Free Mr. Stitch by Chris Braak Page A

with a precipitously silenced performance.”
    Nora Feathersmith giggled enthusiastically, and Emilia certainly sounded like she could be smiling.
    “We shannot be,” the lead actor proclaimed during the pause, “together this day. Fate shall keep us all away, as does the winter stray the mourning dove, we are alone, alas, my love.”
    And then, mercifully, it was intermission. The intermission revealed another privilege of the box seats, which was complimentary, catered dinner. Quiet, discreet gentlemen—Skinner pegged them as typical theater ushers, conscripted perhaps, or else rewarded, with the task—brought in trays of warm food: spiced meats, soft bread, deliciously sweet fruits. Someone left a decanter of wine on a small tray at Skinner’s side, and she carefully located a glass.
    The wine was superb, rich in flavor, but smooth as water. It was like drinking spring sunshine on her face. She sipped at it carefully, though. Intoxication was more than a little dangerous to a knocker, who required great focus to keep their senses under control.
    “I take it, Elizabeth, that you aren’t enjoying the play,” Emilia said, after they’d had a few moments to set to their meal.
    Skinner swallowed a bit of lusciously soft bread. “I am quite enjoying the experience , certainly. I will admit that I’ve heard better work from Mr. Sitwell.”
    There was another one of those vacant, absolute silences from Emilia. “Yes,” she said, after a moment. “He has rather gone downhill, hasn’t he. What was his first one…?”
    “ The Bone-Collector’s Daughter ,” Nora put in. Skinner could hear her lick crumbs from her lips. “That was an interesting one. He’d probably have been hanged if he’d put it up in Canth, of course. And it surely never would have played here.”
    “No,” agreed Emilia, “but then, someone who desires to keep you quiet is the surest sign that you’ve something important to say, isn’t it? Wouldn’t you agree, Elizabeth?”
    There was something strange about all this, and Skinner suddenly felt like an animal wandering about in a forest full of traps. Pits and snares all around her, disguised beneath the impeccable camouflage of polite conversation. “I…suppose.”
    “Of course it is,” said Emilia, quietly. “If you want to say only what everyone would like you to say, then it hardly needs to be said at all. Maybe that’s why we’re drawn to it. The forbidden ideas, I mean.”
    Forbidden . Skinner felt a knot in her stomach. Is she talking about the Sciences? Surely…surely not. They don’t expect me to participate in heresy…
    “Oh, but Miss Elizabeth knows all about things forbidden,” Emilia said lightly. “Yes?”
    “I think that, perhaps, I ought to leave,” Skinner said, as she stood. “I doubt very much you’ll find me amenable to…what I suspect you have in mind.”
    “Oh, dear, do sit down. I assure you that you will be amenable to the idea. I know, because I am certain you’ve already been a part of it.”
    “I…what?”
    “Please. Sit.”
    Skinner did, and wracked her brain. What could Emilia mean? Had someone been implicating her in heresy?
    “You know, Mr. Sitwell hasn’t been very popular since his first play. His later works seem to lack a certain… something .”
    Oh. Skinner realized at once. That . “Yes. Gratitude, perhaps?”
    “Gratitude, that’s lovely. Did you know, Nora,” Emilia said to her friend, “that a selection of the Bone-Collector’s Daughter was published in The Observer fully a month before the play opened?”
    “Why,” said Nora Feathersmith, with obviously feigned surprise, “I had no idea!”
    “It’s true! And in it, he credited a collaborator, who must remain nameless…oh, why was that? I can’t remember the exact words…”
    “For propriety’s sake,” Skinner responded. “Which was a load of horse… well, nonsense. Sitwell had been looking to dump his…collaborator… ever since they’d started