Benny Stitch's Arc

Chapter 4 of 10

The binder sat on Benny's counter, three orders written clean. He should have felt safe. Then a customer came in, the tall man with the torn cuff, and paused at the door. "Heard the old seamstress is asking about you," he said. "By name." He left without leaving his coat. Benny understood at once. The town's established seamstress had learned he took her regulars. One cold word from her could empty his shop by Thursday. Benny closed early and walked to Seamstress Haven. He had never met the woman who ran it. He only knew her dresses were famous, and that his three orders had once been hers. Inside, an elder with four arms bent over a table, stitching without looking up. Iridescent moss braided her hair. She had a poppy-dyed sash across her chest. Two of her hands held cloth still while the other two drove the needle. She did not stop when the bell rang. "You're the mud one," she said. "Benny." "I am." He made himself stand straight in his city coat. "I took work that used to come to you. I came to say it before you heard it worse." Sable Fern set down her needle. She studied him with steady eyes. "My dresses do a thing. This one slows the breath for sleep. That one held back a woman's tears too well, so she returned it." She tilted her head. "Your dress. The sticks and hay. What does it do?" The question caught him. "Nothing," Benny said. "It only looks like something no one made before." Sable was quiet. Then she pulled a coat from a hook and laid it on the table. Its whole surface glittered with pop caps and game discs, layered like scales. "A traveler ordered this. Wanted it loud. I sew what works, not what shouts." She pushed it toward him. "I can't finish it. It's yours if you want the customer." Benny stared at the coat. She was not threatening him. She was handing him work. "Why?" he asked. "Three orders won't feed you long." Sable picked her needle back up. "You make the loud things. I make the working things. The town is big enough." She turned back to her cloth. "I told the tall man you sew honest. That's the word I gave." Benny lifted the coat. It was heavy, glossy, half-finished. His fingers found the raw seam where she had stopped. He could finish it. He knew he could. "Thank you," he said. "Don't ruin it," Sable said, not unkindly. "And write it down. I heard you forget." Benny walked home carrying the coat and a fourth order. The cold word he had feared never came. Instead the town's oldest seamstress had drawn a line between them and left him his own side of it. He set the coat on his counter and opened the binder to a fresh page.