20

UNQUILTING THE BEAST

After a long moment, someone touched Thornmallow on the shoulder.

“Thorny,” Tansy asked, “why are you weeping?”

He looked at her, and she seemed all fuzzy at the edges. For a moment he was afraid she was going to disappear like the Master. Then he realized she was fuzzy because there were tears in his eyes, and that is when he really started crying. “Because …,” he blubbed, “because I should feel like a hero—powerful and strong and victorious and triumphant. Only I feel awful instead. Awful. And unclean. As if I did something wrong.”

“You really are squishy within,” said the orange-haired girl. “And you’ve got smudges on your nose.”

“Nevertheless,” one of the boys said, “you killed the wicked wizard.”

“And,” added the other, “there’s nothing at all wrong with that.”

Just then the Beast turned its gigantic head and looked mournfully in their direction. It opened its tongueless mouth, and the great silver teeth glittered. But the only sound that came out was “Moooooooooo.”

“It’s … it’s just a beast after all,” said Tansy.

“A beast of burden,” the two boys said together.

“Ghastly burdens,” reminded the girl with orange hair.

“So it was the Master who had all the magic,” Thornmallow mused. “And not the Beast. With the Master dead, how will we ever get our friends back?”

“Quilts,” Tansy said suddenly in a very matter-of-fact voice, “are simply articles of bed furniture, pieces of scraps stitched together.” By the way she recited it, Thornmallow knew she was remembering what she had read.

“At home,” the girl with the orange braid said, “whenever I was especially naughty, my father sent me to my room to unpick the day’s embroidery. It was to teach me patience and obedience.” She grinned. “It didn’t work! But it did teach me a great deal about unpicking.”

“And that is …?” Thornmallow asked.

“Find a place to start. A loose thread,” said the girl.

Tansy ran over to the Beast and put a hand on its jaw. The Beast stood there impassively. “Whew! He sure does smell.”

“So would you if you were made up of over a hundred people,” answered Thornmallow. He went to the rump end.

The boys each took a front leg, and the orange-braid girl took the Beast’s right side.

Hand over hand they began to search the Beast’s patchworked hide. But each thread seemed secure and wet with its continual oozing. They kept it up for almost an hour.

“Nothing!” Tansy said. “We’ve won, and yet we’ve lost.” She patted the bright square on the Beast’s neck that had been Gorse.

“Don’t give up yet,” Thornmallow said. And as if he heard his own dear ma speaking to him again, he added, “We must try.” So saying, he reached as high up on the Beast’s rump as he could get, and his hand accidentally brushed the stringy tail. “That’s it!” he whispered to himself, grabbing onto the thing. He gave it a great pull as if ringing a church bell.

At the first tug, the tail made a wrenching noise, and the Beast opened its mouth again. But the sound that came out this time was a great ripping noise, like a tent tearing in the wind.

“Wind it up!” shouted the orange-haired girl. “Wind it—never mind, give it to me.” And with consummate skill, she began to wind the unraveling threads, thick as good yarn, around her arm and hand.

At each turn of the yarn, a piece of patchwork popped off the Beast’s hide, fluttering down to the ground: red patches and blue, turquoise and gold, lavender and umber, sepia and henna, sorrel, copper, apricot, and green. At last the Beast was nothing but a mouth, two eyes, and a sigh.

“What now?” asked Thornmallow.

But none of the others had an answer.

“Squark!”