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nastier scars on my body, and Adrian shoved in a car trunk to stave off the
encroaching dawn? Oh yeah, that night. "I remember it, I said dryly.
"So do I," Bracken replied grimly. He'd almost killed me that night, just by
being who he was, because I was bleeding, and his power pulls blood out of
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people's bodies. It was a bad night. "And I remember you smiled so sweetly at
an old man that he wandered out of the store wondering what his own name was.
"And ended up headless and dead," I finished up for him grimly. Did I mention
it was a bad night?
"But you talked to him!" he insisted. "You were pleasant. You can talk to
people all you have to do is let them see you. You let him see you you know,
not the bitch you were trying to be back then, but you, like you are now, with
your nice red hair, and not that black crap, and your pretty eyes, your sweet
fa& What?" he demanded suddenly, because Grace had pulled up to a stop sign and
not gone when it was her turn and we were both staring at him over our
shoulders as though he'd grown another head. My eyes burned fiercely and it
was hard to swallow.
"What?" he demanded again from his place in the back. Grace and I looked at
each other helplessly, and Grace shrugged.
"He has no idea what that does to you, does he? she asked softly.
"Fucking preternatural males," I forced through a tight throat. "None of them
do.
A car beeped behind us and Grace pulled forward, leaving me speechless in the
front seat and Bracken baffled in the back.
So tonight I counted inventory and, while Bracken unloaded the delivery of
yarn, fabric, and pattern books from the truck, I waited on people. Grace was
right, the knitting made it easier.
"So what are you working on?" A grandmotherly sort of woman asked me as I
pulled the sumptuous, acrylic/wool boucle through my fingers and clicked my
needles in a way that never failed to completely chill me out.
"A sweater," I murmured, stroking the almost completed front with my hands.
"For who, Goliath? she asked, and I had to smile at her.
"For my& husband, I said, glancing up. My hands, though, schooled by practice
and that wonderful Zen concentration that knitting induces, kept moving, knit
four, purl one, knit four, purl one, reverse on the next row&
"Well," She smiled at me conspiratorially, without even sparing a glance for
my empty ring finger, "It's a good thing you're already married, because you
know the myth of the boyfriend sweater, don't you?" Her brown eyes twinkled up
at me from behind wrinkles and thick glasses. She was a gnomish looking
person, with curly grey/brown hair and a peach colored leisure suit, but she
was, as far as I could tell, human.
"I've never heard it, I said, curious. I looked up at Bracken, bound to me as
more than a boyfriend, and more even than a husband. He was hanging the quilts
Grace had brought from home out on the quilt racks that loomed in display at
the upper levels of the store. He was tall enough to reach without a ladder,
and his sweatshirt pulled up past his lean abdomen, and I wondered if he'd
included cover for his two extra ribs in his glamour. Probably not, I thought
warmly, as he stretched and flexed with unconscious grace. I hadn't told him
who the sweater was for, when I was picking out the yarn and forcing him to
touch it and judiciously measuring the colors with my eyes. But he had seen
the mural my magic made this afternoon, and the brackish, smoky violet should
look very familiar.
"Well you know," the woman was saying, eying my beloved with appreciation of
her own, "They say that if you make a sweater for a man you're not married to,
in the time it takes you to make the sweater, you'll break up.
"No!" I'd never heard that.
"Oh yes, it's true! she added enthusiastically, "Of course, I told my husband
that if he broke up with me, he'd have to give me the sweater as a parting
gift.
"I take it you didn't break up.
"Well, he didn't like the sweater, but since he returned it with an engagement
ring, I decided to forgive him!
I laughed, terribly enchanted, and she laughed with me.
"But I must say," She said thoughtfully after a moment, "I don't know if it
would be true if all sweaters were made with that stuff you're working with
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now! That's nice!
I grinned at her and felt my work with restless hands. The fabric was so real
under my fingers. I was surrounded with elves and magic and vampires, and this
sweater was the only thing in my life I could talk about. "It's great, isn't
it?" I affirmed. "Would you like to see it? Brack just unloaded a new
shipment we've got it in, like eight different colors!
And there I was, talking with a human being. I had something in common with my
native species after all.
The rest of the night went well it was actually sort of fun. I'd been talking
to Grace since before Christmas about crafts, about knitting, crocheting,
cross-stitching, and quilting. It was a chance to show off, to be helpful, to
share knowledge. I wondered if working in the Chevron would have been quite so
stifling if I had actually talked to people, or if it was sharing the same
interests that made the people in A Yarning for Crafts bearable. It didn't
matter, I decided, as I sat at the register and bound off the front of Brack's
sweater. I was happy here, now, and that was a good thing.
Grace came out from the back it was the end of the month and she was balancing
books and told me to go with Bracken and get dinner before the Mongolian B.B.Q
around the corner closed.
"Wasn't the sandwich dinner?" I was still full.
"The sandwich was lunch, she said firmly. "You've been sharing blood with the
kiss, and you need to, but you haven't gained back a pound since you were
sick, and you need to keep eating.
"I've gained five!" I protested, but she took my knitting firmly from my hands
and placed it carefully in my quilted bag (her gift to me, this Christmas),
and before I could protest again, Bracken was right behind her to take me in
hand.
"You have not, he said firmly, holding my slicker up with an air of
no-nonsense.
"How would you know? I don't think there's a single scale at home!
"Then how would you know you have?" he returned, but our bickering was good
natured, and the two of them had succeeded in their aims, because my coat was
on and Bracken and I were headed for the door. It was nearing eight o'clock,
and we almost ran into the woman and her two children coming inside. I took a
step back and grinned at the kids both boys and their wide-eyed appreciation
of Bracken, looming behind me from his impossible height.
I looked up to their mom and blinked. "Gra& " I started to say, then looked [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]