Marked by Shadows: MM Paranormal Romance Mystery (A Simply Crafty Paranormal Mystery Book 2)

by Lissa Kasey

  “He is fine,” Jonah agreed. “You going to cosplay with him?” He asked me. “I could see him in some tight leather Witcher pants, or even the Assassin Creed outfit.”

  “Fake leather maybe,” I allowed. Leather, and actual animal products in general were difficult to work with, breaking needles, and needing special treatment. “I think we will… cross that bridge when we come to it,” I said, recalling the common saying.

  I had some new ideas for costumes for Alex. Since he loved dressing up so much, my plan was to make him some things he could wear doing our tours, or even in the shop, and for fun, but had yet to run any of it by him. I needed to ask Freya for some help drafting the ideas first. From my head to paper didn’t always translate the same. Freya, however, could take my verbal description, and sketch it, with notes, to something I could then turn into the guide for a pattern. I had yet to achieve her brilliance. So far the things I’d made weren’t suitable for everyday wear, and I couldn’t see us traveling around to cosplay conventions all the time.

  We arrived at the next shop and listened to the instructions.

  “Everyone will have an hour for the shop and an hour for lunch,” the guide sitting up front beside the bus driver stated. “This area of town is filled with restaurants. You can either eat first and then shop, or shop and then eat. The store does ask that you not bring food inside.”

  Everyone murmured in agreement and we made our way off the bus. This shop was a bit more artsy. Some big name lines, of course, lots of modern colors, including the section of scales mentioned before, some handmade prints, and a lot of precuts. In fact, the stacks of precuts of all shapes, sizes, and colors instantly set my wallet on fire.

  “Wow, you’re super glowy,” Alex remarked.

  “Precuts are a quilters paradise,” I told him.

  “Was that English?”

  I waved away his silliness. “Go find stuff. Ignore me while I spend all my money.”

  He dug in his pocket for a minute, then pulled out the stack of coupons, flipping through them and then handing one to me. I’d forgotten I’d passed him the mess. The coupon he gave me was for twenty-five percent off any order over one hundred dollars. I gaped at him.

  “What?” He asked. “Go delight in your square things. I’m going to check on the machines.” He wandered away to the far right side of the store which was set up with a dozen machines, including a few long arms.

  I actually did get lost in the fabric for a while. When I checked out, I realized I’d been shopping almost an hour and a half and we needed lunch. Where was Alex? I didn’t see any of our group in the store anymore. A few from the bus, yes, but not from the cosplay group. I thanked the woman at the counter, accepted the two giant bags and headed toward the machine area. Would Alex still be there?

  He was.

  Alex sat at a mid-arm machine. A large square in front of him at the machine, a quilt sandwich, we in the trade called it, fabric layered on batting layered on fabric. The free-motion sewing foot was on the machine, a round sort of hole of metal that made up the ‘foot’ pressing against the fabric. And Alex moved the square around, the machine buzzing as his foot rode the pedal.

  At first I thought he was simply playing with it. Since there were two employees nearby, I wasn’t worried. But as I got closer, I realized he wasn’t playing at all. He used the machine at regular speed, instead of slowing the pace or even hesitantly pressing the foot pedal. His hands moved in a gentle direction, turning and shifting the fabric with little effort. Echoing… and restarting a new line of perfect quilting.

  The two employees looked on in what seemed to be shock. Not that he was breaking anything, but that he had no hesitation in using a machine I knew he had never touched before.

  “Alex?” I asked.

  For a moment he continued, like he hadn’t heard me. Perhaps he was in the zone, as they called it, super focused. I got that way often enough.

  “Alex?” I called again.

  This time he paused, foot easing off the pedal and his hands stilling the guide of the fabric through machine. He looked back at me, blinking, almost like he was waking from a dream. I switched the bags to one hand, hefting their weight aside, to touch his face.

  “You okay?” I prodded when he didn’t speak.

  “Yeah, I think so,” he replied. We both looked down at his little quilt square, probably a little over a half meter square, and found elaborate designs swirled over the space. From a section of detailed paisley feathers, rolling spades, and fleur-de-lis type symbols to elaborate pebble-like circles of varied size and shape, stacked upon themselves. His square was almost full. Maybe one of the other quilters had left it behind?

  Alex pulled his hands away from the square, staring at it for a minute, then glanced around the room, before pushing away from the table to stand beside me.

  “Thank you, ladies,” he told the employees. “That was fun.”

  “I’ve never seen someone free motion that quickly and without rulers. I mean the long arm does it when programmed in, but your stitches are perfect,” the older woman said.

  “Like Judy’s,” the younger of the two confirmed. She put her hand over her heart. “I miss that sweet lady. She could feed a quilt through like that, transitioning from one stitch to the next seamlessly. Read the fabric and craft a stitch perfect for each section without hesitation. Real artistry. Won dozens of Guild prizes over the years for her work. Never seen anyone else do it in person. You must have years of practice.”

  “Thank you for letting me play with the machine,” Alex said, tension tightening his shoulders. He reached for my bags. “We should get back to the bus, right?”

  “We need food first,” I told him, letting him take them as he rushed us toward the door of the shop.

  “Don’t forget your sample,” the younger woman said. She took the square off the machine. “You did all the work. You should keep it. It’s beautiful.” She tried to give Alex the square, but when he wouldn’t take it. I accepted it instead.

  “Thank you,” I told the women as we left. Once out on the sidewalk I grabbed Alex’s arm and pulled him to a stop. “Alex?”

  He was breathing hard, an edge of panic in his eyes. He gnawed on his lip, and I worried it would bleed soon. I took a step forward and kissed him gently, sucking his battered lip into my mouth and massaging it with my tongue before letting him go.

  “Talk to me?” I asked. “I thought you’ve never touched a sewing machine before?” Certainly not a mid-arm. I didn’t own one, though I had thought about getting one. Most people didn’t know what they were. And to free motion quilt like that? Flawless, almost effortless. Like someone who had never painted before, picking up a brush and in a few minutes producing a Michelangelo.

  I had a thousand questions, but didn’t know if Alex actually had any answers. No one magically began that skilled. It wasn’t possible. Even an artist would have to learn the machine, practice how it moved, and get familiar with the motion of the needle.

  “Alex?”

  He set the bags at my feet, stalked a few feet away, running his hands through his hair, and pacing. I watched him, waiting for him to clarify his thoughts enough to share them. After several treks back and forth, I thought maybe he wouldn’t say anything.

  “I knew she was a ghost this time,” he said suddenly. He waved his hand. “Or whatever. A spirit, or something. Not a living person.”

  “Okay,” I agreed. “There was a lady with the two other ladies I saw?”

  “No. Not exactly.” He crouched down, closing in on himself for a minute, head over his knees, hands in his hair, which was a total mess now. He stared at the sidewalk for a moment, arms wrapped around his knees. “I let her use me.”

  “What?”

  He stood up again and resumed his pacing. “She said it was sudden. She hadn’t gotten to share her skill. Hadn’t found anyone who could handle it, not even her kids. Said she would show me. Could tell that I was the right one.”

&nb
sp; “Wait… so the ghost lady was sewing through you?” I tested my understanding. I held up the square. “She helped you create this?”

  “Yes and no. It was, I don’t know how to describe it. I started very slowly. Those ladies showing me how to lower the foot thing and move the fabric. The other lady, she wasn’t as solid. Not like that store clerk in the thrift shop was. She whispered that they have never mastered her skill. There was no one to teach her classes anymore. She offered to show me how to do a little. I said okay.” Alex paused. “She touched me. It was cold. Not like the fire of the… well anyway, it was cold. She put her hands over mine and we started. I could feel a sort of memory. Not mine exactly, but enough of it that I could use it for myself. A muscle memory. The rest was easy. One design to the next. Like I’d been doing it forever.”

  He stalked back to stand in front of me, his expression seeking. “I could probably do it again. Remember how, craft the lines of a thousand images.” He waved his hands around. “I can tell you a dozen different patterns I would probably have never known before today.”

  Alex had a remarkable memory for things on most days. From languages to crafts, so the idea that some memory had settled on him, given him a glimpse at something he would never have experienced before, and burned it into his memory? That did not surprise me.

  “Okay,” I said, waiting for him to go on. Had this hurt him somehow? Or simply made him afraid that more memories would settle on him? It didn’t seem like a bad thing, but I wasn’t the one who’d been suddenly gifted with someone else’s lifetime of experience. “How can I help? Did it hurt you?”

  He let out a long breath. “I’m crazy.”

  “Weird. Not crazy.” I bent to pick up the bags.

  “You’re not ready to dump my ass? Run screaming into the city begging someone to keep me away from you? I just told you a ghost lady taught me to … sew? I don’t even know what it’s called.”

  “Free motion quilting,” I offered. “I might run from the hair, but not your weird.” I headed toward the nearest fast food place. “You need food. I’ll fix your hair when we get back on the bus.”

  For a minute he didn’t follow, instead standing on the sidewalk waiting, staring at me like he didn’t understand how I wasn’t rejecting him. I paused and looked back, before pointing to my chest. “Stolen by aliens or an interdimensional portal or Sasquatch or something for a couple of months, remember? Your weird is barely a blip.”

  His jaw dropped. But I turned around and resumed my course, hoping to find something halfway healthy for the both of us and make it back to the bus in time. Alex caught up a few seconds later, taking the bags from me, switching them to his opposite hand and taking mine in his. He squeezed my fingers, then rested the strength of his grip in mine, his heart pounding strong enough I could feel it through his palm. But he didn’t run away. I hoped the message I sent him was clear enough. It was okay. Whatever it was. We would work it out. Weird came and went. I think we were both getting better at dealing with it.

  Chapter 9

  The rest of the tour went by smoothly. Alex remained close by my side. He was promising me sexual favors as we got back on the bus to head back to the hotel.

  “I expect to be rimmed regularly,” I told him as we sat down. “For at least a week.”

  Alex’s face was so bright red, and he wouldn’t look at anyone around us. “Stop,” he whispered. “But yes.”

  “Boy, what did you do to get that fine man to promise to eat your ass regularly?” Jonah demanded.

  “Bought him the dragon panel.” They had all noticed it. It was that sort of thing which made people stop and breathe for a moment, taking in the details. A good painting could do that. I’d seen my fair share of ‘fan’ art at anime conventions over the years, so breathtaking that it could give any artist imposter syndrome. The dragon panel was in that line of workmanship. The beast almost seemed to pop off the wall in 3D splendor when we walked into the shop. A mix of positive and negative space, colors jewel bright enough to nearly glow at a distance, the dragon was anything but a mass-market print. The original had a gem-like luster to the colors that fabric dyes and paints could replicate only so much. I’d suspected when we viewed the digital panel, that the colors would be duller, more generic, but they weren’t. Which was why the panel had cost so much.

  “It was over a hundred dollars. For less than a yard of fabric.”

  “It’s actually a little over a meter, which is slightly bigger than a yard,” I said. “America’s measurement system.” I waved my hand.

  “It’s amazing. Looks like it’s flying off the fabric,” Alex said in awe. “Now if only we could have found some mermen.”

  “Never seen sexy mermen on fabric,” Jonah said. “I’ve been a sexy merman a few times.”

  “Alexander Henry had a fabric with mermen on it, but they were skeletons,” I said, recalling the print which was somewhere in my stash back home.

  “Alexander Henry is weird shit,” Jonah said.

  “It can be,” I agreed. Everything from day of the dead skulls and painted girls, to giant killer bunnies. I wasn’t sure how the fabric line had become quite so wild.

  Alex curled up beside me, nestling into my space. I could tell he was tired. I needed to get more protein in him. Maybe we’d have an early night after dinner, curl up and watch a movie on my laptop or something equally as easy. I suspected the anxiety of the day contributed to his exhaustion. The group broke into chatter, which I tuned out to focus on Alex. He had pulled a crochet hook and some yarn out of his tote and began working on another rose. I couldn’t help but smile.

  I wrapped my elbow around his and leaned into his shoulder and watched him work. I think it calmed us both. Him to have the repetitious movement, and me to watch him. He didn’t have the same liquidity I did from years of experience, and his stitches weren’t uniform in tension, but he was confident enough in each stitch that he flowed through a rose in minutes. Then he passed it to me to hand sew the few stitches that would pull the string into an array of petals. We worked that way the entire ride to the hotel.

  Once we arrived back at the B&B, we took our stuff to the cabin, leaving everything inside and taking a moment to curl up on the tiny couch and hold each other. Dinner would be soon. If it weren’t for the rumbling of Alex’s stomach, we might have stayed there. I even thought of putting together sandwiches for us instead of going to the house for food, but finally sighed and got up, dragging Alex with me.

  “Come on,” I told him. “We can’t be anti-social unicorns here.”

  “If I didn’t smell fried chicken, I would disagree with you. You think it’s the real thing?” He winced then. “Mom made it with buttermilk. That means you can’t eat it, right? Fuck.”

  I tugged him out of the cabin and down the path to the house. “They will have something for me. Don’t worry. Eat whatever you’d like.”

  Alex moaned when we entered the house to find a mound of real crispy fried chicken, mashed potatoes, homestyle gravy, and a dozen veggie sides. “I’ve died and gone to heaven,” he muttered.

  “Sweetheart, with the way you moan, a boy would think so,” Jonah said as he made his way to the buffet area.

  Grace pointed me to an area of grilled chicken and baked potato, for which I was grateful. I watched Alex fill his plate first, stacking it so high I thought he might explode if he ate all that. His grin was huge, like he couldn’t believe his fortune. I patted his arm and pointed him to the table, then made up my own plate.

  Freya came in with Melissa. They were arguing about something. It was rare to see irritation on Freya’s face, but I could tell she was.

  “Everything okay?” I asked.

  “Byrony never came back last night,” Melissa said.

  “She’s probably out with Joe,” Freya said. “We are not babysitters. She’s a grown woman in control of her own choices.”

  While I agreed with Freya, I could see how worried Melissa was. “Have you tried calling her?
” I asked, certain she wouldn’t be upset if she had and gotten through.

  “No answer,” Melissa replied.

  “I thought you were going with them last night?” I asked.

  “I did. We went into the forest. There’s a part where the trail breaks off, and there are stories, scary urban legend stuff, so we went that way for a while, trying to find the spot.” She flushed. “I got nervous. It was dark. Everything seemed so loud. Joe walked me back to the trailhead. I came back alone.” She let out a long breath. “Scariest walk I’ve ever done in my life. Through the woods at night, alone.”

  “Maybe they decided to find another hotel for more games,” MaryAnn pointed out as she put grilled chicken and a baked potato on her own plate, matching mine.

  I glanced into the dining area to find Alex sitting at the table and eating. At least I’d get some food in him.

  “We all rode together. The car is still parked out front,” Melissa said. “Did they just walk to another hotel? Without me?”

  “Maybe they wanted some alone time,” Julie pointed out. “She and Joe have been together only a few months.”

  “In the woods? We have separate rooms. Why wouldn’t they call? Or at least have their phones on? Reception in the woods is bad, but not impossible.”

  “Even if they got lost,” Freya said, “there are plenty of places not far from here. They could find themselves at the gas station, or another house. I’m sure they are fine.”

  “But not here and not answering their phones,” Melissa repeated.

  A sick feeling of anxiety curled in my gut. The familiar weight of that dark monster sank down on my shoulders as my mind began to churn. What if? What if they were hurt? What if something had taken them? What if someone had taken them? Could someone have taken them? Why else would they be unreachable?

  I made my way to the table, everyone else finding their own places, though Melissa didn’t get any food. Alex was staring at the far doorway again in between eating. Was the cat back? I sat beside him, reaching for his hand, not sure if I could eat as my head filled with anxiety over a girl I barely knew and her missing boyfriend.