what killed my mother."
"Excuse me but I think a shotgun is what did for her," said Becca.
"A shotgun I could have prevented."
"So you say," said Becca.
"Yes, I say so."
"Your mother's thread broke when she decided to pick up a shotgun and do some killing of her own rather than trust to Alvin. Her boy Arthur was safe. She didn't need to kill, but when she chose to do that, she chose to die. Do you think you could have changed her mind about that?"
"Don't expect me to accept easy answers."
"No, I expect you to make all the answers as hard as possible. But sometimes it's the easy answers that are true."
"So it's back to the old days? Watching Alvin? Am I supposed to fall in love with him? Marry him? Watch him die?"
"I don't much care either way. My sister thinks you'll be happier with him than without him, and he's dead either way, in the long run, but then aren't we all? Most women that aren't killed by having babies live to be widows. What of that?"
What of that? Just because she could foresee so many ways for Alvin to die didn't mean that she should avoid loving him. She knew that, rationally. But fear wasn't rational.
"You spend your whole life grieving for those that haven't died yet," said Becca. "What a waste of an interesting knack."
"Interesting?"
"You could have had the knack of making shoe leather supple. Just see how happy that would've made you."
Peggy tried to imagine herself as a cobbler and had to laugh. "I suppose that I'd rather know than not know, mostly."
"Exactly. Knowing hurts sometimes, especially when you can't do anything to change it."
But there was something furtive in her, the way she said that. "Can't do anything to change it my left eye!" said Peggy.
"Don't use curses you don't understand," said Becca.
"You do make changes. You don't think the loom is immutable, not one bit."
"It's dangerous to change. The consequences are unpredictable."
"You saw Ta-Kumsaw dead at Detroit. So you picked up Alvin's thread and you - "
"What do you know about the loom!" cried Becca. "What do you know about watching the threads flow under your hands and seeing all the grief and pain and suffering and thinking! It doesn't matter, they're God's cattle and he can herd them how he likes only then you find the one you love more than life and God has him slaughtered by the treachery of the French and the hatred of the English and for nothing, his whole life meaningless and lost and nothing changed by it except a few legends and songs, and here I am, still loving him, a widow forever because he's gone! So yes, I found the one who could save him. I knew if they met, they'd love each other and save each other."
"But what you did caused the massacre at Tippy-Canoe," said Peggy. "The people of Vigor Church thought Alvin had been kidnapped and tortured to death, so they slaughtered Tenskwa-Tawa's people in vengeance. Now they have a curse on them, all because you - "
"Because Harrison took advantage of their rage. Do you think there wouldn't have been a massacre anyway?"
"But the blood wouldn't have been on the same hands, would it?"
Becca wept, and her tears fell onto the cloth.
"Shouldn't you dry those tears?" asked Peggy.
"If tears could mar this cloth, there'd be no cloth left."
"So you of all people know the cost of meddling with the course of others' lives."
"And you of all people know the cost of failing to meddle when the time was right." Becca raised her head and continued her work. "I saved him, and that was my goal. Those who died would have died anyway."
"Yet here I am because your sister wants me to look after Alvin."
"Here you are because we only see the threads and then half-guess as to what they mean and who they are. We know the young Maker's thread - there's no way to miss it in this cloth. Besides, I moved it once, I twined it with my Isaac's thread. Do you think I could lose track of it after that? I'll show you, if you promise not to look beyond the inch of cloth I show."
"I promise not to look. But I can't help what I chance to see."
"Chance to see this, then."
Peggy looked at the cloth, knowing that the sight of it was rarely given to those not of the loom. Alvin's thread was obvious, shimmering light,