Stitches in Time (32 page)

Adam started so that the cup wobbled in his hand, and Rachel was momentarily impressed. She reminded herself that it was the same method fortune-tellers and professional psychics employ—clever guesses, based on human psychology. Most people act out of self-interest, and in this case at least Adam was no exception.

Stargazer went wildly off the track with her next guess, though. “Something has disturbed the even course of your love. Do you doubt your young lady's fidelity? Does she question yours? Or is the trouble impotence?”

Rachel was afraid to look at Adam. He made a series of choking sounds before he was able to articulate clearly. “Uh—no. At least…No!”

Rachel decided to throw him to the wolves. He would probably prefer her suggestion to some of the alternatives. “I don't doubt him,” she murmured. “Not really. I just want to make sure…There are spells to bind souls together, aren't there?”

There were indeed. Lots of spells. Their hostess, happy to have a receptive audience, might have rambled on indefinitely if the ringing of the doorbell had not reminded her of a previous engagement. She urged them to come back any time and, at Adam's request, supplied him with a
reading list. She even pressed a few of her own precious books on them.

“I hoped you're satisfied,” Rachel said, as they returned to the car.

“She's a nice lady,” Adam said simply. “She was trying to help us.”

“You're hopeless.” But Rachel's voice was gentle. “It was a waste of time.”

“I'm not so sure. Turn right at the corner.”

“It's the wrong way.”

“I want to stop by that store she mentioned.”

“The one that sells herbs and amulets? You aren't serious.”

“Weren't you the one who was talking about multiple approaches? It can't do any harm to try.” Adam had opened one of the books. “I did some reading last night after you guys went to bed. I didn't know—or if I did, I'd forgotten—how widespread some of these ideas are. (Left here, and then left again onto King Street.) The same elements recur over and over, from cultures widely separated in time and place—mojo bags, like the one she was wearing—Native Americans called them medicine bundles, Europeans charm bags or witches' sachets, people of African ancestry gris-gris or hands.”

“I told you, magic has its own internal, consistent rules. The logic is based on false premises—”

“Oh, yeah?”

Rachel said no more.

Leesburg had a thriving tourist trade; the magic shop, as Rachel insisted on calling it, was in an area well-supplied with restaurants, boutiques, and specialty shops. The Eye of Horus appeared more prosperous than some of its neighbors, perhaps because it was the only one of its kind. The craft shops all seemed to be selling the same pottery and misshapen stuffed animals.

“Got any money?” Adam inquired. “I forgot my wallet.”

“Five or ten bucks.”

Adam stopped to look in the shop window. The theme that month appeared to be based on Tolkien and/or the northern mythology that had inspired his work. Mistletoe and holly, statues of wizards with long beards and longer staffs, a tree stump on which perched elves and fairies of various varieties and materials, plus the usual beads, crystals, candles, and bundles of herbs.

“I have a feeling that won't be enough,” Adam said.

Rachel sighed. “I just paid my credit card bill.”

“Great. I'll pay you back.”

He paused to inspect the notices and advertisements pinned to the door. “Somebody is giving a workshop on Sacred Drum Making.”

“I don't think Kara would stand for sacred drums,” Rachel said.

“Alexander wouldn't like 'em either,” Adam admitted. “How about an Intuitive Channeling Class given by an Ascended Master?”

“If you insist on doing this, let's get it over with.”

Once inside Rachel left him to his own devices while she wandered around. Native American must be hot in the magic business this year; silver and turquoise jewelry filled several showcases, and artistically arranged displays of tomahawks and arrows adorned the wall. She was tempted to get Adam a tomahawk trimmed with bits of fur, or a T-shirt featuring a naked goddess.

When he requested her assistance in paying for his purchases, she saw they filled several large bags. Observing the total on the slip she signed, she said out of the corner of her mouth, “You'd better be good for this. What in heaven's name did you buy?”

“I'll show you later.” Adam picked up the bags, smiled broadly at the clerk, who smiled broadly back at him, and led the way out.

“It's getting darker,” Rachel said, as they walked toward the parking garage. “I hope Pat is back.”

“He'll be all right.” As soon as he got in the car Adam began digging around in one of the bags. He waited until she had stopped for a traffic light before looping something around her neck.

“What's that for?” Rachel looked cross-eyed at her chest. The beads were white and translucent and oddly shaped.

“Warding off evil,” Adam said seriously. “They're pearls—baroque pearls, the lady said, that's why they're those funny shapes.”

“Adam—”

“Well, it can't hurt, can it? Anyhow, I thought they were pretty. They look nice on you.”

After a moment Rachel said, “Thank you. They are pretty.”

Adam fished in the bag again. “I got lots of stuff,” he said happily. “Including a few more books. This one looked interesting. She describes how to rob a graveyard.”

“You're joking.”

“No, no. And it's very practical, down-to-earth—excuse me—advice. You find an abandoned cemetery, like the old private cemeteries near eighteenth-century houses—plenty of them around here—and take a few friends with you to help with the digging. She recommends at least four flashlights, and pliers, and ropes to slip under the coffin once it's exposed.”

“That's sick,” Rachel said in disgust. “How old is that book?”

“Published in 1970.”

“That's even sicker.”

“She needed coffin nails for a spell. That's another of the recurring ingredients in hex magic.” He turned a page. “Brandy.”

“What?”

“Take along a flask of brandy. Yes, I suppose an occasional nip might be cheering under those circumstances…Wear jeans and a sweatband…She's right, digging is hard work. But you don't have to pull the coffin clear out, just raise it enough to get at the nails. That's where the pliers come in.”

Rachel glanced at him in alarm. “Adam, you aren't seriously considering—”

“Well, no. We don't want to cast a death spell, we want to take one off.” He skimmed the remaining pages. “She doesn't say anything about removing curses. This wasn't one of the books Stargazer recommended. I can see why. Her crowd doesn't approve of black magic.”

“Neither do I.”

“It's dangerous,” Adam said. He sounded perfectly serious. “If you don't know what you're doing, or if your intended victim is properly protected, the curse can rebound onto you.”

“Put that awful book away.”

“There's Pat's truck,” Adam said. “I can hardly wait to hear what he has to say about this.”

Pat had plenty to say, most of it profane, but the majority of his curses were directed at himself.

“I'm getting senile. Outthought by a chit of a girl, and in my own field! I don't know why the idea didn't occur to me. Yes, I do. I committed the same sin for which I have blasted innumerable quailing colleagues—forming a hypothesis without adequate evidence and then getting so stuck on my own theory I couldn't see anything else.” He groaned dramatically, “‘I am old, I am old; I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled…'”

“Now that you've got that out of your system maybe we can proceed,” Adam said unsympathetically. “Have you seen the quilt?”

Pat shook his head. He had been making himself a sandwich when they arrived; cartons, jars, bottles, and baggies littered the counter. “Don't put the pickles away,” he ordered as Adam started to clear away the mess. “Hand 'em over. Thanks. No, I haven't. Kara had just finished telling me about your discoveries when a couple of customers arrived and she wouldn't give me the key to the workroom. As if I didn't have sense enough to be left in there alone!”

He bit savagely into his sandwich. Pickles crunched like dried bones.

“I'm with Kara,” Adam said. “The damned thing is dangerous, Pat, and you do tend to rush in where angels fear to tread.” Cheeks bulging, Pat glared at him, but he went on imperturbably. We need to give this careful thought before we proceed. You want a sandwich, Rachel?”

“Yes. No. I don't care.”

“I need something to take the taste of lotus leaves out of my mouth,” Adam said. “Let's eat, and discuss the situation, and then we'll have show and tell:”

Pat swallowed. “Might I inquire why you have been breakfasting on lotus leaves?”

Adam's account of how they had spent the morning produced another string of curses, directed this time at Adam. “You wasted your time, boy. And your money. What's all this junk?”

He reached for one of the bags. His face reddening, Adam snatched the bag away from him. “Never mind. Look, Pat, we're in no position to throw stones at anybody or discard any possible approach. Stop yelling and make like the expert you claim to be.”

“Touché,” Pat said mildly. He dusted the crumbs off his fingers. “If you guys are right, this case is not a parallel to the one in which I was involved some years ago. Mind you, I'm not saying you
are
right, but I am willing to admit that your hypothesis is worthy of consideration.”

“I figured your humility and open-mindedness were only temporary,” Adam jeered. “Rachel has a stronger case than you. The evidence supports her theory.”

Pat leaned back in his chair and fixed his eyes on Rachel. She knew what he was trying to do—stare her down, get her to start talking, defend her theory. She also knew what he was thinking. She hadn't proved her case. Not all the evidence supported it.

She pressed her lips firmly together and stared silently back at Pat.

Tacitly acknowledging defeat, Pat transferred his hard stare to Adam. “I said it was worth considering. What we would have, then, is a classic example of ill-wishing, employing the standard ingredients of black magic. Theoretically the curse can be broken by employing the conventional counterspells.”

“That's what I thought,” Adam said, with a betraying glance at the bags of magical apparatus. “Such as?”

Pat's lecturer's pose wilted. “That's the trouble,” he said querulously. “There are a lot of possibilities, some of them mutually contradictory.”

“I might have known you'd start waffling as soon as we got down to practical advice.” Adam's normally even temper appeared to be cracking. “What about burning the damned thing? Wouldn't that cancel the spell?”

“It might.” Pat glanced at Rachel. He hadn't missed her involuntary movement of protest. “Or it might be the worst thing we could do. Burning one of the poppets—the magical dolls—killed the person it represented.”

“This person is already dead,” Adam said sourly.

“So, one may reasonably assume, is the individual who made the quilt.”

“What does that have to do with it?” Adam demanded.

“Well.” Pat shrugged. “In some cases the destruction of the ensorceled object—witches' ladder, hex bag, whatever—turns the curse back on the perpetrator.”

“That would be fine with me,” Adam said. “But what you seem to be saying, if I understand that welter of contradictions, is that burning the ensorceled object (what a pompous phrase!) would have one effect or its exact opposite—and you don't know which.”

“Magic is not an exact science,” Pat said, visibly amused.

“How about burying it?” Adam persisted.

“You're being too simplistic. The physical actions are only one part of a magical performance. The spoken spell, the words, are equally important. The third element is perhaps the most vital—the powerful emotion felt by the magician—-passion and desire in the case of love magic, bitter hatred in cursing. The emotion must be intense, focused—hurled, like a spear, at the intended victim. According to some theories, this last is not only necessary but sufficient; the other elements, words and actions, only assist in concentrating the magician's mental powers.” He was silent for a moment and then he said soberly, “Mind over matter. There's some truth in that; we are just beginning to learn how much. If a man can wish himself to death, or control certain functions of his body by positive thinking, what else may he be able to do?”

“I don't give a damn about empty theorizing,” Adam said. His face was flushed. “I can project hate, all that's necessary. Tell me what else to do.”

“Who, me?” Pat's open amusement made Adam flush more deeply. “You are uptight about this, aren't you? I wonder why. Now, Adam, you were the one who said we ought to go slow. At least we should ask Rachel what she thinks.”

“You don't destroy hate with more hate,” Rachel said, and felt her own cheeks burn. “Good lord, I'm talking like Stargazer.”

“You've got a point, though,” Pat said, watching her. “Not that I want to sound like a dog in the manger, Rachel, but you might have mentioned your brilliant deductions to me before I wasted a whole day tracking down useless information in a town with too many good restaurants. I still have heartburn.”

“You didn't ask me,” Rachel snapped.

Pat grinned at her.

“Did you have any luck?” Adam asked.

“Some. I found Mary Elizabeth's obituary.”

“That's not useless,” Rachel exclaimed. “Didn't you locate anything else?”

“Typical,” Pat growled. “A compliment and a criticism, almost in the same breath. No, dear, I didn't locate anything else. I told you, the records are incomplete and they are scattered all over hell and gone. The obit is interesting, though. Janney was her maiden name. Her husband was a Charles King, who came from North Carolina. He was listed as missing, presumed dead, after Bull Run—or Manassas, as they call it south of the Mason-Dixon line.”

There was something in his voice that kept the others silent for a few moments. Then Adam said tentatively, “Eighteen sixty-one. He was a Confederate?”

“Yep.”

“So she died later.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Oh, for God's sake, Pat, stop being theatrical,” Rachel burst out. “What is it?”

“Weeell,” Pat drawled. “It is rather suggestive. She survived him—if he was dead—by only a few months. They were married in 1860. She died a year later. In childbirth.”

Involuntarily Adam glanced at Rachel. Neither spoke.

“Screws up your theory, doesn't it?” Pat inquired politely. “If you believe in curses, Mary Elizabeth must have been the recipient of the quilt instead of its maker. It killed her young husband and then her. She was twenty-one.”

“Did the child survive?” Rachel asked.

“Yes. A girl. That may have been part of the curse,” Pat added maliciously. “Sons were the preferred variety.”

“Then Miss Ora lied, or was mistaken, about who made the quilts,” Adam began.

“Not necessarily,” Rachel said. “One of the perils of
black magic is that a curse can bounce back and affect the person who sent it. If she made the quilt for someone else, and it was returned to her…”

“That's all we need, an unknown second party. The chance of locating her, if she existed at all, are slim to zero.” Pat tossed his notebook aside. “This is beginning to look less and less relevant. Dammit, what's keeping Kara? I want to have a look at that quilt. Go get the key from her, Adam, tell her Rachel will make sure I don't misbehave.”

As soon as Adam had left the room Pat reached for Adam's bags of magical paraphernalia and began unloading the contents. “The lad does have an inquiring mind, doesn't he?” he said, grinning wolfishly. “Black candles, little packets of mystic herbs, staurolite—yeah, right, that's supposed to protect the wearer against black magic…Aha. What have we here?”

“You shouldn't do that,” Rachel exclaimed. “Adam won't like it.”

“He certainly wouldn't like my finding this.” Pat sat the fat pink candle down in the center of the table with a decisive plonk. “If I remember the procedure correctly, he'll scratch your name on the wax, maybe wrap a strand of your hair around it, and burn it as he chants something maudlin like, ‘Aphrodite, goddess of love, consume this maiden's heart with love of me as this candle is consumed…'”

His voice rose to a saccharine falsetto. “Stop it,” Rachel gasped. “That is so cruel!”

“I'm not the one who is cruel. What have you done to the kid?”

“What do you mean, what have I done?” Rachel grabbed the pink candle and put it back in the sack, piling the other objects in helter-skelter. Among them was a packet of dried rose petals. It didn't require much imagination to understand their purpose, if not their precise function, in the ritual.

“I guess you aren't obliged to fall for him just because he's gone goofy over you,” Pat conceded with magnificent tolerance. “But I've never seen him like this. He's been hiding behind that beard for years. Did you complain about it scratching you?”

“You're disgusting. I didn't complain about…”

She
had
expressed disapproval of the beard, though. Pat's complacent smile infuriated her and made her feel obscurely guilty. “I didn't lead him on or encourage him, and he isn't goofy over me. He's a little goofy, period. According to Cheryl and Kara—”

“Women,” Pat said in disgust. “What do they know about him?”

“More than you suppose.”

“Ah. Who told you, Kara?”

“Yes. I can understand why he's afraid of taking chances, he's been hurt too often—”

Pat brought his fist down on the table. “Women! You've got it bass-ackwards, girl. He's afraid of hurting other people. That's why he keeps himself under such tight control. He almost killed his father one time, after the old swine had taken a broom handle to Adam's mother. She expressed her appreciation by beating on him with her fists and telling him it was all his fault that the old man was violent.”

Rachel's eyes fell. “I knew about that. But not about…”

“So now you do. Don't look so stricken. And for God's sake don't offer to go to bed with him out of pity.”

The comment had the effect he intended. The color rushed back into Rachel's face. “Damn you!”

“Under the present circumstances,” said Pat, “it might be better if you refrained from suggestions like that. Paste a smile on, kid, here they come. This is just between us.”

Kara had put up the “Closed” sign in order to grab a quick lunch, as she explained, but it was obviously
Alexander's needs that concerned her most. She was carrying him when she came in. He and Pat bared their teeth—or in Alexander's case, his gums—at one another.

“I'm sorry we were so long,” Rachel said. “I'll walk Alexander or take over in the shop, whatever you want.”

“It's been busy,” Kara admitted. She looked tired, her eyes shadowed and her mouth drooping. “I'd appreciate your help in the shop, but first you'd better show Pat the evidence. He won't leave until after he's examined it.”

“Sit down.” Adam took Alexander from her with such an air of authority that Kara obeyed and even Alexander realized protest would be futile. They weren't gone long. When they returned Adam's hair stood up in wild disarray and Alexander looked like a dirty mop.

“It's blowing a gale,” Adam announced, putting the dog down. “Maybe you had better get on home, Pat.”

“Not till I've seen the quilt.” Pat's lips set stubbornly. Kara looked at Alexander, who was tottering around looking for something to terrorize. The dogs had retreated into a corner and the cats had dematerialized. With a sigh she took the key from her pocket and handed it to Rachel. “I'll be along in a minute. Don't let him—”

“Take your time,” Rachel said. “I can handle him.”

“Ha,” said Pat.

However, he accepted without argument the plastic gloves Rachel insisted he wear. You've come a long way, baby, she thought; who would have believed a few weeks ago you'd be ordering the great Patrick MacDougal around and swearing at him?

The quilt was dry now. After Rachel had shown Pat the dark inner layer, he asked her to turn it over. When she saw the appliquéd surface Rachel felt less guilty about finishing the destruction of the quilt. The stains were set and permanent, not dust but a deeper darkness, ingrained into the fabric. The gentle cleaning methods she had used
would be ineffective now. Was there some mineral in the earth, iron or copper or lead, that had reacted with hot water to produce an indelible stain? Ordinary garden soil should simply wash out.

But this wasn't ordinary garden soil.