Q is for Quilt of Souls

     Amaranth took in a shuddering breath.  She wobbled on a stool hewn of ebony dark as night.  Her fingers jutted out at odd angles, the knuckles swelled in some places and almost indiscernible in others.  They wrapped around a bone-white needle.  The trailing crimson thread painted the side of one hand.
     A dozen tiny murmurs seemed to resonate from the quilt Amaranth held.  She shook it.  Her chuckling drowned out faint shrieking.
     No square looked more elegant than the next.  In fact, none of them looked very elegant at all.  The white backing of each held just two red, smeared words.  Names.
     Amaranth set down her needle.  The world pulsed in her eyes, a cloudy, distorted visage of stone, aged wood, and general clutter.  Amid the greyness only one thing stood out—the black figure of a cat.
     “Hither, my Tiber,” Amaranth forced from her lips.  The words shook, fragmented and stale.  Tiber stepped toward his master.
     Amaranth ran her hands through Tiber’s fur.  It felt cold and greasy, quite like an amphibian hide.  “I hath a surprise for ye.”
     The quilt moaned as Tiber slit the fabric with jagged claws.  Amaranth’s skin prickled as if suddenly chilled.  A dark cloud rose from the patchwork.  It streamed, audibly, forcing its way upward until the last shred of cloth broke into powder.  Amaranth smiled large enough to show her empty gums.  The room fell silent.