Page 25 of Marked By Shadows
“Yes and no. It was, I don’t know how to describe it. I started very slowly. Those ladies showing me how to lower the foot thing and move the fabric. The other lady, she wasn’t as solid. Not like that store clerk in the thrift shop was. She whispered that they have never mastered her skill. There was no one to teach her classes anymore. She offered to show me how to do a little. I said okay.” Alex paused. “She touched me. It was cold. Not like the fire of the… well anyway, it was cold. She put her hands over mine and we started. I could feel a sort of memory. Not mine exactly, but enough of it that I could use it for myself. A muscle memory. The rest was easy. One design to the next. Like I’d been doing it forever.”
He stalked back to stand in front of me, his expression seeking. “I could probably do it again. Remember how, craft the lines of a thousand images.” He waved his hands around. “I can tell you a dozen different patterns I would probably have never known before today.”
Alex had a remarkable memory for things on most days. From languages to crafts, so the idea that some memory had settled on him, given him a glimpse at something he would never have experienced before, and burned it into his memory? That did not surprise me.
“Okay,” I said, waiting for him to go on. Had this hurt him somehow? Or simply made him afraid that more memories would settle on him? It didn’t seem like a bad thing, but I wasn’t the one who’d been suddenly gifted with someone else’s lifetime of experience. “How can I help? Did it hurt you?”
He let out a long breath. “I’m crazy.”
“Weird. Not crazy.” I bent to pick up the bags.
“You’re not ready to dump my ass? Run screaming into the city begging someone to keep me away from you? I just told you a ghost lady taught me to … sew? I don’t even know what it’s called.”
“Free motion quilting,” I offered. “I might run from the hair, but not your weird.” I headed toward the nearest fast food place. “You need food. I’ll fix your hair when we get back on the bus.”
For a minute he didn’t follow, instead standing on the sidewalk waiting, staring at me like he didn’t understand how I wasn’t rejecting him. I paused and looked back, before pointing to my chest. “Stolen by aliens or an interdimensional portal or Sasquatch or something for a couple of months, remember? Your weird is barely a blip.”
His jaw dropped. But I turned around and resumed my course, hoping to find something halfway healthy for the both of us and make it back to the bus in time. Alex caught up a few seconds later, taking the bags from me, switching them to his opposite hand and taking mine in his. He squeezed my fingers, then rested the strength of his grip in mine, his heart pounding strong enough I could feel it through his palm. But he didn’t run away. I hoped the message I sent him was clear enough. It was okay. Whatever it was. We would work it out. Weird came and went. I think we were both getting better at dealing with it.
Chapter 9
The rest of the tour went by smoothly. Alex remained close by my side. He was promising me sexual favors as we got back on the bus to head back to the hotel.
“I expect to be rimmed regularly,” I told him as we sat down. “For at least a week.”
Alex’s face was so bright red, and he wouldn’t look at anyone around us. “Stop,” he whispered. “But yes.”
“Boy, what did you do to get that fine man to promise to eat your ass regularly?” Jonah demanded.
“Bought him the dragon panel.” They had all noticed it. It was that sort of thing which made people stop and breathe for a moment, taking in the details. A good painting could do that. I’d seen my fair share of ‘fan’ art at anime conventions over the years, so breathtaking that it could give any artist imposter syndrome. The dragon panel was in that line of workmanship. The beast almost seemed to pop off the wall in 3D splendor when we walked into the shop. A mix of positive and negative space, colors jewel bright enough to nearly glow at a distance, the dragon was anything but a mass-market print. The original had a gem-like luster to the colors that fabric dyes and paints could replicate only so much. I’d suspected when we viewed the digital panel, that the colors would be duller, more generic, but they weren’t. Which was why the panel had cost so much.
“It was over a hundred dollars. For less than a yard of fabric.”
“It’s actually a little over a meter, which is slightly bigger than a yard,” I said. “America’s measurement system.” I waved my hand.
“It’s amazing. Looks like it’s flying off the fabric,” Alex said in awe. “Now if only we could have found some mermen.”
“Never seen sexy mermen on fabric,” Jonah said. “I’ve been a sexy merman a few times.”
“Alexander Henry had a fabric with mermen on it, but they were skeletons,” I said, recalling the print which was somewhere in my stash back home.
“Alexander Henry is weird shit,” Jonah said.
“It can be,” I agreed. Everything from day of the dead skulls and painted girls, to giant killer bunnies. I wasn’t sure how the fabric line had become quite so wild.
Alex curled up beside me, nestling into my space. I could tell he was tired. I needed to get more protein in him. Maybe we’d have an early night after dinner, curl up and watch a movie on my laptop or something equally as easy. I suspected the anxiety of the day contributed to his exhaustion. The group broke into chatter, which I tuned out to focus on Alex. He had pulled a crochet hook and some yarn out of his tote and began working on another rose. I couldn’t help but smile.
I wrapped my elbow around his and leaned into his shoulder and watched him work. I think it calmed us both. Him to have the repetitious movement, and me to watch him. He didn’t have the same liquidity I did from years of experience, and his stitches weren’t uniform in tension, but he was confident enough in each stitch that he flowed through a rose in minutes. Then he passed it to me to hand sew the few stitches that would pull the string into an array of petals. We worked that way the entire ride to the hotel.
Once we arrived back at the B&B, we took our stuff to the cabin, leaving everything inside and taking a moment to curl up on the tiny couch and hold each other. Dinner would be soon. If it weren’t for the rumbling of Alex’s stomach, we might have stayed there. I even thought of putting together sandwiches for us instead of going to the house for food, but finally sighed and got up, dragging Alex with me.
“Come on,” I told him. “We can’t be anti-social unicorns here.”
“If I didn’t smell fried chicken, I would disagree with you. You think it’s the real thing?” He winced then. “Mom made it with buttermilk. That means you can’t eat it, right? Fuck.”
I tugged him out of the cabin and down the path to the house. “They will have something for me. Don’t worry. Eat whatever you’d like.”
Alex moaned when we entered the house to find a mound of real crispy fried chicken, mashed potatoes, homestyle gravy, and a dozen veggie sides. “I’ve died and gone to heaven,” he muttered.