Lavender Specs

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   *Cough cough* Meghan wheezed and stumbled backwards, jerking out of the trunk. 
   "Ouch!" Her head banged against the lid, and two pewter statuettes and an ancient fan thunked to the floor inches away from her foot as her lungs worked desperately to drive the invading clouds of dust out of her throat. 
  "Are you all right sweetie?" Meghan's mother poked her head around a shelf. 
  "Yes," She wheezed out between coughs. 
   Her mother smiled and disappeared back into the shadows and dust that permeated the store. The front had been clean and well-lit by the display windows, but you could tell only a few rows out that the owners had lost the battle with the dust out on this frontier. 
   Meghan replaced the figurines on their lace runner and moved away from that deadly trap of a hope chest. 
   She and her mother were in an antique store, one of many that her mother loved to visit, but this one was dustier than most, and more crowded, not with people, but with wares.
   She passed another row of ceramic shepherdesses on top of an ancient dresser, and paused to open the top drawer. A No. 2 pencil rolled forward. 
   The next thing to catch her eye was a pretty polished box of dark wood with a lacquered top. Inside was a bundle of costume jewelry and some scarves. She pulled out a gauzy dusk pink one through the necklaces, and felt something clatter down from her prize onto the faux pearls. It was a little pair of lavender tinted spectacles with a wire frame. She set down the scarf and picked them up. She could feel neglected grime on their lenses, but otherwise they seemed like they were in pretty good condition. They didn't feel like they were going to fall apart at least. 
   She set them on her nose and looked around. She could barely see anything through them in the dusky store. 
   "Meghan-oh, never mind." Her mother's voice came out and then fell away, and as she turned something flashed across the corner of Meghan's vision. 
   She turned, looking for the source of the glint, but saw nothing. Everything was either too wooden or too tarnished to do any glinting. 
   Again, right in front of her. And again! 
   As she watched, shimmering gold began to dance across her vision, blooming on the lenses of her spectacles. Circles of all shapes and sizes scored with little dashes along their circumferences shimmered over the purple glass, skipping and weaving their way over each lens. 
   "Wow," she breathed, and watched the circles begin to preform loops and meanderings, taking their time instead of just dancing straight across. 
   "Meghan, I think I'm going to take that armoire near the front back to the house to replace that old chest of drawers in the living room that's almost falling apart." Meghan's mom frowned from across the aisle at her. "Are you alright Meghan? You look surprised." 
   "I-uh-no, no I'm fine." The circles had zeroed in on her mother's face, expanding to contain it almost like like the scope of a rifle, but shimmering in a much more benign, almost delighted way. More circles appeared, rotating slowly and filling in with little bubbles of script she couldn't read. 
   Her mother gave her a strange look and then turned away. "Alright. Well help me lower the seat in the trunk. They're going to help us put it in the car." 
   "Yes ma'am." Meghan yanked off the glasses. 
   She ended up buying the glasses. 
   As she sat in the car on the way back home she fiddled with them, not daring to put them on just yet, but she knew, as soon as she got home on they would go, and she would see the little gold symbols again. 

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