Mending with Magic

Chapter Two-Harlow

Harlow Sylvester was twenty years old, had completed four different writing internships—and was jobless.

It wasn't something she was proud of.

Sighing, Harlow gathered the papers scattered across her table and pulled them into a neat pile. Job applications were dumb anyway, she thought. No one even did them on paper anymore, so why did she have to?

She stood up and stretched, reaching to pull on her jacket when her phone rang. A slight moral dilemma began in her mind. Did she want to ignore her mother's phone call on the principle that no one should be calling her that early in the morning, which also meant facing the wrath of a worried Patricia? Or did she want to answer and be subjected to at least an hour of hometown gossip?

Making her decision resignedly, Harlow picked up the phone.

"Hello?" She answered, hand still extended out to grab her coat.

"Hi!" An overly chipper voice that was definitely not her mother answered. "This is Rebecca from Gloss Editorial, we received your application and wanted to know if you were still interested?"

Harlow almost dropped the phone in her haste to respond. "Yes! Yes, I'm still interested," she coughed, doing her best to keep the eagerness out of her voice.

"Great! As you probably know, we aren't the most conventional publication in the world, so instead of a follow-up interview, we have an assignment for you."

She did her best to not jump up and down in pure excitement as she responded with a query into what the assignment would be.

"It's super simple, actually! All you have to do is find a captivating story from your town and write an article on it!"

Harlow's world crumbled.

The lady—Rebecca, Harlow vaguely remembered her name being—rattled off a list of requirements and word counts. Harlow did her best to respond with an ounce of the excitement she had felt earlier until the secretary hung up. She sighed.

How was she supposed to find an interesting story in Honeycross?

"Of course I get a call back after I move to the most boring town in the world," she mumbled, yanking on her jacket and huffing as she stepped into her shoes.

It wasn't that she hated the town, no, it was a beautiful place. There was just nothing to do. Two or three restaurants, a couple of boutiques, maybe an ice cream shop on a good day. Finding someone "captivating" in this town would be a chore on its own.

She shoved open the door, breathing in the cool air of the afternoon. Her breath appeared in a white cloud before her, making her mood just the slightest bit worse. Harlow was not a cold-weather person.

Light patches of frosty grass crunched under her boots as she walked. The sky was pale, leaving the sun to blind her without being anywhere in sight. A scowl covered her face.

"Take daily walks," she grumbled to herself. "It'll be fun, Harlow. You need it, Harlow. This is what I get for trying to be healthy."

The world passed by with barely a glance from Harlow. Soon enough, her mumbling had led to her finding herself in an entirely different part of town than where she started at her apartment. What really snapped her out of her revery was the swatch of fabric beneath her feet.

"What the—" she started, picking up the piece of yellow fabric that had found its way to the sidewalk in front of her.

Gazing around, Harlow couldn't find the source. "Maybe someone just...lost a patch?"

She started to walk once again, hoping she would figure out where she had turned to get to wherever she was, when something sparkly caught her eye.

A small, dingy window was directly to her right. Inside, she could see a wall of different types of fabric and thread. The sparkling seemed to be coming from...a person?

Harlow didn't realize she had walked inside until a bell rang from above her head.

There was a girl in the corner. Her head was bowed over what looked like a sewing machine, the constant mechanic noise coming from her section of the wall confirming her suspicions. Her pale hands were working deftly at a dress under the needle, feeding it through the mechanism with gentle yet firm movements. Harlow quickly realized the sparkle was coming from the many silver rings decorating her slim fingers.

And her hair was blue.

Harlow was sure she wouldn't forget that.

The sewing machine let out an unpleasant sound that made the girl huff. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and looked up, spotting Harlow by the front door.

Blue-haired girl's eyes seemed to widen—as did Harlow's, as she didn't intend to be caught staring at a horrendously beautiful person today—but a perfect smile soon pasted itself onto her face.

"Good morning, welcome to Mary's Mending! How can I help you today?"

Harlow's writer brain was malfunctioning with the amount of metaphors about how melodious her voice was and the nighttime glow of her hair, but all she managed to blurt out was, "Hi?"

The girl furrowed her brows a bit but gained her composure quickly enough. "Hi! Are you just browsing?"

Harlow cleared her throat. "N-no, actually. I was wondering if you could tell me a bit about your shop? You seem a bit...young, to be working here alone."

The taller woman laughed a bit and pulled her long hair over her shoulder. "I'm not actually the owner. Mary is out right now, she had to go and check out some stuff with a vendor of our's. But I'm happy to answer any questions about the shop until she gets back, though I can't promise that I'll know everything."

Harlow gave her the best smile she could muster up. "That's alright! My name is Harlow Sylvester, I'm a soon-to-be writer for Gloss Editorial and hopefully, you'll be the one to get me there." She stuck out her palm for a hand shake.

The girl had confusion in her eyes but a pleasant look on her face when she responded. "Well, Harlow Sylvester, it's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Sapphire Therese, part-time seamstress, part-time enjoyer of bad reality television," she winked and placed her hand in Harlow's.

Harlow laughed and shook. "Yeah, we're gonna get along great."