I inhaled deeply, letting the dust of old pages fill me up with peace. I could spend forever perusing the tomes in this old bookstore, but the tour only left me thirty minutes for lunch. Then they dropped us off where this storefront was the first thing I saw, so I decided to feast on words.
As I wandered the aisles, figuring out the proprietor’s own unique organization system, a book caught my eye. Bound in thick leather so old that it had begun to flake, the book stood half as tall as any other book on neighboring shelves. Twice as thick, the word “Dreams” had been crudely stitched along the spine. I pulled it out, hefting it in my hand. I flipped it open to a random page.
“If a married woman dreams of her first love, her husband has been unfaithful.”
I snorted at this. How many marriages had that nugget of wisdom destroyed? I turned the page.
“If an unmarried woman dreams of dreaming, she may open the doorway to her mysteries for others to peruse.”
“What does that mean?” Even as I finished muttering, I yawned deeply feeling my eyes grow weary.
Unconsciousness carried me away. My instincts acted to preserve the book, pulling it into my chest in a protective embrace.
A whistle sounded and I leapt to my feet. Before me, rows and rows of work desks stretched across the immense room. Upon each one, an industrial sewing machine whirred busily with a hunched figure focused intently on the fabric in their hands. Every machine except the one directly in front of me. I stared at it and the somber grey fabric piled on one side.
“Grace, get to work,” the woman beside me hissed.
I turned to look at her curiously before sitting obediently and carefully feeding the top pinned item through the machine. Halfway through the piece, I snorted.
“This is ridiculous.”
Someone nearby gasped in surprise or horror and the world around me wavered again. My hands rose to cross over my chest protectively as I surveyed my new surroundings. This time, I gasped.
A scarlet sky unfolded above me until it met the creamy foam of cresting waves that crashed on golden sands dotted with tiny diamonds. A nicker turned my head toward a unicorn standing beside me. I squeaked in wonder, taking on its gilded horn and immense wings. Attracted to the sound, it danced over to me, lowering its head to look into my eyes. Silver, blue, and gold shimmered within those orbs lips fanned outward to blow hair from them.
“What brings you to my dreams?” Though soft the voice resonated through me like a thunderclap.
I could only shake my head in wonder.
“Then you aren’t ready for my book, my dear.”
I frowned and looked down to the book in my arms. As I did so, something clattered behind me on the beach. But how could something clatter on sand?
“Miss, are you okay?”
I blinked my eyes a couple of times before they focused on the tiny man leaning over me. White hair escaped from the side of his head at wild angles as he anxiously ran his hair through it with one hand. The other gently patted my shoulder as his blue eyes peered into mine.
“Um…what happened?” I asked slowly as I hoisted myself slowly to a sitting position.
“You seem to have fainted,” he offered with concern.
“Oh.” I stared back at him, wondering if he had ever met the unicorn.
At the thought, I looked down into my arms for the unusual book, but the only book there proved to be a worn copy of “A Tale of Two Cities”. As I regarded it in confusion, the old man smiled at me. His smile let me know he about the book but that we would never speak about it…
Until the unicorn deemed me worthy.
~~~
Someday, I will be an empty nester and be so lonely I finally dig deeper into some of these fabulous ideas. Just wait a couple decades and we’ll finally know.
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