Stitches in Time (16 page)

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 better 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.”

“It happened almost twenty years ago,” Pat said. “I had
just met Ruth, through one of my students—Ruth's niece Sara, who is Kara's older sister. Sara was the first of us to feel the influence that haunted that old house in Georgetown. It was a classic case of possession; the girl who had come to a tragic end in the same house two centuries earlier occupied Sara's body and spoke through her. I happened to match the—well, call them the emotional patterns—of another individual who had been involved in the same tragedy. On at least three occasions he took over control of my mind and my actions. Sara's lover, who is now her husband, was also affected, though not to the same extent she and I were. We came horribly close to repeating the old pattern, with its grisly ending, before we found out what had happened and how to resolve it.”

“You resolved it?” Adam repeated skeptically.

Pat nodded. “So successfully that the house, which was the focus of the influence, is harmless. It's the same one Kara and Mark own now. Ruth sold it to them after my mother died and we inherited this place.”

“If I had heard a story like that from anybody but
you…” For once Adam's extensive vocabulary failed him. He flapped his hands helplessly.

They had returned to the living room. Rachel sat on the couch, with a MacDougal on either side. It was their way of indicating support and sympathy, she supposed, but she felt hemmed in, and the afghan Ruth had tucked around her was tight as a cocoon or a baby's bunting. Bolt upright in his chair, Adam faced the three. His pose was confrontational, but his eyes were as miserable as those of a child who has just been told there is no Santa Claus.

“I can't say I blame you,” Pat said calmly. “The first time I ran into a situation like this,
I
was the skeptic. It took personal experience to convince me. After I tried to rape Ruth and kill a man who was as close as a son to me, I became a convert.”

He had chosen the words deliberately for their shock value. Adam's breath went out in a harsh gasp. “You'd never—”

“Not if I was in my right mind. I wasn't. Something else was. I call it overshadowing because that's what it felt like—the submergence of my own will, my very identity, by an alien personality. I think the same thing has happened to Rachel. I didn't sense anything wrong when I met her at the Christmas party, so it must have begun later that night—possibly when she and Tony enjoyed their first passionate embrace. It was the first time, wasn't it, Rachel?”

“Adam had no right to tell you about that,” Rachel said furiously. “It wasn't…it wasn't the way he made it sound.”

“Don't blame Adam. The incident obviously bothered him—he's easily shocked, poor innocent kid—but he would never have mentioned it to me or anyone else if we hadn't caught you red-handed just now. Excuse the pun.”

Adam's nose was crimson with embarrassment and
fury. “Goddammit, Pat, how can you joke about this? I wasn't shocked. Surprised, maybe—”

“So surprised that you still can't see the significance of that incident.” Pat leaned forward. “Tony's moral code is as tediously rigid as any Calvinist's. He wouldn't make love to another woman in his own house, with his wife sleeping only a few feet away. If you don't know him well enough to be sure of that, you'll have to take my word for it.”

“There's always a first time,” Adam said stubbornly. His eyes avoided Rachel's.

“Especially when the temptation is, as in this case, so uniquely irresistible.” The amusement in Pat's voice made Adam go even redder. “What was that about a canopy being tampered with?”

Adam told him. “It was deliberate,” he finished. “Had to be. And nobody else had the opportunity.”

“Not necessarily true,” Pat said calmly. “Oh, I agree Rachel is the most obvious suspect. But even if it was her hands that loosened the screws, her mind wasn't directing those hands. I can't prove my theory, Adam. The one incontrovertible piece of evidence is one you can't admit—my personal experience. You're like a man who has lost his hearing, watching an orchestra at a concert. I can tell you they're playing Beethoven but if you don't trust me—”

“I trust your integrity. I'm sure you believe what you're telling me.”

“That's good enough to start with.” He gave Ruth a companionable grin. “This is a tough one, isn't it? The first case was simple, by comparison. We stumbled, apparently by accident, into an unfinished, unresolved pattern. Three of the four of us who were involved happened to fit the personality types of three people who had lived in the house before. The pattern had to be worked out to its conclusion, the old tragedy resolved.”

“It wasn't an accident,” Ruth murmured. “It didn't just happen. It wasn't coincidence.”

“Let's not start talking about the meaning of life,” Pat said. Ruth smiled faintly; this was obviously an ongoing, and generally amiable, argument. “The best our limited senses can produce are analogies. I find it easier to think in terms of patterns. It's a concept with which Rachel should be familiar, since it fits her thesis topic—the Fates, spinning the web of a man's life. All lives are interwoven, and sometimes the immortal weavers get careless, so that the web is tangled or cut prematurely.”

“Very poetic,” Adam muttered.

“I said it was only an analogy. To continue in the same vein, our best hope of dealing with something like this is to trace the pattern and tie off the broken threads.”

He looked at Adam, eyebrows raised in inquiry. The younger man raised his eyebrows. “Are you implying that this is the same sort of thing you ran into before? Even admitting your basic premise, which is insane, seems to me you're jumping to conclusions.”

“Very good,” Pat said approvingly. “I don't know whether this is the same sort of thing. I propose to find out. You do remember the rudiments of the scientific method, I hope? Form a hypothesis, run tests—”

“What kind of tests, for God's sake?”

Pat had his answer ready. “Rachel is our best source; she has to be aware, on some level, of what's happening. If she'll cooperate, answer questions—”

“Of course I'll cooperate.” Rachel freed her arms from the folds of the afghan. “Don't you think I'd like to believe I didn't do those things deliberately? I'd give anything to find a scapegoat. Almost anything. I agree with Adam, what you've suggested is insane. I'm insane!”

Adam hadn't expected that response. He started to speak, but Pat beat him to it.

“Another skeptic? Good. If you were one of those suggestible sentimentalists who believes in reincarnation and angelic guides, we wouldn't have a prayer.”

Coming from a man who had just asserted his belief in demonic possession, this statement struck Rachel as unduly critical. But when he turned to her she saw him brace himself, as if in anticipation of physical attack, before he held out his hands; and when she placed her hands in his, she felt him recoil before his fingers closed over hers. He drew a long breath. “Okay, kid, let's get at it. What happened that night?”

“Pat,” Ruth said uneasily. “I don't think you should do this. You're pushing. It isn't going to be that easy.”

“I'm not pushing,” Pat insisted. “It's up to Rachel. Would you feel more comfortable talking about it if Adam left the room?”

“What would be the point of that?” Rachel said drearily. “He knows about it already, and I don't blame him for despising me. But I never intended…”

“Tell me.”

“It was that same night, the night of the Christmas party. I thought…I thought I heard something. Outside. I couldn't sleep, I was nervous—we all were, about the burglar. So I went downstairs.”

“You're a gutsy lady,” Pat said. “Gutsy but stupid. You didn't wake the others?”

“I didn't want to scare Cheryl or the kids. And he—Tony—was downstairs alone, encumbered by that cast, possibly drugged; sometimes he took painkillers to help him sleep.”

“But he wasn't asleep?”

He was leading her gently, like an attorney for the defense. “No,” Rachel said. “He heard me in the shop. At least that's what he said. He didn't know who it was, he thought someone had broken in. He scared me half to
death when he appeared. He apologized, told me to sit down…”

Her throat started to close up. She swallowed noisily, and Pat said, “You're doing fine, kid. If it's any consolation, I'm not enjoying this either. Up to that time had Tony ever made a pass at you—any kind of pass, verbal, physical, even a meaningful look?”

“No, never. And I never said or did anything to let him know…”

“That you were in love with him?”

“Stop it,” Ruth ordered angrily. “You can't ask the girl to strip herself naked in front of us.”

“It could be important,” Pat said.

“It's not important,” Rachel whispered. “But it's true. I didn't mean to. It just happened. He didn't know. Nobody knew except…”

“Who? Cheryl?”

“No! At least I hope she didn't. But I think Kara suspected.”

“Interesting,” Pat said thoughtfully.

“Get on with it,” Ruth snapped. “If you're determined to do this.”

Pat's fingers tightened. “Okay, Rachel. You're sitting in a chair, he's apologizing. Standing?”

“Yes.”

“And then?”

Her throat felt constricted, as if she were coming down with a cold. It hurt to swallow. She had to force the words out. “He said, ‘You're…'”

“Hang on, kid, we're almost there. ‘You're…' what?”

“‘…shivering. It's freezing in here.' And then he reached for—”

No effort of will could shape the next word or pronounce it. She felt her lips stretch wide in a painful rictus, heard the rattling sound of air trying to pass the obstruct
ion that blocked her throat, felt the muscles of limbs and body contract in a spasm that would have thrown her from the couch if Pat had not caught hold of her.

 

When her senses came back to her she was lying on the couch. Ruth was tucking the afghan around her and talking, in a soft, venomous monologue.

“Talk about rushing in where angels fear to tread! I told you it wasn't going to be that easy, but no, you knew better, you never listen.”

“Now, honey.” Rachel had never heard Pat MacDougal sound so meek. “I'm sorry. Is she all right?”

Rachel opened her eyes. They were all hovering, Ruth kneeling on the floor beside her, the two men bending over the couch.

“Of course she's not all right,” Ruth snapped. “Leave her alone, you—you big bully! First you drive her into a convulsion, then you squeeze the breath out of her, and now you want her to relieve your guilty conscience by telling you no damage was done.”

“I had to grab her, she would have hurt herself,” Pat protested. “Rachel—”

“I'm fine.” It was true. Except for slightly sore muscles, from Pat's bear hug, she felt quite normal. The painful constriction of her throat was gone. She sat up. “Really.”

Not for the first time, Rachel wished Adam's face wasn't so veiled by hair. The only part of it she could see clearly was his nose, and noses are not particularly expressive features. His voice sounded peculiar, though. “It looked like an epileptic seizure.”

“It wasn't,” Pat said. “I think I know what happened. Rachel, can you tell me—”

“Patrick MacDougal!” Ruth turned on her husband, her eyes blazing. “Not one more word, do you hear? I'm
putting this child to bed, right this minute. Adam, you'd better spend the night too.”

“The animals have to be fed and the dogs let out,” Adam said. When Ruth would have objected he interrupted her, with uncharacteristic rudeness. “I don't want to leave the house empty, even for one night. You seem to have forgotten that there's a murderer wandering around loose.”

“Oh, yeah.” Pat scratched his chin. “I wonder how he fits into this. Okay, Adam, you go back to Leesburg. I'll bring Rachel—”

“No!” Rachel exclaimed. “Don't let him go.”

“Do you think I can't handle your burglar?” Adam demanded. “I hope the little bastard does turn up.”

“Oh, for God's sake, stop showing off!” Rachel shouted. They glared at one another. He was still leaning over the couch, so close she could see his dilated pupils and the circles of bright hazel around them. “I'm not worried about burglars. If I did that to the bed canopy—and I must have, no one else could have done it—what else may I have done? There could be booby traps in every room.”

“I'll be careful,” Adam said.

“Do.” Pat's voice was dry. “I'd go with you, but I don't want to leave the girls alone.”

“You've been a great help so far,” Ruth said sarcastically. “And the epitome of tact. ‘Girls!'”

“He is being tactful,” Rachel said. “What he really means is he doesn't want to leave me alone with Ruth. He doesn't trust me, and he's absolutely right. I don't trust myself.”

“No, I didn't mean that,” Pat said. “It has no reason to harm Ruth. Or me.”

The simple change of pronoun, from the personal to the impersonal, carried more conviction than anything he had said thus far. He believes it, Rachel thought. He's on
my side. The only one who's completely, unequivocally on my side.

Whose side
?

“Pat,” his wife said warningly.

“Yeah, okay. You were right, you are always right. Put the kid to bed. Want me to carry you, Rachel?”

“I can walk.”

Adam didn't offer. He stood motionless and silent as Rachel left the room, with Ruth's arm around her.

The guest room was simply, almost sparsely furnished. The walls were painted a soft shade of blue, the floor was bare except for a braided rug next to the bed. It looked quiet and peaceful, and suddenly Rachel was so tired she could hardly keep her eyes open. She accepted Ruth's offerings of nightgown and toothbrush but refused a sleeping pill, and then Ruth left her, saying only, “I'm right down the hall. Don't hesitate to wake me if you want anything.”