My momma was a seamstress. She used to sit at the kitchen table with her sewing machine on a summer's day, when a breeze through the open window billowed the curtains and carried the scent of fresh laundry through the whole house. Even from the backyard, I could hear the hum and whir of her machine shuttling back and forth across fabric. My sisters and I would pretend the noise was a monster hidden inside a dark cave, and we'd brandish our homemade swords and bear our homemade shields and shout our homemade battle cry before plunging into the house to slay the beast. Momma would shoo us back outside, encouraging us to climb the trees or wade in the stream so she could get her work done.
But one day as we were reading library books, one sister in each branch of the biggest elm tree, we heard the noise of the machine stop. Momma often stopped the machine for a few minutes to change out the fabrics or stitch something by hand, but the noise would eventually resume. This time, it did not.
We could not read in peace without the comforting noise of Momma's sewing. I don't remember which sister suggested it first, but all five of us dropped our books in the grass and grabbed our swords. Something was wrong.
Being the middle sister, I was the least valuable and the most carefree, so I went inside first. The lights were all turned off, even though Momma needed them to see her sewing. I cautiously moved forward, Mary hot on my heels.
I yelped.
"What is it?" Mary asked.
"My foot slipped," I said, examining the evidence.
"On what?" Jane asked.
I lifted my bare foot for them to see. "Blood."
A trail of blood led from the kitchen table to the staircase. We all stared after it, afraid to move. Where had Momma gone? Why was there blood leading upstairs?
"Maybe we should look for her," I said.
"We're overthinking this," Lizzy said. She cupped her hands around her mouth. "MOMMA!"
The breeze picked up a little, swirling around our bare legs, but otherwise there was no sound. I glanced at the sewing machine, the monster of my youth. It sat there, innocent and harmless, awaiting its next assignment. I pointed my stick-sword at it.
"What have you done with my momma?" I said.
My sisters finally agreed to search for her. We looked high and low, inside and outside and even upside down. We checked cupboards and closets and loose floorboards. Momma had vanished. The only trace we found was a half-sewn dress on the roof, the red dress she had been working on all that afternoon. None of us could explain how it got there, or why it appeared that the dress itself was bleeding. But we never saw our momma again.
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