A Night's Tail

chapter 17

Marcus left with Derek, and Ethan walked out of the house without saying a word. Milo gave my shoulder a squeeze. “I’ll go after him,” he said.

I curled up on one of the chairs with Owen and Hercules together on my lap until Roma walked in and wrapped her arms around me.

We were at the table talking over cups of tea, with Hercules on my lap and Owen at my feet checking out the crackers Roma had given him, when Ethan walked in. He came to a skidding stop just inside the kitchen door.

I got to my feet, setting Hercules on the seat of the chair. I went to my little brother, wrapping my arms around him just the way Roma had done with me.

“I’m sorry for running off,” he said against my shoulder.

“It’s okay,” I said, hugging him even harder.

Ethan and Milo joined us at the table. Milo extended his hand to Roma and said, “Milo.”

She took it, smiling. “Roma.”

Ethan had questions and I tried to answer them without drowning him in information.

“I can’t believe it,” he said, raking both hands back through his hair. “I know Derek could be self-absorbed sometimes and intense, but I can’t believe he’d kill someone.”

I nodded. “I know. And I’m sorry this happened.”

“Are you kidding?” Ethan asked. “Derek was here because of me. If anyone’s at fault, it’s me.”

“That’s crazy,” I said. “None of this is your fault. You’re not to blame for any of this.”

Ethan reached across the table and grabbed my hand. “Then you’re not, either,” he said.

The get-together at Roma’s was canceled. I spent Friday evening with Ethan, just the two of us.

“You guys need some alone time,” Milo had said.

The two of them left the next morning to pick up Devon. “I think the true-love thing may be fading,” Milo said with a laugh. I stood next to the van and hugged my brother hard.

“I love you,” he said, giving me an equally fierce squeeze.

“I love you, too, brat,” I said.

He grinned as he let me go. “Tell Maggie I said good-bye.”

“I will,” I promised. I fixed his hair. “Stay out of trouble.”

They pulled out of the driveway and I waved until I couldn’t see the van anymore.

The library closed at one o’clock on Thursday to get ready for the grand opening of the quilt show. I went home to change and grab a quick bite and when I stepped back inside at quarter after six it struck me that the building had never looked so full of color and life. The quilts were everywhere I looked. Big ones. Small ones. Rectangular, square and round. They were more than fabric, batting and thread. They were art; beautiful, detailed pieces of art.

Oren was standing by the circulation desk looking up at one of Patricia’s vintage quilts suspended from the ceiling. He was wearing a charcoal-gray suit with a white shirt and blue striped tie. He looked very nice, and a little uncomfortable. I walked over to join him.

“Hello, Kathleen,” he said.

I smiled at him. “Hello, Oren. You’ve outdone yourself.”

He smiled back at me. “Thank you, but the credit should go to Patricia and the other quilters.”

“They’ve done spectacular work and I’ve already told them that, but their efforts wouldn’t be getting the audience they deserve if you hadn’t found a way to safely display everything. So you get some of the credit, too.”

Oren gestured at the incredibly detailed crazy quilt he’d been studying. “Did you know that one is over a hundred years old? My father and mother hadn’t been born when it was made.”

The tiny pieces of fabric that made up the quilt were faded to soft muted versions of their original colors, but they were still beautiful. “I’m amazed to think that every bit of work was done by hand,” I said.

“I’m happy people still care about that kind of thing,” Oren said.

I turned in a slow circle, taking in the quilts over my head. Like Oren, I was happy that people still appreciated the time and skill that had gone into making them.

Abigail was over in our computer space. Two of the computers had temporarily been moved to the magazine section. The others were upstairs for the three days of the show. Abigail beckoned me over.

I touched Oren on the arm. “I’ll talk to you later,” I said.

He nodded.

Abigail had set out the trays of cookies. On a third table there was a printed listing of all the quilts in the show with a brief description of each piece and of the people who had worked on it. “How does everything look?” she asked.

“Beautiful,” I said. “And so do you.”

She was wearing a deep kelly green dress with black tights and black ankle boots.

“Thank you,” she said with a smile. “So do you.”

I was wearing my favorite cobalt-blue sweater dress and a pair of completely-impractical-for-Mayville-Heights-in-the-winter spike-heeled black suede boots.

“There’s just something about having all this color around in the middle of winter that made me want to put on something bright,” I said.

Abigail nodded. “Me too.”

I glanced at my watch. “I’m going to do one last walk-around.”

Abigail grinned at me. “We’re ready, Kathleen.” She held out both hands. “Everything looks fantastic. Harry even cleaned the windows. We have cookies.”

I leaned my head to one side and silently looked at her. After a moment she shook her head. “I’ll come with you,” she said. She knew me well.

We opened the door to the show precisely at seven o’clock. There was a line of people waiting outside to come in. I welcomed everyone and Patricia shared a little about the quilters and their history. Then we turned everyone loose to look.

I walked around saying hello to people, answering questions where I could and deferring to Patricia and her quilters when I couldn’t. They were all wearing patchwork tags with their names—Patricia’s idea—which made them easy to find.

I was standing at the bottom of the stairs when Eric touched me on the shoulder. “This is incredible.” He gestured with one hand. “I’ve never seen so many people here.”

“I don’t think we’ve ever had so many people in the building all at once,” I said. I pointed in the general direction of the computer space. “Your cookies are a hit. Thank you again for sharing the recipe.”

“You’re welcome,” he said. “I’m honored to be a tiny part of all of this.” He leaned in. “Could I make a bit of a confession?”

I nodded. Was he going to tell me he’d stolen the recipe from Martha Stewart?

That wasn’t it. “I, uh, had a pretty stereotypical view of quilting as something that was done by white-haired little old ladies who made patchwork square coverlets for their grandbabies’ beds.”

He glanced over at Ella King with her blue-streaked hair courtesy of Ruby, talking about her art quilt, a portrait of her daughter Taylor.

“I think you may need to revise that definition a bit,” I said, giving him a little nudge with my shoulder.

By eight o’clock the workshops were filled and there was a waiting list for all of them. Patricia was talking to Ruby about doing something in conjunction with the artists’ co-op. Melanie was fielding questions from tourists about things to do and see in the area. Maggie and Roma joined me to share that they had snagged the last seats in the beginner’s quilting workshop.

“I think quilting has so much potential for my collage work,” Maggie said.

Roma smiled. “I think the whole process of sewing by hand feels almost like meditation.”

Marcus came up behind me and put an arm around my waist. “Congratulations,” he said. “You’ve done an incredible job. But then, you always do.”

I smiled up at him. “Did it occur to you that you might be a little biased?”

“Not in the slightest.” He kissed the top of my head. “Saturday night we’re going to celebrate, just the two of us.”

I nodded. And I’m finally going to tell you the truth, I added silently.

Marcus brought shrimp pasta from Eric’s for supper on Saturday night. After we’d eaten and the dishes were finished I sat down across from him at the table. “I need to talk to you about something,” I said.

“Sure,” he said, curiosity in his blue eyes. “What is it?”

“What happened with Derek really brought home to me the danger of secrets. I’m sorry I’ve kept this secret for so long.” I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. I couldn’t seem to keep my hands still. “It’s not that I didn’t—don’t—trust you, it’s just that for so long it didn’t seem like we were going to be a couple and then when we were I just didn’t know how to tell you and I kept putting it off and . . .” I realized I was babbling.

“Just tell me what’s wrong.”

My hands were suddenly sweaty and I wiped them on my jeans. “Do you remember the other day when we were in the porch and you turned around and Owen was just suddenly there?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“You said you didn’t see him when you came in.”

He nodded again.

“You were right. You didn’t see him because you couldn’t.”

Marcus smiled. “Is this your way of telling me you think I need glasses?”

I cleared my throat. “No, that’s not it. You couldn’t see Owen because he was invisible.”

He frowned. “You’re not making sense.”

“I know it sounds crazy,” I said, and it did, just listening to myself say the words out loud. “Owen can disappear. And Micah, too. That’s the reason you didn’t see her until she suddenly appeared in the car out in the driveway.”

I could see the concern in his eyes, like clouds filling a blue sky.

“Kathleen, you’ve had a very stressful few days,” he began. “You’re tired and overloaded.”

I shook my head vigorously. “This is not stress and I’m not crazy. Owen can disappear and Hercules can walk through walls.” I picked up Owen and set him on the empty chair next to Marcus. “Disappear,” I said.

The cat blinked at me and took a couple of passes at his face with one paw. He was enjoying this.

Marcus grabbed my hand. “I’m going to call Roma.”

I yanked my hand back. “Marcus, I’m not crazy and I don’t need Roma. She’s an animal doctor for heaven’s sake, and I don’t need a doctor, period.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m just worried about you.” There were lines pulling at his eyes and mouth.

I looked down at Hercules, who had wandered in from the living room. “Go out to the porch,” I said.

“Merow,” he said, and it seemed to me there was a question in the sound.

“Please.”

He turned and walked toward the door.

Marcus made a move to go to open it but I grabbed his arm. Hercules stopped at the closed door, looked over his shoulder at me and then with a slight shimmer walked through it.

Marcus was frozen in place. Then slowly he turned to look at me. “It’s some kind of trick,” he said.

I shook my head.

“There’s some kind of panel in the door.”

“You know that’s not true.”

I let go of his arm and he ran his hands through his hair. “This doesn’t make sense.”

“I think it has something to do with Wisteria Hill.”

“Why?”

I made a helpless gesture with one hand. “I don’t know, but all three cats came from there.”

Owen had been watching everything. I turned back to him. “Owen, please. Show Marcus.”

The cat almost seemed to shrug and then he winked out of sight. The color drained from Marcus’s face. “I’m not seeing this,” he said.

“That’s how I felt the first time. I didn’t think I’d ever get used to it but I did.”

Owen reappeared.

Marcus didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. “You think Micah can do all this?”

“She can disappear like Owen. As far as I know she can’t walk through walls like Hercules.”

“When did you figure this out?” he asked.

“She disappeared right in front of me one day.”

His eyes widened. “Wait a minute, you’ve known the entire time I’ve had Micah, then.”

“Not at first, but I have known for a while.” I jammed my hands in my pockets.

“How long have you known about Hercules and Owen?”

I looked away. “I figured it out when the work was being done at the library.”

He did the math. “More than three years?”

“Yes. But we weren’t together then. We weren’t together for a long time. I had to keep it secret. If anyone finds out what they can do they’ll be taken to a lab and their brains will be”—my voice broke—“dissected. They’ll be a science experiment.”

“So the time Hercules stowed away in that guy’s car . . . ?”

“He walked through the back window.”

“Do you know how many laws of physics this violates?” Marcus asked. He looked shell-shocked.

“Well . . . in the case of Owen disappearing, possibly none. It may be that somehow something in his cells allows light waves to bend around him. He doesn’t dematerialize. You just can’t see him. As for Hercules, matter can pass through other matter. Neutrinos are passing through us right now.” I’d done a lot of research trying to come up with an explanation for the boys’ abilities.

“You should have told me.”

“I know. I kept putting it off and it just got harder. I’m sorry. I know I keep saying that but I am.”

Marcus looked at Owen. He looked over at the door that Hercules had disappeared through. He took a step backward.

“I, uh, I need some air,” he said. He grabbed his jacket and was gone.

He was gone.

I swallowed hard. “I lied to him,” I said to Owen. “I lied to him, so what did I expect?”

I straightened the chairs around the table. I got the coffeepot ready for morning and took muffins from the freezer.

I gave Owen two stinky crackers just because.

He looked in the direction of the porch and meowed.

“I’ll take a couple out to your brother,” I said.

Hercules wasn’t in the porch. He’d gone outside where it was cold and dark and wet? I opened the back door.

Hercules was perched on the wide arm of the wooden Adirondack chair that I had dragged out during our late-February warm spell—more for him than for me. Marcus was sitting in the chair.

He was still here.

He hadn’t gone anywhere.

I stood in the open doorway for a moment, not sure what to do.

“I love you,” he said. He didn’t move and he didn’t look in my direction.

“I love you, too,” I said. Then I closed the door and went back inside.