Chapter Two – The Festival Glow
The streets were still buzzing when Amanda and Chris returned to the festival the next morning. Music drifted from the main square, something folksy, the kind of tune that made you tap your foot without thinking. Children ran past with sticky hands from candied apples, and older couples lingered by the quilt displays, fingers brushing over stitches like they were reading Braille.
Amanda clutched her notebook as if it were a compass. Her eyes darted from booth to booth, drinking in every detail—the swirl of colors in hand-dyed yarn, the shimmer of glass earrings catching the sun, the careful brushstrokes on hand-painted signs.
“Where to first?” Chris asked, camera slung over his shoulder.
“Everywhere,” Amanda breathed, and he laughed because he knew she meant it.
She stopped at a table where a woman nearer her mom's age sold embroidery hoops stitched with tiny houses, each one framed by flowers. Amanda leaned closer, drawn to the tiny knots and perfect loops.
“These are incredible,” she said softly.
The woman smiled, her eyes creasing. “Every stitch is a story. I stitched the red door one the year my daughter moved into her first house. The sunflower cottage came after my husband planted an entire row just to make me smile.”
Amanda’s throat tightened, her fingers brushing her notebook. She wasn’t just looking at thread and fabric. She was looking at memory, captured in color.
Later, Chris tugged her toward the food stalls, teasing that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. But Amanda lingered in thought, words scribbling themselves in her head faster than her pen could keep up. Every stitch is a story.
That evening, back at Wildebeest, Amanda unpacked her day like a treasure chest. A skein of hand-dyed yarn the color of autumn leaves. A bar of lavender soap wrapped in twine. A sticker from a local artist who sketched barns and silos as if they were cathedrals.
She sat at the little table, pulling her own supplies from their cubby. A vinyl cutter, a small box of blank mugs, a pouch of glitter vinyl sheets (not loose glitter—never loose glitter). As Chris edited video beside her, Amanda began to sketch out new designs. One mug would read Every Stitch is a Story. Another, Home is Where the Thread Begins.
The Wildebeest hummed with quiet purpose: Chris clicking keys, Amanda’s tools whirring to life. Beyond their walls, the fair lights flickered, but inside, creation burned brighter.
Amanda felt it then, the quiet magic of the road. The way each place left a mark on her—not just in memories, but in the things she made. Her crafts weren’t just souvenirs of travel. They were proof of it.
And tomorrow, they would drive again, carrying the glow of this festival into the next unknown town.
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