. . . and then the arresting enchantment began taking hold. Aware their precious time was short, they danced a counter spell which fused into their encasement a brief flicker of some yet imperceptible magic. Still the two were trapped in amber, to appear to outsiders as nothing more than a cleverly crafted objet d'arte.
The Amber Dancing tableau stood for years on a finely polished Sussex marble mantle among the myriad trappings of privilege. But later it fell to disinterest. Bereft of affection, it had lost all vitality for that noble family, and became merely another twinkle among the wholesale spoils of inheritance and divorce.
Years later, the dancers came to rest on a lady's maid's bed stand, the figures having been chosen by this servant as a reward for a lifetime of service. It held personal significance to her, and symbolized the never permitted dance locked inside her heart frozen behind her sober and immaculate uniform. Perhaps it was because locked away, deep within her heart she danced free, that the Amber Dancers danced for her alone. And in her waning years, as she was in bed for the night, as she reached to the table to turn off the light, their night dance was the dream she was graced with, and in the morning, the music and dance of dawn was her greeting.
And finally, as the world moved forward as it will, the Amber Dancers got wrapped in a towel and boxed up, buried among some old clothes and given off to charity. Thus, the object remained hidden in a box in the back of a Salvation Army thrift shop on a back road in Kingston Upon Hull.
And that's where our door opens. . .
"Not a bit is wasted and the best is yet to come. . ." -- remembered from a dream