Sister script within a swirled heart

There were two Hollin sisters once, Ada and Winifred, dyers in the valley below the moor. Ada kept the vats steaming with logwood and alum, and Winifred carried the cloth to the mill town and came back with news and bad tempers. Then one spring Winifred went south for good and wrote nothing at all. Ada didn't weep about it. She dyed a length of black wool the deep purple of ripe damsons, curled its ends into scrolls like a ram's horn, and every winter she hung it on the gate of this very inn so the carriers would know someone still counted the days.

Eleven winters went by. Then a carrier came up the road with a parcel and a letter folded small. Inside was a square of black cloth with a heart stitched on it in silver thread, and Winifred's note said the swirls were Ada's to fill, because she had never once got them to come out right. Ada sat down by the fire, threaded her needle with plum, and worked the curls until the lamp guttered. By dawn the heart was whole, purple on black, and the snow had stopped.