The Lace Reader Read Online Free PDF Page B

my knife. May gave me “the look.” I put my knife down. “Yes?” she said, waiting for me to ask in the small-talk style we had developed in order to keep from really talking about anything.
    “Why did you give away my sister?”
    Beezer’s eyes widened. It wasn’t the kind of thing we talked about. Ever.
    May started to clear the table. I thought I could see a tear forming in the corner of her eye, but it never fell.
    After dinner I went to my room. My haven. No one came in anymore. Every night I wore a ski hat to bed with one of May’s nylon stockings under it, covering my scalp, so that she couldn’t come in and trim my hair at night. I rigged my room with booby traps: strings, bells, crystal glasses I’d stolen from the butler’s pantry—anything that would wake me at the first sign of an intruder. It worked. My mother gave up. Once, my dog Skybo, whom Beezer had given to me 30 Brunonia
    Barry
    for protection the summer before, got so badly tangled in the strings that we had to cut him free, but no one else bothered me. After a while May stopped coming into my room at all, but I never let my guard down, not for one minute.
    It was Eva who finally fixed things. One day in late summer, I went to see her at her shop, begging for a lace reading. Except on my birthday, which was a family tradition, I didn’t usually ask Eva to read for me. I didn’t really like to be read—it made me feel creepy—
    but I was desperate. I’d lost Skybo. He was an unfixed male, and he had a tendency to wander. He was one of the island golden retrievers, trained by Beezer as a puppy, so even though he was tame enough for the house, he still had a wild streak. He was a great swimmer. Whenever I swam or took the boat, he followed me. Sometimes he set out all by himself.
    I was a mess. I’d looked everywhere on Yellow Dog Island. I took the Whaler to town. I searched the wharf, the marine-supply store, and even some of the fishing fleet but turned up nothing. Finally I headed for Eva’s.
    She was working on a piece of pillow lace, sitting beside a fireplace that was filled with chrysanthemums instead of flames. It was late in the season, and the water was really cold. I was frantic. I told her the story, told her I feared the worst—hypothermia, maybe, or that he had been caught in a shipping lane and run over. Eva looked at me calmly and told me to get myself a cup of tea.
    “I can’t drink tea. My dog is missing,” I snapped. Like May, Eva had also mastered “the look.” I made the tea. She kept working. Every once in a while, she would glance up and gesture to the tea. “Don’t let it get cold,” she said. I sipped. After what seemed a very long time, Eva put down the lace pillow and walked over to where I was sitting. She had a small pair of scissors in her hand, the ones she used to cut the lace free when she fin-The Lace Reader 31
    ished a piece, a technique Eva had invented. Instead of cutting lace, she reached over and cut off my braid.
    “There,” she said. “The spell is broken. You are free.”
    She put the braid down on the table.
    “What the hell?”
    “Watch your mouth, young lady.”
    I stood and glared at her.
    “You can go now,” she declared.
    “What about my dog?” I snapped.
    “Don’t worry about your dog,” she said.
    I walked back to the Whaler, wondering if everyone I knew was crazy. I knew I was. May was pretty far gone, getting more reclusive by the minute. And Eva, whom I usually found so logical, was not acting the way she should, not at all.
    When I got to the Whaler, Skybo was sitting in the bow. He was wet and tired and covered with burrs, but I was so happy to see him that I didn’t even care where he’d been.

    The women created their own patterns made of parchment, but thicker parchment than for the love letters, more endur- ing. Pins were pressed into the parchment, creating a pricking pattern that could be used over and over. For the lace making, the pins stayed in, holding