The Box on the Real Table

Suddenly the sewing box was on the ordinary table. Mila hadn't seen Grandma carry it over. Its two wooden wings were still shut. Not a single button had fallen out.

‘Aron, the case,’ Ilyas said. ‘I'll get the chair. Stay here, Mila.’

Aron walked through the wide opening, bent down and took the puppet case by its handle. He came straight back with it. The boot stuck out a little, a large paper leaf hanging over the edge. Nothing tugged at his hands or the case. He set it under the table and gently tucked the three-petalled flower inside.

Ilyas carried the ordinary chair out after him. He put the octopus, which he was still holding, back in the case. Now there wasn't a person or a real object left in the borrowed rooms. Only the shapes made of light still overlapped.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘We can get at everything.’

Mila looked at the two folds. From a little way back, she could see that they made one flattened zigzag. The top edge of the kitchen ran halfway underneath it. The conservatory lay over the top. It was as though someone had squeezed part of the frame narrower by hand.

She'd made it narrower.

Grandma brought a work lamp closer, its base on the floor and its cable along the wall. Then she examined the back. She didn't put her fingers between the taut threads. First she asked Ilyas to hold the outer roller and ease one side a little. The wooden frame stayed supported; the cloth couldn't suddenly fall.

The rooms faded. First the kitchen disappeared; then there was half a conservatory, and finally only a pale glow on fabric. The dark hollow stayed in the Z-shaped fold.

‘So that wasn't it,’ Aron said.

‘The image is off,’ Grandma said. ‘That fold is actual cloth.’

Mila knew the ordinary hall. The scratches on the floor, the chipped white mark on a chair leg. Even so, it took her a moment to stop looking for a door behind the light.

Grandma examined the blue connection. ‘This comes out first.’

Mila stepped forward.

‘Tell me which way,’ Ilyas said to Grandma. ‘I'll hold it still.’

With the blunt needle, Grandma picked up a free blue end. She didn't open any coloured pattern stitches. She only loosened the blue where it wrapped round itself.

‘Twice here,’ she said. ‘I didn't do that.’

Beside her, Mila could hear Aron breathing.

Grandma worked the first extra wrap backwards. It took less time than Mila had feared, but standing there waiting wasn't helping anyone. As the second wrap came loose, the thread snagged on a bit of fluff. Grandma stopped, lifted the fluff with her needle and eased the blue end further through.

Mila knew exactly where she'd threaded that end. She stared at the spot and said nothing.

The thread came back through the first green loop. A long blue curve now hung from the cloth. Grandma rested it on her hand, found the next opening and passed the end through. The outer edge relaxed a fraction.

Aron looked at Mila. She wanted to speak, but Grandma was already sliding the needle under the last yellow loop. It seemed there was only one more thing to do.

The blue was out.

Grandma laid the whole length on the worktable. She ran a fingertip along it until the second end lay free. None of it was left in the cloth. The unused blue length was still on the card. Both were in sight: one thread in an untidy curve, the other neatly wound.

Mila looked straight at the light.

The fold didn't open.

Nobody moved. A door slammed in the entrance hall. Someone called goodbye to Ilyas, who called back that he'd be there a little longer.

‘Can't we just hold it wide?’ Mila asked.

Grandma shook her head. ‘Look.’

She slid her flat hand beneath the fabric without pulling its edges. A yellow loop disappeared between two green curves. Behind them, the cloth doubled back the other way. As Grandma moved her hand, the dark hollow moved with it, but didn't get any smaller.

‘They're still holding each other.’

Ilyas bent closer, keeping a hand by the frame's support. ‘Can we put it down somewhere? We'd see the back better.’

‘Yes. First I want to know exactly how it's twisted.’

Aron had already gone to the sewing box to clear space on the table. Grandma asked him to wait. First they had to find the right direction, so they wouldn't tighten anything by accident as they took the cloth out. It was secure where it was; there was no need to move everything at once.

‘Where did it start?’ she asked Mila.

Mila looked at the yellow line. Half the cardboard was under her shoe. She drew her foot back.

‘When it slid across.’

‘I saw that. What was there just before?’

‘It went sideways a bit.’

Grandma waited. Mila could hear herself breathing too loudly. The sewing box stood on the table. It had left the house without any trouble on Monday. Today Grandma had carried it out just as easily. Mila wanted the large cloth to come too, just like that, without anybody needing to know what she'd done with the thread.

‘It shifted,’ she said.

Aron bent down. He caught the corner of the cardboard sticking out from under the table. The rain cloud with the much-too-long legs turned towards the ceiling.

‘This was here,’ he said.

Mila took it from him. Not roughly, but faster than she'd meant to. He stepped back.

Grandma looked at the two pencil crosses, then back at the fabric.

‘All right,’ she said slowly. ‘Then we aren't turning anything yet.’

She laid the needle on a clean cloth beside the blue thread. Ilyas brought her a chair. The frame stayed still, the large cloth kept glowing, and Mila gripped her cardboard so tightly that she made a fresh crease in it.