Nessa sighed. “Oh brother. Come on.”
They went, Nessa holding her brother’s hand. The kitchen was different without them in it, as if some of the air had gone out of the room with them. Bitty looked at her sisters, who were looking back at her. She was too overwrought to be embarrassed now that the truth about her life—the classless, coarse vulgarity of it—had come out. She was what she was, what she had always been at heart. She was Bitty who had never left the Stitchery. And her sisters, they knew.
“Is he drunk?” Meggie asked. “Is he a drinker?”
“No,” Bitty said. She could feel a line of moisture at her hairline. “He just has temper tantrums sometimes. He bottles things up, then boom. An explosion. But this … this is epic.”
“What should we do?” Meggie asked.
Bitty sighed. And then she spoke the question that had been haunting her since the day she realized her husband no longer loved her but wasn’t willing to let her go. “What can I do?”
Her sisters said nothing. They seemed to have realized that telling Craig no was not an option; he wouldn’t leave the Stitchery without his children. Even if Bitty could offer him a rationale, the kids had become a point of stubborn pride.
Bitty pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m not sending the kids home with him,” Bitty said. “It’s not safe. He isn’t in a condition to drive himself around, let alone the children.”
“Good,” Meggie said.
“So I’ll drive them myself.”
“Bitty!” Aubrey’s exclamation was so pointed Bitty nearly jumped. “No!”
“I have to. He’s right. They’re his kids, too. And I did just … take them.”
“To a funeral,” Meggie said. “You took them to a funeral that he should have been at, too, if he was half a man.”
Bitty couldn’t hide her disgust.
“Oh Jesus, Bit.” Meggie held out her hands. “I’m not criticizing you. The guy turned out to be a total crapbag. It’s not your fault.”
“He’s not a … crapbag. He works really hard. He makes more money in a year than some people see in their lifetimes. And regardless of how he feels about me, he loves those kids.” Bitty pushed away from the wall. When she spoke again, she knew she was trying to convince herself, to firm up her resolve that she was doing the right thing. “Okay. Everything’s okay. I was thinking that maybe we needed to leave anyway … with Nessa knitting and everything, I’m not sure we should stay.”
“What if there was a way?” Aubrey said. “If you could stay at the Stitchery for a while more, would you want to?”
The kitchen grew quiet. The house was quiet, too, and Bitty thought it seemed the Stitchery itself was listening for the answer. Aubrey had asked the question that Bitty had not wanted to ask herself. She looked at Meggie—her silly hair, her creamy, child’s skin. She looked at Aubrey—her makeup smudged under her eyes, her mouth bracketed with frown lines. Perhaps Bitty didn’t want to stay in the Stitchery forever. But she was not yet ready to leave. She could see that her sisters were ready to fight for her, to do whatever it might take. And their loyalty, their dedication, moved her. She’d forgotten what it was like to love her sisters when love was a thing that was right in front of her and not projected from afar.
“Yes,” she said. “I want to stay.”
“Then it’s done,” Aubrey said, and she clapped her hands. The blue of her eyes was flashing and iridescent, the electric blue of damselfly wings. “What do you have to offer as a sacrifice?”
“Oh no. Hold up,” Bitty said. Her hope plummeted: She should have known. “I didn’t know you were talking about spells.”
“It’s worth a try,” Aubrey said.
“Good Lord.” Bitty shook her head, laughing in bitter disappointment. “Spells. I thought maybe you had a real plan. This is ridiculous.”
Meggie took her arm. “What’s ridiculous is you having a potential way to keep your kids here with you at the Stitchery so that if you go back to him you could do it in your own good time, but instead you’re going to go outside, roll on your back, and say ‘Okay you win.’ That’s ridiculous.”
Bitty couldn’t speak.
Meggie let her go. Her hair was clumped in hard, thick spikes like thorns. “Plus, what kind of example does it set for your kids if you pack them up and go home now? Nessa’s a little girl, and she’s looking to you to teach her how to be strong. I don’t know what’s going on with Craig, but I do know I wouldn’t want my daughter learning a lesson like that.”
Bitty was quiet. She felt—she hated to admit it—chastised. Especially since her sisters didn’t yet know the half of it. She was not a good role model; sometimes she was intractable, sometimes she was a doormat. She’d hoped a retreat to the Stitchery for a while might offer some clarity or strength of mind.
“But … a spell?” she said, lamely.
“Look at it this way,” Meggie said. “It couldn’t hurt.”
Bitty crossed her arms and raised her eyes to the water-spotted ceiling. “If you want to try, I guess I won’t say no.”
“Great.” Aubrey’s voice was unusually commanding. “Does Craig know about the magic and the knitting?”
“If he does, it’s not because I told him. He’d think I was nuts.”
“That should make our job easier,” Aubrey said. “Now—Bit—this isn’t the time to rationalize, okay? Quick—what would it be worth to you to keep your kids here with you a few more days? Don’t think about it, just tell me. Quick. What’s it worth?”
“I don’t know. I guess …”
“What?”
Bitty heard something hard in her laugh. She fingered her wedding ring; it was buttery yellow and simple—the least expensive piece of jewelry she had.
“Really?” Meggie asked. “Are you sure?”
“Seems like poetic justice,” Bitty said. She twisted it off her finger and dropped it onto the flat of Aubrey’s palm.
Meggie’s voice was soft. “But what will you tell him you did with it? What if you need it back?”
“You’re assuming he’ll notice it’s gone,” Bitty said. “And I can always tell Craig to buy me a new one. A really expensive one, with so many diamonds you can see it from Mars.”
Aubrey’s hand closed around the ring, and it was gone. Forever, Bitty realized. Gone. She had been making jokes; she should have been saying good-bye. The loss of it was real and heavy, and it made her realize that giving it up was perhaps not the easy and straightforward thing she’d wanted it to be.
“Here’s the plan,” Aubrey said. “Meggie, you go outside and stall Craig.”
“On it,” she said.
“Bitty, you go upstairs with the kids. We’ll call you down when we’re ready.”
“Okay,” Bitty said.
Meggie had hurried out the front door; Bitty took a step—one step—toward the stairs when Aubrey stopped her. She turned.
“I’m glad you’re staying,” Aubrey said.
“Let’s hope so,” Bitty said.
* * *
Aubrey skinned her knuckles on the rough side of a wooden barrel. She rummaged through thick, spongy balls of yarn. Where is it? Years ago, she’d started a scarf—an uninspired little thing of two-by-two ribbing. She’d given up on it when another, more promising project had come along, and she’d speared her live stitches with a silver stitch holder then shoved it away. Now it was exactly what she needed—nearly done, a blank slate, a fabric ready for an infusion of magic.
She found it at the bottom of the barrel, and she thought: Yes, of course. She snatched the half-done scarf, grabbed needles from the counter, and sat on a sealed wooden crate. There was no time for leisurely candle lighting, for a quiet prayer. She needed to clear her mind—fast—and make way.
And yet the channels of her thoughts were clogged. It was not that her focus was lacking; she was not distracted, exactly. But she doubted herself, her abilities. She did not even know if it was possible to graft a spell to a half-done work
; possibly, the thing was too far along and magic would run off it like rainwater sliding down a road. It occurred to her how very little she knew about the family’s craft, how hard she’d always leaned on Mariah, and how many questions she should have been asking when Mariah was alive. But she’d always thought she and Mariah would have more time later, more time later, until one day, later was gone.
Mari, she whispered in her mind. If Bitty leaves, I don’t know that she’ll ever come back.
She closed her eyes, needles in her hands, poised and still. She exhaled. And then she felt as if Mariah were with her, that somehow her aunt was around her, soothing her, assuring her, blessing her, telling her it would be okay. Her mind snapped to blankness. Her fingers started moving—no longer working a ribbed pattern, but instead taking the quickest route to work the stitches into place. There was only the knitting, the darkness, Mariah, power tucked like a seed in her heart, and the rapid-firing machinery of her hands.
“Bitty!”
Bitty heard the sound of her youngest sister trying to keep her voice normal as she called up the stairs. Nessa and Carson tensed beneath Bitty’s arms. Fifteen minutes had passed since Aubrey had disappeared into the yarn room and Meggie had gone outside in an attempt to stall. And Bitty was having an existential meltdown.
She had no good way to tell her children what her sisters were doing, what she had authorized them to do. She wasn’t sure she should tell, because she doubted that a good role model would attempt to hijack her husband’s brain with magic that she purportedly did not believe in and that she’d all but told her children they should not believe in. All she’d been able to offer was a tepid excuse for her family’s collective behavior: Aunt Meg wanted to talk to Dad for a minute. Her children believed her with the slow reluctance that comes with accepting a convenient lie.
Bitty felt sick to her stomach, more now than when Craig had shown up. More now than when he’d threatened to call the police. The questions cramped her up. Was she no better than an atheist who goes to a funeral and starts talking about angels and a better place; was she as much a hypocrite as someone who scoffs at prayer until the day their car is seesawing on the edge of a cliff?
It was quite possible, she realized, that crises brought out people’s true nature—and that this crisis had brought out her true nature. But she also worried that this particular drama hadn’t forced her to face the truth about herself so much as betray it. And that felt just plain wrong.
“Bitty? Bit!” Meggie’s voice was pinched with panic.
Bitty pulled herself together. “Stay here,” she told her kids. She rushed through the hallway and met Meggie halfway down the stairs. “What now?”
“Our pal Craigster called the cops. At least, he says he did. They’re on the way.”
“Crap,” Bitty whispered. “What if he tells them I kidnapped the children? What if the cops take them away?” She was panicking now, fully panicking. The tears that she’d held back began to stream. “What am I going to do?”
“It’s okay,” Meggie said. “I promise. It’s going to be okay.”
Together they trampled down the stairs to the first floor. They stopped in the doorway of the yarn room, not a toe crossing over the threshold into the space Aubrey occupied. Light from the hall pushed forward into the yarn room but deferred to the shadows inside. Stillness, eerie and complete, had settled so deeply that not even the clock on the wall could be heard to tick. Perched on a crate, Aubrey might have been made of nothing more than dead stone, except for the fluttering of her hands and the ribbon of black yarn that trickled from its ball.
“Aubrey. We’re outta time,” Meggie said.
Bitty’s heart was pounding. Her muscles were jumping around under her skin. She was shocked and horrified to realize that her hope—some of it anyway—was pinned to the scrap of fabric in Aubrey’s hands.
Meggie looked at Bitty. Their sister hadn’t moved. She tried again. “Hey Aub—”
Aubrey opened her eyes.
Bitty cried out, lifted her hands in instinctive self-defense. “Oh my God!” The yarn room had burst into hot blue strobe, blue fracking into the joints of beams, blue beating its fists on the walls, blue like a star burning on the brink of implosion.
From outside the window, Craig roared. “What the hell is going on?”
Bitty couldn’t speak.
But then, Aubrey blinked. Once. And just like that, with a loud boom like the report of a gunshot, the light was gone. Darkness, cool and soothing, washed over the yarn room. Bitty realized that the power in the Stitchery had gone out. Light came only from the streetlight outside.
Aubrey wrenched her needle from her stitches like a soldier brandishing a sword. “Take it,” she said. She held the scarf up for Bitty and gave it a shake. “Come on!”
Stunned, Bitty walked forward and took the scarf. She was only a few feet away when Aubrey doubled over and vomited.
Bitty stopped.
“Don’t worry, I got her.” Meggie rushed to Aubrey’s side. “You go.”
“Are you sure?”
“Did I mention that the cops will be here any second? Just go!”
She ran from the yarn room.
In the yard her husband stopped pacing and looked up at her, his torso as thick as a black bear’s, teeth glinting white. Bitty felt as if someone had taken over her body, someone who wasn’t her. She stepped off the porch and into the overgrown grass.
“You must be cold,” she said.
From GovSpyDog.org:
Thanks to reader D.Avid, who reported hearing this
call go out over his police monitor:
Residents of Tappan Square, a run-down neighborhood in the storied village of Tarrytown, New York, responded to a “domestic disturbance” but found something way more disturbing than that. Although there was no dispute to be seen, multiple agitated residents approached officers to report a “powerful blue light coming down from the sky.” As far as we know, there’s been no indication that law officers are taking the complaint seriously.
People, this is where you come in. I don’t have to tell you about the Hudson Valley, about those unexplainable stone monoliths that are all over that region that scientists have not been able to figure out. I don’t have to tell you that the Hudson River might be a giant landing strip for highly advanced spacecraft who first visited us during ancient times.
If you saw the blue light in Tarrytown, I want to hear about it. Otherwise, theories welcome.
Aubrey lay on the cold white tile of the bathroom floor, wedged beneath the protruding bowl of the porcelain sink and the militant bulwark of the tub. A few candles had been set out on the back of the toilet tank, and the air smelled like strawberries. The room was freezing, and despite the unforgiving angles at which she’d contorted her body, Aubrey felt as weightless as if she were floating in a cold salt sea. Her sisters were with her. Ribbons of their conversation sifted around her, and she grasped at the elusive threads, Bitty saying, He didn’t put the scarf on, but he held it. Meggie saying, Do you think she’ll be okay?
She tried to lift her head. In a moment, her sisters were there to help her. She opened her eyes and the blurry world went clearer. She sat up and leaned back against the tub.
“Easy, killer,” Meggie said.
“Water?” Aubrey managed. A moment later, Bitty was pushing a mug into her hand. She drank; her throat cooled. She looked up at her sisters. Meggie was hunched on the closed lid of the toilet. Bitty was perched on the lip of the tub. “Did it work?”
Bitty said, “He’s gone.”
“Does this, like, always happen?” Meggie asked. “The puking? The passing out?”
“No. It’s never happened before.”
“Why now?” Bitty asked.
Aubrey sipped her water. She felt as if she were being slowly poured back into her own body. She was shivering down to her bones. “I don’t know. I guess because of the intensity of the spell.” She’d never knit so quickly before; it sho
uldn’t have worked. Normally, it took time to build the momentum of magic, like pushing on the bumper of a stalled car—that slow heave toward acceleration. But the spell Aubrey had just knit went from zero to sixty in no time flat. It should have been impossible. It wasn’t. It made Aubrey afraid of the amount of magic that she now knew existed within her. Some part of her did not want it, did not want to know. For all the power she’d glimpsed, she knew she’d merely peeked through a keyhole and not stepped fully into the chamber. The question was, What did it mean?
Her sisters were talking again; apparently, she’d checked out. She heard the strain in Bitty’s voice. She heard Meggie’s replies: soft questions uttered with intensity and care.
Bitty’s sigh was long. “I promise I’ll tell you everything. But I’m exhausted. So can we talk about this in the morning?”
“Only ’cause Aubrey’s conked out,” Meggie said.
But Aubrey could no longer follow. She was falling asleep. Or she was already sleeping. Bitty and Meggie were talking, dressed up like Victorian vampires and having tea. There was a crowd in the yarn room, and they were knitting capes for stop signs and pondering how the capes would fit since stop signs did not have shoulders. Aubrey was trying to tell everyone that the moon had turned into a giant wrecking ball that was barreling toward Tappan Square.
“Come on.” A voice came into her dream like a flashlight through fog. She did not know who spoke. “Let’s get her to bed.”
Saturday morning came to the Stitchery on the heels of a passing rain shower, and all of Tappan Square shimmered. Clusters of purple asters and pots of hardy mums trembled on the roadsides. Scarecrows in floppy hats smiled where they had been strapped to mailboxes. Gauze-fettered zombies, strung from porches, turned slow circles in a cheery breeze.
Most of Tappan Square was still sleeping and did not know that strangers were visiting their corner of town. A survey crew had arrived just after dawn, with their tripods and hard hats and cups of coffee steaming in bare hands. They worked quickly, fanning out, signaling, talking into their phones. They were measuring the outline of a neighborhood that soon would not be there, drawing invisible lines around buildings to be felled like so many acres of trees.
The Wishing Thread Page 20