Marguerite had to finish soon. They were coming. The ground was rumbling from their march to her family’s farm. She blocked out the noise and knitted.
The cast-on spell had already infused her creation. As she manipulated the yarn, magic weaved through the cloth, circling around the stitches. Her cast-off spell was at the ready for the final step to seal the charm into the clothing. So close.
Mother had taught her to knit magic. The wearer would benefit from its properties. Before the war, the neighbors used to pay Mother for a knitted enchantment to provide a year of good crops, to attract a suitor, or to win an argument. But now, Marguerite’s knitwear held life-saving enchantments. The villagers knocked on their farmhouse door at all hours, wracked with anxiety, buying a mitten, a hat, anything to help before the soldiers came. Most of her neighbors had left.
Father had thought magic could only go so far. In 1938, months before he was drafted, he had taught Marguerite to shoot. He repeated his instructions every time she aimed her rifle at the target on the hay bale.
“Study the wind.”
“Choose the most stable body position.”
“Exhale, pause, pull.”
She knew them by heart and could hit a bullseye with almost every shot.
But Father had raged when she refused to shoot animals for their supper. It was a waste of a damn fine rifleman, he complained. She stood her ground despite his wrath. Besides, granting life or death is not like shooting a paper target. She didn’t have it in her to end a life.
The invading armies had already occupied the country’s northwest regions since the summer of 1940. In that time, Marguerite advanced her craft under Mother’s guidance. Her spells now provided short-term protection: soundless movement, heightened sense of hearing, or disguises that turned hair blond and eyes blue. One magical attribute per article.
She worked the yarn into an oblong strip of material; no time for tassels. She spoke the dark words as she cast the yarn free from the needles. It was infused with a magic that encouraged violence and a disregard for human life.
The air growled with the advancing army. She glanced at the bag filled with bewitched clothing sitting at the foot of the bed occupied by her ill mother. She approached the ashen figure. “Put the green hat on. We will be traveling soon.” Mother nodded in understanding.
Outside, her rifle sat on sandbags behind long grass. She lay on her stomach and clutched her weapon. With the green hat, she blended into her surroundings, invisible. She wrapped the scarf around her neck, and she craved to put bullet holes in the enemy’s skull. The first of the soldiers cleared the far hill, and she took aim at an unsuspecting face.
“Exhale, pause, pull.” Repeat. The field began to fill with bodies.
Thirty minutes later, Marguerite and Mother, both in green knitted hats, ambled south, invisible to the naked eye.