Chapter 1
Morning arrived quietly in the Circle, which was rather inconsiderate of it, because Thistle did not.
Sunlight had already found its way through the crooked little window beside her bed and stretched itself across the floorboards in long golden bands. It warmed the heap of yesterday’s clothes abandoned near the wardrobe, caught on the silver buckle of one boot lying beneath a chair, and illuminated drifting specks of dust that seemed in no particular hurry to be anywhere else.
Thistle, meanwhile, was buried so deeply beneath her blankets that there was very little evidence a witch occupied the bed at all. A tuft of purple hair protruded from one end of the covers, and one bare foot had escaped from the other.
The black cat sitting on her chest appeared to consider this an unacceptable state of affairs.
He had been staring at her for some time. When staring failed to produce the desired result, he placed one paw against her chin and gave it a gentle push.
Thistle made a muffled sound from somewhere beneath the blankets and turned her face away. The cat waited, then tried again with considerably less courtesy. One bright green eye finally appeared between the blankets.
“If you put that paw in my mouth,” Thistle muttered, “I swear by every moon over Hollowmere, I will turn you into a footstool.”
The cat withdrew his paw, although the expression on his face suggested that he doubted both her magical ability and her commitment to the threat. Thistle closed her eye again, and for approximately three seconds peace returned to the cottage.
Then the cat stepped directly onto her stomach.
Thistle came upright with a gasp, sending blankets tumbling toward the floor and the cat springing lightly to the foot of the bed. Her hair had spent the night attempting to escape her head and had nearly succeeded. Purple waves stuck out in every possible direction, one side flattened against her cheek while the other rose dramatically above her ear.
She stared at the cat. He stared back, perfectly composed, and Thistle found herself thinking that of the seven witches who lived in the Circle, every single one of them would probably take his side in whatever happened next.
“You are a traitorous little beast,” she informed him.
The cat lowered his head and began washing one paw.
Thistle swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat there for a moment, trying to remember why consciousness was necessary. Her loose purple bloomers had twisted slightly during the night, and one strap of her dark camisole had slipped from her shoulder. She tugged it back into place, rubbed both hands over her face and yawned until her jaw cracked before stretching her arms high above her head.
The cottage seemed to stretch with her. One of the old wooden beams overhead gave a soft creak, and somewhere downstairs a cupboard door popped open and immediately shut again.
Thistle lowered her arms and frowned toward the floor. “Don’t start.”
The cottage went still.
“I mean it,” she added. “I’m not cleaning up after you today.”
The cupboard downstairs opened again.
Thistle sighed.
Most people outside Hollowmere imagined a witch’s home rather differently. There were stories about leaning towers, cottages balanced on chicken legs, skulls decorating shelves and enormous black cauldrons bubbling with ingredients no sensible person would touch without gloves. Thistle did own a cauldron, but it currently held three scarves, a broken belt and a boot she had been looking for since winter.
Her cottage was small, crooked and thoroughly hers. The ceiling beams were dark with age, dried flowers hung upside down near the windows, and shelves climbed almost every wall. Some held jars and spell ingredients, while others were crowded with books, candles, stones, feathers, bits of ribbon, two empty cider bottles, a collection of shiny objects she absolutely had not stolen and a tiny wooden horse Bramble had carved for her years ago.
A broom leaned beside the bedroom door. Unlike everything else in the room, it stood perfectly straight.
Thistle eyed it suspiciously. “Don’t you start either.”
The broom remained innocent.
She stood, caught one foot in the blankets and immediately pitched forward. Her hand shot out and caught the bedpost before gravity could finish the job. For several seconds she remained there, barefoot and disheveled, gripping the post while the cat watched from the mattress with an expression of unbearable composure.
Thistle slowly straightened and pushed a wild purple curl out of her face. “You saw nothing, and that agreement covers the rest of the morning as well.”
The cat blinked.
Thistle decided to take that as consent.
By the time she made it downstairs, the cottage had apparently decided she had slept long enough and had begun preparing for the day without her. The curtains had pulled themselves open, a kettle trembled impatiently on the stove, and one of the windows had cracked itself just wide enough to admit the smell of damp earth, pine needles and something sweet flowering somewhere beyond the porch.
Thistle paused halfway across the kitchen.
That smell always got her.
No matter how many mornings she woke here, there was still a moment when she remembered exactly where she was. This cottage, with its crooked walls and temperamental cupboards, was hers. Beyond it were the other six cottages, the old forest, the paths she knew by heart and the women who had somehow become as familiar to her as the sound of her own footsteps.
She crossed to the window and pushed it open farther.
The Circle was waking beneath a soft wash of morning sunlight. Seven cottages stood around the broad green clearing, each one different because none of the witches had ever agreed on what a proper cottage ought to look like. Rowan’s nearly disappeared beneath herbs, vines and climbing flowers. Juniper’s had a little upper window positioned perfectly for watching the moon. Sage kept lanterns hanging from her porch even during the day, their colored glass catching the sunlight whenever the breeze turned them. Elder Wren’s cottage was the oldest, built of weathered stone and timber beside an enormous tree whose roots disappeared beneath the foundation as though the two had made some ancient agreement about sharing the same patch of earth.
At the center of the clearing lay the communal firepit, surrounded by broad stones, tree-stump seats and two mismatched wooden chairs that had been there so long nobody remembered who had brought them. The ashes from the previous evening were pale beneath the morning sun. Later, someone would build another fire, food would appear, and sooner or later all seven of them would find their way there.
Wildflowers grew everywhere. Daisies crowded the edges of the clearing beside mums, witch hazel, clover and patches of herbs that had escaped Rowan’s careful garden and decided they preferred freedom. A particularly stubborn cluster of thistles had taken up residence beside Thistle’s porch several summers ago.
Bramble insisted she had planted them.
Thistle insisted the plants simply had excellent judgment.
Across the Circle, Rowan was already outside.
Of course she was.
She knelt beside one of her garden beds in a moss-green dress, her red hair catching copper in the sunlight while she examined something among the leaves. A woven basket rested beside her, already half filled with clipped herbs.
Thistle leaned farther through the window. “Do you ever sleep?”
Rowan didn’t bother looking up. “Good morning to you too.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
Thistle smiled despite herself and was about to respond when the kettle behind her began shrieking with enough force to wake the dead, assuming the dead had somehow managed to sleep through the cat.
“Yes, yes, I’m coming.”
She left the window and poured hot water over a generous spoonful of black tea. After considering the amount for a moment, she added another spoonful. The cat jumped onto the kitchen table and watched as she cut two thick slices of bread and spread them with blackberry preserves.
“No,” Thistle said without looking at him.
The cat’s gaze moved toward the bread.
“I haven’t even had mine yet.”
He continued staring.
“You ate last night.”
His expression remained unchanged.
“You eat better than I do.”
Still nothing.
Thistle pointed her spoon at him. “Emotional manipulation is still manipulation when you’re furry.”
She took her tea and one slice of bread to the window, where she stood watching the Circle while she ate. Rowan had moved to another garden bed. Somewhere inside Sage’s cottage, something clattered, followed by the sound of Sage laughing at whatever had caused it. A thin ribbon of smoke rose from Elder Wren’s chimney, and Juniper’s curtains were still drawn.
Thistle finished her bread and reached for the second slice.
The plate was empty.
She turned slowly.
The cat was washing his face.
“You are unbelievable.”
A knock sounded at the front door before Thistle could properly prosecute the crime. She glanced toward it, then toward the stairs, then down at herself.
She was still barefoot. Her bloomers were wrinkled, her camisole was crooked and her hair looked as though it had recently survived a storm.
She considered pretending she wasn’t home.
The knock came again.
“Thistle?” Bramble called through the door. “I can hear you being awake.”
Thistle scowled. “That is an invasion of privacy.”
“It’s also nearly nine.”
Thistle froze and looked toward the clock on the mantel.
Then she looked at the cat.
“You let me sleep until nine?”
The cat yawned.
Thistle crossed the room and yanked open the door.
Bramble stood on the porch wearing a mustard-colored cardigan over a brown skirt, a satchel already slung across her body and her curls piled untidily beneath a scarf. Her round spectacles had slipped halfway down her nose. She took one look at Thistle and pressed her lips together, which only made the laughter in her eyes more obvious.
“Don’t,” Thistle warned.
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You’re thinking loudly.”
“I was only wondering whether you slept in your bed or fought it.”
Thistle started closing the door.
Bramble wedged one boot into the gap. “We’re going into Hollowmere.”
That stopped her.
Thistle opened the door again. “Who’s we?”
“Me, Sage and Rowan, if she ever stops fussing over her plants. Lyra said she might come if she manages to return from wherever her mind goes before ten in the morning. Juniper has something she wants to finish here first, and Elder Wren has already declined because apparently some of us have responsibilities.”
“Disgusting.”
“I thought so too.” Bramble peered past her into the cottage. “Are you coming?”
Thistle stared at her until Bramble’s mouth twitched.
“Why are you asking me that as though there’s a possibility I’m not?”
“Excellent. Ten minutes.”
“Fifteen.”
“Ten.”
“Fourteen.”
“Twelve.”
“Done.”
Bramble stepped away from the door before Thistle could renegotiate. As she headed down the porch steps, she glanced over her shoulder and told Thistle to wear actual clothes.
“These are actual clothes!” Thistle called after her.
“They have moons on the backside!”
“Exactly. Decorative and practical.”
Rowan’s laughter floated across the clearing.
Thistle shut the door with what dignity remained to her.
Twelve minutes later, she emerged transformed, or at least dressed. She had traded her sleep clothes for a black skirt, purple-and-black striped stockings, sturdy boots and a fitted dark jacket fastened slightly crookedly because she had missed one button and refused to start over. Several necklaces hung at her throat, rings glittered on her fingers, and a narrow belt rested low around her hips with two small pouches attached to it.
Her purple hair remained largely ungovernable. She had run her fingers through it, attempted a brush, argued with a curl over her left ear and finally decided the entire arrangement looked intentional enough to pass.
Bramble was waiting near the firepit with Sage, who held a covered basket over one arm. Sage’s dark braids were woven loosely over her shoulders, and the amber beads threaded through them caught the sunlight whenever she moved.
Thistle’s attention immediately settled on the basket. “What’s in there?”
“Nothing for you,” Sage replied.
“Then why did you bring it?”
“Because Rowan asked me to take something to the baker.”
“That sounds suspiciously like food.”
“It is food.”
Thistle reached toward the cloth covering the basket, but Sage slapped her hand away without even looking.
“Violence,” Thistle said, drawing her hand back. “First thing in the morning.”
“It’s nearly half past nine.”
“Time is a social invention.”
“Breakfast isn’t.”
Thistle considered that and decided Sage had made the stronger argument.
Rowan joined them a moment later, wiping dirt from her hands with a cloth. Her expression was thoughtful, and Thistle noticed the little crease between her brows that appeared whenever something had annoyed or puzzled her.
“What?” Thistle asked.
Rowan glanced toward her garden. “Nothing.”
“You’ve got the face.”
“What face?”
“The Rowan-has-found-something-and-is-about-to-think-about-it-for-six-hours face.”
Bramble immediately perked up. “Found what?”
Rowan gave Thistle a look that clearly blamed her for what was about to happen. “It’s probably nothing. A few of the moonwort leaves have gone pale around the edges.”
Bramble was already turning toward the garden when Rowan caught the back of her cardigan.
“No.”
“I only want to look.”
“You’ll still be looking tomorrow.”
“That’s unfair.”
“It’s experience.”
Thistle grinned. “She’s got you there.”
Rowan released Bramble and looked toward the garden again. “The soil is fine, there’s no sign of blight, and everything around them looks healthy. I’ll check them again this afternoon. It may be nothing more than the weather changing.”
Sage had gone quiet.
The change was so small that Thistle almost missed it. Sage stood with her basket held against one hip, looking not toward Rowan’s garden but toward the trees beyond it.
“What is it?” Thistle asked.
Sage didn’t answer immediately. The morning breeze moved through the branches overhead, stirring the leaves with a soft rustle. Somewhere beyond the cottages, water moved over stones in the little stream that wound through the woods toward Hollowmere. Birds called from the canopy, and a bee moved lazily between the flowers near the firepit.
Everything looked exactly as it always did.
Sage rubbed one hand absently over her opposite arm. “I don’t know.”
Bramble followed her gaze. “Did you hear something?”
“No.”
“Did you see something?”
Sage shook her head. “No. It was just a feeling for a moment, almost as though everything went still.”
Thistle looked toward the trees again. Nothing moved there except leaves and sunlight, and after another moment Sage gave a small shake of her head as though dismissing the thought herself.
“It’s probably nothing,” Sage said.
Thistle glanced toward Rowan. “That makes two probably-nothings before breakfast. We’re having an exciting day already.”
Sage laughed, and whatever had troubled her seemed to loosen. Rowan gave her garden one last thoughtful look before joining the others on the path.
They chose to walk rather than take their brooms. Hollowmere wasn’t far, and the morning was too beautiful to waste by flying over it. The forest path wandered beneath enormous old trees, crossed the stream twice and passed through a stretch of woods where moss covered nearly every stone and fallen log. Ferns brushed their skirts as they walked, tiny white flowers grew between exposed roots, and sunlight came down through the canopy in warm shifting columns.
Thistle walked ahead until Bramble accused her of turning a group outing into a race. Thistle denied the accusation while continuing to walk faster, which Bramble declared proof of guilt. Sage and Rowan followed behind them, talking about the market and whether the baker would still have honey cakes by the time they arrived.
They had gone perhaps half a mile when Thistle stopped beside a fallen tree and looked up.
A narrow opening in the canopy revealed a patch of impossibly blue sky. A raven sat high on a branch overhead, black feathers shining where the sunlight touched them.
Thistle tilted her head.
The raven tilted its head too.
“Don’t,” Bramble said from behind her.
Thistle glanced back. “Don’t what?”
“Whatever you’re thinking.”
“You don’t know what I’m thinking.”
“I know you.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“It’s unfortunately very close.”
Thistle looked at the raven again. It gave one low croak before spreading its wings and disappearing between the trees.
“What were you going to do?” Sage asked.
“Nothing.”
Bramble snorted.
Thistle continued walking. “I was considering whether it would let me pet it.”
“It would not.”
“You don’t know that.”
“It’s a wild raven.”
“So?”
“So wild ravens generally don’t want you touching them.”
Thistle glanced over her shoulder. “You have a very narrow view of friendship.”
The first sign of Hollowmere was smoke curling above the trees. The second was the bell, ringing once from somewhere in the village, deep and mellow, announcing the opening of the morning market.
The forest gradually began to change around them. The path widened, small stone markers appeared between the trees, and lanterns hung from crooked wooden posts even though there was still plenty of daylight. They crossed an old wooden bridge where clear water hurried beneath moss-covered boards, then passed the first cottage at the edge of town. Its chimney sent a thin ribbon of smoke into the branches, and yellow flowers crowded the windowsills.
Another cottage appeared beyond it, followed by a narrow lane, a garden wall and the painted sign of a little shop tucked beneath an enormous oak. Hollowmere did not so much begin as unfold around them, one warm window and crooked rooftop at a time.
Thistle had seen it thousands of times, but the sight still made something inside her lift.
Stone cottages and timbered shops crowded comfortably together along winding cobblestone streets. Chimneys puffed into the clear morning sky, flowers spilled from window boxes and climbed over fences, and little streams wandered between buildings wherever they pleased. Narrow stone and wooden bridges connected one side of a lane to another, while lanterns still glowed beneath several awnings where their owners had forgotten, or simply not bothered, to extinguish them after sunrise.
Beyond the rooftops rose the little clock tower, the apothecary’s crooked green chimney and the weather vane above the old meeting hall, currently pointing east despite the breeze coming unmistakably from the west. Hollowmere had never been especially concerned with behaving properly.
By the time they reached the market square, the village was thoroughly awake. Canvas awnings had been raised over stalls overflowing with fruit, flowers, breads, candles and things Thistle couldn’t identify from a distance. A skeleton in a blue waistcoat was arranging pears into an elaborate pyramid while arguing with a woman selling enchanted ribbons. Two tiny woodland creatures Thistle didn’t recognize were sharing a pastry beneath a bench. A vampire who ran the stationery shop swept his front step beneath an enormous sunshade while complaining loudly about the unreasonable brightness of morning, and three doors down a pair of werewolf brothers unloaded sacks of flour from a wagon.
Nobody paid any of this the slightest attention. In Hollowmere, magic did not arrive with fanfare or demand that anyone stop what they were doing to admire it. It lived beside ordinary things so comfortably that sometimes there was no sensible place to draw the line between the two.
A woman carrying a basket of laundry paused to let a family of ducklings cross the street. One of the ducklings wore a tiny red hat.
Thistle watched it pass. “I want one.”
Bramble didn’t even turn her head. “No.”
“I didn’t ask permission.”
“I know. I was answering preemptively.”
The smell of warm bread drifted through the square.
Thistle stopped.
Sage nearly walked into her.
“What now?”
Thistle breathed in deeply. Somewhere nearby there was cinnamon, butter, baked apples and something with enough sugar in it to make Rowan disapprove on principle.
“Breakfast.”
“We have an errand first,” Sage reminded her.
“Breakfast.”
“The baker is literally the errand.”
Thistle slowly turned toward her.
Sage smiled.
“Sage,” Thistle said, “sometimes I don’t appreciate you enough.”
“I’ve noticed.”
The bakery stood near the far side of the market square, its front windows thrown open to the morning. Pots of herbs lined the sill, and a chalkboard near the door announced cinnamon star buns, apple-bramble muffins, honey cakes, sunrise tea and coffee available ordinary, enchanted or extremely necessary.
Thistle pointed at the last item. “I respect whoever wrote that.”
“You don’t drink coffee,” Rowan said.
“I respect them from a distance.”
They found a table outside beneath a striped awning while Sage delivered Rowan’s basket to the baker. Bramble immediately opened the book she had been carrying, although she continued participating in the conversation as though reading and listening were simply two halves of the same activity. Rowan sat where she could see the flower stall across the square. Thistle chose the chair with the best view of the bakery door.
Sage returned with a tray carrying tea, two coffees and a plate piled high enough with pastries that Thistle briefly considered forgiving her for the earlier violence.
“I knew there was a reason I loved you.”
“You say that every time I bring food.”
“Then perhaps you should consider the pattern.”
They divided the pastries with varying degrees of fairness. Rowan insisted everyone take something with fruit in it. Thistle insisted cinnamon counted as a plant and therefore qualified as a healthy breakfast. Bramble attempted to steal half of Thistle’s honey cake while pretending to read.
Around them, Hollowmere carried on with its morning. Shop bells chimed. A cart rattled over the cobblestones. Someone laughed from inside the bakery. A pair of translucent ghosts drifted past the table arguing about curtains, neither apparently bothered by the fact that one of them kept passing partially through a flower box whenever she became particularly animated.
Across the square, two children chased a tiny pumpkin between the market stalls.
Thistle lowered her tea.
The pumpkin was approximately the size of a kettle, with little arms, little legs and a carved face that changed expression as it ran. It squealed when one of the children nearly caught it, darted beneath a vegetable cart and emerged from the other side wearing a cabbage leaf like a hat.
Thistle watched it disappear behind a stall.
“I want that too.”
Bramble looked up from her book. “Still no.”
“You are becoming very controlling.”
“I am protecting the Circle from your impulses.”
“My impulses are what make the Circle interesting.”
Rowan lifted one eyebrow. “Your impulses are why Elder Wren keeps a bucket of sand beside her front door.”
“That happened once.”
“It happened three times.”
“The second time was Bramble.”
Bramble looked offended. “You told me the powder was inert.”
“I believed it was inert.”
“You believed it because you didn’t read the label.”
“I don’t like being constrained by other people’s expectations.”
“The label said flammable.”
Thistle took a bite of her honey cake. “In hindsight, that was useful information.”
Sage laughed, but the sound faded sooner than it normally would.
Thistle noticed.
Sage had turned her cup slowly between her hands and was looking beyond the square toward the road they had taken into town. Her expression wasn’t frightened. If anything, she seemed puzzled.
Thistle leaned back in her chair. “You’re doing it again.”
Sage looked at her. “Doing what?”
“That thing you did at the Circle.”
Rowan’s attention shifted immediately.
Sage glanced toward the street again. “It’s nothing.”
“That answer is becoming very popular today,” Bramble said, closing her book.
For a moment Sage said nothing. She seemed to be listening, although Thistle couldn’t imagine what she expected to hear over the ordinary bustle of the market. A dog barked somewhere nearby. Crockery clinked inside the bakery. The skeleton at the fruit stall had abandoned his pear pyramid and was now attempting an even more ambitious arrangement with apples.
Finally Sage shook her head. “For a moment everything felt very still again. Not quiet exactly. Just still, as though something had paused.”
Thistle listened.
She heard carts, voices, footsteps, bells and birds. Nothing seemed remotely interested in pausing.
“Maybe you need breakfast,” she said.
“I’ve had breakfast.”
“Maybe you need second breakfast.”
Sage smiled. “Is that your medical opinion?”
“I’m very gifted.”
“You threatened to turn a cat into furniture this morning.”
Thistle stared at her. “How do you know that?”
Sage’s smile widened.
Thistle looked toward the black cat sitting beneath a neighboring table.
He stared back at her.
She narrowed her eyes. “Snitch.”
The others laughed, and within a few minutes the conversation had wandered elsewhere. Bramble wanted to visit the bookseller. Rowan needed jars from the apothecary. Sage wanted lamp oil. Thistle had no errands whatsoever but produced three before anyone could suggest she return home.
The morning stretched comfortably ahead of them. There were shops to visit, people to see, things to eat and nowhere any of them urgently needed to be. Hollowmere was warm beneath the rising sun, and the forest surrounding it stood green and familiar beyond the rooftops.
Back at the Circle, a breeze moved through the empty clearing and stirred the flowers beside Rowan’s garden. The moonwort leaves trembled gently on their stems, pale silver-green beneath the morning light. Along the edge of one leaf, where Rowan had noticed the faint discoloration earlier, the green had faded a little farther toward the center.
Nothing else moved strangely. No warning sounded through the forest, and no ancient magic announced itself beneath the earth. It was only a small change in an ordinary garden on an otherwise beautiful morning, the sort of thing that could easily wait until someone came home and thought to look again.
