B00CGOH3US EBOK (2 page)

"Really?" Clo remarked, her voice tinged with disbelief. "That seems a bit unusual."

Now that was an understatement. "My niece isn't like most little girls, which makes it a pain in the as—makes it difficult to shop for her. She adamantly refuses to play with dolls and boycotts any and all tea parties. If anyone gets her a Barbie, it ends up in the bottom of the toy box faster than the wrapping paper can hit the floor."

Jill watched the woman's pencil-thin eyebrows inch higher with each word.

"It's true. Sweet little Zoe would rather play with rubber alligators, fake snakes and plastic dinosaurs than anything that comes in pink." She tossed in a heavy dramatic sigh for effect, certain Clo was ready to admit defeat and boot her out the door. "She's not a girly-girl, so I can't get her prissy stuff. There probably isn't anything she'd like here." Jill smiled, standing to make good her escape. "I'm sorry I've wasted your time."

Rather than the confused expression most people acquired when she described her niece, the tiny shopkeeper grinned. "On the contrary, I think she sounds like a delightful and unique young lady." Then an odd twinkle glinted in the woman's eye. "So you say she likes alligators and dinosaurs?"

"Yes, but—"

"What about dragons?"

"Dragons?" Jill hadn't really thought about it before. "I guess so. They're sort of similar, aren't they?"

"Wonderful! I have the perfect thing," Clo said, grabbing her by the arm.

Her initial shock at the lady's pushiness was offset by her surprising strength. Before Jill knew it, Clo had towed her into the dark recesses in the rear of the shop.

Finally letting go, the shopkeeper shoved an old wooden ladder along the shelves reaching up to the twelve-foot ceiling. The wheels screeched in the metal rails overhead, further aggravating the pounding in Jill's skull.

"It's right up here somewhere," the woman said as she started up the rickety rungs.

Jill reached out to stop her. "Wait. I don't want you to go to so much trouble. All I really need is directions to the toy shop around here."

Clo paused in her search. "Oh, it's no trouble. I'm certain the thing I have in mind will be perfect." Then she winked at her. "Trust me, dearie."

Great. This was one shrewd saleswoman, already halfway to guilting her into buying something whether she wanted it or not. Jill may as well be wearing an "I'm a sap" sign around her neck.

Attempting to steady the ladder, Jill worried the woman might come tumbling down on top of her at any minute, along with every kitschy knickknack and vintage whatnot crammed on the towering shelves. After shifting several items out of the way, Clo pulled a rolled bundle off the top shelf. Clutching it under one arm, she began her wobbly decent, heaving a big sigh as she hopped off the bottom rung with the spryness of a woodland elf.

"Here we go," she said as she led Jill back to the front of the shop where she placed the rolled piece of old fabric on the glass display case. "Go ahead. Open it."

The woman looked rather pleased with herself. Not quite sure if Clo was playing with a full deck, Jill decided it might be best to humor the woman for the moment, and she tried to untie the leather cord from around the rolled bundle. Hard and brittle, the thin strap refused to give up its tight knot.

"I can't seem to get—"

"Here, let me try," Clo offered, and with more dexterity than those stubby little fingers should be capable of, she had the tie unknotted within seconds.

What was this place? Part magic shop? Jill would've sworn the knot was not going to come undone unless she took scissors or a blowtorch to it. At Clo's nod, she unrolled a section of the fabric, expecting to see a dancing purple dinosaur or the cartoon characters from "Dragon Tales" on it. Instead, she gasped in surprise.

"Is that needlepoint?"

"Actually, it's a tapestry. Amazing detail for something so small, isn't it?"

Jill had to agree. The piece before her was only about the size of a place mat, but the intricate weaving revealed a tiny work of art.

"Look closely and you can see it tells a story."

The woman was right. The threads whispered a tale of long ago, depicting a quaint medieval town set in a fairy tale land of majestic mountains and rolling green hills. Whoever the weaver was, they did beautiful work. She could almost smell the smoke curling up from the villagers' huts and hear the rustle of the leaves as the trees swayed in a crisp spring breeze. In the foreground, a knight sat astride his big white horse, looking strong and brave. His helm obscured his face, but in her little girl's heart, Jill imagined him to be handsome and dashing, as only a knight in shining armor should be.

There was a girl standing nearby, wearing a flowing white gown with long blonde hair down to her knees. Jill shook her head, a lock of mousy brown hair falling into her line of vision. Why were the girls in fairy tales always blonde? Granted, there was Snow White with her black hair, but for the most part they were all medieval Barbie dolls with long, flaxen locks and perfect size two figures. Couldn't she once be a brunette with a bad case of the frizzies and cellulite on her thighs? She laughed to herself as she tucked the errant curl behind her ear. Guess it wouldn't be a fantasy then, would it?

The girl's face in the picture was indiscernible, the area where her head should've been lost off the ragged edge. But Jill knew without a doubt she'd once been beautiful and that the brave knight had rescued her in the nick of time from some horrible fate worse than death. Of course, they'd fallen instantly in love and were living happily ever after in a castle somewhere. Wasn't that how those stories always ended?

Jill stroked the colorful threads. "It's beautiful."

Clo clasped her stumpy hands over her round belly. "Yes, it is."

"It looks very old."

"Over a thousand years, I'd say."

"What?"
Jill stared at the woman, surprised the thing hadn't crumbled to dust in her hands. "Doesn't that make it rare? Shouldn't it be in a museum?"

"Maybe, if it were complete and in better shape."

She noted the tattered edges where the tapestry was unraveling, whatever story the rest of it told now lost in a snarl of threads. "It looks like it used to be part of a bigger piece."

"Perhaps." Clo shrugged. "Or maybe it just isn't finished…yet."

The lady wasn't making sense. "You mean it wasn't finished, right?"

"Yes, of course," she corrected herself. "I'm sure there used to be more to it, but through neglect and time, this is all that's left."

"That's a shame." Jill experienced an odd stabbing twinge in her chest, as if she shared the tapestry's physical pain at having parts of it slowly stripped away, one thread at a time.

"Some people don't have respect for old treasures. Now, it's only worth something to those who can appreciate the magic it holds."

Jill couldn't tear her eyes away from the beautiful design. Gold swirled with brilliant reds and blues on a dazzling field of green, the colors so vibrant it looked like it was stitched only yesterday. The lady had to be pulling her leg, trying to make a raggedy tapestry seem more valuable than it actually was. It must be a reproduction. There was no way it could really be a thousand years old, but damn if it didn't look like it was.

She pushed it back toward the saleslady. "It's nice, but not quite what I had in mind."

"Wait! You need to see this before you go." Clo uncurled the last section until the entire remnant lay flat on the display case. Just as she did so, the morning light filtered into the shop through the front window, chasing away the shadows and illuminating the tapestry in all its brilliant glory.

"I really don't think…" And then Jill couldn't think at all. She couldn't even speak a coherent word as the diminutive shop lady shoved the tapestry back in front of her.

A magnificent woven dragon stared back at her.

Crafted in complex detail and radiant threads, the beast seemed to come to life on the cloth before her. The creature was breathtaking, from the fine rendering of its scale-covered body to its glowing, golden eyes. Spellbound, Jill held her breath, half expecting the monster to spread its wings and fly off the tapestry at any moment.

"It's g-gorgeous," she gasped, her voice barely above a whisper.

Feeling the texture of the weave against her fingers, she peered closer. The dragon's rust-colored scales shimmered, giving the illusion of its massive chest moving, expanding then contracting. As impossible as it seemed, it looked like the dragon was breathing.

Clo smiled and nodded her head with its tight little bun. "The moment I saw you, I knew. It's been sitting on that shelf all these years, waiting just for you, Jill."

Strange, Jill didn't recall mentioning her name. But before she could comment on it, a whistle blew from somewhere in the back of the shop, startling her from her stupor.

"Oh, the kettle is ready. I'll be right back. Would you like some tea?" Clo asked, leaving her without a backward glance.

Before she could tell her no, Jill felt a tug on her blouse. She looked down, horrified to find a thread snagged on a button, unraveling the tapestry, row by row. She slammed her hands on the zigzagging strand to prevent any more damage from being done.

"Shit! Shit! Shit!"

"Do you take lemon and sugar in your tea?" Clo called from the back room.

"No. Yes. Fine."

Jill tried to shove the threads back into place with desperate fingers, but the weaving was so tight and compact she couldn't get them between the remaining strands. Maybe she should pull out the traveling sewing kit in her purse and try to stitch the thing back together?

Yeah, right. Like you can even sew a button on straight. How can you possibly think you could restore an ancient tapestry?

Jill risked a panicked glance toward the back of the shop.
I sure hope you have to go all the way to China for that tea, lady.

She attempted to repair the weaving as best as she could. But as soon as she shoved one thread back into place, other parts of it unraveled before her eyes.

"Damn it!"

She started to hyperventilate.
Why do these kinds of things always seem to happen to me?

"Because it was meant to, Jill."

Clo stepped behind the glass case, startling Jill. She didn't realize she'd spoken aloud. Or had she?

"What did you say?" Jill asked as she tried to hide the unraveling threads with her hands like a guilty child. Heat radiated under her palms, dizziness flooded her, and the room tilted. The only thing remaining in focus was the dragon, golden-eyed and brilliant as it stared at her from the tapestry. She tried to draw away, but something pulled at her, tugging her in, refusing to let her go. She fought the sensation of toppling forward and falling… falling…

Her gaze locked with Clo's. Through a blurry haze, the munchkin lady smiled at her.

"Say hello to the dragon for me."

Jill opened her eyes to find a drab, gray sky overhead.

Why was she outside staring at clouds?

A head popped into view, peering down at her with wide, wary eyes—a head with matted, unwashed hair and a mouth missing several teeth. It was followed by another and then another, until her vision filled with dirty, weathered strangers.

A cold shiver rippled through her. She wasn't lying on the wooden planks of the shop, or on the rough cobblestone of the sidewalk, or even on the black pavement of the street, but on hard, damp, earthen ground.

"She's awake," one woman stated in an accent so heavy Jill barely understood her.

"Aye, that she is," said another as the group leaned closer.

"Where did she come from?" one of them asked.

"From the Devil, I'd say. Out o' nowhere, she came. You saw it happen."

"Aye. In the blink of an eye, she were here."

They were definitely speaking English. Of course, it was a form of the language she'd never heard before. That part did have her a bit worried. Had she been in an accident and wrecked her car into a busload of elderly European tourists?

"Look at her clothes." A man with a long, drooping hat pointed at her. "Dressed like a man, she is."

"And her hair," a woman exclaimed. "'Tis shorn. What do ye reckon happened her?"

Jill fingered her shoulder-length hair. She'd never thought of it as short. Sure, it didn't hang down to her waist, but it wasn't a buzz cut either.

"Mayhap she had the fever?" Several people in the crowd nodded in agreement.

Fever? What did that have to do with the length of her hair?

The people talked around her, all the while gawking at her as if she were a piece of roadkill they couldn't identify.

"Umm, excuse me." Jill pushed up on her elbows, interrupting their guessing game. "Can someone tell me what happened?"

The mob glanced from one to another, mumbling incoherent words.

"Let's try this again. Can anyone tell me how I ended up on the ground?"

"Ye fell," a tall, lanky man offered.