Threadneedle (The Language of Magic, #1)

by Cari Thomas

Goddess of Silence and Secrets: Seal our mouths, so we can’t speak. Pierce our eyes, so we can’t seek. Knot our hearts, so we can’t feel. Bind our spells; to you we kneel. What is forgotten, can’t be known. What isn’t planted, can’t be sown. Lock the door and turn the key. We bear our magic silently. The Binders’ Blessing

You couldn’t simply tie a knot, you had to consider the material of the cord, its colour, how many cords, the type of knot, the number of knots, the month you cast, the day, the time: they all had certain magical associations or correspondences: Imagine each spell is a sentence, each cord a word, and each correspondence a letter that helps to form it.

‘Well, true fairy tales are not always kind or pleasant but neither is life and we must live it anyway. Stories must be lived too; only then can they be understood.’

To cast you need three things. Magic, a language and Hira. Magic lives over here.’ She held up one hand. ‘And the physical world lives over here.’ She held up the other. ‘They don’t speak the same language. Witches are the translators in the middle. We have to give magic a language to speak so it can transfer its energy to the physical world. We can’t just provide a language though, we have to give it meaning, belief. That’s where Hira comes in. It’s the force within yourself that imbues the language with power.’

‘Why would you want to be like other people? I hate other people. We belong to legend, to fairy tale and storybook, to the blood-red paintings on cave walls. Witches, sorceresses and enchantresses, the strega, the vala, the banshee women, fairy godmothers or wizened hags in the dark of the woods. Sacred. Sinners. Wonders. Wicked. Virgins. Whores. Call us what you will. It’s our duty to bring magic into this world.’

‘Men are always so quick to slap a label on things. I attribute most of the problems of the world to that. They think they’re being clever, carving everything up, but all true wisdom is lost that way.’

‘Think of when you interpret a poem at school. You have to take into account its context, intonation, punctuation, rhyme scheme, the words and lines and the blank space around it. They all contribute to its meaning, which is not one meaning at all but a world of different meanings. It’s poetry. Like the leaves of a book, you have to read a plant between the lines.’

She leant into Anna and whispered, ‘I’ve never been in a room with so many people I’ve stalked online before.’

Like darkness is the absence of light, fear is the absence of reason. You merely need to learn how to switch it off.’ But Anna had not felt fear to be like that. Like darkness it had no beginning and no end – it was a circle that surrounded you. It knew exactly what it wanted with the precision of a needle.

‘By the waxing of my heart, by the waning of my life, I promise on the moon. A witch’s promise. I will always be here for you.’