13.1 The Shetland Witch, or, Atropos Wants Her Shears Back

In which Atropos can hear the tether.

Sep 17, 2024

Atropos was feeling around in the storm but could not find what she was looking for. It must be further up, she thought. She turned and put the grass sphere into Hazel’s hands, ignoring her jump of surprise, and leapt into the air, flying upwards rapidly as a falcon.

<Atropos!> It was Hazel, yelling.

<I am here.>

<What do I – what shall I –?>

<Keep it for me.>

Once Atropos was up in the air the winds howled past her in a ferocious gale. She could sense Zeus pushing at the winds raging around her, but she was confident that he could not see her. By wasting his power to tear across the land, looking for things to destroy, he was blinding himself. He was keeping nothing for calm consideration. He was behaving as if he were an angry giant, or a goaded bull. This was not the calculating, devious god she had once known. He had forgotten that she knew things about his laws and commands.

Hazel clutched the sphere to her chest. Looking down at it, she was startled to see that the rain did not land on it but flowed over its surface. But then the rain was doing just the same on her jacket. Tendrils of coloured light licked at the sphere’s surface from the inside. It felt warm and heavy in her arms, like a cat. But she was cautious: she did not normally like cats. She looked up again, watching the wet black skies, and waited alone in the storm.

The rain was almost horizontal now, and the wind was driving the water over the garden and the neighbours’ outbuildings with ferocious intent. But Hazel barely noticed any of it. She was listening hard.

She heard Maggie, calling from miles away, with obvious effort.

<Ready? Hammering - here at the airport - I’ve reached - edge.>

<Ready at North Roe.> Over at the north end of the mainland, Ishabel sounded clearer but tired.

Hazel frowned, with a small shiver of doubt in her mind. It was risky for Ishabel to be out in this weather, draining her energies.

The winds howled about her and the storm spat rain. Then, in a sending tinged with excitement, Maggie roared the command to start.

Hazel spotted Atropos, a shining white bird up at the edge of the black mass that covered the sky. To the east, Hazel could see a chink of sky with a star in it. Now the white bird was flying straight at it.

The speck of white disappeared, and Hazel was on her own. She grasped the sphere tightly in her arms, her feet still planted firmly on the ground. She had to maintain contact with the earth, and keep hold of the sphere. She could feel the lines between her body and the other witches whipping in the storm, as strong and slender as spider silk. She had no idea what the others were doing.

Atropos was in position, poised near the eastern edge of the storm. Sea was far below her, and all around her to the north, south and west. She had changed back to her human form and stood on air, gazing up at the vast curved mass of thick wet cloud hanging in front of her. It rolled in turmoil, propelled by forces it did not understand. Above it hung the web.

It prickled at her, its edges and regular segments holding steady as a barrier. Underneath it, the storm was compressed, clamped in one place. It raged at the alien force tying it to the unyielding web, and it struggled to escape. Ice was forming in the folds in Atropos’ clothes.

She was feeling sympathetic towards the storm. A fleeting memory returned to her of the Anemoi, cheerful gods working with their winds, arguing over the spoils of a tempest, and basking in soft summer gusts. Zeus was gripping this storm cruelly. These winds could do nothing useful or natural, only follow his directions. He had forced it up against the web to trap the weather system over the island, and it was unable to move on.

Behind and above her, the stars glinted in a dark blue sky, the same colour as the dress that Klotho had given her. It was clean now and folded in a cupboard in the Haa. She smiled.

‘Storm,’ she said quietly, so that it could hear her through the screaming howls of the winds rushing past.

‘Storm, I will free you. You can go where your winds will take you. Keep still so I can cut your tethers.’

She reached into the breast of her coat and pulled out the shears from their hanging pocket. They gleamed white and silver in the flashes of lightning. She felt a hesitation in the storm, an inner thrumming, a feeling of urgency, of wishing to be gone. She could also hear a deeper note, an alien sound cutting across that told her what was holding the storm in place, and the strength and nature of that single command. Balancing herself against the opposing forces of wind, rain and gravity, Atropos reached out with the shears in her right hand, and tried to close the blades.

The handles sawed hopelessly at angles. Water ran down the twisted blades and poured over her hands like ice. She could almost hear Zeus laughing at her. She knew it would be no good.

So she folded the shears clumsily into their bag, and pulled out the bone knife instead. This she could hold in a fist, no matter how frozen her fingers were.

The commanding tether was tough, but Atropos worked with determination, exploring its extent, feeling for the weak spot to tear open. She could work with intensity, or duration, or range. Zeus’s work was predictable. The stories she had heard in her cave by the sea, so long ago, had been full of examples. She just had to find the right answer to unlock his command.

The knife was strong, but it was only bone. Atropos knew that it was old, weakening under the pressure she was forcing through it. She could not guess where it had come from, but it was a human tool. It was probably human bone. It was not strong or wise enough. She needed something more. She stopped.

The Shetland Witch

13.1 The Shetland Witch, or, Atropos Wants Her Shears Back

In which Atropos can hear the tether.

Discussion about this post