Silk and Stone

  Jake broke away and looked at her, his expression troubled but determined. “I never touched a girl before you. I never kissed one. I always told myself I’d try my damnedest to be everything you wanted without any practice. But all I’ve done is make you unhappy.”

  “I’m unhappy because you’re so wonderful at it. I don’t want to stop.”

  “Then let’s just stop until we get married. Married—with all the bells and whistles and certificates, so the rest of the world can say it’s official. I want it to be perfect.”

  He had a way of saying just the right thing and making her melt inside. “So do I,” she whispered. “I always thought it would be. I thought my dad would walk me up to you, and my mother would be there to watch.”

  He sighed. Slowly he raised a hand and stroked the back of his fingers along her cheek. “That’s the only part of it I can’t make right for you.” He cleared his throat. “But I can teach you to drive this damned car, and I can help you find a job. And I can keep you so busy, you never have time to look over your shoulder for your aunt’s shadow.” He rested his head against hers. “Because a shadow can’t stop us,” he added gruffly. “We’ve already proved that.”

  Sam shivered. She’ll wait. She’ll always be waiting, and when we least expect it …

  She had never forgotten Clara Big Stick’s warnings. All that talk about Aunt Alex’s evil, about dies being cast, about courting doom—Sam didn’t want mystical portents to rule her life the way they’d ruled her mother’s, but Mrs. Big Stick had scared her.

  “Talk to me,” Jake said gruffly. “There’s something you’re ashamed to say.”

  She tilted her head back and looked at him in wistful defeat. “Hasn’t anybody ever told you that men aren’t supposed to figure out other people’s feelings?”

  “I’ll grunt and look dense as a doorknob if you’ll do what women are supposed to do—talk.”

  “All right. I told you Mrs. Big Stick came to see me at Aunt Alex’s shop. I didn’t tell you everything she said.”

  “Now’s the time, then.”

  Sam spoke haltingly, studying his reaction. Nothing about it seemed to surprise or distract him. When she finished, he nodded. He got out of the car and came around to her side, moving with swift, purposeful strides. “Slide over. You can practice bumping things later.”

  Staring at him morosely, Sam moved aside. He settled behind the steering wheel. She tugged at his sleeve. “I’m not saying I believe what she said any more than I believe she made me start talking by dunking me in the river when I was three years old. But I do know what my aunt is capable of doing, and—”

  “Oh, you believe Clara,” Jake said. He cranked the engine. “And you need to hear her say she was wrong.”

  “She’s not going to drop me bare-butt naked into a cold river again. An icy bath and mystical spirits didn’t change my life the day I started talking—you did.”

  “Something special helped us both that day.” He gave her a quick glance, loving but determined, as he guided the old station wagon away from the curb. “And it’s not going to let us down now.”

  Clara had a yard full of self-important dogs who barked at the drop of a hat, and their friendly silence was the first sign that someone uncommonly trustworthy had just driven into her secluded hollow.

  She left turnip greens simmering on the stove and lumbered through a tiny living room cluttered with old furniture, knickknacks, and piles of books. She stood on the whitewashed front porch of her whitewashed frame house, watching Jake and Samantha walk up the sandy path through her herb garden. The dogs crowded around them in the twilight, looking up at Jake happily and nuzzling his hands.

  Samantha carried a large gold box wrapped in cellophane. Clara squinted. Candy. Jake knew about her sweet tooth, and he knew a person didn’t show up for conjuring advice without a polite gift to offer.

  So he had finally come to ask for her help.

  But he couldn’t bribe her goodwill with candy. “I already told you what to do,” she announced, holding up both hands. They stopped at the bottom of the porch steps. Samantha looked sad. Jake looked respectful but grim. “I told you,” Clara continued, pointing at Jake, “a long time ago. You’re one of the people. You were taught the right ways by Granny Raincrow. I can’t fault Samantha for making mistakes—she’s not one of us. She was raised ignorant. But you know better, Jake. You know a ravenmocker can’t be stopped once it gets its mind set.”

  “Am I a ravenmocker?” Sam asked wearily. “It doesn’t sound very good.”

  “No,” Jake answered. “Not you. She means Alexandra.” He looked up at Clara with troubled eyes. “But there’s something you don’t know. No one outside my family knows. It makes a difference.”

  “I can think of only one thing that would make a difference,” Clara said. “And I told you it wouldn’t come back to your family except through terrible suffering.”

  “But it has come back. Samantha suffered. Samantha brought it.”

  Clara’s mouth dropped open. “The ruby?” she whispered.

  He nodded. She listened in shocked silence as he told how the stone had been recovered, how it had stopped Alexandra from taking Samantha’s younger sister away. Clara considered the information with amazement. “Come inside,” she said finally. “I have to think on this. It may be a trick of hers.”

  “Of mine?” Sam asked, her eyes widening. “I swear, I didn’t know my aunt had it. I didn’t know it was hidden—”

  “Hers,” Clara said patiently. “The ravenmocker’s.”

  “No trick,” Jake replied. “Alexandra would never have given it up.”

  Clara made a huffing sound at his confidence. “What makes you think she’s given it up? Just because she had to let it go don’t mean she’s let it go for good.”

  “Mother gave the stone to Ellie. Where it belongs. Where it will stay.”

  “Come inside.” They followed her into the house. Sammie held the box out. “Please accept this gift. And please don’t be angry with Jake. He had nothing to do with the reasons I left my aunt’s home.”

  “But he’s the reason you ended up in the Cove.”

  “She didn’t want to come to me for help,” Jake said. “She tried her best not to get me involved.”

  “A smart girl. You should have listened. Listened with the gift God gave you.” He shook his head slightly and gave Clara a beseeching look. He hasn’t told Sammie about his secret ways, Clara realized. Because he feared she wouldn’t believe? Clara sighed, recalling how Granny Raincrow had guarded the truth too. People were quick to laugh at anything they couldn’t understand, Granny had said. Or quick to take selfish advantage.

  Watching Sammie, Clara doubted she’d do either. Jake couldn’t hide that part of himself from her forever. She waved a hand at Sammie. “Set that box of candy on a table. I’ve got to check on my dinner.”

  Clara marched into the kitchen, a small, hot room with bunches of dried herbs hanging from pegs along the walls. Sammie and Jake followed her politely. Clara stirred the pot of turnip greens and pretended to ignore them. But Sammie dropped to one knee on a bright rug that covered a thin spot in the linoleum. Clara stared at her strange behavior.

  Sammie’s eyes were suddenly bright. Her hands roamed over the rug’s intricate zigzagging design. She seemed to have forgotten everything else. “This is beautiful. Who made it?”

  Clara tried to resist the flattery. “That old thing? I made it. Any old woman worth her salt can weave. The young ones don’t have the patience.”

  Sammie gazed up at her in awe. “This is a work of art. You have a loom?”

  Clara jerked her head toward a warped screen door to the back porch. “Out there.”

  “I’ve never seen a loom except in pictures. I’ve always thought of big, dirty mill factories with dozens of mechanical monsters clacking away while tired women turned out bolts of cloth for someone else to enjoy. My dad’s people were mill workers. I guess I heard too many stories about
how hard their lives were. I never imagined anyone could make something this … this personal. May I look at the loom?”

  “Help yourself.”

  Sammie bounded up and ran to the door. She pushed it open and stepped outside slowly, reverently, her attention riveted to one end of the narrow screened porch. Her hands reaching out carefully, she moved with trancelike attention, disappearing from sight.

  Jake and Clara traded puzzled looks.

  She sat down on the loom’s smooth-worn wooden bench. The loom was a confusing contraption to most people, but Sammie studied it as if she’d discovered a new friend. Her hands trembled as she stroked the wooden frame, then ran her fingertips over the bleached white cords of the weft. “You take nothing and make it into something,” she whispered. “You start with threads and an idea, and you end up with a piece of fabric that’s different from anything anyone else has ever made. Something that’s part of you.”

  Clara was astonished, and secretly pleased. “It’s over a hundred years old,” she said proudly. “Belonged to my great-grandmother. It’s made of chestnut. You won’t find another one like it.”

  “I have to learn to weave.” Sammie looked as if she wanted to hug the loom. She swiveled toward Clara. Her eyes gleamed. “Will you teach me? Please?”

  Clara felt Jake watching her. She frowned at him, but the urgent expression in his eyes went straight to her heart. “You see?” he said. “It’s a good sign.”

  “Don’t tell me about signs, mister. I know how to read signs. I’ll be the one who decides if this means something.”

  “It means I have work to do,” Sammie said happily.

  Clara pondered this development. She never rushed to decisions. But she was beginning to wonder if certain pieces hadn’t fallen into place. “It’s easy to learn—but hard to learn how to be the best. I’m just fair to middling at it myself.”

  “I don’t mind the work. I can be the best. I’m not just talking, Mrs. Big Stick. I’m not trying to earn your good wishes by pretending to admire what you do.”

  “I figured that out already. It’s the bigger meaning I can’t quite figure yet. You’re not one of the people. Throws me off. Wait here.” Muttering to herself, she went back into the house.

  Jake held his breath. Samantha looked up at him with tears in her eyes. One hand rested on the loom’s canvas of straight, regimented threads. She held the other hand out to him. He went to her quickly. They sat on the narrow bench, their heads bent together. “I’ll build you a loom,” he whispered.

  She cupped his head, winding her fingers into his dark hair. The need to touch him had quickly become more desperate than she could resist. Dangerous in its confidence. Unforgettable in its promises. “I love you,” she whispered.

  Clara sat on her couch, a pair of reading glasses perched on her nose, a hefty, dog-earred Bible open under the light of a chipped ceramic lamp on the end table. She searched the text, thick brown fingertips roaming over yellowed pages. Proverbs. She liked to consult Proverbs. They spoke to her with pure poetry, the wisdom of ancient people who shared a closeness to the earth. There was a passage she couldn’t quite recall, something that had teased the edge of her memory when she saw Sammie at the loom.

  When she found it, she bent over the Bible, reading silently, her lips moving in somber regard. Then she sat back and shut her eyes, sorting through what Jake had told her. The ruby had come back to them. She’d promised Granny Raincrow she’d look out for Jake and Ellie.

  And because Jake loved Sammie Ryder despite Clara’s misgivings, she would have to look out for Sammie too. There was evidence that Sammie was meant to be here, meant to be with him.

  She hoisted herself up. Carrying the open Bible in her arms, she went back to the porch. They were sitting together on the loom bench, close and quiet, young and hopeful. Clara sighed. It was done. She would heed the advice she had found. “ ‘Who can find a virtuous woman?’ ” she read slowly. “ ‘For her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.’ ”

  Clara paused, glancing at Sammie in thoughtful wonder. “ ‘She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.’ ” Clara moved a fingertip down the page a bit, and continued. “ ‘She maketh herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple … she maketh fine linen, and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant. Strength and honor are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come.’ ”

  Clara closed the Bible. “I’ll listen to what the old Hebrews told me about you,” she told Sammie. “I’ll teach you to be a weaver.”

  They walked into the house as darkness was falling. Side by side, casting portentous looks at each other, they stepped into the living room. As if by unspoken agreement, their hands met. Jake’s formal, intense train of thought relaxed. Samantha didn’t have any doubts, and neither did he. All he had to do was make the announcement. Find words good enough to honor it.

  Mother was painting at her easel, in one corner. Father turned from his desk. Charlotte sat on the floor, a stack of books and notepads spread in front of her on an old coffee table. She peered at them from under shaggy blond bangs. And her mouth dropped open.

  Mother and Father, he noticed finally, looked as if they expected something. How could it be that obvious?

  “I’ve seen this coming for a long time,” Mother said. “But you two have got to give us at least a month to make decent plans. Don’t march in here a couple of days from now with a justice of the peace and a marriage license.”

  Father nodded his agreement. “Your grandmother’s spring would be a nice place for a ceremony. That’s got my vote.”

  Charlotte waved her hands excitedly. “I’ll make the cake for you, Sammie. I’ve always wanted to try a wedding cake.”

  Jake felt Samantha’s hand squeezing his happily. He looked at her. Her eyes were warm and pleased. He looked at everyone else. “How did you guess?” he asked.

  Mother stood and came to him, reached up, and pulled his head to hers. She whispered loud enough for everyone to hear: “You look like you’ve been kissed six ways from Sunday.”

  “He has,” Sam added, and smiled.

  So Jake would be married. Ellie envied her brother that courage, that achievement. She sat on the back porch in the darkness, braiding her long hair. Everyone else was inside, discussing the wedding plans. She was happy for Jake, happy for Sam, because she felt the loyalty they shared.

  Jake had taken a risk Ellie couldn’t fathom yet. To know someone the way she and Jake knew people—to sense their fears and selfishness, their mistakes and embarrassments—that brand of empathy kept her from reaching out. She wondered sometimes if she’d ever touch a man and feel anything other than disappointment.

  “Ellie?” Sam called her name carefully. Ellie turned and looked up at her, standing behind the screen door to the kitchen, silhouetted by the house’s cozy heart of light. Sam was a private person—she respected others’ private moments. Ellie liked that about her. Jake had not made any mistake by loving Sam.

  “Yes?”

  “Can I talk to you a minute?”

  “Sure.”

  Sam slipped outside, closing the screen door so it wouldn’t make a sound, then sat down beside her. They sat for a moment, listening to the evening murmurs of insects and watching the first spring fireflies blink across the old field beyond the barn. A fingernail moon was rising over the granite rim of the mountains. “I’d like to get to know you better,” Sam said.

  “You’ll be busy.” Ellie said that with a smile. “You and Jake. Making up for lost time. But I’ll be around.” She put a hand on Sam’s arm and gave it a quick, affectionate squeeze. “You’re good for him. Don’t worry. You’re right to marry him. I wish I could find someone …” Her voice trailed off.

  “You will,” Sam said quickly. “I envy you. You’ve got work to do.”

  “Sam
mie, you’re not much for thumb-twiddling, I know. But you’ll do well with your weaving. You’ve got a lot of talent. Clara told Mother so.”

  “Mr. Gunther stopped by the other day. He said I should visit a modeling agency down in Atlanta. Take the brochure I did for his friend. See if I can get a contract for my hands.” Sam raised her perfect hands in the darkness of the porch as if she were studying them. “What a strange way to use them. I guess I could make a lot of money at it.”

  “Only if you’re willing to travel. You’d have to go away. Jake wouldn’t like that. I don’t think you would either.”

  “No. When I posed for that one job, I felt like a life-support system for ten pretty fingers. Kind of a useless accessory.”

  “Then be patient. Something better will come along. The money doesn’t matter to Jake. You matter to Jake.”

  “The first time he took me to see his house, it was like walking into a place I’d seen before.” She hesitated, then added wistfully, “My mom would call that déjà vu. I don’t know what to call the feeling. But it was home. Even with all the empty rooms and bare windows.”

  “He had you in mind when he built it.”

  “It couldn’t be more right if I’d told him exactly what I like. He’s uncanny that way. Amazing.”

  What he knows about your likes and dislikes is no lucky guess, Ellie thought. She wondered if Jake would ever share that secret with practical, feet-on-the-ground Sam. She hoped so. She patted Sam’s arm. Sam loved him enough. More than enough. So much that she was eager to ask Ellie for some delicate type of advice. “Sex,” Ellie said as if the subject had already been mentioned, “it’s a helluva thing. Designed to be spontaneous and carefree, but surrounded by tricky little responsibilities.”

  Sam muttered under her breath. “Are you a mind reader?”

  Yes, Ellie thought, but only smiled. “What else would you be thinking about a few weeks before you get married?”

  Sam eyed her sideways. “If I said finding the perfect lace for my wedding dress, you’d know I was full of shit.”