Annie Leprechaun laid out her needle and thread, then stopped. The green dress she dreamed of could charm any mortal alive. But no ordinary thread could hold real luck, and without lucky thread, her dress would be nothing but cloth. She had spun a dozen spools already. Every one snapped the moment she tried to stitch a charm into it. She stood barely taller than the needle itself. Her own green dress was plain, cinched with a black belt. She had promised herself this dress would be different. It would make her the finest charm-maker in any hollow. Yet she had never once seen thread that held true luck. She did not even know what it looked like. The door of the pink cottage opened. Her father stepped in, leaning on his walking stick, his white beard nearly brushing the floor. He was old, older than any leprechaun she knew, and he moved slow. He looked at her empty loom and grunted. "Still chasing that dress," he said. It was not a question. "I can't start," Annie said. "I don't have the thread. Real luck won't stay in anything I spin." He crossed the room and tapped his stick against the wall. There hung an old tapestry, woven with a four-leaf clover at its heart. Annie had passed it a thousand times. She had never looked at it twice. "Your grandmother wove that," he said. "Every strand in it is spun from clover luck. It has held true for a hundred years." Annie stared. The fibers glinted green and gold in the cottage light. "That's lucky thread?" "The only kind that lasts." He lowered his stick. His eyes were sharp under heavy brows. "But once you pull a strand, the picture breaks. Unravel it, and it's gone. All of it." Annie touched a loose end at the tapestry's edge. It felt warm, alive, humming faint against her fingertip. This was the thread she needed. This was the only thread that could hold her charm. Her father watched her. He did not tell her to stop. She pulled. The strand slid free, long and bright, and the clover in the weave sagged. She wound the thread around her spool. It did not snap. It did not fade. She pulled again, and again, until a fat coil of true luck sat in her lap. Behind her, the tapestry hung ruined, its picture torn to loose ends. "There's your thread," her father said quietly. He turned toward the door. "Now you'd best make something worth what you spent on it." Annie held the glowing spool. She finally had luck strong enough to stitch. But she had unraveled the last of it. There was no more. If her hands slipped, if the dress went wrong, she could never begin again.