Stitches in Time (30 page)

Kara nodded. “Professor Patrick A. MacDougal never thought of that, I'll bet. Of course,” she added fairly, “it's not his field.”

The smiles they exchanged had a new warmth and intimacy. “But you'll rub it in, won't you?” Rachel asked.

“Of course.”

“It is odd,” Rachel said thoughtfully. “Could someone else have made it for Mary Elizabeth?”

“Miss Ora said Mary Elizabeth made all three quilts. She was reporting a family tradition, which doesn't count for much; but the similarities are unmistakable—not just technique and design capability, but the repetition of certain unusual quilting patterns on all three.” Her face sobered. “Whoever made them really hated the woman
who was to receive the bride's quilt. I've never seen such concentrated, deliberate malice worked into a piece of sewing.”

“Suppose Mary Elizabeth made it for someone who…” Rachel stopped. The idea was so melodramatic she shrank from expressing it, but Kara knew what she had been about to say. They were thinking the same language.

“Who died—as a result of the curse?” Kara laughed shortly. “Her descendants neglected to mention that Mary Elizabeth included black magic among her other talents. I guess I will have a drink. This is crazy.”

“No crazier than the other things we've been thinking,” Rachel pointed out. “Curses can kill, you know, if the intended victim believes in them.”

Kara stepped carefully over the snoring bundle at her feet. Selecting a bottle from the shelf, she splashed liquid into a glass and turned to look at Rachel with new respect. “By George, you're right. I've heard of cases like that. Want some?” She held up her glass.

“No, thanks.” Rachel was intent on her theory. “The literature of folklore is full of such cases; there was one in the United States less than fifty years ago, and I'll bet it still happens in some areas and subcultures, even in so-called civilized countries. People just don't talk about it or report it, for fear of being jeered at.

“We have to start with the assumption that Mary Elizabeth was the maker of the quilt. She sure as hell didn't make it for herself, it was designed to cause harm. If the recipient realized what it meant—if Mary Elizabeth told her—if she believed—”

“And Mary Elizabeth took the quilt back, or was given it back by the grieving family, after the girl died?”

“The girl may not have lived long enough to receive it. Knowledge of Mary Elizabeth's intent could be enough.
If
she believed.”

Kara came back to her chair. “I can't think offhand of any other explanation that fits the facts,” she admitted. “But if it's true, we're in deep trouble. It's going to be difficult enough learning more about Mary Elizabeth. Locating an unknown, hypothetical friend—”

“But that's not the point,” Rachel said eagerly. “Don't you see—”

The incarcerated dogs interrupted her, hurling themselves against the closed door and howling in a dismally muffled fashion that sounded like wolves on the tundras. Alexander got up and creaked toward the door. Rachel couldn't decide whether the sound came from his joints or his mouth.

Adam came in, accompanied by a blast of icy air. “Close the door,” Kara ordered.

Adam glanced down at the unseemly object wrapped around his right ankle. “You'll have to call off your dog first. He's slobbering all over my sock and I can't move without stepping on him.”

Kara detached Alexander and put him down on the floor. His carnivorous instincts satisfied, he wandered off, grumbling happily to himself and running into pieces of furniture. Adam kicked the door shut and deposited two brown paper bags on the table. “I got Chinese. Figured you'd be too busy to cook.”

“It was a kindly thought,” Kara said. “Have I mentioned you look much better without the beard?”

“I thought you hadn't noticed,” Adam said shyly. “Thank you. I appreciate the comment all the more because nobody else has bothered to compliment me on my good looks or acknowledged my noble sacrifice. I could have used some protection tonight. My face is a solid block of ice.”

It looked like a solid block of cherry ice cream. Only prolonged exposure to the cold could have produced such a shade. “Where have you been?” Rachel asked curiously.

Adam shed a couple of sweaters and began unloading white cartons. “Around and about, hither and yon, to and fro, up and down the town.”

“Are we going to tell him?” Kara asked.

“If he's going to be mysterious, I don't see why we should confide in him.”

Adam added plates and silverware to the accumulation on the table and gestured hospitably. “Pull up your chairs, ladies. Dinner is served. I'm not being mysterious, only modest. I'm sure your accomplishments far exceed mine and that you will be kind enough to share them with me.”

“We may as well,” Rachel said. “Unlikely though it seems, he may have something to contribute.”

Adam gave her an amiable grin and helped himself to chow mein.

He was sufficiently intrigued by their theory to stop eating for a full thirty seconds. “That's very ingenious. I don't know why I didn't think of it. Well, yes, I do know why I didn't think of it. Maybe Pat can dig up some more information in Charlottesville. He said he'd probably have to stay overnight, that he'd call tonight if—”

“He's wasting his time,” Rachel said flatly. “That's what I was about to say to Kara just before you got here, Adam. This genealogical and historical research is all very well, but it takes forever and there's no guarantee that it will turn up anything useful, especially when there's so little to go on. We have to try another method.”

In his haste to reply, Adam stopped chewing and swallowed too abruptly. His face turned purple. “No! Dammit, Rachel, if you're considering hypnosis—”

“Why not?” Kara asked. “It worked before. Sara told me—”

“It's too dangerous!” Adam got his breath under control. “Shut up, both of you, and listen to me. The popular belief that people can't lie under hypnosis is wrong. They
lie all the time. Have you ever heard of a process called confabulation?”

“Yes,” said Rachel.

“Oh.” Momentarily deflated, Adam rallied. “I'm not talking about the conventional meaning of the word—a cozy, informal chat. Like this one,” he added sarcastically.

“My goodness but you're in a fierce mood,” Kara remarked. “You sound like Pat. If that's not what it means, then I don't know what you're talking about. Show off to me.”

“It's what happens when an imaginative, cooperative subject is questioned, under hypnosis or not. He invents answers—not consciously, he really believes what he's saying, but the answers are tailored to fit his preconceptions or the expectations of the questioner, as he conceives them to be. We're all biased, we'd feed her cues without meaning to, and we couldn't trust any information we might get from her.”

“That's right,” Rachel said quietly. “I have certain preconceptions of my own. They would undoubtedly color my responses to questions.”

“Not to mention the fact that she tends to go into fits whenever—” Adam broke off. “What preconceptions?”

“I don't want to talk about them. They would prejudice you, and right now I don't know whether my impressions are genuine or—or self-confabulation.” She planted both elbows on the table and leaned forward, intent on convincing them. “There's another way of going at this, the same method Kara and I were using this evening. We don't need to know names and dates. We know that the person for whom the quilt was made was a woman—a bride. We know the person who made it—another woman, obviously—wanted to hurt the first woman, who was almost certainly a close friend, or she wouldn't have rated such an extravagant gift. Why did Woman A hate Woman B?”

Kara shrugged. “Jealousy, of course. A was in love with B's fiancé. She wanted him, and she had lost him.”

“Oh, come on,” Adam exclaimed. “That's the wildest leap of logic I have ever heard, and demeaning besides. I thought you two considered yourselves feminists.”

“There weren't many feminists in the middle of the nineteenth century,” Rachel said dryly. “What else would two women of that period compete for, except a man and everything that went with him—love, security, marriage? You're overlooking the most important confirmatory evidence, Adam. For the past week I've tried not once but several times to harm Cheryl. Lusting after her husband was my own fault…” She caught Kara's watchful eye and smiled faintly. “My own idea. It wasn't very nice but it was understandable; I didn't need any encouragement from the World Beyond to develop a normal if rather silly crush. But to believe I could ‘get' Tony by destroying his wife—a woman who's been kind to me, whom I admire and respect—I'd have to be totally insane! Or…”

“Overshadowed.” Adam's voice was carefully neutral.

“Influenced,” Rachel corrected. “The term
overshadowed
, and Pat's theory, are based on his own preconceptions. Didn't that woman Kara mentioned say she had sewed her soul into her quilt? Some psychics believe strong emotions survive the person who felt them, that they can permeate the very fabric of a house. Why not the fabric of a dress or a quilt? It might not have affected me if I hadn't been in a similar if less violent emotional state.”

“Huh.” Adam pushed his plate away and pondered for a moment. Then he said in an aggrieved voice, “Women don't think the way men do.”

“Don't be a sore loser,” Kara said. “You know she's right.”

“Another example of female logic,” Adam mumbled. “I wasn't criticizing,” he added quickly. “I was just wishing
there wasn't this communication gap between the sexes. You two assumed from the first that sexual jealousy was the motive behind the creation of the quilt? Why didn't you say so?”

Rachel shrugged. “It was so obvious. There was no reason to spell it out, it should have been equally obvious to you.”

“Huh. Well, you may be right at that. In fact, you have opened up a new and fascinating avenue of speculative thought. Why should Western rationalism be the best method of approaching a problem? We need fresh insights, different approaches, from women and other minority—”

He flinched back as a heavy object landed on the table, spilling cartons right and left and spraying him with soy sauce. “So I apologize. You didn't have to throw the cat at me.”

Figgin had leaped from the top of the refrigerator, cannily avoiding Alexander, who was still looking for something to bite. One foot planted in a bowl of rice, he began gobbling sweet and sour pork, including the peppers.

“Oh, for God's sake,” Kara said. “It's impossible to carry on a sane conversation in this house! Get him off the table, Adam.”

The removal was not accomplished without more spillage and considerable complaint from Figgin. Mumbling angrily, he retreated to the refrigerator and began licking his paws while Adam dealt with the mess on the table.

“We were through eating anyway,” he said. “Not that I have anything against your dog, Kara, but maybe you ought to put him to bed. I can't think with cats flying around the room and dogs having hysterics in the pantry.”

Kara graciously admitted that the suggestion had some merit. She carried Alexander off. After order had been
restored and the dogs released from the pantry, Adam said, “I see where you guys are heading, and I think you may be on the right track.”

“You still don't get it,” Rachel informed him. “There is no right track. That's the trouble with Western rational thought—which was, let me point out, defined by men. You assume there's only one way of proceeding and that all other ways are wrong. And you call yourself an anthropologist! Other cultures do things differently, and who are you to say they are mistaken?”

Adam grinned at her. “You ought to write a book. Or possibly a dissertation. Let's get down to specifics. You've found a motive and an explanation for the phenomenon, or at least a working hypothesis that makes as much sense as Pat's. So what do you propose to do about it?”

Kara's lips parted. Before she could speak, Rachel said, “He's catching on. That's the point, Adam. We may never know the name or the life story of the woman who began this—this disaster. We may not need that information. There are other, more direct ways of counteracting the effect. And I'm not talking about hypnosis.”

“No,” Adam said, no longer amused. “You're talking about black magic.”

Adam was trying hard, but old ingrained habits weren't
easy to overcome. He continued to argue, with himself as much as with Rachel, as they wended their way to the workroom.

“Witchcraft. The Old Religion. Curses and spells and…All right, okay, I don't know as much about the subject as you and Pat do, but…What's that?”

“A mask,” Kara said. “Put it on. And these gloves.”

“And,” Rachel added, “don't bother pointing out that she is using modern rational methods of dealing with an irrational theory. The contamination may be purely mental—psychic, rather—but there could be a physical source. I think there is. That's why I want to have a closer look at the quilt—not the patterns but the actual physical fabric of it.”

The fabric had stopped dripping, but it was still waterlogged and heavy. Rachel bent over to examine one of the corner squares. Then she took a firm grip on the edges and looked at Kara.

“I'm going to tear it,” she said. “I'll pay you back.”

“Ten bucks?” Kara smiled wryly. “Do what you have to do.”

Rachel gave the fabric a sharp yank. Transferring her grip to other parts of the cloth, she pulled and tugged and pressed until the corner section was almost as flat as it had been before Mrs. Wilson's disastrous attempt at cleaning. Heat had shrunk not the fabric but the threads that held it together. Already weakened, they snapped instead of stretching, leaving gaps in the even lines of quilting and freeing the shaped pieces of the appliquéd picture from the backing. An involuntary groan came from Kara.

“I'm sorry,” Rachel murmured.

“It was ruined anyway. What are you looking for?” Kara asked, watching Rachel insert a finger under a loosened piece of fabric.

“Confirming a hypothesis.” Before Kara could protest, Rachel stripped off the rubber glove. “Don't worry, I've already caught it—whatever it is—and I need bare hands for this. If what I expect to find is here, it is very small.”

Turning to Adam, who was watching in open-mouthed fascination, she explained, “See the way the front columns of the little temple are raised, so that they look three dimensional, closer to the viewer than the columns in back? That's what they call trapunto—inserting cord or cotton under the fabric. Like this.” Ruthlessly she ripped out the remaining threads and extracted the stuffing material. It retained its columnar shape, approximately two inches long and half an inch wide, until Rachel pulled it apart.

“Cotton,” Kara said. “Raw cotton, straight from the fields. Typical of southern quilts of that period. Stained, like the quilt. What are you looking for?”

“I'm beginning to get an idea,” Adam said in a stifled voice. “You won't find it in an architectural element, Rachel. Try this.”

His gloved finger jabbed at the figure of the veiled rider.

Rachel turned to look at him. He had combed his hair
back from his forehead, and his eyes, wide-set under curving dark brows, looked larger, the pupils bright greenish-brown against the clear white around them. His nose was wrinkled, as if he had smelled something unpleasant.

“You're right,” she said. Picking up a pair of sharp scissors, she clipped the threads that held the rider's bodice to the cloth.

The three-dimensional effect was modest and subtle; only a small amount of stuffing had been used. It was not cotton. With a cry Rachel dropped the bundle of crushed threads.

“Hair!”

“Human hair,” Adam corrected. Gloved fingers clumsy, he plucked at the intertwined mass until he separated a single strand. “It's too fine to be horsehair. And it is—was—blond.”

White-faced, Rachel wiped her fingers on her shirt. She had expected something of the sort, but had not anticipated it would take this precise form. Hair as brittle and dead as the bones of the woman from whose head it had come, hair that had once been sleek and shining, springing back under the strokes of the brush, clinging to the fingers…

She'd brush and play with it, curling the ends around her fingers, drawing it over her shoulders and then throwing it back, turning in front of the mirror so she could see it hanging down her back, clear to the waist. Fine hairs caught in the brush like a golden net, a net to bind her soul…

“…Classic sympathetic magic,” Adam said. “Hair and other body parts retain the identity, the soul imprint, of the person to whom they belonged. Strange, isn't it, that modern science has arrived at a similar conclusion? DNA—those tiny scraps of genetic material, unique to each individual, complete in each strand of hair and drop of blood…”

“Don't get philosophical on me,” Kara said sharply. “Do you mean this was her hair—the woman for whom the quilt was made?”

“I'd bet money on it,” Adam said. “And I'm not a betting man. You've heard about the dolls made by magicians for the purpose of injuring the person they represented? They would put hair, fingernail clippings, any body parts they could get, into the doll in order to make the connection stronger. Stick a pin in the doll and the person feels pain in the corresponding area of his body. Burn or bury or destroy the doll…Well, you get the idea. She didn't make a doll. She made this.”

“The woman on the horse represents the recipient?”

“In the magical sense, the pictured rider
was
the woman. Blinded and under attack.” Adam's eyes shone. He had forgotten his disgust in fascination. “I've read about it, but this is the first time I've seen an actual example. Can I borrow the scissors?”

He took them from Rachel's unresisting hand. “What do you think? The bleeding hearts? Symbolic, but then the whole thing is a matter of symbols.”

“They aren't raised,” Rachel murmured. “Try the bluebirds' wings.”

Each wing contained, amid the cotton, a tiny scrap of translucent hornlike substance. “There are your fingernail clippings,” Adam breathed. “Let's see what else we've got.”

Some of the raised sections held nothing, at least nothing they could identify. The cord under a depiction of a golden ring—the break in its surface so small it could only be seen with a magnifying glass—proved to be a fine strand of braided hair. The shaped trunk of a stately oak tree, around which a rose twined coyly, yielded a tiny scrap of cloth bearing a dark stain, and the dried, flaking body of some sort of insect.

“Pricked herself with a needle, maybe?” Adam inquired,
putting the scrap carefully into an envelope Kara had provided. “Can't identify the bug; I guess it was supposed to multiply and chew out the innards of the tree.”

“That's enough,” Kara said. She looked sick.

“Enough,” Adam agreed, adding the other specimens to the collection in the envelope. “Rachel's proved her point.”

“Not quite.” Rachel hadn't spoken for so long her voice sounded strange to her. “One thing more. Help me turn it over.”

The remains of what had been a unique piece of art flopped limply as they turned it, helpless and dead as a once-living body. The rips and stains were like wounds, and even though she knew it had to be done, even though the quilt was already beyond repair, Rachel had to force herself to insert the sharp tip of the tool into the homespun weave of the backing. The tool was one Cheryl used for ripping out stitches; it slid through the fabric with a faint tearing sound. Rachel cut another slit at right angles to the first and folded the fabric back.

“That's not the back of the front,” Kara said with a puzzled frown. “I mean, it's not—”

“I know what you mean,” Rachel said.

“I don't,” Adam said.

“There are usually three layers in a quilt,” Rachel explained. “The front, with its appliquéd or pieced pattern, the filling or batting, and the backing. In quilts like these, where the aim was beauty instead of utility, they sometimes omitted the filler. An additional layer would have made the fabric too thick for the tiny, even stitches that were demanded. But this quilt seems to have a layer of filler. What we're looking at is the back of that inner layer.”

With even greater care she cut a section out of the inner layer. Underneath was what appeared to be a fourth layer of cloth—coarse, brownish-black instead of white.

“That's where the gray dust came from,” Rachel said. “There are two inner layers, not one, with this between them. She sprinkled it on the fabric before she quilted the pieces together—wet it and let it dry, perhaps, so it would harden. They used a horizontal frame for the actual quilting, so the—the stuff stayed in place.”

“What is it?” Kara asked.

A moonless night as the teaching said, only starlight to guide her through the maze of tree trunks, through the gate, into the enclosure dark with shadows and something worse. Stumbling over fallen stones, crouching to tear away the matted grass and weeds, the gritty soil settling deep under her nails…

Rachel swallowed. “Graveyard dirt.”

 

Adam had made coffee, but he was the only one drinking it. Rachel had refused and Kara had gone straight to the liquor cabinet.

“I know I drink too much,” she muttered. “It's an occupational hazard in Washington. But tonight I deserve it.”

“How do you know?” Adam looked at Rachel.

Darkness, faint sounds in the night that might have been the wind or a muffled voice from deep underground…

The image came and went in a measureless interval of time, so quickly that not even Rachel was conscious of delay before she answered.

“It fits the pattern. Fingernail clippings and hair from the intended victim, dirt from a grave to cast a death spell. Magic is a pseudo-science; it has its own distorted logic, its rules and methodology. Pat wasn't the first scholar to point that out, but he discussed it at length in his last book.”

“And in his notorious lectures on magic, science, and religion,” Adam said. “It used to be one of the most popular courses on campus. He did demonstrations. In costume.”

Diverted, Rachel demanded further details. “Surely he didn't mash toads or drain the blood of a white cockerel?”

“Good heavens, Rachel!” Kara exclaimed.

“Those are popular ingredients,” Rachel said. “I haven't mentioned the most disgusting.”

“He used a rubber chicken,” Adam said reminiscently. “And tomato juice. He chanted, too. Some of the parents complained to the dean.”

“I should think so,” Kara murmured. “I hate to think what he'll do when he finds out about this. I suppose if there are standard formulae for cursing there are also formulae for removing a curse? I can't believe I'm saying this,” she added morosely.

“That's right,” Adam said eagerly. “Rachel is absolutely right. I've been reading up on it—”

“So why don't you let her talk?” Kara inquired. “You said she's the expert.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“There are…ways,” Rachel said slowly. “Different ways. Magic isn't a science, of course. There aren't any scientific formulae.”

“What ways?” Adam demanded.

“Well…prayer.”

“Prayer,” Adam repeated. Rachel had never seen that look on his face, or heard such bitter cynicism in his voice.

“Counterspells, if you prefer. Appeals to the powers of light for protection.”

“I do prefer,” Adam said shortly. “But not by much. The quilt and the garbage we found in it are physical objects. There must be a physical response. What would happen if we destroyed the damned thing? Buried it, burned it—”

“I don't know!” Rachel shouted.

The others stared at her in surprise. She knew, or thought she knew, why Adam's suggestion had induced such a violent reaction, but she couldn't tell them. Not yet.

Moderating her voice, she explained, “We can't risk doing anything until we're sure. Destroying it might have precisely the wrong effect.”

“Okay, okay,” Adam said quickly. “You're right again. Our relationship may founder on that shoal, you know. It's very annoying to live with someone who is always right.”

His attempt to lighten the atmosphere didn't succeed. Kara, nursing her drink, scowled at him, and Rachel snapped, “I'm just trying to be logical. Rushing into action could be a fatal mistake. We've got several more days, there's no sense in taking chances. Pat may come up with something useful.”

“I thought you said he was wasting his time.”

“I didn't say that, I said it wasn't the only way of going at this. There are…”

Her voice faded, and Adam watching her with concern, finished, “Other ways. Yeah, right. Speaking of Pat, did anyone check the answering machine? He said he'd call tonight.”

Pat hadn't called, but there were several other messages, one of which almost succeeded in taking Rachel's mind off her more imminent problem. Phil was at his most pompous and precise. “I hope you've come to your senses and are ready to apologize for that outrageous business the other night. I've moved back into the house in College Park; the others are still away, and I saw no sense in paying good money for a motel. You can call me here. If you choose not to, you'll have to live with your decision. I won't call you again.”

It wasn't the final message, but Adam pressed the stop switch and looked relieved. “That's good news. We've heard the last of him.”

“Maybe not,” Kara said slowly. “I don't like the sound of that. It could be an implicit threat.”

“No, just one of Phil's famous ultimata.” Rachel shook
her head. “Dammit, now I can't go back there without risking another unpleasant encounter. I was going to move out anyhow, but some of my things are still there.”

“Don't risk it.” Kara hesitated, but only for a moment. “I know what I'm talking about, Rachel. I was married to a guy like that once. Same kind of voice—arrogant, cocksure, subtly threatening. We'll send someone to pack and pick up your things. Not you, Adam, you'd lose your temper and end up in jail.”