Stitches In Time (18 page)

"I could have deduced that." Mark laughed as Ruth removed the top to display Adam's decorating. "What, no chocolate kisses?"

"I stopped him in time," Rachel said. "What can I do to help?"

"Not a thing," Ruth said. "Everything is under control. You two join the others, I'll be with you in a minute."

Mark held the door for Rachel and they went through the butler's pantry, lined with cupboards filled with glass and china, into the hall. "Aren't you going to take off your apron?" she asked.

"I think it looks rather fetching, don't you?" He twirled in a pirouette, arms extended, and Rachel laughed, appreciating his effort to make her feel at ease.

"Unquestionably. Where are the servants?"

"At home with their families." He didn't add, "Of course," but his tone implied it.

They reached the living room in time to hear Kara say loudly, "I don't want to talk about witches. Not on Christmas Day."

"But they're good witches," Adam said. "They don't—"

Pat interrupted, waving his glass. "What'll you have, Rachel? Wine, beer, scotch—"

After he had served drinks all around and Ruth had joined them, he returned to the subject, addressing Rachel. "Adam says you had a visit from the good witches last night."

"Were they wearing pink tutus and waving wands?" Mark asked.

"It isn't funny," his wife said severely. "Those people are crazy, and now they know where Adam is living. How could you have been so careless, Adam?"

"If it's anyone's fault, it's mine," Pat said. "I shouldn't have greeted Adam so noisily in a public place. But you're making a big deal of nothing, Kara. There are some Satanic
cultists who desecrate graves and sacrifice animals—psychopaths who get a sick pleasure out of defying law and convention—but in the eyes of its believers Wicca is a religion, the Old Religion, in fact. It worships pagan deities that preceded Christianity by thousands of years. The Goddess in her three aspects of Maiden, Mother, and Crone, the Horned God who is both consort and son of the Goddess. You've read Margaret Murray?"

The question was directed at Rachel. Startled, she said, "Yes. But her books are discredited—"

"Questioned. And with reason. Like many scholars she became enamored of her own theories—which were not original with her—and carried them too far. But the identification of the God of the Witches with Cernunnos and other horned deities can't be wholly dismissed."

"The Devil had horns too," Kara muttered.

"That's the point," Pat said. "Christianity, which was an exclusive religion, couldn't absorb the aggressively phallic horned god as it did the virgin mother goddess, so it turned him into a demon. To the early church fathers there were no shades of gray, only black and white, good and evil. The old pagan religions were more tolerant, and modern witches view the godhead as having many different aspects. It looks to the good and believes that every individual has psychic powers that can be used to influence events—"

"He does miss his captive audience of students, doesn't he?" Kara demanded of the room at large. "Enough with the lecturing, Pat. I don't care what these people believe or what they call it, they practice magic, and anybody who believes in magic is loony."

Pat's brows drew together, but before he could speak his wife said affectionately but firmly, "Kara, you ought to know better than to take that approach. Pat will argue on either side of an argument. Change the subject, darling."

"Huh," said Pat.

The silence was broken by Adam. "Can we open the presents now?"

They made him wait until after dinner. It was a gargantuan, unhealthy meal into which everyone, including Rachel, tucked with complete disregard for cholesterol and fat. Ruth had prepared both pumpkin and apple pie, but everyone gamely accepted a piece of Adam's cake instead. Adam was the only one who finished his.

"Don't you like it?" he asked anxiously.

"It's wonderful, dear," Ruth said warmly. "I'm too full to do it justice right now."

"So am I," Rachel said. "Everything was delicious. Especially your cranberry sauce, Ruth. That didn't come out of a can or jar, surely."

"No, I made it from scratch. It takes forever—you have to put the cooked berries through a sieve and then cook them again—but it's become a tradition. Tony is addicted to it. I'll send some home with you; it freezes quite well."

"Now can we open the presents?" Adam asked.

All of them except Adam and Mark, the designated drivers, had had quite a lot of wine; clearing the table was a joint project which inspired good-natured hilarity, most of it at the expense of the dog, who followed them back and forth to the kitchen in the hope that someone would drop a plate or leave the platter with the remains of the turkey unguarded for a few minutes. Pat did manage to drop a glass, which spattered into fragments on the brick floor. Cursing amiably, he swept up the pieces while Mark held the dog back. After the dishes had been stacked and the food put away, they retired to the living room and Pat opened another bottle of wine.

Adam didn't need alcohol to increase his good spirits;
appointing himself Santa Claus, he trotted back and forth delivering presents and watching with breathless interest as they were unwrapped. The sausages, as Rachel insisted on calling them, aroused considerable laughter and a few anthropological jokes about phallus worship from Pat.

Rachel's gift from Adam was not sausage. After she had unwrapped it, she held it cradled in her hands, staring with admiration and surprise. It was a small statue, about six inches high, unglazed and painted in soft earth colors, depicting two women with their arms around one another. The embrace was gentle and loving; the two tiny faces smiled.

"It's beautiful," she said. "You didn't find this at the mall, surely."

"There's a potter in Ankara who makes them," Adam said. "
I
hadn't decided who
I
was going to give it to till
I
met you. The younger one looks a lot like you."

"Younger?" Rachel repeated. "They look about the same age to me."

"I thought they were mother and daughter," Adam said. "Women have babies at an early age down there."

"No, it's a depiction of friendship," Kara said. "Sisterhood."

Pat hooted, and Ruth said, smiling, "Whatever the intent, it's a lovely thing, Adam. Loving and lovely. And you're right, there is a resemblance to Rachel."

When the floor was littered with bright ribbon and paper Kara turned from the window. "It's starting to snow harder, Mark. We'd be
t
ter head for home."

"You're worried about that disgusting old dog," Mark said lazily. "There's no hurry. We can't leave Ruth with that stack of dishes."

"Don't worry about that," Ruth said.

She wasn't the only one who had seen Kara's face darken and her lips draw tight over her teeth. "Let me do
the dishes," Rachel said. "I didn't contribute anything to that wonderful meal; I'd like to help."

Visibly annoyed but trying to hide it, Mark got to his feet. "Thanks, Rachel. You can wear my apron."

After the Brinckleys had left, the others returned to the living room and Pat said briskly, "Now that we won't offend Kara's sensibilities, how about giving me a blow-by-blow of the proceedings the other night, Adam. Did you have to strip?"

Ruth let out a gasp of outraged laughter, and the visible portion of Adam's face turned red. "I wasn't initiated," he mumbled.

"Why not?"

"Oh, well, hell, Pat!"

"They wouldn't let you wear your mittens?" Rachel suggested. The wine was bubbling pleasantly in her veins and the picture of a naked Adam, covered with goose bumps and blue with cold, was irresistibly funny.

"This group allows people to attend as passive observers if they are willing to make a verbal commitment," Adam said. His voice was quite serious, though he was still blushing. "They want potential members to be absolutely certain before they go through the first, formal stage of initiation. I wouldn't have done it any other way; I mean, dammit, once you've taken the vows you're sworn to secrecy and I couldn't—I wouldn't—"

"Hell of an ethnologist you are," Pat said.

"I'm not an ethnologist. I'm a—"

"Sentimental idiot," Pat said. "Your scruples are unnecessary, you jackass; the process has been written up in a number of books. How does the ritual compare with the one described in
The Book of Shadows?"

Ruth got up from her chair. "I don't think I want to hear about it."

"Neither do I," Rachel said.

Ordinarily she hated housework, but that evening the domestic ritual was soothing. Ruth had used her best crystal and china; the cut-glass goblets and gold-trimmed dishes had to be washed and dried by hand. They hadn't finished when Pat appeared in the doorway.

"I don't want to be accused of copping out on the chores," he announced. "Want some help?"

"A token gesture," his wife jeered. "You know I won't let you touch these dishes. You're too clumsy."

"
I
picked up the trick from you feminists," Pat said. "Isn't that how you operate? Don't refuse outright, just do the job so badly that people won't ask you to do it again."

He grinned provocatively at Rachel.

"Feminists refuse outright," she said.

"I stand corrected." He moved to the sink and put his arm around Ruth's waist. She looked up at him with a smile that brought a sharp stab of pain to Rachel's insides.

"You look tired, honey," he said. "Go talk to Adam, I'll take over."

"
I
can finish," Rachel said. "Please, Ruth—both of you—let me do it. Unless you're afraid I'll pocket the silver.

She couldn't imagine why she had said that. It didn't sound like the joke she had intended, and the faces that turned to her were momentarily blank with surprise. It had the effect, however, of a request that could not in decency be denied.

"We always search our guests before they leave," Pat said. "Come on, you poor old lady, lean on me."

Meticulously and mechanically Rachel finished washing the plates and rinsed them in hot water. There were only the serving platters and bowls to be done; Ruth had already packed the leftover food in containers. Leaving the bowls to soak, Rachel began to wipe the glasses. They were beautiful fragile old goblets; a pity one had been broken.

Ruth hadn't complained about it, she had just laughed and warned Pat to be careful not to cut himself when he swept up the pieces and put them in the trash.

They touched one another a lot. Sitting close, hands clasping, his arm around her . . .

"What in God's name are you doing?"

The words penetrated her consciousness like a shout and the hand that fell on her shoulder made her start convulsively. The container slipped from her hand and fell, spreading a pool of crimson across the floor.

The hand was Adam's, heavy and hard. She cried out in protest, tried to pull away. He transferred his grip to her arm, held her with her back against the counter.

She looked from his horrified face to the faces of the MacDougals, standing nearby, and saw the same expression of shock and disbelief. Ruth wasn't looking at her. She was looking at the puddle of cranberry sauce on the floor. Amid its crimson viscosity, sparks winked in the light.

"Glass," Adam said hoarsely. "She was putting it in the container. Stirring it."

"No," Rachel gasped. "No. I didn't. Pat must have missed some of the bits when he swept up the broken glass."

"I saw you," Adam said. "I stood watching you for several minutes."

Ruth came forward. "That's the container I filled for Cheryl and Tony."

"I thought so," Adam said. "She was responsible for the collapse of the canopy too. It wasn't an accident, the screws had been tampered with. Don't deny it, Rachel; no one else could have done it. You didn't know I'd be sleeping in that bed. You thought it would be ..."

"Let her go." Pat spoke for the first time. "You're hurting her. She didn't intend to do any of those things, Adam. She probably doesn't even know she did them."

"I'd like to believe that," Adam said miserably. "But I saw them, the night I arrived. Her and Tony, in each other's arms."

"He pushed me away," Rachel whispered. The room was shivering, like a picture painted on gauze. Her voice sounded strange and distant.

"He heard me at the door," Adam said. "But before that he was holding her like ... I can't handle this. What are we going to do? If she's sick—mentally ill—"

"She's not sick," Pat said quietly. "Or mentally ill. She's been overshadowed."

"What?" Adam's hand loosened its grip and then tightened again, less painfully, as Rachel swayed forward.

"I felt it yesterday," Pat said. "When we shook hands. Unmistakable, like an electric shock. I didn't feel it earlier, at the Christmas party." As if asking for support against the incredulity that fairly radiated from Adam, he held out his hand and Ruth took it in hers.

"He's right, Adam," she said quietly. "He told me when he came home. I can't feel it as strongly as he can because—"

"Because it takes one to know one," Pat said. "The same thing happened to me."