The Wishing Thread

by Van Allen, Lisa

  For the most part, the people of Tarrytown had never cared for Lila. She lived in the Stitchery with Mariah and her girls, and she had what the good people of Tarrytown called a reputation. In the sixties, she’d been an outspoken protester of everything—bombs, men, meat, the status quo. By the eighties, she’d mellowed out somewhat. She had her children (the first two by one man who had floated in and out of her life, then Meggie by someone else when her diaphragm had failed). By the late nineties, she was beginning to lose it. She was bumming cigarettes in front of the liquor store and bothering people at bus stops. She was known to take her shirt off at the slightest provocation—whether in a park or a bar—and the local boys had great fun with her antics. She disappeared for weeks at a time, months; the girls didn’t know where she went. Sometimes, she came home tan and happy. Sometimes, pale and gaunt. She was not a guardian of the Stitchery, but she threatened people with magic; when the convenience-store clerk accidentally gave her the wrong change, she spat on the counter and vowed to curse his progeny. One day, she went away and never came back. Her death was the final nail in her coffin. Lila Van Ripper didn’t even have the courtesy to leave her body behind.

  By the time the government acknowledged her death and the funeral director gave his (rather short) eulogy, the Van Rippers’ tears for their mother had dried up. They stood on the stone porch of the funeral home, shivering in the chill of late winter. There was no hint of spring in the air. Few people had come to the funeral because the roads were clotted with snow. Few people would have come anyway. Aubrey stood with her sisters looking out onto the river, which was frozen at the edges but still moving slushily in the center channel. Bitty was fifteen; Aubrey, eleven; Meggie just five. They stood huddled together in their buttoned wool coats and thick hand-knit scarves. Although it was toasty in the funeral parlor, they did not want to go back inside. Eventually Mariah came out and stood behind them. She put her arms around all three of them, scooping them up and hugging them close. In the cold and snow, her body blocked the wind, and her breath blew out of her nostrils like an ox snorting in winter. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll be all right. We have each other, don’t we?”

  Sitting in the tavern, her pizza cold on her plate, Aubrey remembered her aunt’s words but didn’t remind her sisters of them. They hurt too much to think of, let alone say aloud. Instead, she finished her food as quickly as she could, aware that her sisters were doing the same, and tried to make small talk because she knew they were not going to resolve the Stitchery issue tonight.

  When they returned to the Stitchery, Aubrey felt sullen and lonely, and she knew her sisters did, too. Meggie went back out, though she did not say where she was going. Aubrey went up to her room to visit the hedgehog. He was merrily running and swinging on his wheel, but she scooped him into her hands anyway and brought him to her bed. After a huffy, halfhearted spiking, he relaxed and began to crawl around her lap. His nose twitched, his dark eyes gleamed like bright black beads. Aubrey liked to run her thumb along his brown-and-white quills like fanning the pages of a book, and—when he let her—she stroked the baby-soft white hair on his belly and chin. Normally, she would have told him all about her day. But the walls were thin and her sisters already thought she was crazy.

  A soft knock on the door. Icky snuffed and pulled his visor of quills down over his face at the sound. “Come in.”

  Bitty pushed open the door just enough to fit her shoulders through. “Am I interrupting?”

  “Well, me and the hedgie were just about to figure out the meaning of life.”

  “And that is …?”

  “He says it’s ‘eating mealworms.’ I think it might be more like, trying to do some good in the world.”

  “Good thing we live in a country that tolerates differences.” Bitty smiled. She moved into the room and the old door creaked closed behind her. She was wearing her pajamas—a sporty, matching set of ginger-colored terry. Her hair was wet and her skin was shiny with scrubbing. She took a few steps closer to the bed. Icky sniffed the air.

  “He’s cute,” Bitty said. “Carson won’t stop talking about him. You know I’m never going to hear the end of it until I buy them one.”

  “Want to hold him?”

  “Can I?”

  Aubrey sat up a little as Icky pawed along her sternum. She picked him up, careful of his soft belly and matchstick legs. But when Bitty reached for him, he snapped into a tight and hissing ball. Bitty jumped back and Aubrey laughed. “Don’t be scared. It’s not like he can shoot you with his quills.”

  “Maybe I’ll just admire from afar,” Bitty said. She sat down gently on the bed. Icky uncurled and began to sniff again. Bitty played with the zipper of her pajamas. “I came to ask a favor.”

  “Okay?” Aubrey said.

  “I was wondering if you would mind if the kids and I stayed with you for a little while longer.”

  Icky poked his head into a fold of Aubrey’s sweater, and she thought of Nessa, standing in the yarn room, a tangle of purple wool in her hands. She decided that she would keep the visual to herself—for a little while at least. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re not thinking this will be a vacation?”

  “I thought it would be good for us.”

  “And?”

  “And … I need a break from Craig.”

  Aubrey nodded. She knew how hard it was for her sister to ask for a favor. She also knew how hard it was to admit that there was anything wrong. Bitty was a lot like Icky in that way: He was a prey animal, and by nature he was programmed never to show a weakness. It was very hard to know if he was sick or hurting. Bitty had come to be that way as well.

  “You can stay as long as you want,” Aubrey said. “Nessa and Carson are really great kids—no, they’re great people. You know that feeling of—like—when you first wake up in the morning and you stretch your arms and your legs and your back, and everything pops and creaks, and it feels so so good?”

  “Yes?”

  “That’s what it’s like having you guys back.”

  “Thanks. I think.” She reached out to pet Icky’s back, and he let her.

  “And besides,” Aubrey said. “Technically, now it’s your house, too.”

  Bitty was quiet, her chin tipped down. When she was serene—in passing moments like this one—her face had a kind of aloof queenliness like an old painting of the Madonna. She brushed Icky’s spikes, her eyes downcast. “Craig and I … things haven’t been easy over the last year. Especially not for the kids.”

  Aubrey waited for her to say more. She was nearly holding her breath. She wanted, so much, to be able to talk to her sister again. To know her. She couldn’t imagine what it had cost Bitty to walk in here and ask for help—retreating to the Stitchery even as she was asking Aubrey to condemn it. She must have been in a bad situation. Really bad.

  But Bitty didn’t elaborate. She just got to her feet and walked wearily across the room. “I’m going to tell the kids the good news. They’ll be glad we’re staying.”

  “For how long?”

  “You haven’t lived until you’ve done Halloween in Tarrytown. Right?” She grinned—and for the first time, her smile reached her eyes.

  “Can they do that?” Aubrey asked. “Can the kids miss that much school?”

  “They have regular tutors. I’ll call the school tomorrow and double-check, but I think they’ll be okay. And besides …” She paused at the door. “We need this. A little break from everything. I think it will be good for them. And I think it will be good for me.”

  Aubrey wanted to say I’m glad you’re staying. But she guessed that wouldn’t have been quite the right response. Bitty closed the door behind her with a soft click.

  Aubrey thought of Nessa. She thought of Carson. Her heart ached for them—for Bitty’s family, for whatever it was they were going through, and she wished that there was something she could do for them.

  In the morning Nessa woke to see her grape yarn wound into a perfect ball on her ni
ghtstand, and a line of neat stitches perched on a needle like birds on a wire.

  From the Great Book in the Hall: The new knitter may have her doubts. A top-down cardigan starts with just a few flat rows, knit straight across. That’s it. A Möbius scarf begins with a straight line. A little black sheep knit into the yoke of a sweater first appears to be a few deranged blobs. Celtic cables, slithering across a scarf, can boggle the mind.

  But we knitters—when we trust the patterns, we learn the tricks. We are the man behind the curtain. We built the secret panel in the floor. We’re the ones who put the rabbit in the hat in the first place. But that doesn’t make the process less of a revelation.

  Even the most accomplished knitters can feel as if they’re wandering through a fog with little more than a dim lantern. You look at three rows of garter stitch on a knitting needle and think, How on earth could this scrap of fabric become a sweater? But little by little, you keep at it, and it does.

  The old firehouse where the Tappan Watch met had wooden paneling, fluorescent lights, and a weary pink kitchen that could be scrubbed with a toothbrush from top to bottom and yet still never look clean. On a good night, twenty or so people might show up to say the Pledge of Allegiance, circle their folding chairs, and pass around a petition. On a bad night—which was to say, a normal night—eight people might wander in late or leave early, mostly for the doughnuts and cider.

  This particular Thursday, however, was not a normal night. It was—Aubrey thought as she sat with her knitting, waiting quietly for the meeting to begin—a tremendously good night. News of the “incident” at Mariah’s funeral picnic had spread, and nearly all of Tappan Square had shown up at the Watch meeting. Something about Mariah’s death coupled with the approaching deadline for the council’s vote had galvanized the neighbors to fight—fight at long last. And yet the flourishing crowd left Aubrey with an empty spot in her heart. It seemed such a shame that the Watch had finally been able to muster the energy that Mariah had been hell-bent on mustering—but only after she’d died.

  She gathered the heavy Peruvian wool of her poncho more tightly around her shoulders. A cold snap had stampeded across the valley with darkness and rain riding hard at its heels. The chill was the kind that knocked on the bones.

  “Hey.”

  Vic dropped into a metal chair beside her, and the hard freeze that had wrapped like a fist around her midsection began to loosen. She finished a stitch and then lifted her eyelids to take him in. He wore a jacket the color of burnt cedar. He smelled of leather, rain, and some faint cologne. His hair was dark and dripping. “Doing okay?”

  “Yep.”

  “Whatcha making? Can I see?” He motioned to her knitting. She had a new project—a beanie in pale pink with a black skull-and-crossbones motif. With such brutally short hair, Meggie would need a warm hat on nights like this. If she stayed in Tarrytown.

  Aubrey moved the work a little closer to Vic, and he touched the stockinette with reverence, caressing the pattern with the pad of his thumb. Her mouth went dry and her poncho felt far too warm on her shoulders.

  “Are you making, um, a spell?”

  “No. This is just for fun.”

  “Is that a pirate symbol?”

  She laughed. “Kind of.”

  “That’s pretty badass. And to think my grandmother used to knit toilet paper covers.”

  “Ah yes. Cozies,” she said. “Knitters make the weirdest things. If you see a woman walking around in a hat that looks like it came out of a Dr. Seuss book, chances are she’s a knitter.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “Because we like to show off what we make. Even if it’s not really practical … like a toilet paper roll cover.”

  “Hey, now.” His eyebrows drew down in false seriousness. “Don’t hate the cozies. I have fond memories of using them to hold paintball pellets.”

  She smiled. “As if I haven’t knit my share.”

  He pulled away from her a bit. “Jeanette coming tonight?”

  “She’ll be here later.” She glanced at him. He wasn’t just looking at her; he was staring. His wide shoulders were turned nearly perpendicular to the back of his chair. She squirmed in her seat, heating under his scrutiny. “What’s wrong?”

  “You do know that it’s dark outside.”

  “Oh.” She touched her face. She’d decided to wear her brown-tinted glasses tonight—just to take the edge off should she catch anyone’s eye. Should she catch his. “I’m really sensitive to the light. And I put my eyeballs through hell—you know—with the knitting.”

  “Why don’t you take a break?”

  She glanced down at the beanie in her hands. She had told him a partial truth: Her eyes hurt. Also, her hands ached with what she suspected was early arthritis. And working the kinks out of her back was as futile as massaging the knots out of a pine tree. But she loved knitting far too much to stop. How could she explain that to be sitting still and not be knitting, not be creating something, made her feel like she was wasting time?

  “I’ll take a break,” she told him. “Later.”

  “Right. When you’re sleeping.” He smiled. His teeth, which she hadn’t been close enough to notice until now, were nice teeth—adequately white and with just enough crookedness to please her. He looked around as if checking for eavesdroppers, then leaned closer. He put his arm around the backrest of her chair. Something warm and glowy eased open within her.

  “So,” he whispered. “Are you going to run?”

  She whispered back. “From what?”

  He laughed. “For what. Are you going to run to be the new president?”

  “Oh. No.”

  He tipped his head. “Why not? Aren’t you the natural heir?”

  She looked at him now without trying to hide her face. Was he crazy? The leader of the Tappan Watch had to be many things—things Aubrey was not. The leader had to be confident about public speaking; Aubrey had not even spoken at Mariah’s funeral. The leader had to be outspoken and brassy; Aubrey’s sauciest moment had been in the eighth grade, when a teacher had asked her for an answer and she’d said, “You’re the teacher, you tell me.” The leader also had to be popular in Tarrytown—because who except a popular person could mobilize the people of Tappan Square for victory? That Vic thought Aubrey could be the new leader was flattering, but also ridiculous. She wished she could see herself through his eyes.

  “I can’t run,” she said.

  “But you’ll at least get up and say something, right? To set the tone? I think people would want to hear from you, given everything that’s happening.”

  She looked down at her hands in her lap, a dark swell of guilt coming over her. She wanted to help. She did. She wished she were a different person—the kind who could get up in front of a crowd without breaking a sweat. But then she reminded herself: It was actually better for everyone if she did what she always did, played a supporting role instead of a lead one. A bad leader was extremely dangerous. And while she knew she would not be bad, she didn’t imagine she could be good, either.

  “I’m really awful at speaking in public,” she said.

  “Really? But you’re so … oh … what’s the word I’m looking for? You know—when you have a way of putting things, when you have a way of making a point …?”

  “Articulate?”

  He snapped his fingers. “See? You’re a natural.”

  “Cute.” She laughed. “That’s just the bookworm in me. When I talk in front of a group, I lose the feeling in my feet. Seriously.”

  “Good thing you talk with your mouth then,” he said. And if Aubrey didn’t imagine it, his gaze dropped for a moment to the mouth in question.

  At the podium near the front of the room, someone was tapping on the microphone and saying, “Testing. Hello. Hello. If everyone could please take your seats?”

  A flash of disappointment crossed Vic’s face, and it was a moment before he turned away from her and faced front. Outside, the wind gave a long, low
howl.

  “Everyone? Please?” Dan Hatters, the Watch’s treasurer and the closest thing to a leader they had left, was a small man, nearly bald, with a nice argyle sweater and cheap jeans. His voice was piercing. “Everyone? Hello? Take your seats?”

  Aubrey lifted her knitting. The proceedings to replace Mariah began.

  The Tappan Watch did not have an especially long or auspicious history in Tarrytown. It was formed some time ago—no one could quite remember when—as a way for Tappan Square to rally against a rising tide of crime. The Watch put up street signs that declared a zero-tolerance policy. It sponsored “go-cart night” for students who kept up their grades. It held an annual street fair. In short, it tried.

  But in recent years, some of the steam had gone out of the Tappan Watch as residents became less concerned about crime and more concerned about feeding their families. The street fair shrank to a few card tables and an amateur clown. Students realized that one night of go-carts didn’t make up for an entire semester of studying math. The zero-tolerance street signs had been vandalized so that pairs of watchful eyes now looked like pairs of droopy boobs. Aubrey did not quite know how the Watch would be able to put itself together, especially now that Mariah was gone.

  “And now we’ll hear from our candidates for president.” Dan Hatters leaned a little too close to the microphone, and it squealed. The crowd grumbled. “Sorry. So … who’s ready?”

  First to approach the podium was Redmond Kingly. Between two limp flags he spoke about preserving Tappan Square for the future and protecting their homes. He was so impassioned that his fist pummeled the air and his face got sweaty and scarlet—and if it wasn’t for his state of perpetual drunkenness he might have stood a chance.

  Next was Gretel Couenhoven, a math teacher who had a voice like an airplane gliding past on a summer’s day—distant, droning, and of a nature to put a person instantly to sleep. In fact, when Gretel had finally finished her speech, a long moment of silence stretched out before someone finally came to attention and began to clap—because no one had heard a difference between when she was talking and when she was not.