Her proper name was Britney Whitworth. Everyone called her Brit Knit. Long ago her kind had been called gleamstresses—witches who used their abilities to create clothing with magical properties. Society’s elite wildly sought after these services. What king wouldn’t want robes that exuded dread or protected against poisons? What queen wouldn’t want a gown that hypnotized and dazzled on the dance floor? The gleamstresses’ fees had been exorbitant and their waiting lists long.

But that had been a different era. Noble blood no longer ruled the world. Extravagant costumes were now only for celebration, with very few willing to pay. Gleamstresses still existed but their numbers had been thinned by lack of demand and belief. Much knowledge had been lost. Those outside of the elite circles were called stitch witches and they eked out more meager apparel, as well as existences. A scarf became lucky because of blessed yarn. A shawl had an intricate pattern of symbols, which warded off bitterness, both of cold wind and cold hearts. The magic was so minor as to not be noticed at all.

Isaac’s encounter with the Iron Ambassador had made him long for a simpler outing and nothing spoke to his baser instincts more than learning some new tricks. Quick research had found the semi-retired gleamstress and, ever the student, Isaac had quickly driven to her small farm. Now that he had met her Isaac couldn’t imagine her dealing in darker magic. She was a small, round woman, charming but stern, with a motherly aura about her.

***

The scarf slithered across the floor, avoiding obstacles like a conscious thing until it reached Isaac’s shin and twisted around it, lashing it with surprising strength to the leg of the chair he sat on. He tugged his foot and in response the article of clothing tightened, akin to a python with prey.

“Impressive,” he said to Brit Knit.

“I call it the serpent scarf.” She retook her seat across from him, having moved previously to the doorway to give the magic scarf more room for its demonstration. A snap of her finger and the scarf collapsed lifelessly to the floor. Isaac picked it up and examined it end to end. Adhered to it were several reddened scales. Snake scales with the red being drops of blood.

“Novel idea,” he complimented her.

She was too busy sipping noisily from a cup of tea to reply.

“And the scissor spell?” he asked.

She nodded, moved a paper napkin from her tea saucer to the tabletop. With index and middle fingers in a “V”, she held them above the napkin, closed them scissor-like, and the napkin split in two, cut cleanly by nothing.

Isaac nodded again. Simple but effective. He liked things like that. Low effort, big results. “You teach?”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve tutored anyone. No one appreciates the little tricks anymore.”

“I do.”

She frowned. “I’ve been out of the loop for a long time. I cut all ties with Other World a long time ago.”

The Other World. Code lingo for the field of magic. The active community of magicians, witches, monsters, ghosts, blah, blah, blah. Isaac never used the term as he didn’t bother separating the worlds. One world was trouble enough without acknowledging another.

“I hated the way trouble always found me in it,” she continued. “Lots of beings out there take a sick delight in following and leaving a terrible wake. How do I know you haven’t brought something awful with you?”

Isaac wasn’t sure how to answer so he lied. “Nothing following me.” He supposed it was true enough in a literal sense.

Brit tapped her fingers on the cup handle, eyed him. Finally, with a dramatic sigh, she made up her mind. “Fine. I’ll teach you. It’ll take several days, maybe a couple of weeks if you’re slow on the uptake. But something tells me that won’t be an issue. You can stay in the spare room.”

“Thank you. How much do you charge?”

“Oh, no money. You’ll pay in other ways,” she said as she cleared the table and Isaac’s heart momentarily skipped. “Chores,” she continued, and he exhaled relief. “Don’t flatter yourself,” she said knowingly. “Firewood and raking leaves to start. Finish those and I’ll teach you to shear sheep.”

Work didn’t bother him much. Telekinetic chopping for the wood, wind spells for the leaves, and some kind of balding spell to make the wool fall off. There were ways around toil.

“And don’t think about using magic in the yard. I have customers dropping by all the time. I don’t need to explain some stranger moving things with his mind.”

Damn it.

* * *

Two days into the chore phase of his training Isaac awoke early to reddish-orange dawn light seeping through the curtains in his room. He dressed with various grunts and groans from chore-induced soreness. His room overlooked Brit’s farm, the rustic charm of her small barn and sheep pens. He drank in the view, ignoring the still too big pile of uncut firewood. He liked rural. It felt safe. No chaos or big city confusion to mask oncoming dangers.

He tiptoed downstairs, went out onto the back porch, intent to finish watching the sunrise and sip hot coffee. On the steps sat a large tawny striped cat. It paid no mind to the sound of the screen door shutting or the creak of the rocking chair Isaac planted himself into. It had to be one of the biggest felines he’d seen—brawny, not fat. Its fur, while an attractive color, was damp and matted from woodland roaming.

Isaac was no huge fan of animals but, “Here kitty, here kitty, c’mere girl, here girl,” he said, snapping his fingers for the animal to approach and sniff. Instead, the cat turned and hissed, and Isaac withdrew his proffered scratch with a yelp of disgust. The cat had the face of a brawler—several hairless scars, a tattered ear, and one permanently closed eye. The other, a shockingly bright and beautiful silver, gave him a once over and then the cat hopped off the steps and disappeared into the bushes.

“Don’t call him a girl. He hates that,” Brit said as she joined him on the porch, a cup of tea steaming.

“He knows the difference?”

Brit guffawed. “Oh, he knows. He’s a bright one. Real sharp. Meaner than a shithouse rat though. I took him to the vet once.” She held up a finger. “Once.”

“I’ve never seen a cat with an eye like that.” Isaac hesitated, not wanting to pry into a witch’s secrets, but curiosity won the day. “Is he your familiar?”

Again, Brit chuckled. “He almost was. He wandered onto the farm one day, bleeding, having lost an eye. Raccoon fight probably. Even beat up as he was, he chased off my ex-husband’s hounds. I nursed him back to health. I could tell he was special, that he had some kind of spark most animals don’t. A rare feel for things.” She leaned over and punched Isaac lightly in the arm to illustrate the cat’s pugilistic sense of the world. “So, I started the process of making him a familiar. But it just didn’t take. Maybe too willful. Maybe just too mean. But the process imprinted something. Changed him somehow. He’s been here ever since, a watchful, belligerent eye.”

A guard-cat, Isaac mused. Why not? He’d seen stranger things. “What’s his name?”

“I’ll tell you, but don’t laugh.”

Isaac smirked, thinking the cat was named Cuddles or Mittens, something inappropriately cute. But Brit looked serious. “Ok.”

“I mean it.” She craned her head, searching the bushes. “If he’s listening and hears you laugh...”

Really? Isaac played along, nodded.

“Testiculies.”

Isaac didn’t laugh. The utterance had been so unexpected that it stunned him. “What?” he asked just to hear it again.

“Testiculies. Like Hercules. Only with more...testicle.” Brit sipped her tea quickly to cover her embarrassment.

Isaac couldn’t help it. He snickered and was immediately swatted by Brit. He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Why the hell did you call him that?” The last word left his mouth with a bit too much intensity.

Brit sighed, started to explain, but then looked past him at the silver eye peering at them between porch rails, and quickly changed topics. “Want some breakfast?”

“Sounds good, thanks.” Isaac waited for her to go inside before he made eye contact with the cat. “Testiculies,” he said out loud. “So, do you have big balls? Figuratively? Literally?” Even Isaac himself wasn’t sure if he was mocking or genuinely asking. Either way, the outcome was a low feline growl and then the eye disappeared with nary a rustle of bushes.

***

It was the wee hours of the following morning when a noise woke Isaac. Enough dawn light bled through the curtains for him to see with blurry eyes, Testiculies sitting on the nightstand next to his bed. The stand must have wobbled a bit and bumped against the frame when the hefty cat leaped onto it. The single eye glowed, one fang protruding due to an old injury to the cat’s muzzle.

It really was an ugly animal.

Isaac lifted his head. “How’d you get in here?” The door was locked. Windows closed. The feline must have been hiding somewhere when he went into bed. One thing for certain, he was not comfortable going back to sleep with it glaring at him. He threw back the covers and started to sit up, “Ok, I’ll let you out.”

Testiculies jumped, the nightstand toppling from the springboard force, and landed, with all his brawny weight, on Isaac’s crotch. He sat up, only to double over in pain and then flop into a fetal position. The cat scrambled out of the bed, leaving Isaac gasping and struggling not to vomit as pain radiated into his abdomen. Between groans and curses, Isaac managed to say out loud to no one, “Oh...Testiculies...I get it.”