One More Connection

On Thursday evening, the painted window stood with its blue side facing the wall. The red letterbox faced the hall. Mila had managed to make it open a little, so the fisherman could actually put something inside later.

Later, if they needed that version.

She put the cardboard template behind the worktable. Grandma and Ilyas came in from the garden, carefully carrying the large cloth on its broad roller. It was charged. The moon above the garden wall had lent it enough light; now the light needed to stay in the fabric until they'd finished.

Mila helped guide the clean edge as Ilyas and Grandma fitted the cloth into the wooden frame again. The kitchen appeared. Everything was in its usual place. The back door, the cold table, the old stool. She hadn't seen it for almost two days.

‘No full show tonight,’ Ilyas said. ‘Dress rehearsal. We're trying the joins between scenes. We start at half past seven.’

Grandma went to the chairs at the front of the hall. Ilyas still had something to set up in the entrance hall. Aron unpacked his sound-effects box. He'd brought sandpaper for footsteps, but it sounded as if the fisherman never lifted his feet. Mila heard him trying to find a different surface.

All she had to do was leave the cloth as it was. Grandma hadn't even needed to tell her. Mila knew.

The two blue lengths from Tuesday lay on the worktable, loosely wound round a card. Mila picked one up. She held it against her template, beside the two crosses she'd made darker at home.

The first end went under an existing yellow loop. Not through the silver. She did that part right. She could picture the blunt darning needle, but her fingers could find the gap too. The blue end came out at the back.

Aron scraped the sandpaper again.

‘Too loud?’ he asked.

‘A bit,’ Mila said.

She waited until he turned away again. She passed the other end through the green loops opposite the edge of the kitchen pattern. On Tuesday, a wide curve had hung between them. With the cardboard in between, she could keep the distance the same every time. She laid the thread along the diagonal pencil mark and took the template away.

The blue slipped straight back.

One turn round, like the parcel string. Then another. The two extra wraps pressed against each other. It stayed put.

Mila carefully let go. A ridge smaller than her little finger rose in the cloth. She slipped her fingers behind it and gave the fabric some slack. The ridge flattened. This wasn't Tuesday's dark point. Not yet.

Then Grandma came back.

Mila slid the loose cardboard behind her leg. She could have said she'd changed something. She could have undone the two wraps again. But Grandma went to the other side of the frame, where the sewing room rested on its roller.

‘Have you got your opening ready?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

The sheet was in Mila's pocket. She'd crossed out the sentence about not needing to move. Instead, she'd written that the three rooms belonged together.

Ilyas came in and checked the clock. Half past seven.

For the first part, they put an ordinary chair in the borrowed kitchen. Grandma brought her wooden sewing box. In the little scene, she would search for a button while the fisherman waited by the window for his new coat. The box stood on the chair. Mila liked the way it looked there. Almost as though that chair had always been there.

The puppet case lay open outside the frame. Ilyas took out the octopus. The boot and flowers were tucked into a separate corner at the bottom. Then he put the case inside beside the chair, ready for the next scene. That way, he could get the fisherman without having to walk round the whole frame.

Mila began. No three visitors this time; just Aron and Ilyas, with Grandma waiting for her cue.

‘Some rooms you recognise even when there's nobody in them.’

That sounded good. She could carry on without checking her sheet. Grandma picked up the sewing box. Next the kitchen had to disappear and the conservatory come in, ready for Aron's rain. Ilyas put his hand on the roller.

‘Wait,’ Mila said. ‘Not quite so far.’

He turned it a little. The kitchen table moved sideways. Half the conservatory appeared beside it.

Relief warmed Mila all over. It hadn't been that quick on Tuesday.

‘A bit more,’ she said.

The blue thread slid along the yellow border. One of the extra wraps pulled underneath the other. Mila saw it, but it happened too fast to point out. The cloth folded. Then it folded again, the other way.

‘Stop.’

Ilyas held the roller still.

The room was wrong. The stool seemed to stick through a windowsill. Behind part of the kitchen door, Mila could see Lena's sewing room where the conservatory ought to have been. She moved her head sideways. It made no more sense.

‘Mila,’ Grandma said. ‘Have you touched anything?’

She said nothing. The fold drew further in, until a hand's width of cloth was doubled back behind itself. Where the silver vanished, a dark hollow appeared.

Aron's rain tin fell silent. He hadn't even started playing; she'd heard it rattle as he picked it up.

Grandma was still inside, holding the sewing box. Ilyas stood by the outside of the frame. Mila wanted to warn Grandma not to bump into anything. Then Grandma turned and stepped straight back on to the hall floor.

‘Everyone away from the frame,’ she said. ‘Don't pull any threads.’

Mila stepped back. Her shoe caught the cardboard she'd slid under the table. Its edge flicked against her ankle. Now everyone could see the blue thread, stretched tight between two points where it should have hung loose.

Ilyas switched on the ceiling lights. Their yellow glow made the three rooms look paler. The edges still overlapped.

‘I'm not moving it any further,’ he said.

Mila nodded. The sheet with her crossed-out opening crackled in her pocket. She kept her hands beside it, where everyone could see them.