The only sound was that of the shuttle on my loom going back and forth, weaving the delicate threads. My back and knees ached from staying in the same position for hours, and my hands shook from fatigue. An awful fit of coughing echoed through the tiny house, and I glanced nervously behind me, but the door was still shut, just as I had left it. I paused my weaving for a moment and adjusted my shawl around my shivering shoulders. Autumn days would turn to winter soon, and already the cold northern winds were blowing and finding all the tiny holes in this drafty house.

“You deserve better than a drafty house on a lonely farm.” I remembered my husband saying those words to me one cold winter day. He had built a large fire in the fireplace, but it hadn’t seemed to help much against the cold. We had sat together in front of the fire with hot tea.

I had shrugged after he had said those words. “But I’m happy in this drafty house,” I had replied, “and I don’t think this farm is lonely.”

He had smiled, too. “If you say so,” he’d whispered, kissing my forehead.

Then he had told me a story he had told every winter since we had met. He told me how one day, as he had been traveling back to his farm from gathering firewood, he had stumbled across a crane. The magnificent creature had gotten its leg stuck in a hunter’s trap, its head drooped in defeat. Dropping his load, my husband had rushed to free the bird, who, thankfully, had been uninjured.

“I’ll never forget how beautiful that crane was, as it flew away that day,” he would say to finish his tale.

I smiled at the memory now. That winter seemed like only yesterday, even though it had been three winters ago. My smile faded as I heard another fit of coughing, this one lasted longer than the first. I had to hurry.

I returned to my weaving, forcing my tired, sore fingers to work even faster. The shuttle moved back and forth, back and forth, adding rows to the fabric. I had always received compliments for my weaving. The colors were vibrant, and my finished fabrics had been praised as better than the finest silks.

At first, I had only made one bolt. It had been my second autumn with my husband. Our house had been damaged by a falling tree in a wind storm, and drought had been heavy that year. The crops had died, leaving us with nothing to sell in exchange for the things we needed to survive the winter. We had only had a little food, and since the crops had died, no seed to plant the next spring. We had no friends or family to help us, and I could tell that my husband was worried. So I had offered to weave something to sell. My only condition was that he never watch me weave. This request had puzzled him, but he had accepted. He had kept his promise as I wove a bolt of cloth over the next few days.

I had sold the cloth to a passing nobleman when we had visited the next town. It was he who had given my cloth such high praise, declaring it finer than any of the foreign silks he had ever seen. He had paid us enough to repair our house, and buy and preserve food and seeds for next spring.

The same nobleman had offered to buy more cloth from me the next time we visited the village, but I had kindly refused. My husband had never asked me to weave any more, he merely asked from time to time where I had learned to weave such fine cloth. I always replied, “I taught myself,” which wasn’t a lie, I had taught myself how to weave, but really, it was the material that made the difference.

I thought that would be the only time I wove such cloth, and for a while, it had been. Until last summer.

We had been tending to our crops since sun up, as usual, but my husband had fallen ill very suddenly, collapsing in the field. I had scraped together enough money for a doctor, but he had only brought bad news. There was medicine for my husband’s condition, but it had to be imported from another continent. There was no way we could possibly afford it …

Unless I wove my cloth again.

And so I had returned to my loom, working as fast as I could. One bolt, then two. I sold them both, then learned that the roads had flooded, I would have to pay extra to have the medicine delivered all the way to the village. I wove two more bolts and sold them, too. Then, I learned that there had been a storm at sea, and several vials of the medicine had broken. There was a limited supply left. I would have to pay even more if I wanted any.

One more bolt would have to be enough. I wouldn’t be able to weave any more after that.

The shuttle moved back and forth, the thread cutting into my fingers, making them bleed. My shoulders cramped and my neck ached. The sun went down and the wind blew harder as I shivered. The coughing from the other room increased, and fear clenched my heart.

This bolt has to be enough, I thought urgently.

Then I stopped, just one row short of a finished piece of cloth. Just one more row, and I could buy the medicine, right? But that meant …

I took a deep breath and checked behind me one more time, ensuring that the door was still closed. Not that there was much to be worried about. My husband was too weak to sit up. There was no way he could come in.

I stared at the feather I held in my hand. My last feather. I had plucked it from my wing. For the crane my husband had rescued, all those winters ago, had been me. Moved so much by his kindness, I had transformed myself into a human, so that I might repay him in some way. I had never expected him to fall in love with me, nor I with him, but Fate has a funny way of giving us exactly what we need when we least expect it. Never had I been so happy as I had been living here, but my husband did not know the truth. How could he? Whatever would he think of me?

But as I moved to slide the feather into the shuttle, enough to finish the cloth, I hesitated. For there was a chance, once I had finished weaving this cloth, when the feather was gone, I would remain a crane for the rest of my days. A tear slipped down my face as I stared at the feather.

“But will he still love me,” I whispered, “if I must remain a crane?”

I felt arms wrap around me, as my husband’s large hand held mine, closing the feather into my fingers.

“I knew all along, my dear,” he said kindly. “Only you could be as beautiful as that crane!”

I turned to look at him in surprise, and he brushed a tear from my face. “I’ve known all along how you’ve lost your wings for me,” he continued, “something I could never hope to repay you for.”

Then he gently kissed the feather I held in my hand. “But I promise, my dear, I’ll love you always, with your feather in my heart.”