The Quilt
By Robert D. San Souci
Her mother’s disapproval of the quilt convinced Rebecca Jenkins that she had to have it. She was still angry that her parents had insisted she go along
on their weekend drive to visit what seemed to the eleven-year-old girl like an endless round of antique stores and arts-and-crafts shops in Pennsylvania’s
Amish country. None of it interested her. To make peace, her mother had promised to let her pick out something for her room.
The curiously patterned quilt–alternating squares of red and black–was draped over a special frame in the front window of the arts-and-crafts store.
Once inside the shop, which specialized in handsewn items, her mother tried in vain to direct Rebecca’s eye to one or another of the more traditional
quilts: gentle patterns in cheerful colors. But Rebecca ignored her mother and continued to study the curious example of some eccentric quilter’s art.
With a sigh, Mrs. Jenkins, who knew a good deal about the art of quilting, asked the shopkeeper the price. She was shocked at the low figure the woman
quoted for what was clearly an antique. “Has there been some mistake?”
“No,” said the shopkeeper, a plump woman with her long gray hair pulled back into a ponytail. Then she thought further explanation was needed. “I’ve
had it a long time–someone brought it in years ago and left it on consignment. They never came back. I’ve marked it down lots of times, but no one seems
to be interested. Personally, I think the pattern is too strange. And the colors–well, you’d have a hard time finding the right place for it. Some
people even find it disturbing.”
While the women were talking, Rebecca went over to the window. A portion of the quilt hung down the back of the display frame. She reached out and
touched one of the cloth squares: a block of red with swirls and stars and spirals of black thread that almost made her dizzy when she tried to sort out
the overall design. When her fingers touched the cloth, she felt something like a faint electrical shock. She pulled her fingers back with a small cry.
“Are you all right?” her mother asked.
“Just static electricity, I guess,” Rebecca answered.
The shopkeeper waddled over and began pulling the quilt from its frame. She laid it out on a counter so that the others could see the whole of it.
Rebecca counted thirteen black panels at the center forming a star-burst design. Each was decorated with what might have been tiny letters sewn in black
thread. She peered closely but couldn’t be certain whether she was seeing actual words in a strange language or merely textures. Alternating squares
of red and black–with a border of black edging–filled out the quilt.
Rebecca’s mother ran a finger over the tiny stitches joining the individual squares and nodded appreciatively: “This is fine work.” She looked at the
backing, squeezed the padding, then decided, “It must be filled with cotton batting.” But she still had misgivings. “Don’t you want to look around some
more?” she asked her daughter hopefully.
“I want this one,” Rebecca said. “You promised.”
Her mother shrugged and began to write a check. The saleswoman quickly folded and boxed the quilt. Mother and daughter went out into the town’s sunny
little main street to find Rebecca’s father, who had gone in search of rare books. Then they began the long ride home to New Jersey.
The quilt didn’t really match anything in Rebecca’s room. Spread out on the bed, it overwhelmed the patterns in the braided rug and the curtains. But
it was so dramatic in its red-and-black glory that the girl loved it. Her mother was less enthusiastic, though the skilled workmanship of the piece had
made her more accepting. Smoothing a wrinkle, Rebecca felt again a little shock, much milder than what she had felt in the shop. Then a ripple seemed
to run through the quilt, from under her hand to the center of the black star burst. For a moment the girl had the impression of something moving in the
stuffing between the joined-together squares and the plain muslin backing. She immediately thought of horror movies where rats or spiders hid in or under
things. She tugged the corner experimentally. Nothing. Rebecca laughed at her own foolishness.
That night Rebecca had a curious dream. In a large old-fashioned room lit by candles and the blaze in a stone fireplace, thirteen women dressed in
red and black, wearing small lace caps, were holding a quilting bee. They sat around a large wooden frame hung on hooks from the rafters to waist height.
On it, the quilt– her quilt–was stretched taut. The red and black cloth panels had been carefully basted to the backing, so the design could be clearly
seen. The women were completing the quilt by sewing the panels into place with beautiful fine stitches. Rebecca, in her dream, seemed sometimes to float
above the quilt, sometimes to stand between two of the women, who never noticed her. She watched, fascinated, as their needles fairly flew over the cloth.
Much of the sewing was done in fancy patterns as well as straight lines: circles, stars, whorls, and zigzags. As they sewed, they repeated, in almost
prayerlike fashion,
Fly, swift needle; bind sure thread:
Stitch the world in black and red.
Here are memories, there are dreams,
Bound together by these seams.
Past and present and what will be:
Lost, then found, and finally free.
Because she rarely remembered her dreams, Rebecca was surprised to find that when she woke up, she could recall all the details of this one. She even
found the women’s chant running through her brain like the catchphrase of a song that replays itself endlessly in one’s head.
She had the same dream twice more. It felt like something she had lived through, it was so vivid. The faces of the women became familiar: some old,
some middle-aged, two very young. They looked neither kind nor frightening–just absorbed by the needlework at hand. For them, there seemed to be nothing
beyond the dipping and rising needles, the endlessly repeated chant.
She didn’t mention the dream to her parents, sensing that in some vague way it would reinforce her mother’s dislike of the quilt. But she recounted
it in great detail to her friends Zoe and Amber after school one day. Zoe zoned out pretty quickly–far more interested in the upcoming soccer match against
Davis Middle School, since she would be center midfielder. But Amber was really interested. “If there were thirteen of them,” she said, lowering her
voice to an excited whisper, “it could be a coven.”
“I’ve heard that word,” said Rebecca. “I just don’t remember where.”
“Witches’ coven–duh!” Amber rolled her eyes in disbelief at her friend’s ignorance. “Like in that movie, Thirteen Witches, we watched a couple of
months ago at Tiffany’s party? Where you had to guess which characters were witches and which weren’t? Witches had these secret clubs– covens–where there
had to be thirteen members.”
“Oh, yeah. But it creeps me out to be dreaming junk like that.”
“I think it’s way cool. I wonder if your bedspread is haunted.”
The idea seemed so silly, Rebecca laughed. “Get real!” But later, as she walked home from school, the idea seemed less silly. She remembered the little
shocks she sometimes still got touching the quilt. When she got home, she ran her hand all over the spread, turned it over, did the same thing with the
muslin underside–and found nothing. Not a lump or a wrinkle or anything unusual.
But, that night, she had a new dream. Again she seemed to walk and then to float around the candlelit, firelit room. The women worked with great urgency,
sitting three and three and three and four on the sides of the quilting frame. The work Rebecca had seen begun in the first dream was now nearing completion.
The oldest woman seemed to be the group’s leader; she urged the others to work faster. Firelight flashed on the three gold bands she wore on the middle
finger of her right hand. She led a chant that ran:
Fly, swift needle; bind sure thread:
Stitch our fates in black and red.
One will betray us, One tell our secrets,
Then we’ll sleep for a time
Till one comes to free us.
In this dream, Rebecca found herself drawn to the youngest of the group. She was sharp-faced, with frightened, darting eyes. The others didn’t seem
to notice her fear. But Rebecca saw her hands tremble so much that her sewing was flawed, leaving uneven spaces between the threads. The women on either
side of her scolded her, then picked out the imperfect stitches and watched to be sure matters were corrected with the second pass of the young woman’s
needle. Her hands continued to shake, dream-Rebecca saw, but the woman forced herself to stay calm and her fingers to obey.
Now the oldest one was repeating over and over only the words:
One will betray us,
One tell our secrets.
The others paused to watch her as she plied her needle. “Mother Quigby,” asked one of the middle-aged women, “tell us who the traitor is, if you know.”
“It matters not,” murmured the old woman. “What’s done can’t be undone. What’s to happen will come about. The work is important. See to the work.
Let the traitor see to her own fate.” With a collective sigh, the others around the frame bent to their sewing.
Suddenly, with a sob, the youngest got up and ran off, throwing open the door to vanish into the night beyond. Several of the younger women rose as
though they would follow her, but Mother Quigby, raising her hand with its three gold rings, commanded them, “Stop! Finish the work at hand. It alone
is our hope. Sister Rowena does not know the true meaning of our work. So her betrayal will not be complete.”
As Rebecca watched unseen, their hands raced to complete the quilt. Needles moving with blurring speed, the final precious stitches were finished.
A moment later, Mother Quigby, her three rings blazing red-gold in the fire’s glow, cut the last thread and announced, “It’s done. Now.” She stretched
her hands out. The twelve linked hands in a circle around the quilt. They chanted strange words, meaningless to dream-Rebecca, who felt like a cloud
hovering near the ceiling, or a breeze passing among the women. Once or twice, she was sure old Mother Quigby looked across at her and nodded. But the
woman never indicated to the others that there was a secret watcher in the room.
Mother Quigby had each woman lean forward and touch a hand to one of the thirteen black squares of the dark star burst at the center. When they did,
there was a flash–not of light, but of darkness, which seemed to drink in all the light in the room. The candles shrank to pinpricks of light; the fire,
to a pool of soft glow. Rebecca felt a weight crushing her, so that the air was squeezed out of her lungs. But the sensation passed. Then the candles
flared and the fireplace blazed–but the room was empty, save for the quilt, swaying slightly on its suspended frame.
Where had the women gone? Rebecca wondered. Then the door of the cabin flung open. Men in old-fashioned doublets and hats and leather or cotton pants
burst into the room. They carried lanterns and torches. Among the last to enter, clinging to the arm of one handsome young man, was Rowena.
“Hags!” voices cried. “Where have you hidden yourselves?” They searched the cupboards, beneath the quilt, even the window seat, which hadn’t space
enough to hide the smallest child.
The men had closed the door behind them, but a sudden wind slammed it open, howling into the room. It swirled around, causing the candles to flicker
and the fire to flare. Then lifting the quilt, the wind ripped it loose from its frame and sent it billowing around the room like some living thing. The
men drew swords and hacked at the cloth, as they cried, “Deviltry!” and “Witchery!” But the whirlwind kept the black-and-red cloth dancing away from their
blades, wrapping it briefly around one or another of the invaders. Then, suddenly, the wind swept the quilt away into the darkness outside. Rebecca,
feeling light as a feather, was pulled along after the escaping quilt into the night. For a moment she saw it flying like a living thing beneath the full
moon. She reached for it, arms outstretched, feeling an overwhelming desire to catch it, but it skittered away into the darkness before her.
Abruptly, Rebecca felt herself sinking earthward, toward a swell that suddenly became the roof of a house. She recognized her home in Lincoln Park,
New Jersey. She drifted gently through the roof and down toward the bed, where she saw herself sleeping under the red-and-black quilt.
Then her alarm went off, she was awake in her own bed, and it was morning. The quilt was neatly folded at the foot of her bed. Since she had fallen
asleep cuddled under its thickness, she guessed that her mother had folded down the spread after she’d drifted off. Sunlight streamed through the window.
But she felt as tired as if she hadn’t slept at all. In her half-awake state, she thought she heard dream voices calling her name–but they were drowned
out by her mother’s very real voice warning her that she’d be late for school if she didn’t get a move on.
Amber, whose locker was next to hers, asked, “Are you wearing different liner or blush or something? You look different.”
“No.”
“Well, you look thinner. Wish I could look thinner.” Amber ran her hands down her ample hips and sighed.
“I haven’t been sleeping well,” Rebecca said. “I’ve been having crazy dreams.”
“Maybe I should watch those all-night horror movies on Channel 10. They’d keep me awake,” said Amber. “Then I could lose weight, same as you.”
“I’m not losing weight. I’m just tired this morning,” Rebecca insisted.
“Whatever,” said Amber, who clearly didn’t believe a word.
“Are you all right, hon?” her mother asked at breakfast two days later. “You look a little peaked.”
“I’m fine!”
But when she looked in the mirror, she saw that her face looked thinner, sharper. She felt weak at times, and her eyes darted about in a haunted, restless
way. Often she imagined she heard her name whispered so faintly it seemed unreal. Am I going crazy? she wondered.
It was only when she hugged the quilt in her arms, or lay with it pulled up to her chin, that she felt good again.
Saying she wasn’t feeling well, she stayed home more and more from school. She talked less and less on the phone to her friends. Her mother and father
asked what was wrong, but she shrugged them off. Watching them watching her, Rebecca felt that they were all becoming strangers to one another. She was
becoming a stranger to herself: she hardly recognized her face in the mirror–looking more pinched and fearful with every glance.
She sat for hours, staring out the window, the quilt wrapped around her. She often had waking dreams, in which the old woman, Mother Quigby, visited
her. Rebecca could see her mouth moving, talking to her; but all the girl could hear were sighs and whispers, too faint to understand.
At first the woman had appeared in the far corner of Rebecca’s room, but each time the dream returned, Mother Quigby was a step closer. And each step,
Rebecca felt, brought her closer to learning the meaning of the other’s visits.
“I’ve made an appointment with the doctor for tomorrow,” her mother was saying.
Rebecca hadn’t been aware that her mother had come into her room. She’d been dozing and waking in her chair, wrapped in the quilt. Startled, she saw
that Mother Quigby had followed her out of her dream into wakefulness. The old woman, faint enough to see through, stood only a few paces away. Rebecca
rubbed her eyes. Her mother was standing right in front of her, arms folded, looking angry and worried. Just behind her stood Mother Quigby, a figure
of air and darkness, her own arms folded, as if mocking the other woman. Rebecca’s mother followed her daughter’s eyes, turned–and saw nothing. She
turned back and asked, “What are you staring at?”
Rebecca remembered how, in her earliest dreams, she had stood near or hovered above the women working on the quilt, and none saw her, except Mother
Quigby. Had her own life become a dream? Was Mother Quigby the sleeper who was dreaming this room and Rebecca and her mother? The girl felt more and more
confused.
“Becky, you’re frightening me–you look so strange,” said her mother. “Should I call a doctor now?” She put out a hand to feel whether the girl had
a fever.
“Don’t touch me!” Rebecca snarled, pulling back. Behind her mother, the old woman nodded. Rebecca drew the quilt close around her. “Leave us alone!”
“What are you talking about?” asked her mother, looking around, seeing nothing. “Who else do you think is here?”
The quilt was warm. But it also seemed charged with a power now. She could feel something like electricity flowing through it, flowing into her. The
old woman was smiling, watching eagerly to see what the girl would do.
Her mother reached forward again. “You must have a fever.”
“Get out!” Rebecca ordered. The quilt was crackling with energy. Her mother pulled back her hand with a cry, as though she’d touched an electrical
wire. The curtains at the window began to flap as though driven by a powerful wind, though the window was shut. It was barely noon, but the windows reflected
the red of sunset and the blackness of night in alternating panes. “Get out now!” Rebecca stood up, the black-and-red quilt wrapped around her like a
cloak.
Her startled mother was pushed roughly toward the door as though by dozens of invisible hands. She beat her hands against the air and wailed, “They’re
pinching me! Make them stop!” But she was forced back, as Rebecca watched silently and the old woman nearly doubled over with silent laughter.
The door was yanked open, her mother was thrust into the hall, and the door slammed behind her. There was a soft click as an unseen hand turned the
key in the lock.
“Rebecca! Open this door at once! What is going on?” her mother called. But her voice was muffled, not only by the closed door, but as though it were
coming across a vast distance. The curtains dropped back into place as the mysterious wind died away. But the window remained a checkerboard of red and
black panes.
The old woman, still half-transparent, was speaking. For the first time, Rebecca understood her words: “Place the quilt upon the bed.”
Unwilling to give up the quilt’s warmth and power, but more frightened of disobeying Mother Quigby, Rebecca did as she was told, smoothing the material
out. “Good! Good!” the woman said eagerly. She was standing on the other side of the bed.
Snip, swift scissors, cut the thread:
Loose the world in black and red.
Here the memories, here the dreams, Hidden deep within these seams.
The waiting now is past and done:
The promised end is finally won.
“What do I do now?” asked Rebecca.
But the old woman just repeated the verse as she faded from view. Rebecca stared at the quilt, then at the spot where the old woman had stood. At
last she understood. Ignoring the faint beating on her door and her mother’s muffled cries, Rebecca went to the top drawer of her dresser and took out
a pair of nail scissors. Gently she began to cut the fine stitches holding together the thirteen black squares of cloth at the center of the quilt.
As soon as she’d snipped the final thread, a withered hand, its middle finger banded with three gold rings, thrust up, clawed into the light. The eldest
of the twelve dream quilters began pulling herself free.
“I greet thee, Rebecca, our destined thirteenth sister,” said Mother Quigby.
In silent answer, Rebecca stretched out her hands to steady and welcome the first of the reborn women.
