Fawn Island, Pacific Northwest

Something drew Kiley Gray to the antique shop. It could have been the carousel horse in the window or the sight of tables and shelves beyond, crammed with cast-off treasures. Whatever was in there calling to her, she knew she had to go in. She was a big believer in that sort of thing.

Actually, Kiley was a big believer. Period. She’d been sure Santa was real until she was ten and even after waking up on Christmas Eve to discover her father hanging her filled stocking on the mantel, she kept pretending for another two years. She’d believed in Prince Charming and Mr. Right clear through college. She’d even believed in happy endings until just this October when her boyfriend Jeremy Horne dumped her at her own Halloween party (how was that for tacky?), announcing that he couldn’t fight his attraction for her sister any longer.

It had been a very scary Halloween.

A bell chimed over the door as Kiley entered the shop and her nose twitched as she caught a whiff of dust.

Another shopper, a portly older woman in a stylish wool coat, stood at the counter, raving over the pink Depression glass pitcher she’d found. "And just in the nick of time," she added. "I’m going to have to dash to make that ferry." With hurried thanks, she took the piece the shop owner had carefully wrapped and hurried to the door, stuffing bills in her wallet as she went.

One fluttered to the floor and Kiley scooped it up. It was a fifty, maybe not a lot for this woman, who was well dressed and obviously had money to burn, but to Kiley it was a fortune. "Wait. You dropped this."

"Oh. Thanks," said the woman, barely looking at it. She stuffed it in her purse and hurried out the door.

The shopkeeper smiled at Kiley. "People get in too big of a hurry."

"I can’t afford to be in that big of a hurry," she said. She probably couldn’t afford to be in here at all. But browsing didn’t cost anything, she told herself as she drifted to where the carousel horse stood frozen in mid- prance. Who had owned this and how did it end up languishing here? Kiley gave it a comforting pat; then wandered away to the far side of the shop.

That was when she saw the snow globe. Tucked behind a clock with a brass horse and a chipped crystal vase, she might never have noticed it except for a stray sunbeam that managed to slip past the gray clouds outside and in through the window.

She picked up the snow globe and shook it, creating a blizzard around a scene of a toyshop in the center of an Alpine village. The storm swirled around the little angel standing guard in front of the shop. It was simply too charming not to buy. Anyway, purchasing treasures was an integral part of any girls’ getaway weekend so in a way, she was almost obligated.

She took it up to where the shop owner sat behind his cash register, now reading a book. "I didn’t see a price tag on this. I’m just wondering what you want for it."

She gulped when he told her. Not exactly the kind of inexpensive purchase for a girl who was now unemployed. Maybe purchasing treasure wasn’t such an integral part of a girls’ getaway weekend. At least not this treasure, not this weekend.

The man was somewhere in his fifties, with gray hair and the beginnings of a paunch. He looked over his reading glasses at her and smiled. "But, I think, for the right buyer, I could come down in price a little."

"Oh? What does the right buyer look like?" Hopefully, a skinny woman about to turn thirty with long, brown hair, hazel colored eyes, a fashionably full mouth, and a nose she hated.

"It’s not exactly about looks," the shop owner said. "It’s more about where you are in life. You see, this little snow globe has quite a story to tell."

"I like stories," said Kiley, leaning her elbows on the counter.

"This one starts back when snow globes were first being made. Nobody knows the exact date, but the first one appeared at the Paris Exposition in 1878, and by 1879 at least five companies were producing snow globes and selling them throughout Europe. This was one of them, so you can see it’s very valuable. But its age isn’t the real reason why." He removed his glasses and set aside his book. "Would you like to hear more?"