The Dresses Three

Chapter 12: The Best Laid Plans

Throughout the next two weeks, everyone pitched in to help harvest vines and dance stardust. Mercy spun all night, making more stardust yarn at first as the moon gradually shifted to full and was out for longer stretches of time, she switched to more moonlight. On the night after the full moon, they all slept a deep sleep, exhausted from the two-week ordeal. At last, it was time to weave once more.

Both Helena and Johanna helped as Mercy swept them up in her talent to have the loom dressed with the moonlight yarn in less than a day. Mercy found the loom reacted to the moon's yarn in the same way it had with the sun's thread, only it sang a different song. Weaving created a soothing cool feeling, but not cold. The sensation was much like the aftereffects of peppermint oil.

When she finished, she presented the bolt of iridescent fabric to everyone.

"My gods, Mercy, that's beautiful!" Lance said, reaching to touch the cloth. "It's cool to the touch, like the sunshine cloth was warm."

"Yeah, it's amazing," Mercy agreed, turning it this way and that to see the light play off of it in a rainbow of colors. "I'm curious if it will weave the seams together in the moonlight as the sunshine cloth did in the sun."

"Yes, it will," Johanna said, appearing beside the fire. "It behaves, in every way, as the sunshine cloth did, only in the moonlight."

Helena took a corner and rubbed it on her cheek. "This is so soft. Much softer than anything I've ever felt."

"There's a kind of yarn made from rabbit fur that's very soft. This is right up there with it," Mercy explained.

"You know, Mercy, you will need someone to do the books for you and whatnot when you make this to sell," Matt said.

"Are you volunteering?" Mercy grinned.

"Actually, yeah. I mean, Helena could be such a help to you..."

"You don't even have to ask, Matt. I'd love your help! There's plenty of room on the land for you to build a house." She looked at Helena. "But, how do you feel about it? I mean, you were going to help Glendin with her bakery..."

"Oh, I have no idea when that will happen, if ever. It won't, if her mother has anything to say about it. Plus, she's got talent galore. Not that you don't, but I think I could be of much more use to you than to her."

"Okay then! It's settled. Assuming Jasmine would move here." Mercy's heart ached. She wondered what Jasmine had been doing to keep herself busy while she was away. The thought perhaps she had gotten a letter of her own occurred to her and it was agonizing to consider.

So much so that Mercy immediately headed to the table to cut out the dress from the moonlight cloth. It, too, was amazing to work with and, when she completed the panels for the dress, she took a few moments to tack the selvage together to create more cloth.

That evening, they sat beside the fire, waiting for the moon to rise so that Mercy could work her cloth's magic.

"Dadus has been teaching me to grow the golden reeds for the linen sunshine fabric," Helena said in a lull in the conversation.

"Really?" Mercy asked. "That's wonderful!"

"I thought someone should know how, or else you'd have a hard time with the cloth," Dadus explained. "I'm not getting any younger."

"Thank you, Dadus," Mercy said and bowed her head to him. "I am grateful."

"You know, Dadus," Lance said, "once you move to town, you might find an apprentice of your own."

Dadus' eyes grew wide, "I hadn't thought of that!" He smiled. "I would like that very much."

Mercy felt the tug of the moon and knew that it was rising. She stepped away from the fire, everyone trailing behind, to hold the dress up to catch the growing moonlight. Each person gasped as they watched the cloth reweave itself.