Ratta settled the sparkling shawl around the wizened figure of Mamie Verde and left the old woman to sleep in the sun while she finished the morning chores. First she threw the uneaten bread crusts to the chickens, and then she swept out the chicken coop and refilled the water bowls all the while keeping an eye on Mamie snoozing at the edge of the garden. Folk from the village made fun of the rolling chair she had fashioned for Mamie from a broken rocker and a set of spoke wheels off a child's wagon, but it was handier than propping Mamie with pillows in the wagon itself and allowed Ratta to take Mamie into the village of Coventry when she had eggs to sell. Mamie slept more often than not these days and Ratta was afraid to leave her alone for long. She dreaded the possibility of returning from errands in the village to find Mamie laying cold and dead in her cot by the wood stove. It was a selfish fear, for more than anything Ratta was afraid of living alone in this world bereft of magic.
This spring had been so warm with all the wildfires that yellow daffodils already poked their heads through the snow, while green shoots showed at the garden's edge. Soon it would be time to turn the earth. It made Ratta so angry she had to shout.
"The world's waking up and you're dying," she raged at Mamie, her wild red hair flying, knowing her words were useless to someone who did not hear.
Only the shawl sparkled in reply, a Never Ending Shawl knit by Ratta's own hand, back when she thought Mamie's life could be preserved by such weak magic. Knit from a ball of boucle yarn that never ran out, the shawl shimmered softly in the crystalline colorway Old Rose, hand dyed by Indigo Rose years ago and spun by Sierra from one of Winter Wheat's merino fleeces. Wrapped in the shawl like a chrysalis cocooned, Mamie had only to transform into the butterfly of her next life to offer Ratta peace of mind, but it had not happened yet. It might not happen at all, such was Ratta's spotty interpretation of the tales of old.
Life had not been so dismal when Mamie had ceased to speak for that had been years ago when they still lived at the potluck, Ratta ensconced in a small ante room outside Mamie's larger chamber whose dormer windows overlooked the kitchen garden. There Mamie and Ratta began to create their own kind of magic, one that did not require words. The other potluckers became envious and Sierra who had learned Mamie's tales verbatim over the years was outright rude, for Ratta no longer listened to her yarns.
Only Lily had guessed the truth. Why should Ratta listen to rehashed tales when the silent voice of the source echoed in her ears? Mamie had only to direct her gaze at her prot̩g̩ and Ratta could hear her slow words reverberating with the wisdom of the legends, of all that was true and good. She had no need to sit with the others and ceaselessly debate underlying meanings of the tales of old or discuss the will of the ancients at breakfast. Mamie's steadfast silence told Ratta all she needed to know and more.
Although Ratta's careful attention to Mamie's health never wavered, Mamie's slow downward spiral began when the potluck broke up. Convinced she needed to return to her abandoned farm back east, Mamie bade Ratta to load the wagon and Ratta was grateful. It was clear that Mamie wanted her back at the old cabin in the woods, not as the lowly farm maid she had been, but as Mamie's successor and guardian of the tales. Admittedly, she would not be able to recite the stories as well as Sierra, nor did she understand some of them, but Tasman had stolen the necklace and Teal had disappeared without a trace, while Sierra had abandoned all to dream herself a life along the Lavender Rill. Who else would offer the legends a safe haven? Certainly not Lily who could hardly keep a secret, or disillusioned Aubergine or simple Smokey Jo. As for Lavender Mae, she needed to leave the leaf of the Glacier Weed alone and Indigo had her own set of delusions if she thought she and Esmeralde could rival the authority of Aubergine with visions enhanced by sipping Crystal Cordial.
As the potluck broke up and all went their separate ways, Ratta grew excited at the prospect of following in Mamie's footsteps. Preserving verbal history as Sierra did was one thing but having the sole power to ward the legends against those who would destroy them was quite another. With the entire body of the tales at her disposal, she could pick and choose which ones she would recall to the others, all the while searching for clues that if deciphered could save all. There would be no more conjectures in the back room or rehashing around the kitchen table. Already she could recall most of one tale Sierra had never heard and Lily was forsworn not to tell, and there would be others, harder tales, tales that should never be told. She had only to return to the farm with Mamie where they could practice uninterrupted.
But things had not turned out the way she had planned. Mamie suffered a shock of some kind on the two day journey to Coventry, or maybe it was a stroke, Ratta was not certain. Within a few short weeks her hearing began to wane and then disappeared altogether. As they years passed, she became difficult and unresponsive. Whether she caught the old woman's gaze or not, Ratta could barely hear the voice that had dropped to an inaudible whisper. With dread, Ratta realized that short of some kind of miracle, there would be no more secret tales ever.
Weary of the care that required constant trips back and forth between the farmhouse and the cabin in the woods, Ratta closed up the big house and moved Mamie to the cabin so that she could watch the old woman more easily. This caused an uneasy stir among Mamie's nieces and nephews who all seemed to lay claim to the farm. For a time, the family tried to place Mamie at the old age home in Bordertown until it became clear that Mamie would not go. No words were needed to recognize the baleful hate in her watery eyes.
For a time now, Mamie seemed not to notice Ratta even when wakeful. Her clouded eyes stared vacantly at nothing. Even when prodded with a spoon of honeyed porridge or warmed milk, her lips refused all food. These past few days had lead to a loneliness Ratta had never known and given her time to contemplate what her life would hold after the old woman passed on and she was no longer needed. Would Mamie's family come from the east to re inhabit the farmhouse, turning her out of the backwoods cottage where she had cared for the old woman these twenty years past? Or would they ignore the old dame's passing as they had ignored her life and let the boarded up farm rot away, leaving Ratta to practice her lore in the woods?
If only Mamie could offer her a clue. Once again, Ratta calculated how long it would take to load Mamie shawl and all into the wagon and drive the mules to Esmeralde's cottage south of Bainbridge. Surely there must be something in Esmeralde's possibles bag that would wake Mamie from her deep sleep; even if only to let Ratta know her will. Wrapped in the shawl she would remain in limbo never ending until she was either reborn transformed or dried to a husk of herself.
Mamie's milky eyes opened slowly blinking like a weeks old kitten in the light at the garden's edge and Ratta dropped her yard rake in surprise.
"Mamie," Ratta said in their silent language. "Mamie Verde, what would you have me do?"
Focusing slowly, the old woman gave her a look of such helpless despair that Ratta immediately regretted not having left for Esmeralde's this morning at first light.
"I will do anything for you," Ratta said fiercely as Mamie closed her eyes once more. "Even let you go if I must."
Blinking away tears, she hurriedly hitched the mules to the buckboard and laid Mamie among quilts in the back, still wrapped in the shawl. She would find a way to save Mamie and waken her voice once more or die trying. There were still tales to be told, tales of vast graveyards of ice and the frozen dead entombed within palatial caverns. She had seen them, but she knew not where.