Twelve Stitches

‘Which side are you drawing now?’ Aron asked.

Mila held her pencil above the paper. She'd put the template on a clean sheet and copied its holes. Beside the paper lay the back of the real cloth, where her lines suddenly seemed to run the opposite way.

‘The front,’ she said.

‘Thought so.’

He wrote BACK on a second sheet. Mila was about to say she could do that herself, but he simply slid it beside the first. Now the two drawings made sense together. He didn't copy a single line without asking her where it went.

Grandma rested the needle under a green loop. ‘The yellow thread turns back here. Can you see that bit?’

Mila moved closer. A yellow loop stuck out at the edge of the fold. She'd taken it for a loose thread, but it led into the next loop, then disappeared inside.

‘I need to lift this corner a little,’ Grandma said.

Eva slid a smooth support under the loose fabric, well away from the hollow. She left the stitches alone. With both hands free, Grandma could now trace the yellow line further in.

Mila made a little mark on the paper. Four marks, then five. She hesitated over the next.

‘You've already got that one,’ Aron said.

‘The one above?’

He pointed at her drawing. ‘It comes back here. It's the same one.’

Mila followed the thread with her eyes. He was right. She rubbed out the last mark and redrew the loop. Grandma waited until she was ready.

Further in, the yellow stitches crowded together. The kitchen line doubled back through a green conservatory loop. A little beyond that, it did the same thing through a second green loop. The silver weave underneath was folded up with it, but Mila could see no broken silver ends.

Grandma took a length of ordinary yellow thread from her sewing box and laid it over the drawing. It wasn't part of the cloth. Without fastening it to the paper, she arranged it along the route of the kitchen line.

‘This is the way you went,’ she said to Mila.

Mila looked at the cardboard template. ‘And then round again. Otherwise it kept sinking back.’

Aron tapped the two places she'd marked. Afterwards his finger stayed on the table. He didn't say he would have worked it out if she'd asked him.

They found the last yellow stitch just under the bottom layer. Mila added its mark, then counted again from the beginning, her finger hovering above the paper.

Twelve.

Grandma checked the whole route once more. She pointed out the two green loops, which belonged to the conservatory, not the kitchen. Mila drew a larger circle round each.

‘So that's what stayed caught when the blue came out,’ Aron said.

Mila looked at the bundle on the other table. She'd expected removing it to fix much more. Her blue thread had dragged the other stitches out of place, then slipped free itself.

Grandma put the loose yellow demonstration thread beside the drawing. ‘I'd like to try one more bit without opening a line. Only if it moves easily.’

Mila held the paper beside her. Eva supported the outer edge of the cloth. With the darning needle, Grandma eased a yellow loop a little way back. The fold moved with it. For a moment, a bright sliver of the shining front showed through.

Then the silver pulled tight.

‘Stop,’ Grandma said, before Mila could speak.

She lowered the loop again. At once the silver thread slackened. Nothing had broken. The fold was no narrower than before.

Grandma put the needle on her pincushion. ‘I can't make enough room that way. I'm not going to pull harder.’

Mila kept her hands flat on the table. The drawings had helped. She knew where the thread went now. That hadn't got it out.

Ilyas came over to look. He read FRONT and BACK without turning the paper over as Mila had done earlier.

‘So you won't need the frame back up for a while?’

‘No,’ Grandma said. ‘We can work properly here.’

Eva pointed to the yellow route. ‘What if that line could be opened?’

‘Then we could draw these twelve stitches back through the green loops.’ Grandma traced the route with her finger above the paper. ‘But when we return the light, the kitchen will go with it. The room this pattern holds. I explained that on Tuesday.’

Mila nodded. She could picture the practice cloth from that evening. All she'd wanted to know then was how to unpick a stitch neatly. Anything they might lose had seemed a long way off.

Aron pulled his chair closer. ‘Could you open the green one instead?’

Grandma looked at the two circles. ‘Yes. If I open the conservatory line, I can undo the two loops round the yellow stitches. That would free the kitchen line.’

Mila looked up.

‘But then we'd lose the conservatory,’ Grandma said. ‘When we give the light back. The whole room, not just those two places.’

The circles were close together on the drawing. Two loops. Far fewer than twelve. Mila thought of the old kitchen table, its long side facing the back door. She and Grandma could spread out sheets of paper there without anything falling off the edge.

Eva brought a chair over and sat beside Grandma. ‘Those are the two ways you can do it safely?’

‘The two I can see here, yes. You felt what happened when we tried the other way.’

‘What about the sewing room?’ Ilyas asked.

‘Its line doesn't run through this at all.’

Grandma pointed it out on the cloth. Mila could see the sewing-room pattern further along, clear of the fold. It wouldn't have to go dark just because another part had got caught.

Eva phoned Aron's family. She went to the door so they could carry on talking. Mila heard her say there were plenty of adults and that they would agree on a time. Then she came back.

‘You can stay a bit longer if you want,’ she told Aron. ‘Someone will pick you up when we're finished. If you want to leave before that, I'll ring again.’

Aron looked at the paper. ‘I'll stay.’

It was nearly a quarter past ten. Ilyas poured some water and left it on the other table. Mila pulled her drawing closer. She went over the two circles round the green loops, making them darker. Then she put down the yellow pencil beside them.