The Quilt

I found the quilt some years ago in Aberdeen, Scotland while traveling on business. It was in a small shop on an old cobblestone street off of Union Street called The Goat and Toad. The quilt was old and discolored but had interesting symbols and non-symmetrical patterns woven into its elaborate designed fabric. The shop owner, a mysterious old Scottish hag named Lilith, said it dated back to the early 1800’s. It was displayed on a wall in the back of her shop that offered “magical” lotions, potions and trinkets along with books from astrology to demonology.

The quilt was cool to the touch and very dense. I was drawn to it. I asked the hag if I could take it down off the wall. She obliged. As I took it down off its nails, I noticed it had weight. It must of spanned four feet in width and six feet in length. The quilt patterns were interesting and confusing, holding neither rhyme nor reason. Random symbols and faded colors that lacked any uniformity, yet the patterns seemed to have purpose. As I held the quilt it seemed to grow warm in my hands.

The weathered shopkeeper, possibly just south of eighty, said the price as 375 quid (approx. $500 in USD). As I held it up, I thought of my mom in rainy, dreary Seattle who probably would love it. She was always a fan of comforters, afghans and big warm blankets. She was aging and spent a lot of time on the couch or recliner trying to keep warm while watching her game shows on TV during the dank Seattle winters. I wanted it. Lilith was in no mood to haggle, so 375 quid it was.

Arriving home four days later I was excited to visit my mom and show her what I brought her from Scotland. I travel a lot and I have always brought her back something from my travels. But first I needed to clean the quilt, it was probably hanging on that shop wall for twenty-five years! I ran it threw the gentle wash cycle and tumbled dry on low heat for forty-five minutes. I removed the freshly cleaned quilt then opened the lint trap to empty what I thought would be a lint filter clogged with dust, debris and faded fabric from this very old quilt. It was completely empty, no lint at all! I thought that was very strange for a woven article so old.

I took the two-hour drive to Seattle to visit my mother. The freshly washed and folded quilt lay in the backseat of my Audi in a large shopping bag. My mom greeted me with a hug and a piece of her famous coffee cake, my personal favorite. She quickly got me caught up on local gossip of my old neighborhood and the Seattle weather forecast. I presented the quilt to her and made up an old Scottish folklore story to go along with it. She loved it! The oversized quilt enveloped my petite mother. She exclaimed how warm it was, asking me if I heated it in the car during my commute back home. It truly was warm to the touch; the dense fiber must hold the heat in some weird way.

I got the call three days later from my mom’s caregiver that my mom had passed in her sleep on her recliner. I was extremely saddened by the news and was glad I got to see her just days earlier. She seemed so alive and healthy at that time. This shocked me to the core. My dad had passed two years earlier and now my mom is gone. I called my sister, Tina and my Aunt Carol, who is my mom’s only surviving sister. We had a simple service for her and laid her to rest in a plot next to my dad four days later.

Over the next few weeks, I took some time off from work and helped my sister and Aunt Carol clear out my mom’s house. It’s a two-story Cape that my mom and dad purchased for $13,000 back in 1966. It was both a sad and uplifting event. We spent a week, clearing out closets, basement and attic of personal belongings of my parents. We cried, we laughed and we hugged as we came across old photos and knick-knacks. We were planning to put the house on the market next month, so we threw out old furniture and donated good condition items. We also decided to divvy up memorable keepsakes. Certain items I wanted and certain items my sister wanted to keep. Aunt Carol wanted all the weird collectibles and tchotchke stuff. One item she insisted on taking was the quilt. I gave her a little background on the “large blanket”, as she called it, and her eyes lit up.

Back at work, Norm, my dickhead boss rides me like a workhouse. He’s never completely satisfied and always condescending. There are days where I truly believe he feels threatened by me. My youth, experience and charm has moved me up in our software development firm. His ladder to success was more of a step stool compared to my extension ladder rise. He sees the writing on the wall and he’s worried. His plan is to keep me tethered to my mid-level position all the while stabbing me in the back.

A few weeks go by and my sister calls to tell me that Aunt Carol has passed on. During a routine weekly visit my sister found her dead in bed, under a “pile of blankets”. The county coroner stated that she most likely died of heart failure during sleep. She was seventy-eight, four years younger than my mother. I tell my boss that I need to take a couple days off to set up funeral arrangements for my aunt with my sister. My aunt never had children of her own. My boss, Norm, begrudgingly approved my bereavement time but I swear he was on the cusp of asking me for proof. First my mom last month and now my aunt, I can see those dark, unlubed gears turning in his cavernous and suspicious head. He’s such a tool.

So my sister Tina and I were tasked with the responsibility of cleaning out my aunt’s apartment; granted, smaller venue, less debris, but still plenty of knickknacks. We threw everything out. I saw the quilt on my aunt’s bed and picked it up. It radiated with heat, as if just taken out of a gas dryer! It was alluring; I almost wanted to hold it up to the side of my face. Deep down below the subtle scent of Fabreeze and dryer sheets was a faint dank earthy smell. I reclaimed my quilt from Scotland with the intention of giving it a good laundering when I returned home.

As I arrived home my Jack Russell terrier, Snickers, jumped up and down to greet me. At two years old, Snickers has more energy than the Energizer bunny and definitely the cutest dog I’ve ever owned. I could be gone for ten minutes and she’ll still go crazy as if I’ve been gone two weeks! After dinner, I drop the quilt in the washer then tumble dry for about ninety minutes due to its size. Again, absolutely no lint in the dryer lint trap when the dry cycle was done. I looked at the old and tattered blanket on the bottom of Snickers crate and I decide to give my little girl an upgrade. I lined the bottom of her crate with the Scottish quilt, why not I figured at the time. I don’t need it!

Snickers died suddenly three days later, alone in her crate one morning. My morning ritual of the past two years was upended when I approached her crate to take her for her morning walk. She was lying on the quilt, eyes wide open, mouth gaping open for one last desperate breath. I looked around for anything resembling poison or any type of choking hazard that she may have come across. Nothing.

Days after trying to process Snickers death, I wandered around the house with scotch on rocks in hand trying to figure out what happened. The veterinarian said she could perform an autopsy, but it would cost $3500. The vet said matter-of-factly that some dogs are born with heart defects and that you never know it when you get them as a puppy. Sometimes it’s the breed, sometimes it’s just bad luck. Staring at her crate the quilt came into full view. The quilt. My mom, my aunt and now my dog. Shaking my head trying to clear the scotch saturated cobwebs, I try to convince myself that this has nothing to do with the quilt. I call my sister and ask her exactly how she found Aunt Carol. Tina said she was in bed with a large quilt covering her.

The next day I find the phone number of the caregiver of my mother. I asked her the same question. How did she find my mom on the day that she died? The caregiver, Sheila, said she was lying peacefully on her recliner wrapped in a heavy blanket. I described the quilt to Shelia and she immediately confirmed it was the Scottish quilt that I had bought. Okay, so what the fuck???

I spent the next four days researching the quilt on the internet; the faded colors, size, intricate and random woven patterns coming up with nothing that could explain this bizarre phenomenon. Of course, Norm feels the need to leave me nasty phone messages and emails as I decide not to go into work. Fuck him.

Finally, I decide to call the Goat and Toad in Aberdeen, Scotland to have a little chat with Lilith the Hag. Lilith wasn’t quite forthright during my visit months earlier. The origins of the quilt date back to the 1400’s not 1800’s. This thing is over six hundred years old!! She also said that she had it displayed on a wall for a reason but would not elaborate. She called it Tachrichim Necrotic, again not giving me much more than that. Noting a customer was in her shop, Lilith abruptly ended the conversation.

Using Google, I find that Tachrichim Necrotic is Latin for Shroud of the Dead. Digging deeper I find there is a Scottish myth that claims that sleeping with this shroud for three straight nights brings the Angelus Nigrum Necro ; the Black Angel of Death. In laymen’s terms, the Grim Reaper. My mother, aunt and Snickers all slept with that quilt for at least three straight days. This myth is fucking real! I take the quilt outside in my backyard, place it in my fire pit and douse it with gasoline. I hesitate as I strike a wooden matchstick. The quilt patterns changed slightly when sitting in the fire pit. I stood there mesmerized, borderline catatonic with the match fire close to my fingers. The quilt patterns were moving!! I snap out of it and quickly throw the match into the gasoline doused fire pit. The match instantly extinguishes. I strike another and throw it in and again the fire goes out as if the quilt was saturated with water instead of gas. I add balled up old newspaper and lighter fluid just to add to the pyre. Still nothing! The quilt will not burn.

Leaving the quilt in the fire pit I return to work the next day only to be fired by my butthole boss. This was finally Norm’s opportunity to justify my termination. He gathered with Human Resources the week before and presented his case; they agreed and had me terminated. One cardboard box of my belongings and a check for two week’s severance was all that I walked out with at a firm where I worked for over five years.

Weeks go by as I attempt to wrap my head around my situation with the Scottish death shroud. On three occasions I would wake up in the middle of the night standing over the fire pit looking at the quilt! I stand there, half asleep, swaying back and forth fascinated by the metamorphizing patterns on the quilt. It pulled and held me like gravity to a moon. The quilt went from fire pit to garbage barrel. Garbage pickup in two days!

This morning I woke up and found myself cocooned in the quilt IN MY BED!! Sometime during my slumber, I must’ve gone outside and grabbed it from the garbage barrel and brought it to bed while wrapping it around me. The heat coming off the quilt was intense. I slept with the quilt one night, two more and I’m dead. What the fuck! Strange thing is…it should’ve reeked with the smell of gasoline and lighter fluid; now just a dank and musty odor. I need to get rid of it once and for all. The quilt is alive, and I wanted it nowhere near me. So, I grab the cursed shroud, put it through two cycles of wash and dry. I then sprayed the shit out of it with Fabreeze and gently folded it and placed it, still radiating heat, in a nice gift box. The next day I brought the box to a local UPS store and anonymously shipped it to 17 Crescent Lane, attention Cynthia Webster, Norm’s wife.

Credit: G. H. Appleby