The click, click of the knitting needles was the only sound heard, their user unseen, a shapeless form buried in the shadows. I looked around for a candle or lantern. “Would you like me to turn on a light?”

Silence from the figure, only the movement of sharpened needles gleaming in the firelight, a tangled skein of yarn lay at their feet.

“Well,” I glanced around the room into which I found myself an intruder. The noise of the moors behind me; plaintive wail of wind and percussive rain beat at the windows, seeking to gain entry. I, myself as a lone traveller stood there, still dripping, having entered following my own knock on the door.

The door swung open, and I stepped inside to the rough cottage; but nothing had prepared me for a sight such as this. Not a sweet tidy grandmum’s cozy home, but a crude shack; all manner of thorny implements hanging from the ceilings, blackened pots and sharpened tools hung together suspended from beams themselves that looked like they were bones from some giant creature. Metal and wood jostled, clanging, as I brushed by. Heaps of garments lay strewn upon the floor, the odour of disuse filled the air, and as I drew breath, I was tempted to open a window against the stench of decay.

My host, as I had considered them, sat silent in the corner by a dank fire; murky flames leapt at the hearth, eating blackened stonework. My host themselves were occupied in their busywork.

“Well,” I said again, “This is some night.”

Still silence from the creature. I bade to study their affect in the firelight; heaps of clothes wrapped around them, they sat huddled in a pile of garments that seemed to have no beginning or end. The knitting needles protruded from the mass, as though of a life of their own, clacking away and twining tangled threads.

I considered the room I found myself in; a roughhewn table lay heaped with pots and implements, fragments of wild plants and tattered cloth. The sole occupant held the lone chair.

“Would you mind if I stayed, just for the night?”

Silence from the creature, and I eased myself to the hard-dirt floor, my haversack beside me. Camping in the rough was to be expected on a journey such as mine, and I soon accustomed myself to the filthy floor.

“I would like to stay for the night, if I may,” I tried, and sought around. “I can pay you for your hospitality.” I jangled a purse full of coins, which the creature steadfastly ignored, so occupied they were with their knitting.

“What are you making?” I asked.

“You. Making,” the creature croaked, in a rusty voice full of disuse, I was so surprised by the fact of reply I nearly fell back on the floor. Their words went unremarked by me, at the time.

“I beg your pardon?” I said.

“Ends soon.”

“The storm? It will end soon?”

“It ends.”

The creature fell back into silence; click, click of knitting needles the only sound heard above the storm outside.

I sat, watching my host knitting, boney fingers barely distinguishable from the needles themselves, their face, as caught in the firelight, a grim mask of bone, thin skin of flesh stretched across. I felt I was in the presence of an old crone, gone mad, perhaps, and living alone in the wilds alone.

Realizing my host might need care of their own, I sat up. “Can I offer you some food?” I opened my pack, rifling through. “I have some biscuits, perhaps…” the figure seized me with a look so hideous that I broke off, suddenly unsure of my own intention.

Silence stretched between us as the storm continued outside, a weary call of all things left to the night. Rain spattered against the thatched roof, and a dampness crept in to my bones. I shifted my position on the floor, aching, and sought comfort in thinking about more pleasant times and situations of my own life. Familiar voices and faces filled my mind, and soon lost in thought, I was startled by the creature’s abrupt announcement.

“It is done.”

“Pardon?”

“It is done.”

The figure gazed upon me, holding me with a look so terrible and filled with beauty my knees trembled with fright. Then, plucking a pair of gleaming scissors from their person, they held out the tangled knitting in one hand, and the scissors in the other, studying both by the firelight. I bade to scream, to shout out, to stop them, for in that instant I knew –

The figure held out a gnarled hand, and stopped me with a mere gesture.

Now, fully trembling with fright and realization, I watched as the figure cut the final line to the tattered piece of work, the thin thread falling lifeless, now on its own.

As though bound to the cloth itself, I then fell to the floor, gazing upward in the dim firelight at the work the figure now held admiringly; flashes of my own life rushed before me. Childhood, family, friendship, and beyond; all leading to my adventures here.

The piece fell to the floor beside me, and as I gasped my last breath, I perceived the creature pick up another skein of wool, and begin casting anew.

 

--END