The finished kilter would be a square of seven concentric squares that could take a swirl of disorder and unswirl it. A kilter gave people and events in its immediate vicinity a nudge to be more aligned.

An unusual item, the magical kilter, and a perfect gift for her witchy friend, Della. A little last-minute, sure, but Sanne had three nested squares complete, and would have just enough time to finish the gift by Della's birthday tomorrow.

Two months ago, Sanne had plenty of time. She could even have bought Della something, since the small town Marigold had two trendy gift shops. Problem was, Della adored shopping. If there was anything in those shops that Della would want, she'd already own it.

Every morning these last two months—late morning, to be clear—Sanne would brew her favorite Ethiopian coffee. Thus fortified, she would come up with yet another perfect gift.

Now, Sanne's gaze swept the dim room. While never tidy, her craft room rarely looked so much like it had been hit by a tornado. She wandered the maze of cardboard moving boxes, toeing aside serviceberry branches that she had momentarily thought to weave into a basket. Triangles of shiny green and glittering brown fabric poised at the edge of a box, as if they might throw themselves over—Sanne's passing plan to make Della a fabric wall-hanging, an image of the ancient forest where they had begun their friendship.

Sanne trailed the backs of her fingers across wilting bluebells and violets in a ceramic bowl the color of caramel, sensing the quickening that each plant brought to this time of year. Another fleeting fantasy that Della might have liked a simple bouquet.

But no, Della would not. No bouquet. No basket. No wall-hanging. No knitted socks. One idea after another had gone down as Sanne tried and failed to imagine any of these gifts in the elegant house Della and new husband Terry shared, where a rich burgundy runner on cream tile led from foyer to grand room, and a banister burnished in glowing mahogany led upstairs to even more elegant rooms.

Fancy.

Sanne's gaze came to her bookshelf, to stones of obsidian, amethyst, and carnelian, to vials of blue sand and brown herbs. Smaller objects, too: a marble of yellow-and-black swirl, a green copper frog, a tarnished brass subway token, a tiny oblong of dark driftwood, a black and silver binder clip, and a thumbnail-sized vial of gold powder. So many things that Sanne could not part with, because you never knew when they'd be useful in a magical working.

Books, as well. Old and new. Many had other books sunk deep inside, woven through in the etheric, invisible to the ordinary reader.

And on the top shelf, a baseball-sized glinting pyrite rock. That had come from Della, the first gift, putting them on the perpetual motion machine of gift-giving. Holidays, birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, and who knew what else. Once begun, it would never end.

Sanne reminded herself that gifts were only symbols. In this case, of friendship. Against all odds, after she and Della had been forced to work together last year to save the town of Marigold from demon eggs, the other witch had become a friend.

Not merely a friend, but a good one. Sanne would hardly go through this kilter trouble for just anyone.

Because who was going to pick up the phone at three am, when you felt your sanity wobbling from some chattering, centuries-old book? Or a muttering music box wanting to explain its perspective to you? Who was going to talk you through it?

Della would. Della had.

"It's a gift," Della had said with a smirk, holding out a cream gift box with a red bow almost as large as the box. Della's hands ended in long, perfectly manicured nails lacquered in the color of—what else?—a shade of cream.

Sanne's heart had sunk as she stared at the ornate package. Sanne had spent years to convince her sister Marla to send cards rather than presents. And here she was again.

"So take it," Della had said in her usual wry tone. "Try to act excited. A little pleased, even. Maybe not so much like you've just been assigned to clean toilets. Next, you open it."

It turned out to be a great gift, a lovely hunk of pyrite, also known as fool's gold.

The accompanying card read:

"A fool is always open to seeing things anew. You taught me to look beyond the obvious, witchy girl. Love you, Della."

Sanne swallowed, blinked back tears.

Della laughed. “You’re such a sap.”

Sanne sniffed. "You're friends with such a sap."

"Oh, yes, I am."

Now Della's birthday was tomorrow. Sanne needed a gift. A good one.

The kilter would be just that: a gift of the heart, of the hand, of magic, and one of a kind. Once finished, the sparkling off-white kilter, some five inches square, would have a strong inclination to create around it an etheric space in which order prevailed.

Better yet, the finished square would be small enough to hide. Della's house was not the place for a small woven patch of yak down and silk, no matter how magical. The kilter could easily do its job from inside the coat closet or under the hallway runner. Even outside, under the welcome mat, where each visitor, as they wiped their feet, would feel just a touch more settled, their sense of the world a bit more aligned.

But, dawn. Sanne groaned slightly. She'd been practicing magic since childhood, a couple of decades back, and knew many ways to make a space feel better-ordered, but only one that required getting up at dawn to crochet.

She found her way to a scuffed three-legged wooden stool, and sat. Between each solar gate, the kilter would mature best if left untouched, so Sanne kept it wrapped in a rectangle of heavy black raw silk.

She took the black bundle from a stack of cardboard boxes serving as a table and set it in her lap.

After a moment, her phone chimed, signaling sunrise. She unwrapped the bundle to reveal a solid granny square made of three nested squares, and fed by a ball of soft, off-white yarn. Through the open stitch lay Sanne's steel crochet hook, a grey-silver shaft decorated with swirls and circles.

Sanne put the ball to her nose. She smelled the dusty scent of yak and felt the origin of the fiber, the cold mountains where the animals lived. Through the yak down were shimmering gold strands of eri silk. Sanne sensed the moths that emerged from cocoons in the warm, humid lands of northeast India.

The down and silk yarn held a tension of difference that fed the spell that made the kilter work. Yak and worm, as unlike as could be, woven together with spellcasting, to make a kilter that could and would hold harmony.

Only three more sun gates, and she'd have her completed kilter. Just in time for Della's birthday. Sanne took her crochet hook in hand, and began.

A knocking came at the front door.