Unwept (18 page)

“And what of you, Jenny?” Alicia asked with somewhat exaggerated sweetness. “How are you and Ellis getting by as two women in the same home?”

Concentrate on the needle,
Ellis told herself.
Dr. Carmichael said that simple tasks could help you heal. It is a pleasant afternoon, passing the time with kind women gathered around a quilt. What could be more peaceful? More comforting?

“We couldn't be more content,” Jenny affirmed, trying to pick up her needle, but her twisted fingers could not manage it. “Ellis has taken up her painting again. She's improved a good deal since the time she did the little painting in my workroom. She's working on a rather lovely plein air piece of Curtis Island and the lighthouse.”

Ellis pricked her finger lightly at the news that she had painted previously. She remembered the garish little shipwreck painting from that first day when she was trapped in the workroom. But hadn't known till now that it was hers.

“I should very much like to see that!” Martha gushed. “May I come out and watch you paint?”

“You would find it very dull,” Ellis said through a gentle smile. “Besides, I'm not very good at all.”

“Ellis is being entirely too modest.” Jenny left the needle in the cloth, finding it much easier to speak than to attempt the handwork. “It really is fascinating to watch her create something on the canvas. She's also taken up the piano again, although I'll admit that it sometimes makes me a little sad to remember the duets we used to play when we were younger.”

“I always admire artists,” Minnie chirped. “Of course I don't know a thing about creativity, but it seems like such a marvelous thing to have such a hobby.”

“Our Ellis has many unusual hobbies,” Alicia said, glancing up from her work to gauge Ellis's reaction. “Including, it seems, the summoning of phantom lovers to her boudoir in the night.”

Ellis set her jaw, determined not to rise to the bait.

“Phantom lovers?” Minnie chimed excitedly. “Now that truly is something with which I have no experience!”

The three Disir sisters all laughed as one.

Ellis blushed in spite of herself.

“It was a dream.” Jenny giggled. “A delightfully decadent and most provocative dream.”

“Another of Ellis's talents.” Alicia spoke through a smile, although there was little humor in her tone.

“It's quite unfair, really,” Jenny teased. “I'm the one that wants them and
she's
the one that's having them.”

“Perhaps that's because she's from the
city
,
” Alicia said. She was looking intently at Ellis across the quilt now as she lifted the needle and drew the thread up through the quilt. “I understand that this sort of thing happens all the time in the city. Perhaps it was not a dream after all … someone might have followed her here
from
the city.”

“Striddles and riddles,” chided Linny Disir.

“Striddles and riddles,” chorused her two sisters.

“Alicia, dear,” Linny said, leaning around the corner of the quilting frame, her scissors in hand. “Your thread's looking a bit long … may I cut it for you?”

The color drained from Alicia's face. “No, thank you, Miss Linny.”

Linny smiled pleasantly, but her eyes carried the warning of an impending storm. “No trouble at all, my dear.”

“Has anyone any news of the war in Europe?” Ellis asked, desperately wishing to get the topic of conversation as far from her as possible.

“News of the war?” Martha scoffed. “Why should we trouble ourselves with that?”

“The war is far from Gamin,” Finny stated as though her words were the final argument. “It always has been and we prefer it that way.”

“But surely you must be concerned with the young servicemen from the town who are in harm's way,” Ellis said. “The soldiers—”

“The soldiers are all from out of town,” Finny said with some impatience. “None of the young men of Gamin took part in the war nor will they ever if I have anything to say about it!”

“None of them?” Ellis asked with astonishment.

“Oh, we're quite isolationist here.” Finny nodded as she plunged her needle through the upper face of the quilt.

“As isolationist as you'll ever find,” Minnie added.

“You might say that we're the
original
isolationists,” Linny said through a wry smile.

All three of the Disir sisters cackled at this final comment.

Ellis furrowed her brow. “But the soldiers in town are—”

“The soldiers are outsiders.” Finny spoke with emphasis as though Ellis may have been hard of hearing. “Have you not been paying attention, child?”

“Fineleah Disir, behave! She simply doesn't understand is all,” Linny said, drawing her own needle up through the quilt. She gazed on Ellis with a cool, patient look. “We like to keep to ourselves. Gamin is a refuge from the troubles out in the world. We don't bother them and would frankly prefer that they not bother us. The city folk don't see it that way. They seem to feel the need to bring their contention and conflict and pain to us and think we'll be happy to accept them. We simply don't want to be bothered. Gamin is a place of rest from such cares. We don't want to be bothered by problems, we don't want to participate in their war and we certainly do not want them bringing such things to our community.”

“Gamin is a place of tranquility,” Minnie said, her own needle plunging back down into the cloth and being drawn up again in a gentle rhythm. “We let the problems of the outside go their way while we remain constant here and let them drift harmlessly past us. That is why you are here, Ellis. This is a refuge from the problems of the city. You'll understand as soon as you recover. You'll remember why we try to avoid the world and the war and all the problems associated with them.”

“It seems to me,” Ellis replied, “that everyone here knows more about me than I know of myself. I believe the world is going to intrude on Gamin whether Gamin wishes it or not.”

“Be at ease, Ellis,” Linny said, her eyes softening as she considered Ellis. “That world is yet very far away. All you need to know for now is that you are home, that here you can rest and that the cares of the world beyond need not trouble you here.”

Ellis considered this for a moment. The doctor had said that the only trouble she was having here was of her own making. The strange events she had witnessed were only the attempts of her unraveled mind to knit itself back into a whole. Sun was streaming in through the partially closed blinds at the windows, reflecting off the polished wood floors and floral rugs to fill the room with a warm-toned light. The ladies around the quilting frame occasionally said things that were disturbing, but Ellis was beginning to wonder if it was her own perceptions and imaginings that were the real cause of her own disturbance. Martha, Alicia, the Disir sisters and Jenny were all aglow in the warm morning light of the sitting room, happy as they chatted over the cloth.

I am the only one here who is disturbed,
Ellis thought as she finished off her patch of the quilt.
I am the only one upsetting this peaceful place.

“One last patch to place,” Minnie chimed. “You draw it, Ellis.”

“Whatever do you mean?” Ellis asked.

“It's a little tradition of ours,” Linny explained. “The last patch in a charm quilt will always match the lining of your true love's coat.”

“I'd rather not—”

“Oh, but you must!” Martha urged. “It's a great honor among our ladies and a very old tradition.”

“You wouldn't want to tempt fate, would you?” Alicia said, her eyes fixed on her handwork. “We insist.”

“Oh yes.” Jenny smiled. “Please pull the last patch.”

“Striddles and riddles.” Linny nodded.

“Striddles and riddles,” repeated Finny and Minnie.

Ellis reached down into the sack sitting next to the quilting frame determined to get this nonsense over with quickly. Her fingers closed around a piece of cloth. Pulling it free, she thrust it out over the top of the quilt for everyone to see.

Alicia frowned. Martha giggled. Jenny's jaw dropped.

It was a most extraordinary paisley print. Its twisted teardrop shapes of turquoise and gold were set against a deep red background, all in vibrant dyes. The pattern of each paisley shape featured a second paisley within it, which resembled an eye.

“That is entirely unsuitable,” Alicia said with a disdainful frown. “The colors don't match any of the other squares of the quilt. It will completely poison the effect of the entire design.”

“I think it will make the quilt unique and interesting,” Jenny countered, then smiled mischievously. “Besides, the quilt's problems are nothing compared to what Ellis will have to endure. Imagine having to wait so long as to find a man with a red paisley lining in his jacket!”

Martha, Alicia and Minnie laughed at the notion. Even Finny gave a rueful smile.

“Striddles and riddles,” Linny said with a pleasant nod.

“Striddles and riddles,” chimed in Finny and Minnie.

Ellis set the brightly colored square in its place. It did change the entire complexion of the quilt, yet she found it somehow pleasing in a defiant way. She began working the needle, securing the square to the quilt with firmer, more confident strokes. She was feeling better, she decided. Perhaps her own mind was being pieced back together like this quilt from scraps of memory she was pulling out of some bag at the back of her mind. It was just hard to know when she was sewing in real pieces or those she just imagined. Still, in the comfort of the warm and pleasant parlor in the company of these ladies she felt for the first time in a long time that she was at home.

Her brow furrowed slightly. It seemed odd that the piece she should pull would have the same shape as the mark on her dream man's face.

Don't dwell on it. Fit the patches as they come.

“I've been meaning to ask, Miss Finny,” Ellis said, drawing the thread once more through the edge of the paisley patch, “how you managed with that infant. Were you able to get it properly settled?”

“Infant?” Finny frowned. “Whatever are you talking about?”

“The child,” Ellis prompted. “The baby that you were accompanying on the train when we came to town.”

“You had a baby with you?” Alicia asked, a sudden quality of wonder in her voice. “I would so like to see one. Did you bring it with you from the city?”

“Honestly, both of you!” Finny said. “There was only one person from the city on that train and that was Ellis. There will be no more talk about any baby.”

“But all I asked was—”

“There was no baby on that train,” Finny said flatly, her eyes fixed on Ellis as she spoke. “The sooner you understand that the sooner you'll find your peace here in Gamin.”

“Striddles and riddles,” said Linny, nodding.

“Striddles and riddles,” repeated her sisters.

The room began to spin around Ellis. She felt dizzy and unwell.

There had been a baby. She had held it. She had sung to it.

K-K-K-Katy … beautiful Katy …

16

BOOK OF MY DAY

Ellis sat on the back porch of Summersend, the paintbrush motionless in her hand. The canvas rested secure on the easel before her, but no paint had stroked the surface in some time. The colors on her palette were drying in the afternoon breeze. The lighthouse remained only sketched on the surface, vague lines yet to be defined.

Beyond the easel, the porch, lawn, shore and water lay the lighthouse itself terribly close and impossibly far away.

Ellis saw nothing of any of them.

She did not trust anything that she saw or heard.

“Ellis?”

The voice was soft and gentle. She knew the voice but could not be certain it was real.

“Ellis, dear, please talk to me.”

Jenny's gnarled right hand closed clumsily over her own. Ellis stared at it for a while, wondering at it. The fingers were broken in multiple places, she observed. The proximal phalanx and middle phalanx of the index and second fingers had healed improperly due to the shattering of the bones, which looked to be comminuted. There appeared to be some distress of the tendons—flexor digitorum profundus—and the metacarpal bones may have been fractured as well. None of them looked to have been properly set.

Ellis drew in a deep breath.
How do I know all that? And what kind of doctor was Uncle Lucian that he could not have taken care of her injury when it happened? And if that was the extent of his medical knowledge then what kind of treatment am I receiving at his hands?

“See, Ellis,” Jenny continued. “I brought you a rose—a white one from the garden. You like white roses.”

Ellis turned slowly toward the rose, her eyes fixing on it. It took her at once back to her own bedroom, the shadowy man who had become real among the cloud of moths. His touch, his longing, his despair all drawing on her soul until fear burst out of her and scattered him into the storm of the night. He had brought her a rose just as white with thorns just as sharp. It had been a nightmare that proved too real the next day on her bloodstained stocking.

Hold still and everything will sort itself out. Hold still and the dust clouds will settle.

“What am I to do with you?” Jenny sighed. “You've been this way since we returned from the quilting society. I thought your paints might have brought you out of this. Where are you, Ellis?”

Where am I? Do I know?

Jenny knelt down in front of Ellis. She took the paintbrush from her with her left hand and carefully set it down at the base of the easel. She winced once from the pain in her leg but continued despite the discomfort.

“Ellis, what if I were to show you something special?” Jenny whispered as though the breeze might carry her words across the bay waters and into town. “Something secret … something I'm not supposed to show to anyone?”