The Beginning
The rhythmic clack of the old wooden loom echoed through Grimme & Daughters as Jennifer balanced on a stepladder, hanging a banner across the shop front window. “Yorkshire Textile Heritage Festival” it proclaimed in bold letters against a backdrop of interwoven patterns. She secured the final corner and climbed down, brushing dust from her practical charcoal trousers.
“Five days to go,” she muttered to herself, surveying the small shop. It was tidy yet cramped, with every available surface covered in bolts of fabric, spools of thread, and carefully arranged displays of handwoven textiles.
Jennifer Grimme, thirty-four and sensibly dressed in a cream blouse and navy cardigan, had spent most of her adult life trying to escape this place. Now, she ran it. Life had a way of circling back on itself, like a shuttle through a loom.
The bell above the shop chimed as the mail carrier pushed open the door.
“Morning, Jennifer. Got a few things for you.” He handed over a bundle of envelopes. “How are you holding up? Been three months now, hasn’t it?”
Jennifer nodded, managing a faint smile. Three months had passed since her grandmother’s funeral. The well-meaning inquiries had finally begun to taper off, and she was grateful for that. Threadwick was a small town with a long memory.
“I’m fine, thanks, Bill. Keeping busy with festival preparations.”
After he left, Jennifer sorted through the mail—bills, textile supplier catalogs, and a postcard from an old university friend. At the bottom of the pile was a thick cream envelope bearing the embossed letterhead of ” Weaver, Thorpe & Linden, Solicitors.” Her grandmother’s solicitors. Her heart sank. She had thought all the legal matters had been resolved.
Inside, there was a letter explaining that a final box of her grandmother’s personal effects had been found in storage at the solicitor’s office. They apologized for the oversight and informed her that the box would be delivered tomorrow.
Jennifer set the letter aside, unsure how to feel. Every time she thought she had finished mourning, something new appeared to reopen the wound. She had lost her parents early—her father to cancer when she was seven and her mother to a car accident when she was twelve. Agatha Grimme had raised her granddaughter with a practical yet loving hand, teaching her the family trade while encouraging her modern education.
Their relationship had grown strained in Jennifer’s late teens, when Agatha’s insistence on teaching her the “old ways” collided with Jennifer’s desire to study business and modernize the shop. What Jennifer had dismissed as her grandmother’s “superstitions”—strange rituals with certain textiles, stories about family traditions dating back to Norse settlers—drove a wedge between them.
By the time Jennifer returned from university in Leeds with her business degree, they had reached an uneasy compromise. Jennifer would eventually take over the shop but run it her way. Agatha retreated to her weaving room upstairs, continuing her traditional practices while Jennifer managed the business with spreadsheets and inventory systems.
Now, Jennifer ran her fingers across the polished wooden counter that her grandfather had installed decades ago. The business was hers now, and it was finally turning a profit after years of struggling to compete with mass-produced textiles. Her modern approaches had worked, but sometimes she wondered what her grandmother would think of the changes she had made.
“The festival display looks good.” Mrs. Patel from the bookshop next door poked her head through the door. “You’ll have quite the crowd this year, what with that woman from the Regional Guild coming.”
Jennifer tensed. “Victoria Harlow?”
“That’s the one. Proper la-di-da, they say. Makes or breaks careers in textiles.” Mrs. Patel waggled her eyebrows meaningfully. “Heard she’s staying at the Victoria Hotel.”
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