told all. "They fought amongst themselves as we have and it happened."
Lily nodded. "Remember that." She pointed a finger to Ratta, who lingered still, eager to hear Lily's final words. "You may think you know all, but sadly you do not. And what you do know unchallenged you would be best served to share. The ancients fought over twin suns and in the end they both went out." She turned to the others. "Watch for fire in the sky at dawn."
" That will be the sign?" Aubergine asked. "Are you certain?" Lily met Aubergine's violet eyes. "You will call all to yourself with cold fire crystals. When we see red sky in the morning, all of us will take warning, even the dark queen. There are only enough stones in the tinderbox for you to do it once."
"I know where the box is, and the crystals," Smokey said eagerly. "When do we call all?"
"You will know when the time has come," Lily replied. She turned to the rest of them at the table. "Sadly, not all of you will come when called." She singled out Lavender Mae and laid a hand on her arm. "Try to come."
"See if I come!" Ratta sneered from the doorway.
"I don't give a shard whether you come or not," Esmeralde told her. "We've plenty of magic crystals and tales of old to go round without your two copper's worth."
"Me neither," Indigo added "Take that shawl you never finish knitting and frog it for all I care."
"You will come," Lily said to Ratta coldly. "And gladly, for you will have no choice."
With a glare, Ratta yanked Mamie's chair from the doorway and wheeled the old woman off toward the kitchen garden.. All turned to watch her go except Lily and Sierra.
"I need a private moment," Sierra told Lily. They rose and went to the back of the yarn shop.
"Pay Ratta no mind," Wheat told the others. "She's always having a knit fit."
"You must cease burning holes through her garments," Aubergine admonished.
"It is just a little sting," Wheat grumbled to Aubergine. "It keeps sheep in line."
"She talks so out of turn," Indigo defended Wheat. "She came here as Mamie's nursemaid, remember."
"Her and her private language," Esmeralde added as Sierra and Lily returned to the table.. "She cannot read Mamie's mind."
"I fear she can," Sierra said, and all could see she had been crying. "I am not the guardian of the tales of old if some are known only to others," she explained tearfully. "I should know the tale of the ancient tombs. I do not."
"Yes you do. You will remember it in time," Wheat assured Sierra. Her golden eyes blazed at Lily as she reached for her staff. "Lily what did you tell her?" she demanded.
"Only what she asked," Lily said. "And no more. So you can keep your clacking crystals to yourself unless you want me to tell all your unsavory thoughts."
Sierra rose. "I am taking leave of you all, now and forever," she said. "Another path has been chosen for me, a simpler, narrower safer path and I will take it."
"Sierra things are not what they seem," Lily said. "Try to come when you are called."
Tears streamed down her face as Sierra left the room and hurried up the stairs without a backward glance. Esmeralde and Indigo rose to follow her. Outside, Ratta pulled up to the garden gate driving a pair of mules hitched to Mamie's old buckboard wagon.
Taking her staff Wheat hurried toward the kitchen garden.. Mae ran through the shop and into the potluck dye room, where all could her howls of dismay.
"Everyone's leaving," Smokey said when just she and Lily and Aubergine remained. "Everyone's mad."
"We'll not leave," Aubergine told her. "They will come back."
Lily stood. "Not for a long time," she said. "Maybe never. If Tasman ever comes back here to war," she hesitated. "If she breaches the Crystal Caves..." She shut her mouth. "I can say no more. But you must call us. You must."
"I take it not all will heed the call," Aubergine said grimly.
"No," Lily said. "You will be surprised at who does not arrive. And who does. We all will."
And so the turn of events had come to pass, Lily mused, somewhat as Aubergine had predicted. The Glacier Wars began, women were detained and arrested for supposed use of magic, the smell of smoke became constant in the air drifting up from the Lowlands the first years. Now just as often, smoke blew down from the north. Lily had yet to see fire in the sky even though she knew the world was ending. Perhaps Aubergine had decided to let the world wind down as it had before and not put out the call.
Just in case, over the years Lily had practiced her lore, forming unspoken answers to everyone's questions. She alone held the key to quelling the ravaging fires, but with no one to tell, could only watch helplessly as Middleland soldiers marched up the track past her rooming house north toward certain death. If she was right, the damaged crystal was not lost, merely hidden in plain sight, albeit in a most unlikely place where no one would every look unless directed. Lavender Mae's wild foraging among the crystal caves to cull a replacement amethyst and Esmeralde and Indigo's shared vision to locate the original would be fruitless without the knowledge Lily possessed. But if she found the courage to offer them clues without actually telling tales or breaking oaths, would any of the twelve heed her warnings, Lily wondered? The problem was that they had to ask her and she had avoided them all like a plague, for she was afraid they would not care for the answers to their questions.
They would ask if she could break Tasman's death grip over the lands. Although she could not, Lily knew that Tasman's spell could be unraveled like the split seams of an old sweater, if she could just find a way to show the twelve how. But there would not be twelve and that was another problem. There had to be twelve--and there could be-- but two of them would come from the most unlikely of places. To this day untold secrets sometimes gave Lily such headaches that it felt as if she had drunk an entire flask of Crystal Cordial by herself.
Lily set the table quickly before returning to the kitchen to fetch a cool cloth for her forehead. Lorna had set the biscuits out on the sideboard ready for baking and wiped the counter clean. For the hundredth time, Lily questioned her role at the inn, for she knew that although Lorna and her husband Evan wanted her here, she was not needed. It had been the same at the potluck. Aubergine and Smokey had invited her to stay after the twelve disbanded, and for a time she had, but finally she could not bear walking into the dusty disused rooms or gazing upon Aubergine's neck, naked of the amethyst crystals and their power.
Dipping a washcloth in a bucket of cool water, Lily wrung it out and pressed it to her eye sockets to no avail. Her head was pounding now and there was naught but one of two things to do. From the back of the spice cabinet, Lily took out the last of Esmeralde's tincture and drank it straight from the bottle without diluting the bitter syrup. The ache abated but only slightly.
Shaking, she took off her apron and hung it on the pantry door. It was time to do the other thing and that meant she had to head north. The secrets wanted out. They would be told around the big pot once more and she understood finally that she had no choice but to let the questions be asked and answered. But why now? Had it been Sierra's idle glance at the fair? The Northland soldiers roaming the streets? The fact that Esmeralde had not shown at all?
Slipping up the back staircase to her attic room, Lily opened the lid of her dusty trunk and shook out her wrinkled traveling cloak. All else she needed she stuffed into the bottomless pit of her market bag. Sneaking down the back stairway she paused in the kitchen and looked to the back porch. All was empty. There was nothing to explain to Lorna without telling secrets, so there was no use in trying. Lorna and Evan knew nothing of the potluck. They thought that Lily ran an inn over a yarn store all those years which explained the myriad garments and yarns she came home with on holidays. From the back porch, Lily made her way up the garden path toward the main road.
Inside, Lorna hurried from the dining room to where her husband was filling the firebox for the night in the front room. "Something's wrong with Lily," she announced. "Did you see? She set the table for twelve. Now Lily knows we've naught but six guests tonight."
"There she goes." From the side window, Evan stared after the figure heading up the garden path along the side of house toward the street.. "Did you send her out to the root cellar?"
"No, we've got the cream and butter for supper." his wife replied heading toward the kitchen. She returned with Lily's discarded apron. "Did you send her out?"
"Not I." Evan replied. Looking out the front window, he watched Lily in her traveling cloak swing her market bag up into the front of a milk wagon before boarding herself. "Lorna, love, she's leaving." He turned a troubled glance to his wife. "I don't think she's coming back!"