Lucky Embroidery

It was luck, finding the tattered old embroidery book with its black and white print of ink drawn embroidery patterns. The book had sat on the shelf of the secondhand store for decades, occasionally being moved around by the store owner as the categories were shifted, but never being bought. Flipped through, but always being reshelved, nobody wanting to spend even $2 to buy it.

Bezda had meant to pull down the book next to the embroidery book, but peering up and using her grabber tool to reach that top shelf, she’d accidentally grabbed the wrong one. And once it was down, she couldn’t reach high enough to put it back.

So she opened to the first page to be able to read the title information, as the cover had long since been worn to blurred illegibility.

"LUCKY EMBROIDERY" in an old-fashioned font, the author name unreadable.

Bezda glanced back up at the shelf, then looked around the store. She bit her lip, not wanting to bother anyone to put the book back.

She sighed and began turning the pages, wanting to see what there was. The drawings were more detailed than she’d thought they would be, with handwritten labeling that took a little concentration to discern but that was remarkably understandable once she understood it.

She had done some embroidery before. There had been a couple of embroidery kits that had caught her attention with their cuteness and she’d learned enough that she’d been able to hang the results on her wall without having to feel a sense of shame. So she already had needles, hoops, and a spool of embroidery thread she’d bought before realizing the kits came with their own skeins of embroidery floss.

Bezda frowned to herself, then shrugged and decided to buy the book along with the science fiction paperbacks she’d already picked out. She had a few plain canvas tote bags at home that she’d planned to decorate. Doing embroidery with the thread she already had saved her from having to buy fabric markers.

Why not? she thought, heading toward the cash register.

---

Scared of ruining a tote bag, she practiced embroidery on a scrap of denim cut off an old pair of jeans. Her first few stitches were messy, but after a while she was able to create a result she was somewhat pleased with.

"Practice makes perfect," she told herself, wincing when she pricked her finger.

And practice she did. A few minutes here and there between work and school. Then a couple of hours on Saturday when she took her embroidery to the park.

Sitting on a blanket with a tote bag attached to an embroidery hoop on her lap, she had the book opened flat off to one side, the pages weighted by her phone.

The pattern she’d chosen was a series of concentric circles and checkers. It looked intricate, but it was easier to make than most people would think.

Bezda listened to music through her headphones while she focused on perfecting her stitches.

It was soothing. The repetitiveness of poking the needle through the cloth. Seeing as something she did with her own hands took shape in front of her. The only thing better would have been if she’d bought different colors of thread, but the monochrome pattern had its own charm.

She’d thought the pattern was going to take her another day to complete, so she was surprised when she suddenly found herself finishing the last stitch.

"Wow. I’m better than I thought," she murmured in quiet pleasure. She followed the directions in the book to tie off and snip the trailing bit of thread.

She poked the needle into the top of the spool of thread and smoothed her fingers over the embroidered pattern. It looked so good. She’d never thought she’d be able to make something so intricate and pretty.

Bezda was examining the backside of the pattern when she began to hear screams and the rush of footsteps over the music playing through her headphones. She raised her head in surprise and saw people scattering and running through the park. There was the crack-crack-CRACK! of gunfire.

She pulled her headphones down around her neck and looked around, trying to tell where the shooter was coming from. Her right hand fumbled to grab her crutch, knowing that she was going to have to get herself to safety if she wanted to live.

There were trees off to her left, about fifteen feet away. She couldn’t run, but they might be close enough for her to reach and hide behind if she was lucky.

She wasn’t lucky.

Bezda was trying to lever herself to her feet when the gunman appeared in front of her. The long barrel of the rifle rose in her direction, aiming at her. She fell back on her butt, knowing there was nothing she could do.

It was ridiculous. She didn’t think about it, just raised the tote in front of her and braced herself to die.

There was the sound of a gunshot. It felt like she was pushed backward. As though she was holding up a metal shield that someone hit with a football.

It was an abrupt force hitting the tote bag she was holding up, but while her elbows bent a little, she was barely affected.

Someone shot the tote bag with a bullet, but the bullet didn’t go through the fabric and she wasn’t even knocked down.

There was a long moment of silence.

Bezda lowered the tote bag and dared to look.

Feet. Black shoes, black pants, a black jacket, a black hat. A body sprawled on the ground where the shooter had been standing. Limp and unmoving. Blood spreading around as the gunman gurgled out his last breath before twitching and going still. Dead.

Bezda stared, not understanding what had happened. She looked at the tote bag she held and noticed there was a black mark on the front. A broken patch in the pattern where the threads had simply disappeared.

The bullet had struck her tote bag and ricocheted back at the shooter to strike him in the middle of his throat.

He had intended to kill her, but had died instead.

Tears of relief streamed down her face and her eyes were drawn down to the still open embroidery book.

"LUCKY PROTECTION PATTERN" was written at the top of the opened page. The short descriptive sentence said the pattern could be used to save a life one time by rebounding all harm back to the person that cast it.

She’d just thought the pattern was pretty. Nothing more. Nothing less. But it had really worked to save her life.

Bezda picked up the book and hugged it against her chest.

It was luck that had let her find and buy the embroidery book. Luck that had saved her life.

"Thank you," she whispered to the book, hugging it tighter. "Thank you so much for coming into my life."

=END=

~Harper Kingsley

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