I thought at first my eyes were deceiving me, but no, it wasn’t bugs or some other tiny creatures: these were three tiny women. Sitting at the base of the small potted tree I had placed near my kitchen’s windowsill.

I moved closer to the pot and stared at them. The women sat side-by-side in a slightly curved line, with the one in the middle knitting something long out of iridescent yarn. The other two sat on either side of her, their legs crossed and their eyes closed, as if meditating. They wore blue dresses and had long white hair that hung in a single braid down each of their backs. None of them had any shoes and I marvelled at how tiny the toes were that peeked out from under their hems. Were they sisters? Triplets? They looked identical to me though it was hard to tell given how small they were. They were very old, though. That much I could tell.

What were these women doing at the bottom of this little tree? I’d bought it yesterday on a whim as I’d passed by a bodega on the Danforth, its woven trunk and knotty branches drawing me in like a crow to a bottle cap. That compulsion had been strange enough, given my complete lack of interest in plants, and now there were these tiny supernatural women, knitting and meditating like some kind of weird fairies.

I heard a faint chiming sound and, as if on cue, the woman to the left of the knitter opened her eyes. She turned and reached one hand down toward the end of the knitted fabric and the other up toward its beginning. She looked back and forth between her two hands and then lifted them up, as if trying to determine whether the fabric was long enough. But long enough for what? I heard her click her tongue, and then she quickly sliced open the palm of her right hand using a long fingernail on her left. I stifled a gasp and watched, horrified, and she dropped blood onto the upper part of the fabric—about six inches from where it connected to the needles.

“What are you doing?” I whispered, aghast.

The second the blood hit the fabric the third woman jerked awake and began moving like a poorly controlled marionette. She awkwardly drew a knife from a pocket in her dress and lurched toward the fabric, wrapping her gnarled fingers tightly around the fabric below the bloodstain. She then began to saw, shredding the threads at the spot where the blood had fallen. Back and forth she jerked the knife until the length of fabric was separated from its source. Then, she grabbed the piece of fabric and flung it into the air.

I watched as it fluttered briefly, faded, and then disappeared, like a sunbeam behind a cloud. I sat in silence for a moment, unsure of what I’d just seen. The two women returned to their meditative positions and the third one continued knitting, as she had been the whole time.

My phone rang, shocking me into action. I picked it up from the table and saw it was my mother calling. “Hello?” I answered shakily. “Oh Moira!” She said happily. “She’s here! Your sister had her baby! And she’s just the cutest thing too…”

(This was my take on the Norns sitting at the base of Yggsdrasil and deciding everyone’s life span)

(Edit to add brackets)