The Wishing Thread (17 page)

“But that’s their own fault,” Aubrey said. “The magic is perfectly reliable. It’s just that if they don’t give up something—”

“I know the rules,” Bitty said.

Aubrey scooted her chair closer to the table. “The Van Rippers have been in the Stitchery since just after the Revolutionary War. There’s a whole list of guardians in the Great Book in the Hall, back to when they started keeping track in 1867 and all the way through to my name.
I
can’t be the one to leave.
I
can’t be the one to break the tradition.”

“But do you like the way things are?” Meggie asked.

“Sure,” Aubrey said.

“Of course you don’t,” Bitty said.

Aubrey was quiet for a moment. Then she gave up. “It doesn’t matter whether I like it. This is what I have to do. It’s what I was born for. There’s no other way.”

“Sometimes that’s true,” Bitty said. “But
you
have choices. You could do something else.”

“I just don’t think you understand.”

Bitty tapped the butt of her steak knife on the table. “I guess I don’t. Why wouldn’t you at least
think
about moving, making a better life for yourself? You could get a job in the
city or go back to school. I mean—you don’t want to reshelve books forever, right? And you can always knit on the side.”

Aubrey laughed. “You can’t do anything you’re deeply passionate about
on the side
.”

Meggie jumped in. “Hey—how much money did the village offer you?”

“Two fifty.”

Bitty frowned. “That does seem low.”

“It’s fair market value,” Aubrey said.

“Why would the town put a decent value on properties that it obviously doesn’t value to begin with?” Meggie said.

“Good question,” Aubrey said.

“Even so, two fifty is still a big chunk of change,” Bitty said. “We’d get eighty-three grand each, not counting taxes.”

“Okay—that is a serious lot of money,” Meggie said.

The waitress brought their food. Bitty had a cranberry walnut salad. Meggie had a plate of colorful nachos heaped with guacamole and sour cream. Aubrey had ordered a favorite: a margherita pizza, plain.

Bitty spoke with her fork in the air. “Finances aside, it’s your decision, Aubrey. Whether the town takes the Stitchery or we sell it to someone else, it’s entirely up to you.”

“Neither of those things will happen.” Aubrey put down her slice of pizza. It was too hot to eat. “And anyway, what about you two?”

“Us?” They spoke in unison, then laughed.

“What’s the deal with Craig?” Aubrey asked her older sister. She tried to speak gently; she didn’t want to accuse. “Why didn’t he come to the funeral?”

“He had to work,” Bitty said.

“Right. The woman who practically raised you dies and he has to work.” Aubrey turned to Meggie. “And what about
you? You haven’t told us a thing about where you’ve been or what you’ve been doing.”

“Maybe it’s not your beeswax.”

“For a while there it seemed like every time I got a postcard from you, it was from another state,” Aubrey said.

“Right. Because I’ve been traveling around a lot.”

“Are you working?”

“I have a website where I sell crafts and things. I don’t really like to pay bills, so I don’t have a car or an apartment. Nothing to hold me down.”

“And you’re not lonely? Traveling around all the time?”

Meggie laughed. “I meet a lot of people. Trust me. A lot.”

“But not
friends
,” Aubrey said. “Not people who know you—who really know you—inside and out. You have people you spend time with and then forget about when you move away. I wouldn’t call those people
friends
.”

“We’re not here to talk about me,” Meggie said. “We’re talking about the Stitchery.”

“And now you’re being cagey,” Aubrey said. “What are you not telling us?”

Bitty put down her fork. “Why are you doing this, Aub? We’re trying to help you.”

“I’m trying to make the point that while you’re both so busy scrutinizing my life, you’ve got your own stuff to work out.”

Her sisters were quiet. Outside, a car horn blared. People were walking up the sidewalk. The moon was a curled thread suspended in the sky.

“I guess that’s fair,” Bitty said.

Aubrey sighed. There was a time, she remembered, for a few years during their childhoods, that she and her sisters had been fully and completely on one another’s sides. Suffering
could pull a family together; pain could be like gravity, pressure that held a shape, drawing everyone in to a central point. Or it could scatter a family apart, centripetal forces slingshotting each person wildly away. Sometimes, suffering could do both—gather and scatter—given a long enough time line.

The pain that had pulled them together, apart from any discomforts that might have been inflicted by life in the Stitchery, had stemmed from their mother. Years had passed between the day Lila Van Ripper went missing and the day she was declared deceased. Mariah, who had insisted that her sister was dead from the very beginning, had a terrible time forcing the government to recognize Lila’s passing. As the newly appointed guardian of three little girls, Mariah had hired a detective, had her sister’s bank accounts monitored, and had notified the Social Security agency of her sister’s “missing person” status—not because she wanted to prove that her sister was still living, but instead to prove she was thoroughly and properly kaput. In the uncertainty, the Van Rippers had pulled together—tight as a military unit of highly trained operatives, watching one another’s backs, until gradually the pain of Lila’s vanishing began to grow dull, and the ties between the girls began to loosen, and the Stitchery became like a slowly rising wedge, and they grew apart.

For the most part, the people of Tarrytown had never cared for Lila. She lived in the Stitchery with Mariah and her girls, and she had what the good people of Tarrytown called a
reputation
. In the sixties, she’d been an outspoken protester of everything—bombs, men, meat, the status quo. By the eighties, she’d mellowed out somewhat. She had her children (the first two by one man who had floated in and out of her life, then Meggie by someone else when her diaphragm had failed). By the late nineties, she was beginning to lose it. She
was bumming cigarettes in front of the liquor store and bothering people at bus stops. She was known to take her shirt off at the slightest provocation—whether in a park or a bar—and the local boys had great fun with her antics. She disappeared for weeks at a time, months; the girls didn’t know where she went. Sometimes, she came home tan and happy. Sometimes, pale and gaunt. She was not a guardian of the Stitchery, but she threatened people with magic; when the convenience-store clerk accidentally gave her the wrong change, she spat on the counter and vowed to curse his progeny. One day, she went away and never came back. Her death was the final nail in her coffin. Lila Van Ripper didn’t even have the courtesy to leave her body behind.

By the time the government acknowledged her death and the funeral director gave his (rather short) eulogy, the Van Rippers’ tears for their mother had dried up. They stood on the stone porch of the funeral home, shivering in the chill of late winter. There was no hint of spring in the air. Few people had come to the funeral because the roads were clotted with snow. Few people would have come anyway. Aubrey stood with her sisters looking out onto the river, which was frozen at the edges but still moving slushily in the center channel. Bitty was fifteen; Aubrey, eleven; Meggie just five. They stood huddled together in their buttoned wool coats and thick hand-knit scarves. Although it was toasty in the funeral parlor, they did not want to go back inside. Eventually Mariah came out and stood behind them. She put her arms around all three of them, scooping them up and hugging them close. In the cold and snow, her body blocked the wind, and her breath blew out of her nostrils like an ox snorting in winter. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll be all right. We have each other, don’t we?”

Sitting in the tavern, her pizza cold on her plate, Aubrey remembered her aunt’s words but didn’t remind her sisters of them. They hurt too much to think of, let alone say aloud. Instead, she finished her food as quickly as she could, aware that her sisters were doing the same, and tried to make small talk because she knew they were not going to resolve the Stitchery issue tonight.

When they returned to the Stitchery, Aubrey felt sullen and lonely, and she knew her sisters did, too. Meggie went back out, though she did not say where she was going. Aubrey went up to her room to visit the hedgehog. He was merrily running and swinging on his wheel, but she scooped him into her hands anyway and brought him to her bed. After a huffy, halfhearted spiking, he relaxed and began to crawl around her lap. His nose twitched, his dark eyes gleamed like bright black beads. Aubrey liked to run her thumb along his brown-and-white quills like fanning the pages of a book, and—when he let her—she stroked the baby-soft white hair on his belly and chin. Normally, she would have told him all about her day. But the walls were thin and her sisters already thought she was crazy.

A soft knock on the door. Icky snuffed and pulled his visor of quills down over his face at the sound. “Come in.”

Bitty pushed open the door just enough to fit her shoulders through. “Am I interrupting?”

“Well, me and the hedgie were just about to figure out the meaning of life.”

“And that is  …?”

“He says it’s ‘eating mealworms.’ I think it might be more like, trying to do some good in the world.”

“Good thing we live in a country that tolerates differences.” Bitty smiled. She moved into the room and the old door
creaked closed behind her. She was wearing her pajamas—a sporty, matching set of ginger-colored terry. Her hair was wet and her skin was shiny with scrubbing. She took a few steps closer to the bed. Icky sniffed the air.

“He’s cute,” Bitty said. “Carson won’t stop talking about him. You know I’m never going to hear the end of it until I buy them one.”

“Want to hold him?”

“Can I?”

Aubrey sat up a little as Icky pawed along her sternum. She picked him up, careful of his soft belly and matchstick legs. But when Bitty reached for him, he snapped into a tight and hissing ball. Bitty jumped back and Aubrey laughed. “Don’t be scared. It’s not like he can shoot you with his quills.”

“Maybe I’ll just admire from afar,” Bitty said. She sat down gently on the bed. Icky uncurled and began to sniff again. Bitty played with the zipper of her pajamas. “I came to ask a favor.”

“Okay?” Aubrey said.

“I was wondering if you would mind if the kids and I stayed with you for a little while longer.”

Icky poked his head into a fold of Aubrey’s sweater, and she thought of Nessa, standing in the yarn room, a tangle of purple wool in her hands. She decided that she would keep the visual to herself—for a little while at least. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re not thinking this will be a vacation?”

“I thought it would be good for us.”

“And?”

“And … I need a break from Craig.”

Aubrey nodded. She knew how hard it was for her sister to ask for a favor. She also knew how hard it was to admit that there was anything wrong. Bitty was a lot like Icky in that
way: He was a prey animal, and by nature he was programmed never to show a weakness. It was very hard to know if he was sick or hurting. Bitty had come to be that way as well.

“You can stay as long as you want,” Aubrey said. “Nessa and Carson are really great kids—no, they’re great
people
. You know that feeling of—like—when you first wake up in the morning and you stretch your arms and your legs and your back, and everything pops and creaks, and it feels so so good?”

“Yes?”

“That’s what it’s like having you guys back.”

“Thanks. I think.” She reached out to pet Icky’s back, and he let her.

“And besides,” Aubrey said. “Technically, now it’s your house, too.”

Bitty was quiet, her chin tipped down. When she was serene—in passing moments like this one—her face had a kind of aloof queenliness like an old painting of the Madonna. She brushed Icky’s spikes, her eyes downcast. “Craig and I … things haven’t been easy over the last year. Especially not for the kids.”

Aubrey waited for her to say more. She was nearly holding her breath. She wanted, so much, to be able to talk to her sister again. To know her. She couldn’t imagine what it had cost Bitty to walk in here and ask for help—retreating to the Stitchery even as she was asking Aubrey to condemn it. She must have been in a bad situation. Really bad.

But Bitty didn’t elaborate. She just got to her feet and walked wearily across the room. “I’m going to tell the kids the good news. They’ll be glad we’re staying.”

“For how long?”

“You haven’t lived until you’ve done Halloween in Tarrytown. Right?” She grinned—and for the first time, her smile reached her eyes.

“Can they do that?” Aubrey asked. “Can the kids miss that much school?”

“They have regular tutors. I’ll call the school tomorrow and double-check, but I think they’ll be okay. And besides …” She paused at the door. “We need this. A little break from everything. I think it will be good for them. And I think it will be good for me.”

Aubrey wanted to say
I’m glad you’re staying
. But she guessed that wouldn’t have been quite the right response. Bitty closed the door behind her with a soft click.

Aubrey thought of Nessa. She thought of Carson. Her heart ached for them—for Bitty’s family, for whatever it was they were going through, and she wished that there was something she could do for them.

In the morning Nessa woke to see her grape yarn wound into a perfect ball on her nightstand, and a line of neat stitches perched on a needle like birds on a wire.