How to Knit a Heart Back Home by Rachael Herron Page B

against the railing of the house Cade and Abigail now lived in, wearing a rugged Aran that looked so thick it seemed like it had been knitted right off the sheep, barely spun at all. Lucy touched the page. When she was a kid, Eliza had always taken the most interest in her knitting. Lucy’s mother and grandmother taught her to knit, of course, but Eliza was the one who came to stand behind her, moved her arms so she held the yarn in her left hand, “Like me, so you don’t flap like a chicken. There, isn’t that nicer this way? Now you can read at the same time.”
    And once, Eliza had given Lucy a hand-tooled leather-bound journal from Italy. “To record your dreams. I noticed you write. Keep writing, and you’ll remember your life. If you don’t write things down, it’s like they never happened.”
    A sudden film of hot tears sprang to Lucy eyes. Where was that old journal of hers? Up in the attic at home? She should find that. In honor of Eliza.
    Words and knitting had always been her favorite things. They still were.
    Whitney pointed at the stack of loose papers. “So that’s good?”
    Lucy snapped back into the present. “Oh, hell, yes.” She looked again at the two pages. The reality of it began to sink in.
    This was more than good. This was huge.
    She sat on her high stool behind the counter.
    If this was really Eliza’s work . . .
    She pulled out more of the sheets. More patterns, all in the same delicate hand. She shuffled pages. There had to be at least twenty, maybe thirty patterns here, as well as pages that appeared to be journal entries or letters. None of them, at first glance, looked anything like Eliza’s other published patterns, although they shared a similar voice. Lucy didn’t recognize any, and she practically knew Eliza Carpenter’s patterns by heart.
    The bell on the door jingled. Mildred Elkins and Greta Doss entered.
    “What did you forget this morning?” Lucy called.
    Mildred waved both hands over her head. “My umbrella! My purple umbrella!”
    “Is it raining?” Lucy hadn’t even noticed that it was overcast.
    “No! But it might someday! And I love that umbrella. Do you have it? Oh, hello, Whitney. How are you?”
    Before Whitney could even open her mouth, Mildred said, “Greta, go look under the table, I’ll check the bathroom.”
    Greta, quiet as usual, nodded and checked the table. Mildred came out of the bathroom, satisfied.
    “Got it. Thank goodness. What are you two up to?”
    Lucy had a flash of brilliance. “You’d recognize Eliza Carpenter’s handwriting, right?”
    Greta smiled at Mildred, who shot a look back at her. “One of our favorite people,” said Greta in a soft voice.
    Mildred used her umbrella, striking it on the floor for emphasis. “She certainly was. What do you have there? Move, young lady.” Mildred pushed a startled-looking Whitney out of the way.
    Mildred took the loose pages out of Lucy’s hands. She only glanced at the first page before laughing.
    “Oh, Greta, look. This is Eliza.” She held the page up, first to Whitney and then to Lucy. “This is Eliza.”
    “How certain are you?” Lucy tried not to get excited, but it was almost impossible.
    “Two hundred percent. I have letters from her at home that we can compare, but I know with all my heart that these are Eliza’s.” Mildred riffled through them and then handed them to Greta. Shaking her head, she said, “I’ve never seen these.”
    Lucy clapped her hands and jumped off her stool. “I knew it! I knew it! This is the most exciting thing ever!”
    Whitney laughed.
    Lucy blushed. “Okay, it’s not your kind of exciting, I’m sure.” Coming around the counter, she stood next to Mildred, looking over her shoulder.
    “Unbelievable,” breathed Greta, as she examined several sheets.
    “And look,” said Lucy. “ Silk Road .”
    Their jaws dropped.
    “Where did you get all this?” Mildred demanded.
    Hell.
    In the space of a second, Lucy thought it through. She