Make Quilts Not War - By Arlene Sachitano Page 0,26

piece in the middle doesn’t.”

“Quilters have always made use of recycled fabric,” Mavis pointed out. “In pioneer days, people used their worn-out clothes to make quilts because they had limited access to fabric, but after the Depression was past, I think people did it as a way of remembering favorite clothes, often from their childhood. In the sixties, people were just starting to rediscover the idea of recycling. The center of Jenny’s quilt looks like men’s shirts did back then.”

“I still don’t get why she’s so weird about that quilt,” Lauren said.

“If Jenny lived on a commune back then, who knows what sort of memories it brings up,” Mavis said.

“Yeah,” Connie added. “There were communes…and then there were communes, and that’s probably still the case today. I don’t want to talk out of turn, but a lot of them were also cults.”

“Do they even have communes today?” Harriet asked.

“People still live in group settings, but I don’t think they call them communes anymore,” Robin answered.

“They call them senior living,” Lauren added with a smirk.

“Jenny didn’t say anything about having escaped a cult,” Mavis cautioned, ignoring Lauren. “Let’s not borrow trouble.”

“But there is something she’d not telling us,” Connie countered. “Maybe she did escape a cult.”

“I’ll see what I can find out about the commune in Georgeville, Minnesota,” Lauren said. “Assuming she was telling the truth about it.”

“Anyone want another brownie?” Harriet asked and held up the plate.

Everyone did.

Chapter 12

Harriet could hear the pounding of her heart over the roar of the sandstorm. She was crouched behind a dried clump of sagebrush, watching the shadowy form coming ever closer. He wasn’t large, but the knife in his hand was.

The chorus of an old song floated on the night air; something about not having seen anything yet. She felt sweat trickle down her back. The sweat felt like sandpaper against her skin…

And then the desert disappeared, and the sandpaper turned into Fred’s tongue.

“Get away,” she said and pushed him from her back, pulling her sleep shirt down as she did. Fred slapped Scooter as he slid past, causing the little dog to yelp in protest. She glanced at the clock on her bedside stand.

“You guys need to learn to sleep in a little,” she complained. “There is no reason for any of us to be up at six-thirty in the morning.”

Scooter whined, his indication that he wanted to go outside to do his business. Something he probably could have waited another two hours for if it hadn’t been for Fred.

“Arghhh,” Harriet said and rolled out of bed to start her day.

“You two behave yourselves,” Harriet instructed her pets an hour later.

She’d walked Scooter, fed both him and Fred, and taken her shower. Now, she clicked the pet gate across the opening from the kitchen to the hallway that led to the stairs. She shut the door into the dining room; she was thankful her Victorian house was old enough to have doors between almost all of its rooms, making dog management easier.

“Uncle Rod is going to come by and walk you at lunchtime,” she told the little dog as she laced her black hiking boots over her black tights. She had on a floor-length skirt she’d made from an old crazy quilt that had been irreparably damaged years before. “And I’ll see you later on.”

Connie’s husband Rod had volunteered to provide dog-walking services for the duration of the festival and quilt show for the rescue dogs several of the Loose Threads had adopted the previous fall.

Harriet planned to stop by her favorite coffee shop for a cup of hot chocolate and a muffin before continuing on to the quilt show. She needed some time to think, and she wasn’t due at the festival for two hours.

The Steaming Cup Coffee Shop provided several seating options. Harriet was carrying her cocoa and muffin toward one of the overstuffed chairs in front of a glass-fronted artificial fireplace when she glanced at the long table that had a bookcase with embedded power strips running down its center. She changed her mind and headed for one of the chairs at the computer table.

Most mornings, Lauren could be found here, her laptop connected to the power. With any luck, she’d show up before Harriet finished her breakfast and have some results from her background check on Jenny. She had no doubt Lauren had done her search as soon as she’d gotten home the night before.

Harriet was staring into her nearly empty cup when Tom Bainbridge stopped at the