Mally the Maker and the Queen in the Quilt by Leah Day

Author:Leah Day
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: childrens action adventure, childrens fantasy
Publisher: Day Style Designs
Published: 2019-10-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8 - Hardest thing You’ve Ever Done

Mally could tell they had left Quilst by the silence that suddenly rang in her ears.

She opened her eyes and found she was back in Grandma’s sewing room, both her arms wrapped tightly around Patch. Sunlight filtered through the windows, and she breathed in the familiar smell of cloves and lemon in the room. It was a light scent, nothing like the overwhelming stench Menda’s monsters carried.

But it still reminded her of them nonetheless. Tears pricked in her eyes as she remembered the look on Ms. Bunny’s sweet face as she fell. Guilt and anger twisted in her stomach as she relived the scene again. If only I’d gripped her paw better, she thought. If only I’d listened and never stepped into that field in the first place. She hugged the cat hard, trying to pull herself out of the memory.

“We made it home, Patch. We’re okay.”

But then she registered the strange firmness of his body and looked down. Patch was no longer a slinky, shape-changing, snarky cat. He was a stuffed patchwork doll.

She gasped and dropped him. He made a soft thump as he landed flat on his face on the floor. She immediately scooped him up and apologized.

“I’m sorry, Patch. I had no idea this would happen,” Mally whispered. She didn’t think her friend would enjoy this experience. In fact, she could imagine exactly what he was saying right now.

“Thank you, little Maker, I always wanted to have my free will, movement, and speech taken away in one fell swoop.”

“Well, you’d be an orange streak in the side of that tornado if I hadn’t brought you with me,” Mally replied, just as if she’d really heard Patch speak. She checked herself, staring at his motionless face. Had he just spoken or not?

“Can you hear me?” she asked.

“Of course. I didn’t lose my ears in the process of becoming completely immobile, did I?”

It was so strange. Patch wasn’t moving his mouth and was in every way the stuffed doll he looked, but Mally could hear his words in her head just exactly as if he’d spoken out loud.

Something about the expression stitched on Patch’s face made Mally glance at the quilt on the cutting table. The entire right edge was a swirling mass of frayed threads. It looked like a rat had started building a nest on top of the Open Door block. She shuddered in revulsion.

As she watched, the area seemed to thicken, with more broken threads churning on the surface. Mally moved without thinking and grabbed the rotary cutter from the cup on Grandma’s table. She didn’t wait to consider or even set Patch down. She clicked the blade open and pressed it against the quilt.

She sliced along the edge of the tangled mass of threads, severing the destructive tornado from the rest of Quilst. She clicked the cutter closed and set it back in its cup and spread the two pieces of the quilt apart. Then for good measure, she slid the torn and tangled piece off the edge of the cutting table.

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