Shuteye for the Timebroker Read Online Free PDF Page B

couch. The Druid stumbled sleepily under Clayton’s direction to the basement trapdoor.
    “Ethelred,” Clayton urged, “there’s a woman down there who’s making an extreme nuisance of herself. Please go subdue her with your Druidical arts.”
    Ethel woozily descended the ladder.
    Clayton waited for the fireworks.
    Minutes passed.
    A sudden torrent of whoops and laughter issued from the tunnel. There were cries and shouts and various banging noises, hoots and hollers and gasps. Clayton waited patiently for Ethel to emerge, dragging the subdued Captain Jill by the hair.
    Several hours later, Ethel alone surfaced. All his hair stood on end, causing him to resemble a human porcupine, and what little skin was visible appeared suffused with healthily renewed circulation.
    Smiling broadly, Ethel said, “I take back every bad word I ever said about you as an employer, Mr. Little. You’re a saint to treat an old fellow to such a night.”
     
    * * *
     
    If I don’t get at least one good night’s sleep , Clayton thought, and if I have to watch even one more invisible purl stitch, I’m going to crack up.
    Sitting at the breakfast table, red-eyed and itchy-faced with three days’ stubble, Clayton held his head in his hands. Across the way, he knew, Granny was patiently knitting, a look of blissful happiness and concentration on her seamed face.
    Could he go home to Asheville? No. Who would manage the farm and the household while he beat such an ignominious retreat? What would he tell his parents? “A female pirate and Granny’s eccentricities were driving me out of my mind, so I ran.” That would hardly do. But what good would he be around the place if he lost his mind? A dilemma indeed.
    Sensing somehow that Granny had amazingly ceased her knitting, Clayton looked up.
    Granny was smiling happily. “Do you remember, Clay, that first day of our troubles, when I said we’d have to do something about it?”
    “Yes, Granny,” Clay replied politely. “I do.”
    “I know you’ve been thinking I had gone around the bend, Clay. No, don’t try to deny it. Seeing me sitting day after day, knitting in this newfangled way of mine, which I learned not long ago—why, anyone would suspect I had a few bats in the old belfry. But I had to keep it secret, Clay, for I didn’t want our girl down below to learn of it. But I’m done now with my knitting, and our troubles are at an end. Come around to me here.”
    Wearily, Clayton complied.
    “Take this,” Granny said, scooping an invisible mass out of her lap. “My goodness, you don’t know how hot and weighty this thing is while you’re working on it.”
    Expecting nothing, thinking only to humor his grandmother, Clayton held out his hands. Into it, Granny dropped—
    —a soft, warm garment!
    Clayton almost dumped it on the floor. “What—what is it?” he asked finally.
    “It’s a protective union suit that will cover you from neck to wrists to ankles. I would have been done sooner, but you’re a darned tall drink of water, Clay! When you wear it, that Jill minx won’t be able to paralyze you. You’ll be able to handle her then.”
    Clayton regarded the nothing he held. “What’s it made of?”
    Granny shrugged. “Oh, the usual materials in a case like this. Moonbeams, dream threads, sea spume, bleached milkweed fluff.”
    Clayton considered his choices. Either he had already gone mad—in which case it made no difference if he went along with a charade—or he was still sane—in which case, maybe Granny’s suit would work.
    “I’m going upstairs to change,” he said.
    Granny nodded her approval.
     
    * * *
     
    All he had to do was follow the snores.
    He came upon Captain Jill stretched out on a plundered mattress. Stopping a few feet away, he studied her in the flashlight’s beam. She was indisputably beautiful, he had to grant. And he supposed her lack of morals was attributable to the era and circumstances of her upbringing. Were she not so vile, one