Elm Creek Quilts [08] The Christmas Quilt (13 page)

The tree was all but finished when Great-Aunt Lucinda noted that someone ought to hide the star. “I’ll do it,” said Claudia, smiling as she removed the eight-pointed ruby-and-gold star from its box.

“No, I will,” said Sylvia, snatching it from her hand.

“You could do it together,” their father and Lucinda said in unison.

Sylvia smothered a groan. “I’ll be right back,” she said, and she raced from the room before Claudia or anyone else could object.

But where to hide the star? She would have been tempted to choose an especially difficult hiding place for the pleasure of tormenting her sister, but she suddenly doubted Claudia would take up the search. Richard was younger, but that did not mean Sylvia should choose a more obvious location for his sake. He knew all the manor’s secret places and would be disappointed if he found the star too soon. Then Sylvia remembered Andrew, and she decided that she wanted him to win. Even the competitive Richard would be pleased if his friend won the game and could add a prize to the gifts Santa would leave for him beneath the Bergstroms’ tree.

Perhaps Sylvia could help him in the search the way cousin Elizabeth had once helped her. Andrew had no pillow of his own in the Bergstroms’ home to look beneath, and he was not likely to run crying to Richard’s room as Sylvia had fled to hers so many years before. Andrew spent most of his time at Elm Creek Manor in the nursery. Perhaps, if that was where he felt most comfortable, he would begin his search there.

Taking the steps two at a time, Sylvia raced upstairs to the third floor and burst into the nursery. Andrew loved Richard’s model trains. Sylvia hurried across the room and hid the star in the wooden crate that held the engine and its cars, leaving only one golden tip visible.

She returned to the ballroom, pleased with herself, but her satisfaction fled with one look from her father. She glanced at Great-Aunt Lucinda, who shook her head even though a faint smile quirked at her lips.

“I hid the star,” she announced, managing a weak grin. Her father sent the younger children out to search for it, and Sylvia busied herself with rearranging a few of the ornaments upon the tree, more to conceal her blush than any aesthetic purpose. She resolved to avoid provoking Claudia or anyone else until Christmas was over. With any luck, the sight of her snatching the star from her sister’s hand would fade from the adults’ memories. She knew Claudia would never forget.

They finished trimming the tree, all but the very highest bough, and then they were left with nothing to do but listen to the radio, admire the tree, and chat, as no triumphant child had returned with the glass star held tightly in a small fist.

“You did hide it
in
the manor, right, Sylvia?” asked Uncle William after an hour had passed. “You didn’t throw it out a window into a snowbank?”

“It’s in the manor,” said Sylvia, glancing toward the door worriedly. At first she had hoped only Andrew would find the star; now she would be glad if anyone did.

“Did you hide it where a child would think to look?” asked Claudia. Her tone, her stance, her look of disappointed resignation pointedly telegraphed that she was not at all surprised her younger sister had found a way to ruin a beloved holiday tradition. If Claudia had been allowed to hide the star, it would be shining on the top of the tree by now.

“Of course.” The crate of model trains was right there on the floor of the nursery, not on a high shelf or tucked away in a closet. Surely she had not hidden it too well.

Just then the ballroom door burst open. “We can’t find it,” said Richard, panting from his sprint through the manor.

“It’s a big house,” said Uncle William. “Keep looking.”

Richard shrugged and ran off again. “Maybe I should give them a hint,” Sylvia appealed to her father. At his assent, she dashed after Richard and told him to look on the third floor-and to make sure he passed the message along to the other children. He promised, grinning because his sister knew him so well, and soon the ballroom echoed with the thunder of many feet racing up the stairs.

A half hour later, Richard returned to the ballroom, Andrew at his heels. “When you said third floor, did you mean the attic? Because I thought we weren’t allowed up there.”

Claudia whirled on her sister. “You didn’t put it in the attic, did you? Someone could get hurt on those stairs.”

“No! Richard, the attic would be the fourth floor. Did you try the nursery?”

“Yes. Everyone’s been in the nursery for at least an hour.”

Sylvia knew he was exaggerating, since it had been only a half hour ago that she had given him the hint. Even so, with so many children in the nursery, someone should have stumbled upon the star within minutes.

With Richard and Andrew leading the way, Sylvia, Claudia, their father, and Great-Aunt Lucinda climbed the stairs to the third floor. The nursery lay directly above the library—an unfortunate oversight in planning that Sylvia’s grandfather had not noticed until the first time his reading was disturbed by noisy play overhead. Like the library, the nursery stretched the entire width of the south wing and welcomed in sunlight through east, west, and south facing windows. In the twilight, large flakes of snow blew against the glass, but the children were too busy playing to notice. Uncle William’s daughter served tea to Sylvia’s old dolls, two boys were engaged in a battle with Richard’s toy soldiers, and other cousins read or built block towers or played games of their own invention.

After an hour and a half of fruitless searching, perseverance had finally succumbed to the allure of toys. The quest for the star had been abandoned.

But no child was playing with the model trains.

“You haven’t given up already, have you?” asked Sylvia.

The little girl cousin to whom she had given the Nine-Patch quilt looked up and smiled, but the other children were too engrossed in their play to hear.

“Perhaps another hint is in order,” suggested Lucinda. “Animal, vegetable, or mineral?”

Richard and Andrew looked up at Sylvia, hopeful.

“Mineral,” she said. “A form of transportation.” The two boys began to wander the room, moving aside scattered toys, heading in the opposite direction from the crate of model trains. “Think of something used to transport passengers or cargo over long distances. Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Desperate to salvage the game, she made train noises, mimed the movement of wheels, and tugged on the cord of an imaginary steam whistle.

Richard brightened and ran across the room to his model trains, Andrew right behind. They dug through the crate, emptying it of engines and boxcars with amazing speed, until the last one lay on the floor. The boys looked across the room at Sylvia, expectant and puzzled.

“Great hint,” Claudia scoffed. “You sent them to the wrong place.”

But she hadn’t. Quickly Sylvia joined the boys and peered into the crate to see for herself. It was empty.

Lucinda saw trouble in her expression. “This is where you hid the star?”

Sylvia nodded, puzzled. She scanned the clutter of train cars to see if the star had accidentally been set aside in the boys’ haste, but it was not there. “I don’t understand. I put it right here.”

“Among the trains,” said Claudia, skeptical. “Then where is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you sure you hid it here?” asked her father. “Perhaps you had second thoughts and returned later to move it to a more difficult hiding place. Think hard.”

“I’m certain.” The question stung. She wouldn’t have forgotten where she had hidden the star.

“Perhaps someone else moved it.” Aunt Lucinda raised her eyebrows at Richard. “As a little Christmas joke?”

Richard’s eyes went wide and innocent. “Not me.”

Andrew shook his head vigorously, his expression terrified.

Sylvia knew that, like her, her father and Great-Aunt Lucinda had instantly conjured up images of what punishments a prankster might face in Andrew’s house. She forced a smile.

“It’s a very funny joke,” she said, and made herself laugh. Her father let out a chuckle, and the fear in Andrew’s eyes relaxed.

“I don’t think it’s funny at all,” declared Claudia.

“Okay, young man.” Great-Aunt Lucinda smiled and held out her palm to Richard. “You had us fooled, but now the joke’s over.”

Richard frowned. “I told you I didn’t touch it.” Suddenly he looked excited. “Hey, what if a ghost did it? A spirit like in that Christmas story Sylvia read me last night.”

Andrew’s frightened expression returned. “He’s just teas-ing,” Sylvia hastened to reassure him. She believed that Richard had not taken the star, but then, who had? She searched the other children’s faces for a clue, but they played on, barely paying attention to the drama unfolding by the model trains. Not a trace of guilt or glee colored their expressions.

“Richard, why don’t you put away your trains now,” advised Sylvia’s father. As Andrew joined in to help, Sylvia’s father beckoned the women out of their hearing. “Perhaps the star was found—and broken before the finder could return to the ballroom. It’s surprising it hasn’t happened sooner.”

“I always did think it was a bad idea to send children running through the house with a glass star,” mused Lucinda. “It’s possible, perhaps even likely. But the question remains, who?”

“Not Richard,” said Sylvia, eager to exonerate her brother.

She knew instinctively that he had spoken the truth. “Could it be Andrew?”

“What makes you think so?” asked her father.

“Because he was the most likely to find the star,” Sylvia explained, reluctant to direct blame toward a boy who, as far as she knew, had never broken a single rule in his many visits to the Bergstrom home. “I hid the star among the trains because the nursery is his favorite place in the manor and the trains are his favorite toys. I wanted to help him find the star as cousin Elizabeth helped me.”

“You mean as cousin Elizabeth helped you
cheat
,” said Claudia. “Anyway, the nursery isn’t Andrew’s favorite place in the manor. The kitchen is.”

Sylvia wished she had considered that because, of course, Claudia was right.

Great-Aunt Lucinda shook her head. “If the star was broken, I doubt Andrew did it. Remember when he broke that glass on the veranda after I warned the boys not to put them down in the line of fire of their marbles? He picked up every shard, brought them to me, and apologized. He would have done the same thing here.”

“This isn’t a drinking glass, one of many,” said Claudia.

“This is a family heirloom.”

Sylvia’s father nodded, thoughtful, and called the children over. When they had gathered around him, he tried to tease the truth out of them, but no one admitted to finding the star. In a voice too low for anyone but Sylvia and Lucinda to hear, Claudia muttered that he ought to threaten them with a spanking, but Sylvia thought his disarming humor was the right approach. Even Andrew was smiling. But even Sylvia had to admit that her father’s questions yielded little useful information. The timeline of the children’s whereabouts that he managed to piece together told them nothing more than that all of the children had been in most of the rooms of the manor at some point during the search, sometimes alone, but most often in the company of at least one other child.

Eventually Sylvia’s father must have decided that the perpetrator needed a stronger motivation to confess. “If no one has found the star,” he warned, “no one can collect the prize.”

“There’s a prize?” said Andrew.

Richard nodded. “It’s usually a toy or candy.”

Andrew nudged him. “Come on. Let’s keep looking.”

Sylvia’s heart went out to him. He of all the children wanted a prize so badly that he would continue searching despite the obvious futility of the task. As badly as the game had turned out, she did not regret her attempt to help him. “Can’t we let them share the prize?” she asked her father.

“That’s against the rules,” said Claudia.

Their father held up his hands, somber. “Claudia’s right.

We won’t be able to put the star on top of the tree tonight, so we can’t award the prize. I’m disappointed no one wants to come forward and tell the truth, and I’m sure Santa Claus isn’t very happy, either.”

The children exchanged looks of surprise and dismay, but no one looked any more guilty or worried than the others.

“I’ll tell you what we can do,” her father continued. “If the star is on the kitchen table tomorrow morning in time for breakfast, I won’t ask who left it there, and everyone can share the prize equally.”

“Is it candy?” piped up one of the youngest cousins.

“It is,” said Sylvia’s father. “Now, let’s go downstairs and enjoy the rest of our Christmas Eve. It’s almost bedtime.”

When they returned to the ballroom without the star for the top of the tree, Sylvia’s father treated the astonished adults to a lighthearted account of the missing star and repeated his promise to the children. Then he read aloud “A Visit from St. Nicholas” as he had done every Christmas for as long as Sylvia could remember. Afterward, he gave up his chair to Aunt Nellie, who read St. Luke’s account of the Nativity.

When she finished, the children rose from their places around the tree to collect hugs and kisses before going off to bed. Gazing at their sweet, beloved faces, Sylvia could not believe any of them capable of hiding a guilty secret. “I wish Father would have let them have the prize anyway,” she said with a sigh.

She had only been thinking aloud, but Claudia heard her. “If you wanted them to have the prize so badly, you should have let them find the star.”

“I tried. I hid it, and obviously someone found it.”

“So you say.”

Sylvia stared at her. “Do you think I still have it?”

“I think you know where it is.”

“I don’t,” Sylvia retorted. “I haven’t the faintest idea where it could be. One of the children probably broke it and is too upset to confess, just as Father said.”

Claudia searched her face, frowning. “If that’s so, then where are the pieces? I intend to search every dustbin and look beneath every carpet. None of the children has left the manor since before the search began. If the star is broken, the pieces must be here. And if they aren’t—”