Ada Unraveled Read Free Page A

safe to venture out into the
evening to spend the night with us--that I wasn’t a witch wanting
to start a new coven—that I learned of your interest. The gal who
runs your local quilting store there in Escondido, the Collage
Cottage I think she calls it, she told me about your interest in a
hand quilting group.”
    Really? I’d mentioned my interest to
her?
    “Karen. You mean Karen Harper.”
    But I found myself smiling. The Hannah woman
sounded real enough. Not a whole lot more delusional than the rest
of us. And if the Collage Cottage gave my phone out they must have
felt it was safe.
    “Can you send me some information…by email?
Perhaps point me to your web page, or blog or whatever?”
    “Oh great! I know this is coming at you out
of left field, and that you don’t know anything about us, but I
assure you we are a safe bunch. The group has been meeting for
forever this way and…we just had a vacancy open. By death,
actually.” She went from hesitant to full-on stop and sighed again.
Wishing she could bite off her tongue, I guessed.
    But with quilters in their seventies and
eighties, I wasn’t concerned about her news that one of the members
had died.
    I heard Matt calling. So what came out next
was, “Listen, I have to go, Hannah, so where can I read about
you?”
    “Actually, we’re registered with the
American Society of Quilters, ASQ--not to be confused with the
American Quilters’ Society. There’s a brief description of us
online at their site and you can contact them with other questions
you may have as well. They’ll vouch for us.”
    Hannah Lilly paused, her hand apparently
over the mouth of the phone, then resumed in a tighter voice, I’m
afraid that shout you just heard was my daughter picking a fight
with one of her little brothers and I need to say goodbye now.” She
was a mother. “Our group is named Quilted Secrets. You should
receive a letter in a day or two giving you more details…Deborah
quit teasing Sam!”
    She was a normal mother. She gave me
the group’s web address and her personal email, and I gave her my
email and told her I would email my address. And then she was gone.
The complete silence that followed her call made me question
whether the conversation had ever really happened. But Matt’s
questing voice had retreated to the back of our house toward our
office and bedroom, so I broke off that line of thinking.
    A lion roared in the distance. A Lyon was
roaring in my house.
    A hand quilting group. Wow. An actual old
fashioned bee. I was filled with excitement as I walked back inside
to reassure Matt that I hadn’t really just been time-traveling, as
I felt I’d been.

Chapter 4: Quilted Secrets
    One week later, I was wending my way toward
my first authentic quilting bee under a darkish sky. Totally
energized. A little anxious. But smiling all the way. Matt had been
surprised at first, maybe even concerned, but as we’d sat together
in our office reading the online information on The Quilted Secrets
Bee: A Small Hive of Old Fashioned Hand Quilters webpage, he’d
slowly warmed to the idea. On some level Matt knew I needed this
camaraderie with other women, and for me socializing had always
been easier when combined with an activity--something to help fill
the void when conversations lagged.
    The web site also gave me two names to work
with. I already had Hannah Lilly, and her chocolaty voice.
Apparently Hannah was their public contact person. The other name
was Victoria Stowall and she was the leader of the group—perhaps
its originator. But aside from the background photograph of a
beautiful block quilt, there were no photographs.
    I looked up at the sky ahead of me at the
low flying gray and charcoal clouds that covered our bit of
California like a lumpy army blanket--damp and stinky. The weather
was so unusual for this time of year. Rain was a rarity anytime in
Southern California—the average rainfall being somewhere around
twelve inches--but it was especially