The Button Behind Midnight — Under the scalloped awning, Quincy kept a saucer of mismatched buttons beside his thimble, but none caught the thin blue light that slipped through the tailor-shop window at midnight. Read the full story →
Under the scalloped awning, Quincy kept a saucer of mismatched buttons beside his thimble, but none caught the thin blue light that slipped through the tailor-shop window at midnight. He wanted one moonlit button for Orson’s travel coat, a small bright thing to fasten at the heart. The drawers clicked open and shut; the wool smelled of rain and cedar. At last Quincy stepped from his warm counter to the high shelf, tugging a ladder across the floorboards with a soft wooden groan.
The price was small but sharp: his favorite spool rolled away, unwinding a black thread that looped under the table, around a chair leg, and straight toward the wall clock. When Quincy reached to free it, the clock gave a hollow tick he had never heard before. Behind the twelve, where nobody thought to look, lay a flat mother-of-pearl button and a brass note: FOR THE ONE WHO MEASURES HOME, NOT SIZE.
Quincy sewed it on while Orson stood very still, smelling of cold fog and train smoke. The button did not shine like treasure; it glowed like a lamp left on in the right window. When Orson buttoned the coat, the shop seemed to fit them both exactly, from the cedar drawers to the soft blue light under the scalloped awning.
