The Knitters

All night long they gather in the dark warm kitchens of the chosen house while upstairs the children sleep. They do not knock at the doors or announce their presence with cheery hellos. Instead they scratch at the wood with long hard nails, and the door squeals open and they come in silently to take a seat by the fire.

The fire is red and dim, the turf crumbling. And when the knitters are settled, when they have finished coughing into their bloody handkerchiefs, when they have pulled the knots from their hair, when they have cracked and stretched their thick fingers, they pull out their knitting needles and begin to cast on.

First the coughing, the splutters of blood as they search for the first thread for the first stitch. For some it comes easy this thread. It is pulled lightly and quickly from their mouths and it flows flows flows from between their lips to their hands to the cold steel of their needles and they begin to stitch.

For the rest this part of the night is the worst as they hawk and choke the straggly thread from deep inside their throats. And the sound of gagging is heard as strong knotted fingers are forced down to try and capture the beginnings, tears flow as nails rasp skin, threads slip down again and again.

But eventually they are all at it, sitting knitting in the kitchen. Some knit with gleaming silver threads like strands of moonlight pouring from their bloodied lips. Some knit with the lumpen strings of rope they tug from their throats. Some knit with itchy fibres that scratch their fingers and rub their throats raw.

Upstairs the children still sleep and downstairs the knitters weep as they knot the threads tight. And tomorrow morning the knitters will sleep and the children weep as they wear their clothes to school.