Missed Part One?
You can start the story from the beginning with Part One – The Arrival — the moment the old oak wardrobe first arrived at the shop.
Then come back here for Part Two – The Sleeping Apprentice, where the magic begins to stir.
I found the key two mornings later — in Beckham’s food bowl.
He was sitting there, tail curled, looking far too pleased with himself. The key glinted beneath his paw, damp with a trace of milk from his breakfast.
I washed it, hung it on its nail by the counter, and told myself it must’ve fallen somehow.
But deep down, I knew better.
Nothing in this shop ever moves unless it has a reason.
For a few days after we opened the wardrobe, I tried to pretend everything was normal.
But “normal” in a vintage shop is… a little different.
The first thing I noticed was the cotton.
I keep a jar of off-cuts on the counter — scraps of lace, stray buttons, thread ends too pretty to throw away. One morning, the jar was sorted into colours.
Not neatly, but oddly purposeful — like someone with too much time and not quite enough sense of symmetry.
Then came the mending.
A lace tablecloth that had been torn for years suddenly hung on its rack without a single break.
A cushion cover, once missing a button, had one sewn on — mismatched, but perfectly centred.
I started leaving a few broken things out on purpose, just to see.
And sure enough, they’d be better by morning.
I told myself it was Pete — secretly fixing things after hours to tease me — but he swore it wasn’t him.
And Pete’s a good man, but he can’t thread a needle to save his life.
The air around the wardrobe stayed different.
Lavender and beeswax, and that faint metallic scent — like the bite of scissors.
Sometimes, when I walked past, the key would jingle softly in the lock — just once — as though someone inside had turned over in their sleep.
And Beckham knew before I did.
He’d pad quietly into the dress room, tail high, then weave in slow circles around the wardrobe, rubbing himself against legs that weren’t there.
Sometimes he’d look up, purr into the air, and walk away as if he’d just been greeted by an old friend.
I started to think maybe she wasn’t trapped at all.
Maybe she was working.
⸻
The note came a week later.
Not in the post — in the till.
Folded into the cash drawer between two five-dollar notes.
A scrap of parchment paper, yellowed at the edges, with gold thread stitched right through it.
The stitches spelled one word:
“Learn.”
Since then, I’ve kept a stool beside the wardrobe, and I swear, sometimes when the afternoon light hits the glass in the Singer machine, it flickers — like a lesson waiting to begin.
That night, I heard the Singer hum again — steady this time, not a creak or a rattle, but a rhythm.
And underneath it, the faint sound of someone whispering…
“Watch closely.”
🧡Kitten Vintage — Sunday Night Stories
Stay tuned for Part Three — The Lesson — next Sunday night.