Stitches in Time (19 page)

After the MacDougals left, Rachel settled herself in front
of her word processor and tried to look as if she were working. She couldn't face Adam's clumsy attempts at casual chitchat, or his questions.

Ruth's blunt statement had left her speechless. She wouldn't have known what to say even if Ruth had given her a chance to respond, which she had not; collaring her husband, she had led him, protesting but unresisting, to the truck. It had been a fascinating demonstration of how that relationship worked. Ruth didn't assert herself often, but when she put her small foot down, Pat MacDougal obeyed.

What had struck Rachel dumb wasn't Ruth's candor, unexpected though it had been, but her realization that Ruth—intelligent, sophisticated, gentle Ruth—really
believed
Pat's hypothesis.

Pat claimed to believe it too, and Rachel didn't doubt his sincerity, but nothing he had said affected her as Ruth's blunt statement had done. In his own way Pat was enjoying the intellectual challenge; as he kept saying, he was testing a hypothesis. Ruth was not enjoying the situation.
She was afraid—afraid because she believed. Believed wholeheartedly and without reservations, as some cultures believed in the efficacy of magic, as devoutly religious people believed in God and angels and the literal interpretation of Scripture. That intensity of belief was one of the strongest forces in the world, and one of the most dangerous. Old women had been burned alive because of it, heretics and sinners had been tortured to death when they refused to conform to a particular creed. Witches were fair game in almost all cultures; the most effective way of canceling evil spells that could cause illness, bad luck, accident, or death was to kill the witch.

She couldn't concentrate on her work when thoughts like those were squirming around in her head, and when Adam kept tiptoeing loudly past the door, pausing only long enough to look in before he went on.

The next time his shadow darkened the doorway Rachel called out to him.

“Pat told you to watch me, didn't he? So come in and sit down and watch.”

“I thought you were working. I was trying not to bother you.”

“Oh, stop being so damned tactful. How can I possibly get any work done? Admit it, he did order you to play watchdog.”

“He didn't have to tell me.” Adam came into the room, sat down on the edge of a chair, and stared fixedly at her. “I should think you'd find it reassuring to know I'm—uh—monitoring your activities.
It
won't try anything while I'm around.”

At first she didn't believe her own ears. “
It
?” she repeated.

“Maybe we ought to give
It
a name,” Adam mused. “Lilith? Medea? Susybelle?”

“Who was Susybelle?”

“Nobody. I just threw that innocuous name in to be fair.
Its
activities thus far have been reminiscent of some of the nastier ladies in literature and myth, but we shouldn't leap to conclusions without more evidence than—”

“I think you've lost your mind,” Rachel said flatly. “Am I the only skeptic left?”

“My skepticism has been somewhat shaken. There are a couple of things that have led me to support Pat's lunatic hypothesis.”

“Oh?”

“The first is the peculiar incident of the knife thrust into the step. It bothered me from the start, but I couldn't figure out why. It wasn't until last night, when I was going over things in my mind—and a damned uncomfortable process it was, I might add—that I realized the perpetrator probably wasn't your burglar. I think you did it. Now don't start yelling, let me explain. What would be the sense of a vague, melodramatic threat like that? If he were stalking you, he'd be more direct and more obtrusive. And there's the significant clue of the dogs that didn't bark.”

Rachel had wondered about those points herself, but she was still on the defensive. “Why would I do such a thing?”

“Ah, that's the question, isn't it? Think. The incident happened on the night of the Winter Solstice. That's one of the great festivals of witchcraft—Esbats, as they are called. The smears of mud around the knife could have been a footprint. Hell's bells, woman, this is your field! Surely you've heard about sympathetic magic.”

Rachel's strained temper gave way. “Dammit, Adam, don't patronize me! I get enough of that from Pat MacDougal, but at least he's a recognized authority. What you're talking about is the Law of Contagion or Connection. Objects that have been in contact with a person's body retain his identity, his soul, if you prefer,
even after they are no longer in contact. Clothes, teeth, hair—”

“And the impressions of his body. I've read Fraser too,” Adam said coolly. “He gives innumerable examples of the belief that you can harm a person by attacking his footprint.”

“Laming him,” Rachel said. She laughed harshly. “He already had one bad leg. Do you suppose I was trying for the other one?”

“Now you're the one who is fighting this,” Adam said. “Try not to take it personally.”

“Oh, sure. No problem.”

“If Pat is correct, it's not you—it's something else trying to work through you. Stop wallowing in self-pity and use your intelligence and your training.”

The criticism was like a slap in the face of a hysteric—painful but therapeutic. She tried to think, forced herself to sound calm and reasonable. “That doesn't make sense, even by Pat's theory. I—she—doesn't want to hurt Tony. Footprints are used in love spells too. Thrusting a needle into the footprint a man has left in your dooryard
forces
him to remain faithful. Ozark magic.”

“Oh, yeah? I never heard that one.”

“But I had. A knife is more—more emphatic than a needle, isn't it?”

“Mmm-hmmm.” Adam pondered the idea. “I like it. It reinforces my theory. You didn't want to harm him, you wanted to—”

“You said there were a couple of things. What else?”

“The other isn't rational,” Adam said. “I suspect that I am falling in love with you. It's only a hypothesis so far, but all the evidence seems to point that way.”

Rachel's jaw dropped. Never in her wildest imaginings could she have anticipated such a declaration. “What—what evidence?”

“My emotional reactions are becoming abnormal,”
Adam said seriously. “When I saw you and Tony that night, I wasn't shocked, though I was surprised. He never struck me as the philandering type. However, that sort of thing happens all the time and it was none of my business. As time passed and I became better acquainted with you, I realized to my consternation that my attitude had drastically altered. I thought about that incident constantly, picturing you in his arms and feeling a variety of violently irrational emotions.”

Rachel found it hard to imagine Adam experiencing violently irrational emotions. His cool; long-winded analysis was so typical and so inappropriate that she felt an equally inappropriate desire to laugh. “What kind of emotions?” she inquired.

“Rage, lust—”

“Lust?”

“Sexual desire.”

“Oh, I see.” A gurgle escaped her before she could stop it. What was wrong with her? This was no laughing matter. Adam was completely in earnest.

“It's not just sex, though,” he said gloomily. “All the signs point to a classic case of old-fashioned romantic attachment. I've never felt anything quite like it, but I've read about it. I keep wanting to fight people on your behalf, rescue you from danger, stuff like that.”

“You have a peculiar way of showing it. The things you said last night—”

“Oh, that was normal. I was fighting my irrational impulses. When you went into that spasm I wanted to kill Pat because he'd hurt you, and I wanted to smash his face in because it was he who was holding you, instead of me. Another overreaction, you see,” he added. “That was when it dawned on me that I might be in love with you.”

Rachel shook her head dazedly. “This is the craziest conversation.”

“I'm glad we had it, though.” Adam folded his arms, leaned back in his chair, and smiled amiably at her. “Cleared the air. I feel a lot better.”

“I don't.”

“You will, once the initial shock wears off. Like me, you are basically an honest, forthright person. There's nothing to worry about, you know; I mean, I'm not going to
do
anything unless you want me to. You'll have to make the first move.”

“That's not likely,” Rachel gasped.

“Would it help if I cut off my beard?”

 

After an hour spent staring blankly back at the blank screen of her computer, Rachel realized Adam was right. That extraordinary conversation had cleared the air, though not in the way he had meant. She couldn't take seriously his declaration of—what had he called it? Classic romantic attachment? What sort of background did the man come from, that he could make a remark like that with a straight face? It was certainly a contrast to the most recent declaration of “romantic attachment” she had received. Phil had initiated their affair with a statement consisting of five monosyllabic words. “Love” had not been one of them. Well, but she hadn't been in love with him either. Who was it who had said that these days love was one of the few four-letter words sophisticates were embarrassed to employ? Love wasn't relevant, love had nothing to do with a relationship like theirs.

It was over now, and maybe she had learned something from it. If Phil showed up again, she could and would deal with him.

The most important thing Adam had done was force her to recognize her refusal to confront her present problem head-on. If people like Patrick MacDougal and Ruth—
and Adam—were willing to suspend rational disbelief, she was in no position to jeer at them. Especially when she knew…

Absently she stroked the cat that had settled on her lap. What did she know? Nothing that could be expressed in words. The impressions that had come to her weren't susceptible to definition; they were as difficult to describe as a half-remembered dream. Pat was right about one thing, though.
It
was female. She would never be able to tell him, not only because she couldn't explain that certainty, but because The Other wouldn't let…No. It wasn't a threat or prohibition that stopped her tongue, it was something else. Her mind fumbled with words. Reluctance, caution, distaste, fear…Fear. A wall, opaque and impenetrable, and behind it a huddled shape crouching, waiting.

The cat yowled and stuck its claws into her leg. “I'm sorry,” Rachel muttered, relaxing her grip. The apology was not accepted; Patches jumped to the floor and began indignantly licking the place where Rachel's fingers had pressed.

No use trying to force that process; it made her feel disoriented and slightly sick. But perhaps there was another way, the one Adam had suggested. “It's your field,” he had said offhandedly—and correctly. She was supposed to know about subjects like superstition and magic. At least, she thought cynically, going at it from that angle would give her new insights for her dissertation.

She turned to look at Adam, who had settled down in a chair some distance away. He was trying, unsuccessfully, to look smaller than he really was.

“I'm going out,” she announced. “I suppose you want to go with me.”

“Where are you going?”

“College Park. I haven't been back to the house for a
week. I should collect my mail and check my answering machine. And I need some things. I packed in a hurry.”

Adam closed the book he had been pretending to read and smiled at her. It was the first time she had spoken to him since she had rejected his offer to remove his beard, and his pleasure at her overture was obvious and a little pathetic. “I will come. If you don't mind?”

“I don't mind. But I'll drive.”

Enveloped in layers of sweaters, Adam settled down in the passenger seat. He was wearing the mittens and muffler Rachel had given him, but not the Santa Claus socks; he had informed her he was going to save them for special occasions.

Traffic was lighter than usual and they made good time, but it was midafternoon before they reached College Park. The winter sun was low in the sky and the house was dark, shadowed by overgrown shrubbery. A light covering of snow still whitened the grass, but the feet of pedestrians had left only dirty slush on the sidewalk. When Rachel turned into the walk that led from the street to the front steps, Adam stopped her.

“Wait a minute.”

“What's the problem?” Rachel demanded. “The burglar wouldn't hang around here; the house has been deserted for days.”

“Somebody's been here, though.”

He indicated the overlapping footprints.

“The mailman,” Rachel said.

“Oh.” Adam's face registered disappointment, but he rallied bravely. “Let me have a look at them before you go tramping over the evidence.”

“For heaven's sake, Adam! Who do you think you are, Sherlock Holmes?”

“What's the harm in looking? It snowed again last night. That would have covered up any earlier footprints, so the ones we see had to have been made today. Right?”

“I suppose so.”

“So, Watson, observe.” He set her gently aside and paced slowly along the unmarked snow beside the walk, his head bent. “There are two different sets of prints—four in all, going and coming. I'll bet these are the mailman's. They look like old-style galoshes. Older man, is he? Heavy? His feet are almost as big as mine.”

“The mailman is a mailwoman,” Rachel said in a stifled voice.

Adam laughed. “So I guessed wrong. I'll bet Holmes occasionally did too, and Watson tactfully refrained from mentioning it. Yes, these appear to be a woman's prints. Narrower, smaller. I wonder whose the others are.”

He carried on a casual, running commentary as he proceeded. “Dog crossing. Big dog. I'd take a wild stab at the breed, if it weren't for the fact that you are probably acquainted with the creature and would contradict me. Birds, cat…Yours is a busy neighborhood.”