Its all in the Stitches

By Chloe Lowetz
Stumbling through the museum doors, the boy scrambled to find
something to blockade them behind him. Through the doors, he could hear
the pounding footsteps growing louder by the second. He slowly backed
away, hoping his barricade of a few fallen tree branches would hold the
monster. The doors rattled violently, shaking leaves from the gutter above,
and then ceased all movement. He took this as his opportunity to run - right
into the mammoth of a security guard. Youre in big trouble kid, he barked.
Jackson woke with a start, shivering. He kept having the same
nightmare, always running from something, but he could never quite
remember any of the details. Shaking his head, he reached for his security
blanket, the old quilt his grandmother had made when Jackson was just a
baby. Its stitched with secrets, shed always told him, and hed always
believed it.
The quilt was incredibly special to Jackson, especially after her death
just under 2 years before. In her prime, his grandmother, Priscilla, had been
an archaeologist known around the world for her discoveries in the South
American rainforest. She was Jacksons inspiration; he always wanted to be
just like her. Shed passed right after his 13th birthday, but had promised to
never truly leave him.

Secrets, he thought, rubbing the stitched squares on the quilt as hed

done a million times before. It always helped him to calm down. In the
stitches, he muttered, absentmindedly tugging on an edge, not noticing a
tiny give in the thread. Slowly, unbeknownst to Jackson, the square he was
holding pulled away. He happened to look down at the exact moment the
square detached. Without hesitation, he screamed, No!
Shut up, yelled a voice from below, Were trying to have a nice
meal!
But Jackson didnt care that his family was eating without him, nor did
he notice that it was already evening; all he cared about was the
dismembered quilt that lay before him. It couldnt be ruined, it just couldnt!
He panicked, but he still saw the square hed accidentally removed. There
were tiny words sewn into the back of it Well thats new, he muttered,
curiously picking up the fabric. Some kind of script covered the piece, and as
Jackson peeked into the hole in the quilt, he saw more of the same type. It
wasnt English, or any language he could understand, but he knew who could
figure it out. So out the window he went, quilt in hand, stuffing things into his
just in case backpack as he slipped out. After being banished to his room
the day before, itd be at least a few more hours before anyone would notice
him missing.
It was almost 6:30, but the professors of the linguistics department had
already ended their office hours and had left, except one. At the end of the
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hall, Jackson turned to enter the office, nearly slamming into a sobbing girl as
she flew out the door. She didnt give him a second glance. The old Professor
loomed over a book on the large oak desk that dominated the closet-like
room, obviously trying to ignore the students pleas to raise their grades. He
didnt notice the young boy at the door.
Excuse me, Jackson muttered, not wanting to disturb the old man his
grandmother had talked about so often. He was one of the best professors of
ancient languages in the nation and shed worked with him numerous times
to decipher the riddles of her precious ruins. The old professor looked up.
You talking to me?
Jackson shuffled uncomfortably, yes sir, he said quietly.
Youve got to talk louder boy, I cant hear as well as I used to,
grumbled the professor, What do you need? I dont do extra credit if thats
what youre here for.
No sir, I was actually here about something my grandmother left; Im
Jackson Bowie, sir. My grandmother spoke of you often; she was-
I know who she was boy. What do you want?
Shakily, Jackson held up the crinkled quilt, which hed inverted to
better read the script, its this, sir. She left this for me.

The old man reached out, gently stroking the squares covered in
writing. You were right to come here boy.
Almost 7 hours of slaving over all the books in the professors office
and the library archives, theyd finally found the language to which the
markings belonged. According to a book locked deep in the librarys store
room, the text was an ancient Aztec dialect that most books had skipped
entirely. A little more time revealed the phonics, and they were even able to
read it aloud. It sounded interesting, but what did it mean? What was it for?
Jackson had to know. And he knew where to find answers.
Jackson loved the museum more than any other place in town. His
grandmother and he had spent many a day wandering through exhibit after
exhibit, and grandmother had even had a few exhibits of her own. It was
much too early to get in, but Jackson kept all the tools necessary in his
backpack. Hiding in the bushes, he snuck around to the back service door,
picked the lock, and carefully slipped inside. Years of helping grandmother
and her colleagues set up exhibits had given him an acute knowledge of the
museums security system, so he easily evaded detection. He carefully
tiptoed to the record room downstairs. Muttering the quilts saying under his
breath to help him remember it, Jackson searched through each and every
box in the old basement.
Suddenly, there was a thunderous CRASH! and an ancient vase fell off
a shelf across the room, shattering onto the floor. From the crumbled clay
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and dust rose a cloud of swirling smoke, its howls booming in the tiny room.
It started to clear, revealing an gargantuan dog-like thing. Jackson jumped
back, trying not to scream. The monster stared at him, snarling, and leapt at
the boy. Jackson ran for the door, slamming it shut behind him, then rushed
through the hall, disregarding the security system. Almost immediately, the
alarms went off, piercing the air, but Jackson kept going. Hed dropped his
backpack in the records room, quilt and all. But that didnt matter now. All
Jackson wanted to do was stay alive. He could barely hear the monsters feet
slam into the floor over the alarms shrill screeching. He crashed into the
door hed entered through, stumbling out into the early-morning darkness.
When the police arrived, the massive dog thing was gone without a
trace. The vase was still there, broken as itd been before. Hed been let off
with a warning because of who his grandmother was, but when he tried to
explain whatd happened, no one listened to him, not even the security
guard. Hed simply said, Geez kid, how old are you? Dont you know that
monsters arent real?
Once in his dads Buick, Jacksons head was spinning-- where had the
dog gone? Where did it come from in the first place? His parents did not care
to ask any questions. They prided themselves on being model citizens
without so much as a detention from 7th grade (theyd nearly killed him) on
their spotless records. It only seemed fair that their oldest child would make
up for what they hadnt done wrong.

Halfway home, his father broke the silence, why cant you just be
normal, he asked, Why cant you stop embarrassing us? There was no
answer, only sad eyes staring a hole in the floor. No one spoke the rest of the
drive. Jackson knew hed disappointed his parents; however, if he was
making his grandmother proud, was it worth it? To him it was.
He slipped upstairs into the attic, searching desperately for a precious
book the professor had mentioned, the journal of Priscilla Bowie. It was in a
decaying chest, under several woven blankets. Inside he found pages and
pages covered in the same script as the quilt, but there was more. She wrote
about a demon shed been attacked by in one of her beloved ruins, an evil
spirit shed trapped in a vase that happened to be in the right place at the
right time. It was a protector of kings, guarding a temple from any outside
persons, but because of time, anybody who set foot inside was an outsider.
Jackson read softly, tracing the words as he went, from the legends the
natives have told me, this spirit will return to once again terrorize all
foreigners who enter the temple if it is released. I believe it will be beneficial
for the sake of discovery to send the monster and his container back home
where it shall remain undisturbed. Shed had the curator of the museum
lock it up safely in the back of a room where no one would bother it.
Apparently the incantation in the book both imprisoned the demon and
released it. She wrote of how she planned on hiding a second copy of the
spell somewhere for her successor to have just in case. Jackson slowly closed
the book, oops, he whispered.
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