The woman came as if striding from a great sea of sunshine. Mercy saw her long white hair shimmer as she moved, floating in the breeze. She had pale skin and clear blue eyes and glided along with a smoothness of step any dancer would envy. What caught Mercy's attention the most, however, was the dress of golden cloth accented with white gauze and lace that she wore.

"That dress!" Mercy exclaimed.

"Yes, this dress is one of sunlight, or nearly so. You will be making one while you are here."

"You know how?" the younger woman asked, her voice a mix of awe and envy.

"Indeed, I do, and I will teach you. I have fibers that have been drying for some time that need to be spun. We will spin them with sunlight."

Mercy was puzzled. "I don't see how we will get enough sunlight inside the cabin in order to make that happen," she said, thinking about the wheel and loom she saw the previous night.

The woman laughed, "Oh, you won't be working inside. Here, let me show you. By the way, you can call me Johanna."

"I'm Mercy and the two men in the cabin with me are Lance and Matt."

Johanna led Mercy to a tiny shed behind the small house. When she opened the door, there were hanks of pre-spun roving made of golden fiber hanging from the rafters. They moved as Johanna's hair had in the breeze, soft and silky. Mercy was impressed with the quality; they would lead to some of the finest fabric she had ever made. But the quantity was a worry.

"There's not enough here," she stated.

"There is, if you spin with sunshine." The woman grabbed a handful of fiber and sat down... on nothing. Mercy gaped; the woman appeared as if she were sitting on something, but it was invisible to her. "Now, watch."

Mercy saw Johanna go through the motions of spinning the fibers into thread. As she worked, she, and the outline of a spinning wheel, began to glow until they, too, shined and gleamed in the sun. The golden thread accumulated on the bobbin in a much higher quantity than what could have come from the fibers the woman held.

Mercy was mesmerized. "So, I can make more by working in the sunshine?" Mercy asked, wanting to make sure she understood. "On an invisible, glowing spinning wheel?"

Johanna grinned. "I know that you are skeptical, but you are watching with your own two eyes. Now, combine this with your quick-work magic? I think it will only take you a week or so to create the cloth needed to sew a simple tunic dress."

Mercy couldn't deny what the woman said was likely true. "Wait. How do you know what my magic is? I haven't spoken of it since leaving home."

Johanna smiled. "As I said, I have been preparing for you all season. I know many things about you, Mercy Lane, as well as about your betrothed, both Lance as the official and Jasmine the unofficial. I am here to help you find true love."

Staring seemed to be the only response that Mercy could muster. "Who—Who sent you?"

"No one sent me, child. I am here of my own accord. Though, I will admit that I have reasons of my own for being here. But, to say that I am a sucker for a True Love Story will suffice for now!" She smiled and Mercy chuckled.

"Okay, I guess the first thing to do is for me to find a spinning wheel. How does one go about locating an invisible one?"

Johanna stopped spinning and stood. The light faded until the only thing left was the handful of fiber and the bobbin of thread, seemingly hanging in mid-air. She plucked it from the wheel and dropped the golden spool into a deep pocket. "Yes, that will be the hardest part. And the best I can do is to say that to find it, you must simply trust that it is there."

"So... what? I just... sit down?" Mercy asked.

"In essence, yes, though I recommend trying to hold in your mind the image of the wheel and the feeling of sitting at it," Johanna explained.

Mercy took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and remembered. Sitting at the wheel was a familiar place for a fiber artisan such as herself, especially with her magic. When she felt she had the image in her mind, she sat down gingerly... only to fall on her ass.

She heard snickering and opened her eyes to see Lance and Matt trying not to laugh.

"What are you doing, Mercy?" Lance asked.

"I am trying to find my spinning wheel," she answered matter-of-factly.

With that, the twins could contain themselves no longer and they roared with laughter.

Mercy scowled at them, dusting herself off, "The two of you know better than to laugh at magic!" She gestured toward Johanna. "I just watched her spin reed fibers and sunlight into thread at an invisible spinning wheel! That's magic like I have never seen!"

Matt and Lance stopped laughing and glanced at each other. "Mercy, there's no one there," Lance said, pointing toward Joahnna who was calmly standing and watching the scene play out.

"Of course there is!" Mercy insisted. "You don't see the woman in the dress of sunshine? She shines almost as bright as the field of reeds."

"Yeah," Matt said, scratching his head. "About that golden field. It's gone."

"What?" Mercy exclaimed. "I just saw the pond full of reeds not an hour ago!"

"Come and see for yourself," Lance said, beckoning.

She ran around the corner of the house and stopped in her tracks. What had been a wetland pond of golden reeds was now a vast field of green winter wheat.

"But..."

"Yeah, we know. We saw all the shiny gold yesterday, too. We can't explain it either."

Mercy was dumbfounded. Yet, she knew that this was where she was supposed to be just by Johanna's existence.

"The little old man who owns the place is also home. He's fixing breakfast," Matt said

"Little old man?" Mercy asked.

"Yes. Come on inside and meet him," he urged.

They entered the cottage and, indeed, a rather crooked, little old man was shuffling about, putting together a breakfast for them. He moved more quickly than Mercy would have expected with the twisted leg she saw.

"Good day to you, young woman!" the old man said with a smile. "I trust you have met Johanna?"

Mercy looked at Matt and Lance with a smug smile. "Yes, I have. She's shown me her spinning wheel. The one she uses in the sunshine."

"Ah, yes. Quite the woman, she is. Not everyone can see her, you know. Only those who have the abilities to follow in her footsteps."

"Follow? I don't understand."

"Johanna has been looking for an apprentice for some time. She seems to think that you might be the one. That is, if you can find your spinning wheel and loom," the old man chuckled.

Matt pointed to the loom and wheel in the corner. "How come she can't use those?"

Mercy rolled her eyes. "Because they're not magic, idiot. How else am I supposed to spin sunlight?"

Matt ducked his head, sheepish. "Yes, well, there is that."

"Now, you lot stop fighting and come and eat. I have things you boys can be helping with while Johanna teaches your friend," the old man admonished.

They sat at the rustic table and ate, discussing what chores needed to be done about the place that the old man couldn't do himself. Matt and Lance were more than happy to help in exchange for the room and board.

For the rest of the day, Mercy tried to find her wheel. By the time the sun had moved past its highest point, she was sore and in tears.

"I am never going to get this!" she cried to Johanna.

"Hmm. I don't think that's true, but perhaps we might start somewhere else. Here, let me sit and show you again."

Mercy scowled and crossed her arms in a huff, as she watched Johanna slowly sit on the invisible stool, and lift her arms to work the equality intangible wheel itself.

"Okay, come over here and let's see if we can trade places. You close your eyes and then feel for the stool. I'll get up and then you can sit on the stool. Does that make sense?"

"Yes!" Mercy exclaimed, hopeful.

The two of them tried her plan. To Mercy's amazement, she was soon sitting on a stool. But, when she opened her eyes, she spilled backward onto the ground again.

"Well! That's progress at least! Let's keep doing that until you can find your own stool."

Mercy was physically and mentally exhausted by the early evening. She plopped down and wiped the sweat from her face yet again. Johanna came to her, smiling, bringing a cup of cool water. She accepted it was gratitude and drank it down.

As she handed the cup back to Johanna, her elbow hit something and she flinched.

Johanna's eyes sparkled and her smile was bright. "Mercy," she said gently, "look..." she pointed down toward Mercy's shoes.

It didn't take long before Mercy realized that Johanna wasn't indicating her feet, but the fact she was sitting on her stool, her very own invisible stool, with her eyes wide open! In awe, she reached out around her, hitting her elbow on her spinning wheel.

"I did it!" she called. "I found my wheel!" She wanted to get up and run around in joy, but was afraid to lose her seat, literally.

Johanna reached into her pocket and brought out a large handful of fibers "See if you can spin, Mercy!"

Mercy closed her eyes, working from touch. Slowly, she was able to work the strands enough to start the wheel and soon, she was spinning the golden fiber into thread just as Johanna did.

"You did it!" Johanna clapped. "I knew you could! And, oh, how pretty your thread is, Mercy. It is taking on the pinks and oranges of the setting sun. You really are spinning sunlight!"

Mercy, grinning from ear to ear heard footsteps approach, but she refused to stop.

"Wow," she heard Lance all but whisper. "Mercy, you're amazing!"

"I would never have believed this if I hadn't seen it," she heard Matt say.

"Oh! Jolly good child! Johanna will have her apprentice yet!" the old man laughed.

Mercy worked until the sun went down. She knew that it had when, without warning, her wheel and stool disappeared and she fell to the ground; there was no more sunlight to spin.

She opened her eyes and saw an array of bobbins, all full of thread, ranging from bright yellow gold to the deepest, sparkling red. She has spun every color of sunlight found in the evening sky.

She was exhausted and, once the evening meal was complete, she fell into her bed and was out before the moon rose, just past full, in the nighttime sky.

Sore did not begin to describe the way Mercy felt the next day. She was bruised in a variety of places and her arms ached when she tried to hold them up. In addition, she was sunburned, but not nearly as badly as she had expected. Yet, she was excited and anxious to begin again and so, she was up with the first pre-dawn crowing on the rooster.

The little old man, whose name was Dadus, insisted she eat something before racing out the door.

Johanna was waiting for her in the yard dressed in the same sunshine dress as the day before. In fact, everything about her looked exactly the same.

Mercy cocked her head, "You're... not real, are you?" she asked the woman.

"Oh, I'm real," Johanna said, "Or, at least I once was. Now? I'm real, but in a different sense."

Mercy found the answer to be frustratingly cryptic. "I don't understand what that means."

"Well, why don't you sit and spin and I will tell you my tale," Johanna said.

Mercy closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and sat just as the light on the horizon brightened and the sun broke over the land. Johanna offered her a handful of fibers and she began to spin. Once again, she caught the reds and pinks of a sunrise speckled by clouds. She knew that, soon, it would turn golden and, by mid-day, it would be like white gold.

"You see, not only can I spin sunlight, but I can spin other things. One of those things is life itself."

Mercy faltered. "You spin life?" She scrambled to slow the wheel and to untangle the thread and begin again.

"Aye. And spin life, I did, to save my dear boy. My Dadus."

Mercy gaped, but this time, without dropping the thread. "The crooked little old man is your son?"

"Yes. A fine boy he is, too. We were quite happy, the three of us, until the accident."