Dire Threads

by Janet Bolin

  “And get my camera back.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He headed out onto the porch. “If we can.” He didn’t sound very optimistic about it.

  Leaving Clay to figure out how to repair my door, I accompanied Uncle Allen to his cruiser. I asked, “Does Elderberry Bay have sandbags I can use to keep my cottage from flooding?”

  He made a call on his cell phone. “Irv, we got any sandbags to put along the river?” He shook his head as if Irv could see him. “Pete’s place?” He sounded as amazed as I’d ever heard him sound. “Whatever for?” He listened, then said, “We got places downriver, lower elevations, that’re gonna flood long before that.” Then he said, “Yeah” about a dozen times, interspersed with “I know,” and “You’re tellin’ me.” He pocketed the phone. “The village doesn’t have many sandbags, and they’re already in use where they’re needed more.”

  To protect a gazebo, I suspected. Upriver, at a higher elevation.

  He opened his cruiser door. “Now, you scoot inside outta this rain.”

  I was drenched, anyway. Muttering, “I didn’t know you cared,” I splashed back to my porch.

  Clay ran his fingers over dents in the door jamb. “Someone used a crowbar.”

  “Great. All Uncle Allen has to do is drive around looking for a gang of kids carrying crowbars.”

  Clay brushed a lock of damp hair from his forehead. “I’ll see what I can do to force the metal back into place so it will lock until I can bring a replacement.”

  “Do you mind if I go back to Haylee’s while you work on it?” I twisted my hands behind my back. “Those women are helping me with something, and I should be there.”

  “I don’t mind, as long as you trust me alone in your store.”

  “Of course I do.” I didn’t tell him Uncle Allen’s suspicions about him and my break-in.

  Clay probably guessed, but all he said was, “There’s a dinner dance tomorrow at the community hall.”

  I stepped away from him. “A fish fry. In the middle of winter! Haylee, Opal, Naomi, and Edna and I are all going. Elderberry Bay seems to have lots of dinners.” I was babbling, and my fingers were still behind my back, pinching each other. “Tonight’s roast beef dinner included a memorial service for Mike Krawbach.”

  That didn’t seem to surprise Clay. Maybe he’d known, and that’s why he hadn’t attended. “Save me a dance tomorrow night?” he asked.

  Hadn’t Herb used the same words? My face hadn’t heated then. Now, it did. “Sure,” I managed.

  “I’ll come over to Haylee’s and tell you when I’m done so you can lock up again.”

  “Okay.” I would have to keep him from seeing what we were making. He might offer to stay up all night to help, too, another person’s sleepless night to chalk up to my account. As I attempted to skirt puddles covering most of the street, I realized that even if Clay recognized that we were making a gazillion bags, he might not figure out their purpose.

  During my absence, which hadn’t seemed very long, the women had sewn an incredible number of bags. I had to admit that it was fun using a new and different sewing machine, even for something as mindless as stitching bags. Besides, I enjoyed the warm camaraderie of sewing with other seamstresses.

  Edna’s curls were beginning to recover from their flattening when Clay called me from the front door. I ran to him, and we hopscotched around puddles to my door. I locked it. We both tested it. The door and the jamb were pockmarked and scratched, but the lock held.

  I started across my porch toward the street again.

  “You’re not done at Haylee’s?” Clay asked.

  “Some people like to sew all night.”

  He pulled his collar up around his neck. “I’ll watch until you’re safely inside, then. See you tomorrow night.”

  I fled across the riverlike street. “Sew all night,” I muttered. “What a strange thing to say. What must he think?” Inside Haylee’s front door, I turned around.

  Clay waved, got into his truck, and drove away.

  I kicked off my boots and strode to Haylee’s classroom.

  Four witches looked up from their tearing and their sewing. They all wore black wigs, tall black conical hats, and long black plastic capes over matching skirts. Their faces were dark green.

  23

  I SPLUTTERED, “DID I INTERRUPT A CONVENING of the coven?”

  The short witch, not surprisingly, spoke with Edna’s birdlike voice. “We’ve made hundreds of bags.”

  “Dozens,” the tall, thin witch replied. Haylee.

  The Naomi-sized witch mediated in her sweet, kind voice. “Lots. Now we’re ready to go to the beach and fill them.”

  “Why the witch costumes?” I asked.

  “There’s a full moon tonight,” Edna said.

  “There are clouds. It’s raining,” I objected. “And Shakespeare’s weird sisters went to the heath, not to the beach.”

  Opal fluttered her fingers downward. “Rain. These plastic skirts and capes and hats will keep us dry.”

  And the wigs would do what?

  “And we needed black clothing so we won’t be seen in the dark.” Edna shook her head, rattling her witchy rain gear. “I don’t own those depressing dark colors you young people like.”

  Naomi pointed from the jar of green stuff in her hand to her face. Her facial masque? “And this will help keep us from being recognized.”

  “I recognized you.”

  “But, Willow,” Opal explained, “you knew we were here. No one will expect to see us on the beach at midnight during a rainstorm.”

  “And if anyone does see you,” I retorted, “they’ll pay no attention, and go about their business.” Very quickly. “Why don’t you want to be recognized?”

  Opal explained, “Removing sand from the beach is illegal.”

  “This is an emergency,” I reminded them. “Who’s going to complain?”

  “Don’t argue,” Haylee advised.

  She was right. We could have been at the beach filling sandbags if I hadn’t been wasting precious time questioning The Three Weird Mothers, who seemed determined to live up to Haylee’s nickname for them.

  Opal advanced on me with a witch costume and a wig, and Naomi headed toward me with that jar.

  I backed away. “Let them recognize me. It’s my property we’re saving.”

  Naomi had the clincher. “Sorry, Willow. If they recognize you, they’ll know who the rest of us are.”

  Five women doing strange things in Elderberry Bay during torrential rains in February? Right, no one would ever guess our identity, the Threadville storekeepers, the newcomers in town, already suspected of everything from murder to . . . to . . . digging in the sand at midnight.

  A few minutes later, my face was green and I was wearing a witch costume and a wig, and we were clutching tall witch hats on our laps in Naomi’s SUV. Naomi parked at the foot of Lake Street next to the beach. We clambered out and plunked our hats onto our heads. To my surprise, the brim actually did shelter my face from the rain.

  Using the SUV as cover, both from prying eyes and from rain slanting in from the north, Haylee and I shoveled sand into bags that Opal and Naomi held open for us. We’d made the bags small on purpose, and we filled them only halfway, but they each seemed to weigh about a million pounds. We rotated shoveling, holding bags open, and loading them into the SUV. Since we would need the extra fabric at the tops of the bags so we could manhandle them out of the SUV, we didn’t tuck the tops in, and propped the bags upright against each other. It was just as well we hadn’t taken time to turn the colorful bags. Seam allowances along the bottom and sides resembled fringed ruffles. They were kind of pretty. Cute, anyway.

  The rear of Naomi’s SUV sagged. Afraid that the front wheels of the all-wheel-drive vehicle would lose traction or the suspension would give out, we stopped piling sandbags into the vehicle, and Naomi, Edna, and I got in. Naomi drove to the trail, the one I didn’t want motorized vehicles using.

  How ironic. I j
oked, “Sometimes, I wish I had an ATV.”

  “They’re allowed on the trail during emergencies,” Edna reminded me sternly. “If we had one, of course we could use it.”

  Naomi pulled into the wide spot where Uncle Allen had turned his cruiser after Mike died. Edna and I got out and directed her as she backed her SUV close to Blueberry Cottage.

  The river was still below the bank, but it had crept up since we’d begun making sandbags, and, if anything, the rain was coming down harder. Slabs of ice reared up on edge, making room for more.

  We lifted sandbags out of the SUV, tucked their tops in, and laid them flat on the ground along my fence. Naomi and Edna wore leather gloves. My mittens felt clammy and clumsy, so I took them off. Usually, I loved the feel of fabric, but not when it was cold, wet, and gritty. I moved as quickly as I could, hoping to keep my hands from turning into sandy popsicles.

  We ended up with one row, about a fifth of the way along the fence. It was paltry and dispiriting, but Naomi and Edna were not discouraged. They hopped into Naomi’s SUV like they weren’t nearly fifty years old and wearing stiff and crackling plastic witch costumes.

  At the beach, Opal and Haylee had continued filling bags. We’d barely begun loading them into the SUV when, above the pounding rain and gusting wind, we heard Uncle Allen’s plaintive siren. Was he really driving around all night looking for teenagers with crowbars?

  “Quick,” Edna yelled, slamming the rear hatch, “climb into the car and act like we just got here!”

  By the time we scrambled into the SUV, retrieved the hats we had inadvertently knocked off, arranged ourselves primly with our hats on our knees, and closed the doors, Uncle Allen was beside us, shining his feeble flashlight at our windows. He circled the SUV.

  “Oh, no,” Naomi whispered. “We left incriminating evidence outside—those shovels.”

  So we had.

  Haylee giggled. “Who will he think we were burying?”

  The others shushed her, but I couldn’t help giggling, too. “I hope he doesn’t trip over the shovels or fall into any of the holes we dug.”

  Uncle Allen had to choose that moment to fall heavily against the window, which flattened his face like in a cartoon.

  Naomi moaned. “Oh, the poor thing.”

  Haylee shuddered with laughter. “Willow, watch what you foresee when wearing that outfit.”

  Covering my mouth, in horror, not amusement, I told myself that my witch outfit had not given me any unexpected powers.

  Uncle Allen tapped on the passenger window. The wind carried his words away, but the meaning was obvious. Open up.

  Naomi gasped, obviously flustered. “I can’t lower the windows without turning the key in the ignition. If I do that, I might accidentally start the engine, and he’ll think we’re making our getaway. He might shoot!”

  “And I can’t open this door,” Edna said. “It’s propping him up. I’ll knock him down.”

  So I was the one, sitting behind Edna, who had to climb out of the car onto the damp sand. I barely avoided disappearing into a hole, myself.

  Disappearing might have been a good idea under the circumstances.

  Uncle Allen shouted, “Hands up!”

  I complied, even though I had a witch hat in one hand and a bunch of unfilled bags in the other.

  “Empty your hands,” he ordered. I let the bags fall and plunked the hat onto my head before raising my trembling hands again. This was it? The moment he had chosen to arrest me for Mike’s murder?

  “What are you doing here?” he bellowed. “The beach is closed after dark.”

  The other four women surrounded me, all with witch hats on their heads and their hands in the air.

  Taking in the sight of five green-faced witches, Uncle Allen seemed at a loss for words. Finally, he managed, “What is going on?”

  “Just out for a drive and we stopped here because it’s so pretty,” Edna sang out, all innocence.

  Uncle Allen demanded, “What’re you up to?”

  “It’s raining,” Edna explained patiently, pointing upward with her index fingers. “These are our rain capes and hats.”

  Uncle Allen scowled, either with suspicion or because freezing rain was cascading all over him. Too bad we didn’t have a spare witch costume. He could have used it. “Why’d you paint camouflage on your faces?”

  The downpour had streaked the other women’s faces. My hastily applied masque probably hadn’t fared any better.

  Edna lowered a hand and wagged a finger at him. “Never question a woman about her beauty secrets.”

  Uncle Allen had the good sense not to respond to that. He probed his light at our shovels, the holes we’d dug, and the bags I’d dropped. “Whoever’s car this is, open up. I want to see inside.”

  Edna piped up, “Show us your search warrant.”

  “Don’t need one. I’ve got probable cause. Sober people don’t act like you bunch.”

  Edna persisted. “Then give us all Breathalyzer tests.”

  Naomi stepped forward. “Only me. This is my SUV and I’m the driver.”

  “I’m not thinkin’ of alcohol,” Uncle Allen said. “Whatever you five are on, it’s gotta be illegal. Let me see inside or I’m hauling you all in.”

  In? Tiny Elderberry Bay couldn’t possibly have its own jail. I supposed Uncle Allen could haul us home to Aunt Betty, which might be worse than prison. Embroidering orange jumpsuits might be one thing. Embroidering bulky snowmobile suits? No thanks.

  We must have looked doubtful. Uncle Allen filled us in. “The state police will gladly lock you up. Now, are you going to open your trunk, or do I have to do it for you?”

  Opal asked in a nice, reasonable tone, “Can we put our hands down?”

  He rolled his eyes. We took that as a yes, and he didn’t complain. When I wasn’t waving my arms above my head, the cape kept rain off much better.

  Naomi opened the back hatch. The light came on, showing about a dozen plump bags standing against each other.

  Uncle Allen stuck his hand into one. “Sand?”

  Despite her witch costume and makeup, Edna managed to look earnest. “As you pointed out earlier, the river’s about to flood Willow’s sweet little cottage and destroy any evidence you might want to go back and find.”

  Nice, Edna, I thought admiringly.

  Uncle Allen didn’t buy it. “We’re done with the crime scene investigation.”

  I’d heard that one before. And had found more evidence afterward.

  Uncle Allen widened his stance, placing one foot precariously near the rim of another hole in the sand. “I’m gonna have to ticket you all for stealing sand from the public beach, and you’re gonna have to dump this all back where it came from.”

  “We’re only borrowing it,” Edna said. “When the river goes down, we’ll bring the sand back.”

  He objected. “The river might carry your sandbags away. What then?”

  Edna had an answer for everything. “The river will deliver the sand back to the beach.”

  Well, maybe.

  Naomi placed a gently quelling hand on Edna’s wrist. “We’ll return the sand when the danger of flooding is over. Meanwhile, how about calling the state police and asking them to send troopers to help us?”

  I began making plans to sneak off, wash my face, and replace the witch costume with a rain jacket.

  Uncle Allen, however, seemed to lose his enthusiasm for involving the state police. He growled, “Make sure you put it all back when you’re done with it, and don’t leave craters for people to fall into. Someone could break a leg.” Avoiding the holes we’d already dug, he shuffled to his cruiser and drove off into the storm.

  Opal began filling more bags. “That man can find more ways to waste our time!”

  Naomi’s SUV was almost loaded for the second time when a set of headlights appeared on the road leading down toward the beach. And toward us.

  Uncle Allen with five sets of handcuffs?

  A bright red pic
kup truck with white lettering on the passenger door stopped beside Naomi’s SUV.

  Great. Here was Clay, the heartthrobbiest of Elderberry Bay’s heartthrobs. And I was not only wearing a witch costume, but my face was streaked in hideous green goop.

  Maybe he wouldn’t recognize me.

  Fat chance.

  He climbed out of his truck. Mouth twitching as if he wanted to laugh, he called out, “There you are, Willow. I was looking for you.”

  “You found her!” Edna called out happily, shredding any hope that Clay wouldn’t notice me in the midst of this quirky coven.

  He gestured to the back of his truck. “I brought a shovel and a load of old sacks to fill with sand.”

  I could think of nothing to say.

  Edna, down on her knees holding bags open for Opal, had no such problem. “How did you know we were making and filling sandbags?”

  “I didn’t,” he said. “I was afraid that Willow’s cottage would be the first place to flood.” He turned around. Another set of headlights appeared on the hill above us, and another. Grinning, he faced us. “And I made a couple of calls.”

  Smythe arrived in his honey-colored pickup truck, and Herb pulled up in a black one. All of Elderberry Bay’s heartthrobs at once.

  All of them experiencing the pleasure of seeing Haylee and me at our drenched worst.

  All of them helping, too—a lot. The men wore work gloves. Clay glanced from the other women’s sopping leather gloves to my bare hands. The next thing I knew, he brought dry work gloves from his truck. “Here, wear these.”

  “I’ll get them wet, inside and out,” I warned.

  “Doesn’t matter. Put them on.”

  I did. They were too big, but their warmth was a nice change.

  Before long, we filled every sandbag we had and loaded them into the pickup trucks. Slowly, we convoyed to Blueberry Cottage, where we unloaded the sandbags. Clay, Smythe, and Herb worked tirelessly and barely seemed fazed by the tonnage of sand they moved. Despite babying his right arm and relying mostly on his left, Herb accomplished as much as any of the rest of us. The men joked, too, and kept our spirits high. Best of all, none of them said anything disparaging about the way we were dressed or the green stuff dribbling from our faces.