When Elaine finally stepped out of the wardrobe, it was like sunshine followed her out. Her bare arms and legs were browned by the sun, and her apron stained with the making of dyes and scattered with loose threads snipped free. Curls of her hair escaped from under her headscarf. Under her arm she carried a roll of canvas, tied carefully together with a ribbon.
"Oh! I forgot you were here," she laughed. Her cat followed her out of the wardrobe and rubbed around her ankles. "Hard work, but fulfilling. Yes, very satisfying." She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and smiled widely. "This is for you."
The tapestry was long, with extra fabric for hanging at the top and bottom. It depicted the Major Oak in the sun, gnarled branches twisting and turning. At first, it looked to be a stylised depiction of the tree, but on closer inspection, hidden in the branches was perhaps a man with his green cap low over his face, disguised in the dappled shadows of the leaves; arrows buried in the trunk and branches with flashes of white fletching; a chicken pecking in the leaves; a leg dangling down from a higher branch with the kind of quality that if it were noticed, it would be whisked up and out of sight in an instant. The sigh of the wind in the leaves was almost audible.