Elm Creek Quilts [08] The Christmas Quilt Read Free

the atrocious foil tree emerged from the box.
    “Hmph. If you say so.”
    “Would you mind if I set it up in my room?”
    “If your husband can bear it, you may do whatever you like.” Sylvia quickly amended, “As long as you promise to keep it out of my sight.”
    “I wonder if it came with one of those rotating colored floodlights like my grandmother had.” Sarah disappeared behind an old wardrobe, her voice momentarily replaced by the sound of boxes scuffing across the floor. “Wait a minute. Sylvia? What color did you say those trunks were?”
    “One was blue and one green.” Sylvia picked her way through the clutter to join Sarah, who was removing a paint-spattered drop cloth from the top of a dusty forest green trunk with brass fastenings. “My word. You found it.”
    “Here’s the other one,” said Sarah, beaming up at Sylvia in triumph, resting her hand on a blue trunk. “The carton must be nearby.”
    “One would think so. There,” said Sylvia. She could not help but be pleased to see them. Claudia had sold off so many things in Sylvia’s absence that she had prepared herself for the possibility that they would not have found the trunks in the attic. The Bergstroms’ old ornaments and trims probably had no more than sentimental value, but Sylvia would not have put it past Claudia to part with them for pocket change.
    She tried to talk Sarah into waiting until her husband came home to carry the trunks and carton downstairs, but Sarah insisted upon doing it herself. It took four trips, but Sarah managed with Sylvia doing little more to help than barking anxious directions when her young friend seemed likely to tumble down the stairwell. After the last was settled three floors down in the foyer, Sarah barely paused to catch her breath before throwing back the lid of the blue trunk. Sylvia looked on warily, wondering if her sister had replaced their family heirlooms with thin aluminum varieties, but she relaxed at the sight of the green-and-red tartan tablecloth and a garland of gold beads. One familiar treasure after another—a wooden nativity set her grandfather had carved, eight personalized Christmas stockings, a china angel blowing a brass horn, the family Christmas tree ornaments—emerged from the trunk looking exactly as they had when she last packed them away, as if they had not been disturbed in more than fifty years.
    Was it possible that her sister had never opened the boxes in all that time?
    As Sarah turned to the second trunk, Sylvia sat down on the floor beside her, marveling over each item as Sarah passed them to her. Her brother’s nutcracker, dressed in the bright red coat of a soldier, a sword in his fist. The wooden music box shaped like a sleigh full of toys that played “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” when the key was wound. The paper angels she and Claudia had made in Sunday school. A wreath made of pinecones she and her mother had gathered in the forest along Elm Creek. The memory of a snowy afternoon flooded her—the sound of her mother’s laughter, the crisp winter air nipping her cheeks—and she clutched the wreath so tightly that brittle pieces broke off in her fingers.
    She gasped and set the wreath on the floor. Sarah glanced over her shoulder, her expression darkening with concern. “Are you all right?”
    “I’m fine.” Sylvia shifted on the floor so that Sarah would think discomfort rather than grief had provoked her. She forced a smile. “Well. You should have plenty of decorations to work with, don’t you agree?”
    “Enough for the entire manor, but before I get started, I want to see what’s in those other two boxes.”
    “Two?” Sylvia checked, and sure enough, two cartons sat on the marble floor just beyond the trunks. “Goodness. If I had paid more attention I could have saved you that last trip upstairs. I said two trunks and one carton, remember?”
    Sarah shrugged, returning her attention to the contents of the green trunk. “I know, but I