Indigo Casting Cloth

A square of heavy cotton, forty-five centimeters to a side, hand-dyed in a deep indigo that varies slightly from piece to piece the way true indigo always does. A pale thread stitches a circle near the border and four small marks at the compass points; the center is left open and undecorated, ready for whatever is cast upon it. Casting cloths of this kind serve any reading system built on scattering objects rather than drawing them, bones, runes, shells, small charms, laid across the compass points to mark direction and distance from center. Folklore among casters holds that a cloth used for years takes on something of its owner, and that a new caster does well to work a borrowed or heirloom cloth for a season before commissioning their own. The indigo here is fermented and dyed by hand in small vats, dipped multiple times to reach its depth rather than achieving color in one pass, which is why the corners and center often shade a touch lighter than the folds. The cotton is a dense, tightly woven cloth chosen to lie flat rather than shift when small objects are cast across it, hemmed rather than serged at the edge. Lay it on a bare table or the floor, smooth it once with a flat hand, and let whatever you cast come to rest before reading. Roll rather than fold it for storage, to keep the dye from creasing along a hard line. A plain, patient cloth meant to outlast whatever is thrown on it.