Stitches in Time (10 page)

She felt better after she had had a sandwich and a glass of milk. The dogs weren't supposed to be fed until later but they drove her crazy winding around her legs, so she filled their dishes and then went to work loading the dishwasher and tidying the room. She had already decided that this was where she would work—or try to work. The table in her room wasn't big enough to hold her laptop and the notes and reference books she would be using. And it was too close to the family apartment. She would give those rooms a good cleaning, but not now. Not yet.

The telephone rang and she picked it up. Cheryl had suggested that she screen calls, just in case—Cheryl's tactful euphemism for a threatening or obscene call—but at that moment Rachel would have considered an obscene phone call preferable to the painful treadmill of her own thoughts.

The caller was Ruth. After identifying herself she asked for Cheryl, and was pleased and surprised to find she was too late. “What on earth did you do to get them away so early?”

“They planned to leave around noon.”

“Oh, yes, I know, but getting that bunch of rampant individualists organized isn't easy. Cheryl lets those kids get away with murder.”

It wasn't meant as criticism, just as amused commentary, and its candor indicated that Ruth considered Rachel an adopted member of the family. Rachel didn't reply, and Ruth went on, “I wanted to talk to you anyhow. If your
plans for Christmas Day aren't unalterable, Pat and I would like to have you join us. Adam is coming; you could ride with him.”

Rachel knew what was behind the invitation—not a passionate desire for her company, but a way of making sure she was accompanied—guarded, to be blunt. She was about to make some excuse when she had second thoughts. She'd have to go somewhere, remaining alone in the house would prove she had lied about her plans, and why not take advantage of the opportunity to spend time with one of the foremost authorities in her field—pick his brain, get to know him?

“That's very kind of you. Are you sure Adam won't mind?”

“I never know what Adam minds,” Ruth said calmly. “Pat claims he has some faint inkling of what goes on in that boy's head, but I certainly don't. Just don't talk to him. It would be a waste of time, all he does is grunt.”

Ruth's kindness, and the prospect of having something to look forward to, raised Rachel's spirits a little. She was too restless to study, so she decided not to postpone the cleaning after all. Might as well get it over with. Then she could close the doors and not open them again, especially the door of the room Tony had shared with his wife, and would soon share again.

Anyhow, Joe's room probably needed immediate attention. Cheryl had retrieved two dirty glasses and a plate containing the remains of a petrified sandwich from under the bed, but there were probably other overlooked foodstuffs in various corners, breeding germs and green scum. Like many of his contemporaries, Joe considered the area under the bed appropriate storage space for everything from his gym socks to the bag of potato chips he intended to eat later.

As Rachel had hoped, cleaning Joe's room provided a
useful distraction. Amusement and horror overcame other emotions as she made one appalling discovery after another. She had to lie flat on the floor and probe with a broom to reach the glass that had rolled into the farthest corner. It must have been there for days; a thick coating of dust had mixed with the film of—milk?—the identity of the original substance was no longer ascertainable—to produce an effect that turned even Rachel's unfastidious stomach. She dropped the glass into the wastebasket.

Said wastebasket was overflowing by the time she finished, and she had only tossed the objects that were rotting or in tatters. After carefully replacing the copy of
Hustler
that had slid from under the mattress, and finding the missing Redskins Super Bowl shirt wrapped around an oil-soaked bit of metal (its function eluded her, but it was obviously vital to Joe's very existence), she decided she had gone as far as she could without intruding on the boy's privacy. It had been a fascinating interlude, like studying the customs of an exotic, alien tribe. Obviously adolescent males had developed a culture of their own, only distantly related to the dominant culture of their society. The rites of passage, the initiation rituals, had an unnerving resemblance to those of so-called primitive societies. Driving too fast and competing to see who could drink the most beer in the shortest period of time weren't particularly sophisticated.

When she turned out the light preparatory to leaving the room she was surprised to see how dark it was—or rather, to realize how much time she had spent cleaning. The sun set early in winter, and this was the shortest day of the year—the Winter Solstice, when the earth was at its greatest distance from the sun. Or did it have something to do with the angle of declination? The scientific explanation had been irrelevant, unknown to ancient man, but the effect was clearly visible. Imperceptibly but steadily the
hours of daylight had lessened; in all the northern mythologies and religions this was the dying time, when ice and cold and darkness threatened the world, and it would require prayer and ritual to start the sun back on its reviving journey.

Rachel carried the disgusting wastebasket downstairs and out onto the back porch. It was enclosed but unheated, and the cold made her catch her breath. The temperature must have dropped thirty degrees since noon. No sign of snow, though; the rim of the sun was visible through the naked tree limbs, a glaring crimson that spread its rays across the horizon like the sign of a great fire. Rachel sorted the contents of the wastebasket into the various bins demanded by Joe's recycling standards, replaced the top, and hurried back inside.

She made two more trips upstairs, carrying down her laptop and an armful of books, which she arranged on the table. There had been no sign of life from Adam, and as the cats began to make unsubtle suggestions about food she wondered what to do about her own dinner and Adam's. Surely he didn't expect her to cook for him? A recluse like Adam would probably prefer to gnaw a cold bone in private. He could forage for his own bones, if that was his preference. There were enough leftovers from the party to feed both of them for days.

After feeding the cats she turned on the TV and inspected the refrigerator. She was tired, and in no mood to work. Why not take the evening off, relax—maybe get a little drunk? She deserved it. There was half a bottle of white wine in the fridge. She took it out, filled a plate with hors d'oeuvres, and settled down on the lumpy old couch to watch the news.

She had to fight Figgin for the smoked oysters and Patches for the deviled eggs. After he had licked the empty plate thoroughly, Figgin settled down on her stomach and
went to sleep. The other cats lined the top of the couch like a furry frieze, and the dogs settled down on the hearth rug. Snores and purrs and the weight of Figgin, warm as a hot-water bottle, had a soporific effect that was augmented by two glasses of wine. Sleep came over her so gently she wasn't aware of dropping off until she woke, stiff and disoriented, some hours later.

Rachel blinked sleepily at the clock over the sink. It couldn't be that late. Almost one
A.M
. Had she slept, solidly and without moving, for five hours?

She must have moved or shifted position at some point. And reached, half-conscious, for the afghan that had been folded across the arm of the couch. It was spread over her now. Yawning, she sat up and stretched, and then realized she was the focus of several pairs of staring eyes. Two of the cats still slept, curled in a huddle on the chair, but Figgin sat bolt upright on the arm of the couch, his glowing orange-yellow eyes fixed on her. The dogs were awake too, and they were also watching her. Worth, the black labrador, looked like a sleek statue of
The Noble Dog
, ears pricked and alert. The little mixed-breed, part hound and part spaniel, whom Cheryl had named Poiret after another famous designer, stared back at Rachel with big mournful eyes.

Their final visit to the comfort station in the back yard must be overdue. “Sorry, guys,” she said, heading for the back door. There were a lot of doors in the house—too many doors, if one were inclined to be nervous about burglars. The family room had two, the “side door” the family normally used and another opening onto the porch and the fenced yard. The dogs were so anxious to get out they shoved past her when she opened the porch door.

It was bitter cold. She could hear twigs and branches cracking. The moon looked like a globe of solid ice, and under its cold rays the frozen grass was colorless as snow.
By the time the dogs consented to come back in, Rachel's teeth were chattering furiously. After locking and bolting both doors and distributing the final treat of cat and dog crunchies, she turned out all except one of the lights, selected a book with which to read herself to sleep, and left the room.

The long nap had been a mistake. It hadn't refreshed her; every muscle ached with weariness, but mentally she was keyed-up and edgy. She might as well be alone in the big, sprawling house for all the aid and comfort she had received from Adam. A lot of help he was, squatting in his quarters like a Neanderthal in his cave. Was he going to behave like this for the rest of the week? Gentlemanly reticence was all very well, but he didn't have to treat her like a leper.

Filled with righteous indignation and increasing uneasiness, she made the rounds of the downstairs, checking the doors. Had she locked the door of the shop securely, put up the chain? She had better make certain. Feeling the brush of soft fur against her calf, she realized that Figgin had slithered out of the kitchen before she closed the door; he was always trying to sneak into the shop, which was out of bounds to the animals; there were too many temptations, hanging fabrics and drooping ruffles and feather trim. She pushed him gently away with her foot and slipped into the shop, closing the door behind her. Figgin let out an indignant yowl. It was echoed by a furious burst of barking from the family room.

“Shut up,” Rachel hissed.

There was no comment from Figgin, but the barking continued, loud enough and continuous enough to cover lesser sounds. It was not until the front door started to open that Rachel realized the dogs weren't barking for the fun of it. They were sounding the alarm.

The light from the lamps at either end of the room left
the doorway in shadow. She saw him as a dark bulk, menacing and motionless. Then he stepped forward and the light rippled along the blade of the long knife in his hand.

If she had been thinking sensibly she would have known a book, even a book two inches thick, was an ineffective weapon. Her action was completely instinctive; the book hurtled across the room, pages flapping, and hit him square in the chest. Recoiling in a movement as instinctive as hers, he slipped and fell over backward. The crash shook everything in the room and set the crystal dangles of the chandelier to chiming. Rachel pressed the light switch.

The fallen form looked like a bear wearing jeans. From the waist up it was a featureless expanse of furry brown.

“God damn it!” Rachel shouted. “What—what—” Fury and relief choked further comment.

A paw-like hand rose and waved feebly at her. He was wearing mittens—brown mittens. Pushing away the hair that had covered his eyes, he blinked at her and then looked at the book lying on the floor next to him.

“How appropriate. Pat has threatened me with this particular volume before, but this is the first time I've ever had the book thrown at me. Why couldn't you have been reading a paperback romance?”

Cheryl had been right about one thing. Once Adam got
started talking he never stopped. As he hoisted himself to his feet and closed and locked the door, he delivered a lecture on her carelessness and folly. It was a very well-organized lecture.

“Obviously,” he remarked, pushing the hair out of his eyes and tossing his brown, furry jacket over a chair, “you are under a certain amount of nervous strain. That's comprehensible, but if you didn't know it was me at the door your behavior was irresponsible. And if you knew it was me, as you ought to have done, you shouldn't have tried to brain me.”

Rachel got her breath back. “How the hell was I supposed to know it was you? I didn't know you'd left the house. I thought you were in your room.”

“Didn't you get my note?”

“What note?”

“I pinned it on your door.”

“I've been in the family room all evening. Why in heaven's name couldn't you have told me you were going out? What's the idea of going out anyhow? Where have you been? Can't you talk?”

“I could if you'd shut up for a minute,” Adam said coolly. “Your counterargument is irrelevant to my original premise. If you believed I was here your behavior becomes even less rational. Observing what you took to be an unauthorized intruder actually in the house, you should have retreated immediately and gone for help. Screaming might also have been a sensible action.”

Even if she hadn't been angry, Rachel would have taken offense at that suggestion. “Oh, sure. That's what women are supposed to do, scream and run for help. Fat lot of help you'd have been, dead asleep and snoring; by the time you arrived, if you ever did, he would have caught up with me and…He had a knife! He—you—”

“Me,” Adam said. “As it turned out. But your counterargument has some merit. I did have a knife. Found it on the porch. If I'd known you were in the shop I might have considered the effect, but since I didn't know…”

“You found it on the porch?”

“I'm not in the habit of carrying a carving knife around with me.” Adam looked askance at the weapon, which lay on the floor where he had dropped it. He didn't pick it up. Instead he peeled off a cable-knit sweater, exposing the next layer—tan, with a Fairlane pattern—and threw it over a chair.

“Don't put your dirty clothes on that chair,” Rachel said automatically.

Adam swept the sweater and the jacket onto the floor. When he spoke again he had abandoned his defensive tone. “Suppose we start all over, omitting the superfluous accusations and apologies? Would you care to join me in a cup of coffee, or any other beverage that suits your fancy? Or a belated supper? I'll cook.”

“Supper? It's one
A.M
.”

“I'm hungry,” Adam said.

The dogs were delighted to see them and even happier
to share the food. Adam didn't cook; as he sat gnawing on a turkey drumstick, his hair in his eyes, and a green sweater (the third layer down) covering his torso, he reminded Rachel irresistibly of the “cavemen” she had studied in grade school.

“Where were you?” she asked, watching in awe as he reduced the drumstick to bare bones and dug into a bowl of salad. She knew she had no right to ask, but Adam answered promptly, if indistinctly, “At an Esbat.”

“At a what?”

“Esbat. It's one of the Great Festivals of Witchcraft. They occur on May Eve, Hallowe'en, February first, and August first, plus the winter and summer solstices. Today is December twenty-first…”

His voice trailed away and he sat quite still, the fork poised in his hand. A piece of lettuce fell with a plop, spraying his front with oil and vinegar.

“I know what an Esbat is,” Rachel said, still dumbfounded.

“Oh, yeah.” Adam peered at her through his hair. His eyes were bright and narrowed, like those of a furtive animal looking through a hedge. “You're supposed to be studying folklore. Why did you—”

“And I thought you were supposed to be a teacher. Why are you hobnobbing with witches? Have you joined a coven?”

“I was researching for Pat,” Adam answered. “Modern witches are a harmless crowd, bless their innocent little hearts—it's all white magic, or so they claim. But they don't enjoy being laughed at any more than the rest of us, and Pat has made fun of them in print too often. They wouldn't have admitted him to the ceremony.”

“I can see why you'd blend right in,” Rachel admitted.

Frowning, Adam changed the subject. “Did you hear anybody out there tonight?”

“Just you.”

“Somebody was there who wasn't me. What about the dogs?”

“That is odd,” Rachel said. “They barked when you came. Not before.”

“If you were asleep you might not have heard them.”

“I was asleep part of the time but it was on the couch—” She indicated that article of furniture with a gesture—“and they were in the same room. I couldn't have missed hearing them.”

“Interesting.”

“Maybe he arrived just before you did, and you scared him off. Where was the knife?”

He hesitated briefly before he said, “On the top step. Standing upright. It had been driven into the wood.”

Rachel understood why he had been reluctant to tell her. The simple description presented a picture ugly with overtones. “A threat?” she said.

“That's one possibility.”

“What other possibility is there? If he had meant to break in he wouldn't have abandoned a weapon. You should have left it where it was. There might have been fingerprints. You probably wiped them off.”

“You're right,” Adam admitted. “I should have left it in situ. I'm not very experienced at this sort of thing.”

“Well, the damage is done. I'll call the police—that friend of Tony's—in the morning. No sense doing it now.”

Adam pitched the turkey bones into the trash can, to the visible chagrin of dogs and cats, and opened the refrigerator. “Want a piece of pie?”

“No, I'm going to bed.”

“Sleep tight.”

“How can I not, with you on guard?”

And, somewhat to her surprise, she did.

 

Next morning she called the number Tony had given her and asked for Thomas. A bored voice informed her he was out of the office. It volunteered nothing more, so Rachel left a message and tried to settle down to work. It was no betrayal of her feminist principles to admit she felt better knowing there was a man in the house—particularly a man the size of Adam. Peculiar was certainly a mild word for him, but now that he had been reminded so emphatically of the danger, he might be more reliable. He might even bring himself to inform her of his plans instead of sneaking around with little notes. Curt little notes, at that; the one stuck on her door had read, “Going out. Back later.”

Out to a witches' sabbath. In retrospect it struck her as rather funny, and not as surprising as others might have found it. She knew a number of anthropologists; though some were as conventional as bankers, the percentage of eccentrics among them was rather high.

At nine-thirty Adam still hadn't made his appearance. It was a bleak, cold morning; after a few tentative sorties the animals decided they preferred the warmth of the house. Rachel began to regret she had decided to work in the family room; the dogs snored and twitched, the cats walked across her keyboard and wanted to sit on her lap, and she kept expecting a huge form to appear in the doorway, looking for breakfast and/or conversation.

After another unproductive half hour Rachel gave up trying to concentrate. Making sure the animals were confined in the family room, she went to the workroom. Located behind the shop, it was Cheryl's pride and joy, equipped with every item needed for the sometimes painstaking work of restoration old fabrics might need. In addition to sinks and drying racks, an ironing board and sewing machine, it contained cupboards for storage and supplies, two long worktables, and several comfortable chairs.

Under Cheryl's tutelage Rachel had begun to tackle some of the simpler cleaning and mending tasks. The techniques required considerable skill—accurate matching of colors and fabric, precise, almost invisible stitches, selection of the proper thread. The cobwebby silks and chiffons needed silk thread and a needle so fine it was maddeningly hard to thread. The silk knotted easily, and a false stitch was difficult to remove without leaving holes in the delicate fabric.

Sewing repairs were easier than cleaning, though. Treating the white cotton of Victorian petticoats and nightgowns was comparatively safe; they could be washed and even bleached. Even on these garments spots and stains presented a problem, however. Some obediently disappeared with careful bleaching; others disappeared but left a large, depressing hole. Rachel knew better than to tackle silks or rayons or wool, or even colored cloth. Some of the old dyes weren't fast, and would run if they got wet. Cheryl always tested them first with a damp cloth or Q-tip, but even she had made mistakes. One of them hung on the wall of the workroom as a reminder and a warning—a once-valuable sampler, dated 1793, whose blues and greens had run devastatingly and irreparably.

A pile of “whites” awaited Rachel's attentions—“only if you're in the mood, there's no hurry,” Cheryl had told her. After rummaging through them, Rachel decided she wasn't in the mood. She tossed the whites back into their box. She had promised Cheryl she would put the quilts away; might as well get it done now.

Ripping off a long sheet from the heavy roll of acid-free tissue, she carried it into the shop and spread it across the floor. She paused for a moment to admire the white quilt before folding it in the paper; it was as beautiful as Cheryl had claimed, museum quality without a doubt.

After wrapping the patchwork quilt with equal care she
carried both into the workroom. One more to go—the album quilt. It was still in her room. Rachel closed the workroom door and went along the corridor toward the stairs, her steps slow and reluctant. She didn't want to see the quilt, much less touch it, but she couldn't leave it where it was. Once it was put away, out of sight, it would no longer be a constant reminder of the incident that gnawed at her conscience like a worm in an apple.

Adam's room—Tony's former room—was on the same corridor, beyond the stairs. The door was closed.

She went on up the stairs, bundled the quilt into her arms, and carried it to the workshop. The paper in which it would be wrapped was ready, lying across one of the long worktables. She put the quilt down on top of the paper and spread it out.

Under the bright, shadowless fluorescents the pattern was clearer, though the strange gray film still dulled it. Her curiosity piqued, Rachel bent over the table, trying to make out details. Paired hearts, arrangements of flowers and leaves—other less conventional designs, oddly provocative. It couldn't do any harm to brush it, she thought, picking absently at the gray film with her fingernail. The stuff seems to come off easily enough.

Using the softest and finest brush she could find, she began on one corner, barely touching the fabric, alert for the slightest sign of damage. The gray didn't so much brush off as dissolve, leaving no residue on fabric or table. The underlying design took shape behind the slow sweep of the brush as if it were being freshly created instead of cleaned. The colors were soft, faded by time, but clear and pure.

Rachel finished one entire square before stepping back and examining the result.

This certainly was not a Baltimore album quilt. As was the case with all album quilts, each block had a different
pattern, but the Baltimore quilt designs were distinctive and unmistakable—formal, complex flower and fruit arrangments, wreaths and birds so detailed that a single flower might utilize twenty or thirty separate pieces of fabric. The colors were strong and vivid, and sometimes ink shading was used to give a more naturalistic effect. After the blocks were sewed together an equally complex and bright colored border was added and the whole thing was covered with quilting.

The stitches on this one were as fine as any she had seen, but the appliquéd designs were nothing like the formal patterns of the Baltimore quilts. The block Rachel had cleaned—astonishingly, magically clean now, the creamy white background unsmirched—showed a flower arrangement, but the arranger had been Nature herself. Forget-me-nots, their petals shaped from pieces of fabric no larger than a baby's fingernail, and sprays of some pink flower she couldn't identify grew from a tuft of green grass. The flower petals had been appliquéd, the stems and grass embroidered. And half concealed by the grass…What was it? The shape was hard to make out, since it was of a shade only slightly darker than that of the grass. A sinuous curve of apple-green, twining around and through the perpendicular stalks in a pattern that pleased the eye even as it frustrated the viewer's attempt to trace its outline…

She was squinting at it, deep in concentration, when the ringing of the telephone made her start. At first she ignored the sound. Why didn't Adam answer the damned thing? It was probably for him, she wasn't expecting a call. Then she remembered that she was.

The voice was that of Thomas, or as he requested she call him, Tom. “Tony's the only one who uses my full name. It's his idea of a joke, has something to do with Doubting Thomas in the Bible, I guess.”

The apostle in question had been the only one to
demand proof of the identity of the resurrected Christ. An appropriate patron saint for a police officer, Rachel thought, but she hoped Tom wasn't too skeptical to believe her story. In the cold light of day it sounded like the sort of thing a nervous woman might have invented to get attention.

Tom listened without interrupting. The silence continued for several seconds after she finished. Then he said, “I intended to get in touch with you anyhow. Is it all right if I come by in, say, half an hour?”