The Lacemaker

All the threads looked the same to the innocent eye, but Maude could see the black heart running up through one strand as it wove its way through the lace roundel.

“How on earth do you manage it?” the woman asked, as she looked at the mats on the craft fair stall. Maude chose to treat the question as a rhetorical one and busied herself with tidying her bobbins as the woman browsed.

“I’ll take this one,” the woman said, holding up a square piece, twelve inches across. Maude winced, picked up the piece she had just completed and held it out to the woman for her consideration.