Stitches In Time (38 page)

She held up a navy blue and white calico print with a
long skirt gathered tight to a fitted bodice. To its only trim, a collar and cuffs of Irish crochet, she had added a narrow navy ribbon belt.

"Too costumey," Rachel said ungrammatically. "It looks like
Little Women."

"It's not that old. Women wore clothes like these clear up to the turn of the century and beyond; Paris and New York fashions never made it into the hinterlands, the farms, the small towns. Do you want to try it on?"

"What?" Rachel stared at her.

"This is one of those dresses that looks like nothing on a hanger, but on the right person it would be smashing. Trust me, I have an instinct for these things. Give you a good price."

"Are you serious?"

"I am, as a matter of fact. I love picking out clothes for people. But I don't suppose you're in the mood right now." She returned the hanger to the rack. "Some other time. Come on, I want a cup of tea."

They found Adam busily making notes. A pile of books at his elbow bristled with markers, and the surface of the table was littered with a weird miscellany—piles of silver coins, a few cloves of garlic, white candles, packets of dried herbs, a handful of nails, a hammer, and two cats nosing curiously at the herbs.

"Are you planning to eat supper standing up?" Kara demanded.

"Is it that late?" Without interrupting his writing Adam pushed Figgin away from the packet he was sniffing.

"Not really. I was trying to make a little joke."

Adam put the pen down and looked up. Brow furrowed, he said curtly, "Mark called. Wanted to know when you were coming home."

"Oh, hell. I didn't expect him back till tomorrow."

"Are you going home tonight?" Rachel asked. Her voice
was carefully neutral, but she awaited Kara's answer with an anxiety she would not have felt a few days ago. She had come to depend on the other woman's help, and on something else. Friendship, perhaps?

"What do you take me for?" Kara demanded. She sounded angry. "I'm not leaving until this business is settled."

"Thanks." Rachel didn't trust herself to say more. She turned away and busied herself with the tea kettle.

"What is this stuff?" Kara asked. "It's driving Figgin crazy."

"Get it away from him." Adam made a dive for the cat. Packet in mouth, Figgin eluded him, but was captured by Kara. "It's vervain, otherwise known as Witchwort. I need it."

"I always suspected this animal was in league with the Devil," Kara muttered. "Give it back, Figgin. Ouch." She handed the packet, more or less intact, to Adam. "Put it in the cupboard. I presume this junk has some bearing on your research, but do you have to clutter the table with it?"

"I guess not." Adam tossed the packages into a drawer. "According to the books, all these herbs are used in unhexing, or uncrossing, as it is sometimes called. Vervain, St. John's wort, frankincense and myrrh, belladonna, foxglove—"

"Those aren't herbs, they're poisons," Kara exclaimed.

"I'm not going to leave them lying around."

Which was precisely what he had done; but after glancing at his dour face Kara decided not to press the point. She accepted the cup of tea Rachel handed her with a nod of thanks and then asked, "What are these other things?"

"Are you going to call Mark?"

"Soon. I'm asking for enlightenment, Adam. With all due humility and respect."

After a moment his forehead smoothed out and he smiled faintly. "Sorry. I'm getting frustrated; the information is so vague. All these objects are used in protective spells. Silver is supposed to be deadly to supernatural forces—you've heard about werewolves and silver bullets? Same for garlic. The white candles occur in one of the Wicca books, but you need a lucky rabbit's foot for that particular spell, and I don't have one."

"The nails are Ozark magic, aren't they?" Rachel asked.

"Also West African and old English," Adam said. "Iron is anathema to supernatural beings, and horseshoes keep witches away. One source suggested driving three nails— three is a potent magical number, it represents the Trinity—in a triangle over each door." A sweep of his arm cleared the table, pushing candles, nails, and the other objects into a shopping bag. Rachel realized the abrupt movement was another demonstration of his frustration.

"I'm not questioning your methods," Kara said. "But— correct me if I'm wrong—none of this deals directly with the source of the contamination. You can't shoot the quilt with a silver bullet, or drive nails into it."

Words and tone had been conciliatory, but Adam glared wildly at her. "Don't bet on it, lady. Some of the ideas I've considered are even loonier than those. Ah, hell. You're right, of course. I found a number of unhexing spells, but they all depend on something we don't have and can't get."

Opening one of the books, he read aloud. "Take a piece of bloodroot and throw it on the doorstep of the person who hexed you.' Or this one: 'Get a photograph or draw a picture of the witch who has put the curse on you, fasten it to a tree, and drive a nail into it.' Another possibility is to make a doll, incorporating some part of the witch's body, give it the name of the witch, and stick pins into it."

He tossed the book aside with a grunt of disgust. Rachel picked it up and began reading as the others continued to talk.

"I see what you mean," Kara said. "We don't know what she looked like, or even her name."

Rachel read, "Press the hair, the fingernail parings, or whatever other body part can be obtained, into a small ball of beeswax. Bore a hole in an oak tree, insert the beeswax, and drive a wooden peg into the hole ..."

They didn't know what she looked like, or even her name. But they had something even more effective. Pat hadn't observed it, Adam hadn't noticed it.

Rachel closed the book. "I'll set the table," she said.

Kara went to her room to make the call to Mark. When she came back, flushed and tight-lipped, she was carrying Alexander.

"He smells worse than usual," said Adam, hurrying to the door.

"He had a little accident," Kara said coldly. "It was my fault. 1 should have taken him out earlier."

Alexander didn't appear to be overcome by remorse. He started squirming, and both dogs hastily retreated into the pantry.

Adam opened the door and then stood staring open-mouthed into the darkness—a wet, warm, windy darkness. "It's raining!"

"Oh, hell," Kara said. "Hand me that umbrella."

"It's raining," Adam repeated stupidly.

"So give me the umbrella."

She went out. Adam remained by the open door, muttering. "It's warm. When did it get warm? Goddammit, I thought it was going to snow."

"The newspaper said something about a warm front," Rachel said. "What are you raving about?
I
thought you hated cold weather."

Kara came back, drenched, smeared with mud and, for
once, a trifle out of temper with Alexander. "He didn't want to do anything except roll in the mud and get it all over me. Excuse us. One of us will return shortly."

When she returned she was wearing jeans and a T-shirt urging prospective voters to send Brinckley back to Congress. Adam had wandered out, leaving Rachel to dish up the meal he had prepared earlier. Glancing at the shirt, Rachel asked, "Was Mark upset because you weren't coming home tonight?"

"Not really. Well, yes, he was, but considering the weather and the fact that I didn't know he was going to be there he refrained from saying so. He didn't blow up till I mentioned I wasn't coming home tomorrow either."

She bit into a carrot stick and chewed fiercely.

Rachel said, "Hadn't you better tell him the truth? If you're holding back on my account, you needn't."

"You wouldn't mind?"

"I'd mind. But I like him, he's always been nice to me. And I don't want to cause trouble for you."

"In this case, the truth would cause even more trouble," Kara said wryly. "Mark is rigidly rational—difficult as that is to believe about a member of Congress. He'd think I was making up excuses—and pretty feeble excuses at that."

Adam's reappearance ended the discussion and they sat down to eat. The main dish was stewed chicken and noodles, into which Adam had dumped a package of frozen peas; hardly gourmet fare, but it had been easy to prepare and it was undeniably filling. Knowing what she now knew, Rachel realized that he had probably learned to cook out of sheer necessity. Neither of his parents had been nurturing types.

They were interrupted once by a call from Pat. After a brief conversation, Adam reported, "He'll be here tomorrow morning—holy water in hand, to quote him."

"That too?" Kara shook her head. "Why not a formal exorcism, bell, book, and candle?"

"Pat's against that," Adam said. "I gather he tried it once and it backfired rather badly."

"That's right, Sara mentioned it." Kara frowned. "But the cases aren't the same. You're trying everything else, why not that?"

"Churches are as bureaucratic as other large organizations. It would take too long."

Two days. The words, unspoken but understood by all of them, seemed to hang in the empty air. That's all the time we've got. Two more days.

After dinner Adam retired to his room, ostensibly to continue his reading, and after watching Kara roam restlessly around the room for a while, Rachel suggested they finish cleaning up the shop.

"We may as well," Kara said with a sigh. "It seems absurd to waste time on something so trivial, but I guess there's nothing else we can do. Nothing I can do, I should say. I feel as if I ought to be reading those books of yours, looking for practical advice, but if you and Adam and Pat haven't found anything, an ignoramus like me certainly wouldn't."

"That's not necessarily true," Rachel said. "Amateurs have been known to spot things the so-called experts have overlooked, if only because they are so obvious. But we may as well get at the other job. It will have to be done sooner or later."

Before Cheryl comes home. She didn't have to say it, they were both thinking the same thing. Two more days ...

The job took longer than Rachel had expected. By the time they had restored order, replaced the tags on the garments and the garments on the racks, and entered the day's transactions in the inventory, she was exhausted. Leaving Kara mumbling and cursing at the computer, she went to the window.

It was still raining, steadily and quietly. The street was a stretch of glistening black and the puddles on the lawn and sidewalk reflected the outdoor lights, shivering into fragments of shot gold as the raindrops struck them.

"Did you turn on the outside lights?" she asked.

"No. Damn this thing! Don't tell me computers don't have minds of their own; this one behaves like a little lamb for Cherry, but it knows I haven't the faintest idea what I'm . . . Ah, that's got it." She punched keys with savage satisfaction and then rose, stretching. "I'll leave the rest to
Cherry.
She always enjoys discovering my mistakes."

She joined Rachel at the window. "Still raining. Perfect weather for melancholia. Let's have something alcoholic or fattening or both."

The hallway behind the shop was dark except for the light at the top of the stairs. They both heard the sound; it was only that of a board creaking under the pressure of someone's foot, but both of them were ready to start at shadows. Kara called out.

"Adam?"

Her voice sounded oddly muted, as if the hall was filled with some substance heavier than air—or as if she had been afraid to speak loudly. The only response was the sound of a door closing.

"I wish he wouldn't creep around like that," Kara said unfairly. "What's he doing up there?"

Remembering Adam's pathetic collection of charms, Rachel realized how far he had come—descended, as he might have said—from his comforting rationalism. Her own voice was sharp. "He's got a lot on his mind. Leave him alone."

"Okay, okay."

The exaggerated coziness of the family room, unsophisticated and unsubtle as Cheryl herself, had never looked more appealing, but it didn't improve Kara's mood. She
threw the dresses she was carrying over a chair and stared at the dogs. Both were on their feet, staring hopefully at her.

"So what do you want?" she demanded.

Worth's tail moved in a tentative wag. "They probably want to go out," Rachel said.

"Rather them than me." Kara went to the porch and opened the door. When Poiret, who had belatedly realized it was wet out there, lingered on the threshold, she gave him a shove and returned to the family room.

"How about Alexander?" Rachel asked.

"He'll have to wait. I'm not in the mood. Let's have a party. Why don't you slip into something more comfortable?"

One of the dresses she had brought from the shop was the navy and white calico. "You're determined to get me into that, aren't you?" Rachel said, amused.

"Please." Kara ran her fingers through her hair. "I'm so uptight I feel stretched. Do something to entertain me."

"Oh, all right."

Rachel retired modestly behind the sofa. Stripping off her shirt and pants she slipped the dress over her head. It was surprisingly comfortable, the soft old fabric gentle on her skin, the fit easy around arms and bust.

"Need some help?" Kara turned, a bottle of wine in her hand.

"No. It buttons up the front. Does that mean she didn't have a maid?"

"That's not a society lady's dress," Kara said. "Sweet and simple small-town stuff. You're right, though; the type of fastening was one indication of social class. Those ball gowns with two dozen tiny buttons down the back required a maid. Aha!
I
was right again. Look at yourself."