The Curse of the Impatient Seamstress:Part Two

     Jhudora hummed as she poured herself a cup of coffee. It was just after sunrise and she had a long day of handing out quests before her. Of course, as a Dark Faerie she preferred sleeping in. However, she wanted to give herself time to enjoy coffee in her pajamas before her day started. Right as she was about to take her first sip, one of her bartamuses flew onto her counter, chirping. Jhudora sighed as she sat down her mug and patted the bartamus on the head. She made her way to her front door and opened it wide. She gasped when she saw the sobbing Cybunny on her doorstep.

     There was an awkward silence as Justine was too distraught to realize that Jhudora had opened the door. Jhudora broke the silence by clearing her throat. Justine looked up at Jhudora and began to sob harder. Jhudora sighed and motioned for Justine to come inside.

     Jhudora motioned towards her couch as she went back into the kitchen for her coffee. When she came back to her living room, Justine was sitting on the couch, whimpering.

     Jhudora sat across from Justine in a recliner. Jhudora studied the Cybunny as she waited for her to begin speaking. Jhudora could tell she had lived a nice life. Her clothes looked expensive and her fur was perfectly styled and cared for. Jhudora rarely saw Neopians like her. Most questers were either hardened Battledome veterans who wanted her staff or poor Neopians who begged for handouts. After a few minutes, Justine finally spoke.

     “Jhudora . . . Miss Jhudora . . . Oh . . . Great?” Justine shook as she tried to figure out how to address the faerie sitting across from her, “I need your help.”

     Jhudora’s eyes widened at the flailing Cybunny. She sat back in the recliner as she crossed one leg over the other. She blushed when she realized that she was wearing pajama pants and purple Cybunny slippers. With one snap of her fingers she was in her normal outfit. She cleared her throat and asked, “What can I give you that others can’t?”

     Justine took a deep breath before responding honestly, “A curse.”

     Jhudora froze at the mention of curses. She couldn’t understand why someone would come to her asking for a curse. She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward, “You want me to curse you?”

     Justine took a deep breath before nodding and explaining. “From the day I was born, I watched my mother and my brother sew. My mother made good money creating dresses, but my brother is a celebrity for it.” She looked up at Jhudora and made eye contact with her. She whispered, “My brother is Jason Mather.”

     Jhudora shrugged. She had no idea who Justine was talking about, so she let her continue.

     “When I was a baby, Jason and I would sit by our mother’s feet and she would give us felt and really big needles and yarn. Jason would make beautiful patterns, but I would just get frustrated. My brother tried to help me, but my mother just rolled her eyes,” Justine rubbed her tears away with the back of her paw. “My brother tried to help me learn how to sew like him, but after so many years he had to stop. He lost faith in me. My mom lost faith in me . . . And the one person who had faith in me, my grandfather . . . Now the brain tree asks about him.”

     Jhudora nodded as the cybunny seemed to regain her composure. “You want to be able to sew?”

     Justine nodded frantically, “Yes!”

     Jhudora moved and sat next to Justine. Jhudora put her hand on Justine’s paw and began to explain, “When you want something, you have to work for it. If you don’t work towards making yourself better, you never become better. It’s the same for everything in life. Your brother may have made sewing look effortless, but he was trying hard too. Every time he practiced and didn’t give up, he got better. You can too.”

     Justine shook her head and started to sob again, “I can’t! I’ve tried and I’ve tried! No matter what I do, I can’t do it!”

     Jhudora looked up at the ceiling and sighed. Of course, she knew exactly the cursed item to give to Justine. She stood and went to fetch it while Justine sobbed on the couch.

     Jhudora returned and knelt down before Justine. She was holding a blue box. She waited for Justine to look up at Jhudora before she opened the box, revealing the contents. On top of the velvet interior of the box was a pair of golden bracelets inlaid with milky blue stones. They appeared to be large enough to fit an Eyrie, but as soon as Jhudora slipped them onto the shaking Cybunny’s wrists, they shrunk to fit her perfectly. Justine marveled at the metal on her arms. They were a nice, deep gold and the stones were surrounded by intricate designs. To call them bracelets was a bit of an understatement. They extended from her wrist to the middle of her forearm.

     Jhudora cleared her throat as she stood. She pointed at the door and barked, “Now get out before I turn you into a slorg!”

     Justine hopped up as quickly as she could and ran out.

     ****

     Justine took a deep breath as she stepped into her sewing room. Something felt different, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. She wanted to test out the curse she had just been given, but she didn’t know what to do. She wasn’t good at preserving patterns, so she had no usable patterns in her entire house. As she was thinking, she realized that her legs were moving on their own. She was walking towards her many bolts of fabrics. Once she was standing before them, her hands moved on their own to grab a bolt of blue cotton fabric. Once it was in her hands, she turned and set it down on the table. Before she could comprehend was happening, she was marking out a pattern on the fabric without any guides. She gasped at what she was doing. She could barely copy patterns that existed, but she was creating a pattern on her own! She smiled as she reached for the scissors to cut it out. Even though the scissors were a little dull, the cloth was still in perfect condition when she was finished.

     She sighed. The bracelets had allowed her to draw out a pattern and cut it out, but she didn’t know how she would sew it. Almost as soon as she finished her thought, she felt her feet guide her to her sewing machine. Her hands moved in ways she had never seen them move before. They were doing things to the sewing machine that she couldn’t understand. But after just a minute, the machine was threaded and ready to be used. She basked in awe for five minutes as she stared at her desk. She had just perfectly cut fabric and threaded her sewing machine. When she finally accepted that she had done what she thought was impossible, her hands guided her to the machine. Without thinking, she began sewing the garment together.

     When she was finished she pulled away from the machine and held up the garment. It was the dress that she had wanted to make the previous night, only in cotton! She gasped as she pulled it over her head. It fit! And not only that, it was beautiful. She spun around and laughed. She had spent so much of her life miserable because she couldn’t sew, and she had just done it. She had just done what she thought was impossible. She had never felt happier in her life, and she was excited for what would come next.

     Right in the middle of one of her twirls, she felt her wrists pulse. She stopped and looked over at the wall of fabric and understood that she needed to continue working. She made her way to the back wall where she stored the dress forms for the most popular species. She picked up one of her Uni dress forms and brought it to beside her table. Instead of grabbing another bolt of fabric, she began to press pieces of fabric against the form. She wasn’t sure what she was doing, but she knew that her hands did. After a few minutes of holding fabric against the form, she grabbed chalk and began to mark the fabric. Once the fabric was marked up, she began to cut it. Without ever understanding what she was doing, she worked. Once it was over, she stepped away and admired the results. The form was covered it a stunning blue sundress. She wanted to fawn over it, but instead she picked the form up and moved it to the back of the room. While there, she picked up a Shoyru dress form and brought it back to the table.

     It happened again and again. When she ran out of fabric, she rushed to the wall to grab more fabric. When that bolt ran out, she did it again. She couldn’t pull herself away for hours while her hands created beautiful garments.

     She was nearly falling asleep when her hands stopped controlling themselves. She nearly fell over when she fully regained control. She rubbed her eyes before looking over at her collection of dress forms. Every single one was covered in a beautiful dress. She smiled softly as she looked over at the clock. Her eyes widened when she read the time. It was past midnight and she had been awake for far too long.

     She looked down at her bracelets as she left her sewing room and made her way up the stairs to her bedroom. She was so overjoyed that she had created more things in one day than she had in her entire life. Her smile widened as she realized that it was only day one of being an actual seamstress and not just someone who tries to sew.

     To be continued…