Chapter 4 Difficult to Thank

By Monday morning, Nora had stopped wondering whether the laundry would survive. She was too busy trying to keep up with it. Three baskets sat beside the counter, each tagged with a customer's name and instructions. A witch's cloak needed its anger spell removed. A werewolf had brought in two pairs of trousers torn during his last transformation. Someone had left a bundle of enchanted socks that kept vanishing the moment Nora looked away from them.

And there was a wedding dress hanging from the ceiling.

"I didn't put that there," Theo said from behind her, tightening his grip on his toolbox.

"I know," Nora said, watching the long white skirt sway gently despite the closed windows.

"Should we be worried?"

"Probably."

The dress turned toward them without warning, and both of them stepped back at once. Then it floated across the room and stopped directly in front of the door just as the bell rang and a young woman hurried inside, cheeks flushed from running.

"Please tell me you haven't touched it."

"It came in by itself," Nora said, pointing.

The woman closed her eyes with visible relief. "Good. That means it hasn't chosen anyone yet."

"Chosen?"

"My wedding dress," she said, and when Nora looked closer she understood why. Delicate silver embroidery covered the bodice, tiny flowers stitched along the skirt, and the enchantment surrounding it was strong enough to feel from several steps away.

"What does it do?"

"It refuses to fit anyone except the person it believes should wear it."

"That's a little dramatic," Theo offered.

"You haven't met my mother," the woman replied, and Nora had to bite back a laugh.

She introduced herself as Lillian and explained that the dress had belonged to her grandmother, worn by every bride in her family for generations, until the enchantment changed after the last wedding and began rejecting everyone who tried it on. "I've already been thrown into a wardrobe," she admitted, and Nora, still fighting a smile, stepped closer and placed one hand against the fabric.

The vision came immediately. A young woman stood before a mirror while an older woman adjusted the silver flowers on her dress, laughter and nervous excitement filling the room, a family gathered around someone they loved. Then another bride wore the same dress, and another, each one different, the feeling underneath always the same. The dress wasn't choosing based on appearance. It was searching for the feeling its first owner had woven into it, love, family, belonging, and it hadn't found it yet.

"It's not rejecting you," Nora told her, pulling her hand back. "You're trying to wear it as a dress. It's looking for something else."

Before she could explain further, the door opened and Ramon walked in, stopping short at the sight of the floating dress, his eyes moving from it to Nora. "What happened?"

"Nothing unusual," she said, while Theo snorted and suddenly became very interested in his toolbox under Ramon's glance.

"Why are you here?" Nora asked, arms folded.

Ramon held up a small parcel. "I brought you something."

"Why?"

"Because you were right about the coat, and I discovered you're difficult to thank." He set the parcel on the counter, and inside she found high-quality restoration salts, enchanted thread, and bottles of cleaning solution that likely cost more than her weekly food budget combined.

"I can't accept this."

"You can. I'm not giving it to you as a customer."

That caught her off guard. "Then why?"

He hesitated, his gaze drifting briefly toward the wedding dress still hovering nearby. "Because I know what it's like to have something important treated as though it's only an object." Something in his voice softened her, and she understood without needing to ask. Whatever he'd lost while wearing that coat still mattered to him, more than he let most people see.

"Thank you," she said quietly, and neither of them spoke for a moment after that, until the dress swooped toward Ramon without warning. He stepped aside just in time, and it landed directly over Theo's head instead, swallowing him beneath several layers of white fabric.

"I don't think it likes me," Theo said, muffled beneath the skirt, and the tension in the room broke into laughter, even from Ramon.

Once Nora had freed Theo, she turned back to Lillian with a different plan. Instead of asking her to wear the dress again, she laid it across the restoration table and touched the silver embroidery, and this time she didn't try to change anything at all. She simply listened. The magic was old but undamaged, only waiting, and she guided her restoration magic gently into the threads until the silver flowers began to glow. The dress rose from the table on its own, hovered for a few long seconds, and then settled softly around Lillian's feet.

Lillian looked down at herself, tears filling her eyes. "It fits."

"It remembered what it was meant to do," Nora said, and Lillian hugged her before she could brace for it, promising to tell everyone she knew about Carter's Magical Laundry before hurrying out the door.

By the time Nora turned back toward the shop, six people were waiting outside. Six. She looked at Theo, who shook his head before she could even ask, and at Milly, who came through the back door with a basket of flowers and insisted she hadn't sent anyone either. Across the street, Vivian Frost stood outside Frost and Thread, not smiling, not quite angry, only watching the line with an expression Nora couldn't fully read.

"You have customers," Ramon said, following her gaze.

"I noticed."

"You should attend to them."

"And what about you?"

"I'll wait."

"For what?"

"My turn," he said, and Nora couldn't stop the smile that pulled at her mouth despite herself.

"Fine. But if you're waiting for your coat to growl again, you'll be disappointed."

"I wasn't planning to bring the coat."

"Then what did you bring?"

His expression went carefully unreadable. "Nothing." He walked to the waiting chairs and sat down without another word, and Nora watched him for a long moment before turning back to her line, fairly certain he hadn't come because he needed anything cleaned at all. He simply seemed to like being there.

She wasn't sure yet how she felt about that. But as she turned to greet her first customer of the morning, she realized something had shifted underneath her. For the first time since arriving in Moonvale, the laundry didn't feel like a failing shop she'd inherited out of obligation. It felt like hers.