The Giving Quilt (12 page)

She doubled back to the foyer and was about to set foot on the bottom step when suddenly two young children came bounding down the staircase, alternately shrieking with laughter and shushing each other. Instinctively Linnea stood fast, ready to break their fall if they should stumble. She was standing there yet when the children reached the bottom. The boy, faster and a few steps ahead, plowed into Linnea, while the girl had time and the presence of mind to seize the banister and bring herself to an abrupt halt. Linnea stumbled backward, trying to keep her feet and keep the boy on his so that neither of them would crash painfully to the cold marble floor.

“Are you okay?” she asked the boy as they steadied themselves.

He nodded and gulped, catching his breath. “I'm really, really sorry,” he said. His thick, brown hair had glints of red and gold in it. Linnea would have trimmed it shorter were he her child, but she could understand his mother's reluctance.

“I'm perfectly fine,” Linnea assured him, “although I don't think your parents would be happy to see you zooming down the stairs like that, do you?”

“You should be more careful,” remarked the girl as she gracefully stepped down upon the marble floor, as if she had slowly and serenely descended the two dozen or so stairs instead of hurling herself down them as heedlessly as her brother had.

The boy scowled. “You were running too.”

The girl's mouth fell upon in a wordless protest, but Linnea raised her hand. “I was here and I saw the whole thing. Both of you were running, and impressively fast too.”

The girl's pretty features twisted in worry beneath her cap of tousled blond curls. “Are you going to tell on us?”

Linnea pretended to mull it over. “Well, no one was hurt, and I believe you'll be more careful in the future, right?” The children nodded vigorously. “In that case, I think we can keep this off your permanent record.”

The boy heaved a sigh of relief, while the girl, who had straightened as if an electric shock had passed through her at the phrase “permanent record,” murmured a soft, “Thank you.”

“As a matter of fact,” Linnea mused, going down on one knee to condense her generous height to something closer to their own, “I'm glad I ran into you.”

“
I
ran into
you
,” the boy corrected her.

“You're absolutely right, and as it turns out, I'm glad you did. I need a guide—actually, I think this job requires two guides, because it's quite challenging. I don't suppose you two know your way around Elm Creek Manor?”

“Of course we do,” said the boy. “We live here.”

“This is our house,” the girl added, just in case Linnea required additional clarification. “Our mama is Sarah McClure and our daddy is Matt McClure.”

“And Miss Sylvia is our great-grandma except not really,” said the boy.

“Oh, of course,” said Linnea. “Then you must be James, and you must be Caroline.”

The twins nodded when she spoke their names, looking not the least bit surprised that she knew them.

“Excellent.” Linnea clasped her hands and rubbed them together. “This must be my lucky day. I can't imagine any two guides more qualified to take me to the library.”

The twins exchanged a look. “We can't drive,” Caroline said carefully, as if she wasn't quite sure whether the strange lady before her was teasing her or was simply not very smart.

“No, no, honey, not the public library, although I'm sure it's very nice. I mean the library here in the manor. I've heard there's a wonderful library somewhere on the premises, and as a librarian myself, I would love to have a look at it.”

Linnea waited while a swift, wordless exchange passed between the twins. Then James shrugged, and Caroline said, “We can show you where the best books are, if that's what you mean.”

“That's exactly what I mean,” said Linnea, holding out her hands for the twins to take. With James on her left and Caroline on her right, they made their way up both flights of stairs to the third floor, evoking smiles from the few quilt campers they passed along the way. They turned left and headed down the hallway, past closed doors that Linnea surmised led to other guest suites, which were probably unoccupied during the smaller Quiltsgiving session but full of quilt campers in the summer.

They came to a halt at a single door at the far end of the hallway. “Here it is,” said Caroline grandly as she opened the door and led the way inside. Linnea followed the children into a spacious playroom bathed in afternoon sunshine. Snug nests of pillows and quilts had been carelessly fashioned upon the window seats, and toys and games were scattered about the room in happy, haphazard fashion.

James seized Linnea's hand and tugged her toward the southernmost wall, where two bookcases flanked an empty fireplace that looked as if it had not seen a pile of logs, burning or not, in ages. When James gazed proudly at the books upon the shelves, Linnea scanned the titles on the spines and saw that she was in the presence of all the childhood classics she had adored as a schoolgirl and many of the same wonderful new stories she loved to press into the hands of the children who visited her library. Then she understood. This was where the best books were, according to her guides—and could she really say they were wrong?

“I love this story,” Linnea said, sitting cross-legged upon the braided rag rug and taking a battered copy of
Half Magic
from a shelf. “Have you read it?”

“Not yet,” said James.

“He can't read,” said Caroline, with all the pity of one who could and understood the deprivation he suffered better than he did.

James flushed. “I can too.” He seized a copy of
Go, Dog, Go!
from the other bookcase and began to recite it from memory, the speed with which he turned the pages not quite keeping pace with his words.

“Very good,” said Linnea, who understood that this was indeed reading of a sort, a very important precursor to what was more commonly understood as reading.

“Mama read
Half Magic
to us,” James explained.

“I could read it all by myself if I wanted to,” said Caroline, “but it's more fun when Mama reads to us.”

“I know exactly what you mean.” Linnea returned her gaze to the bookcases, admiring their collection. “I wonder if you have . . . I'm sure such a well-stocked library must—” Her gaze lit upon a familiar title on a well-worn spine, and she plucked down the book with delight. “Have you ever read—or heard—
Magic by the Lake
?” The twins shook their heads. “Then you're in for a treat. This story is by the same author who wrote
Half Magic
, Edward Eager, and it's about the same four children—Jane, Mark, Katherine, and Martha. Would you like me to read it to you?”

James and Caroline nodded so vigorously that Linnea almost feared they would injure themselves. She asked them to take her to their favorite reading spot and was not at all surprised when they led her to the most comfortably appointed window seat. She settled herself in the middle of the nest of quilts and pillows, and with one twin snuggled up to her on either side, she began reading the story of the children's magic-infused summer vacation on a northern Indiana lake. She had just reached the part where Mark encounters the talking turtle when someone appeared in the playroom doorway.

“There you two are,” exclaimed Sarah, striding into the room. The twins, who had become so engrossed in the story that they had nearly climbed onto Linnea's lap in their eagerness for the next sentence, scrambled down from the window seat. “Why didn't you come when I called you?”

“We didn't hear you,” said Caroline.

“We were listening to a story,” explained James, indicating Linnea.

Sarah sighed. “I hope they weren't troubling you. They love books, and they love being read to.”

“Believe me,” declared Linnea, “nothing troubles me less than children who love books, and nothing troubles me more than people of any age who don't.”

“This is a great story, Mama,” said James. “You should read it.”

Sarah glanced at the cover. “I have read that book, honey. It's one of my favorites.” For Linnea's benefit, she indicated the bookshelves flanking the fireplace. “Many of these books are mine, books I loved and read over and over again as a child. My mother saved them for me.” Sarah smiled as if touched anew by her mother's generous foresight. “The others were books beloved by the children of the Bergstrom family, going back generations. Sylvia decided that her childhood favorites belonged up here with mine rather than out of sight among the rest of her books. Now the twins can hold them and look at them and enjoy them whenever they wish.”

“Sylvia is a sensible and wise woman.” Linnea rose and handed the book to James. “As if we needed any additional proof.”

“We're done reading?” James cried.

“I'll read you a little more tonight, and we'll finish the book together, bit by bit,” Sarah quickly promised. “But Miss Linnea is here for quilt camp, and we ought to let her get back to it.”

“Thank you for a charming diversion, children,” said Linnea, shaking their hands. “I'm thoroughly delighted to have met such promising young readers.”

The children beamed, and James piped up, “I'm really glad I
ran into you
.”

“I'm glad you did too.” Linnea winked to assure him the collision would remain their little secret.

It wasn't until Linnea was back in the ballroom bent over the sewing machine again that she recalled Sarah's words and Sylvia's decision to put her books for younger readers with Sarah's rather than keeping them with the rest of her books.

So there
was
another library somewhere in Elm Creek Manor. Linnea had been diverted from her search, but she would try again, and she would find it.

She could ask one of the Elm Creek Quilters instead of searching on her own, but that would take all the fun out of her quest. She knew James and Caroline would understand.

* * *

Linnea had enough time before supper to sew the borders to her Girl's Joy quilt top but not enough time to press it, so she decided to save that task for another day. She packed up her supplies and scraps, left them in her suite, and met Mona and Pauline in the foyer. Supper was as tasty as every other meal had been—mini chicken potpies served in ramekins or tofu and vegetable stir-fry. When Linnea remarked aloud that the Elm Creek Quilters seemed to offer a vegetarian option with every meal, another quilter seated at their table said, “I bet that's Summer Sullivan's influence. She doesn't teach here anymore, but as a vegetarian herself, she probably taught her friends to make different options available.”

“You don't have to be a vegetarian to love this,” said Mona, who had chosen the stir-fry.

“Karen,” asked Pauline, studying the other quilter intently, “how do you know so much about the faculty here?”

“I attended a week of summer quilt camp a few years ago, and I took Summer's Quick Piecing Shortcuts class,” replied the other quilter, whom Linnea remembered as the woman from the Giving Quilt class who had encouraged Pauline not to abandon the search for inspiration. After a moment's hesitation, Karen added, “I also might have applied for a job here a few years ago, and Summer might have been one of my interviewers.”

“Might have?” echoed Linnea. “You don't remember?”

Karen laughed self-consciously and poked at her stir-fry with her chopsticks. “Of course I remember. It's just not the most pleasant of memories, since my interview was a disaster and obviously I didn't get the job. I don't blame the Elm Creek Quilters. The other candidates were far more qualified.” With two discreet nods, she indicated Gretchen and another Elm Creek Quilter named Maggie, who were enjoying their chicken potpies and lively conversation at two nearby tables.

Everyone murmured sympathetically, and Michaela, who along with Jocelyn completed the group at their table, said, “Tough competition.”

“The toughest,” Karen agreed, nodding.

“Something else will come along,” said Mona, with a quick glance for Linnea, who knew all too well that sometimes “something else” took its own sweet time in coming.

“Oh, it's okay. I mean, Sylvia was as nice as she possibly could have been in such circumstances, and something else did come along.” Karen set down her chopsticks and drew her hands into her lap, out of sight beneath the table. “A few months later I found a job at a quilt shop, and I've been working there ever since.”

“That sounds like a dream job for a quilter,” said Jocelyn.

“Do you have like an awesome employee discount or what?” asked Michaela.

“Yes, it's quite nice, actually,” said Karen, smiling. “Definitely the best perk they offer.”

“Are they hiring?” asked Mona.

Karen looked pained. “No, I'm sorry, we're not, but if you send me your résumé—”

“She was just teasing you,” Linnea broke in, shooting her sister a look of amused exasperation. “It's a long commute from Minnesota and she's heard me complain about the hassles of moving too many times through the years to even contemplate moving out of state.”

“Ask me in February.” Mona shivered as if imagining a blizzard swirling about her. “I might give you a different answer.”

Everyone laughed.

After supper, the campers had an hour of free time to relax or, for the more ambitious, to sew a few more stitches before gathering once more in the ballroom for the evening program. The Candlelight Giving Quilt display on the dais had been dismantled, and in its place were six tables with four chairs pulled up to each. Sarah welcomed the campers and instructed them to break up into six teams of four. Immediately Linnea felt Mona seize her arm, and Pauline took a quick step toward them as if afraid they might be separated. Over the heads of the other campers, Linnea saw Michaela and Jocelyn pair up with a middle-aged woman and her elderly mother. Karen stood in the center of it all, glancing from one rapidly forming team to another uncertainly.