Chapter Nine
Bub suggested that I call Julie to see if she wanted to stop by. That was a first for him, but it was a good idea. My initial thought for creating armor was Anezka, but she was off with Gunther. And besides, she was batshit crazy. Julie was out working one of the new farms she’d picked up since she’d gone back full-time.
I asked if she’d like to stop by Black Briar and do some work with me. I told her I wanted to practice some armor skills, which I knew wasn’t her strong suit, but she knew more about smithing than I did. Besides, I just enjoyed her company. She agreed to stop by on her way back from Marysville.
I took a solid ten minutes to stretch and then jogged around the outbuildings to work up a little cardio. I take all this very seriously. I didn’t want to let any failings of my body make for a dangerous situation. Smithing was not for the faint of heart, nor the sore of limb.
Julie rolled in thirty minutes later to the dulcet tones of my two-pound hammer striking steel. I was working a short sword—a little something to remind the body and mind how we were going to play together this afternoon. It was glorious.
We didn’t have a coal forge at Black Briar, but the propane forge was pretty slick. Compact and very focused—it allowed for a wide range of temperatures without consuming a lot of propane. I was getting to like it, though for the real important work, I wanted to go back to coal. But propane is what we had, and I needed to learn to adapt. I set aside the partially finished sword and turned to the real reason we’d come out this afternoon: armor. Real, honest to goodness plate armor. I was so excited I could hardly stand it. Even Bub grew giddy at my eagerness.
Nothing like difficult and complex work to nip that in the bud. Julie spent the majority of the afternoon trying and failing to help me understand the intricacies of forging armor. We didn’t really have the capacity to make a full set of plate mail with the propane forge, but we could create smaller pieces like pauldrons and vambraces. Everything about this form of creation was new to me. Bub knew armor better than both Julie and I combined, which kept us from killing each other. Of course, if I’d been working with Anezka, who had experience with armor, at one point or another one of us would have stormed out of the forge, swearing at the top of our lungs and accusing the other of questionable parentage.
Julie and I did not work that way.
When you’re a maker, you see the world in a very specific way. When you run up against something beyond your current skill set, it goes beyond frustrating. I had the ability and the skill to reforge a broken blade so well that it was once more imbued with the magical powers of its initial creation. That had to stand for something. Not like the metal I was working gave a crap about that, or my ego. I wanted to blame the whole disheartening experience on low blood sugar.
I knew better. Around two in the afternoon I lashed out in a towering rage and flung a ruined spaulder across the room.
Bub and Julie exchanged a knowing glance. I hate it when I can see that I’m acting like a petulant child but have no ability to stop myself from acting out. My brain goes on autopilot and things roll out of my mouth which would not please my mother. Julie got up, walked to the door, and announced that she was going to take a walk before she took a page out of Anezka’s book and decided to kick my ass.
That’s when I knew I’d crossed a line. Julie Hendrickson was my blacksmith master, and she did not brook any of my shenanigans. I’ve heard her say it so many times it echoed in my head.
Bub sniggered, and I winced. I deserved that.
I dunked my sweaty head in the water barrel. When I emerged, I accepted a towel from Bub, which I dashed over my head and traded him that sodden mass for a broom. He knew me so well. Time for me to sweep the forge. That always helped calm me down. The little guy did have my best interest at heart. I gave him a wan smile and tried not to pout.
Julie has a way of redirecting my passions into more constructive areas when I don’t have my head so firmly lodged up my ass. Usually she can make it where I learn a valuable lesson and come out on the other side of a predicament calmer and wiser for the mess. Unfortunately, I’d crossed a line even her normal well of patience could not manage. Instead, Katie came out to the smithy to see what all the swearing had been about. I think she had a good enough idea.
The way she fell into my arms told me she was out-of-sorts.
“What’s up, babe?”
She shrugged against me and kissed the side of my mouth. “Why are you dripping?” She took a step back, saw the broom, glanced around the smithy, taking in Bub’s sheepish smile, and the twisted hulk of metal that should have been something beautiful. “I see.”
I tried to smile at her, but I could feel the blush of embarrassment creeping over my chest, up my neck, along the sides of my face, and into my hairline. She had this look, that kindergarten teacher look that made you ashamed of whatever it was you’d done wrong. I hated when she gave me that look.
It was also a very confusing look, since she was so damned sexy. I had to squeeze my eyes shut and breathe slowly. Anger is fire, passion is fire. My runes tickled with the reverberations of those passions.
“Tell you what,” Katie suggested, taking the towel from Bub and wiping the side of my neck. “Why don’t you and Bub see what you can do on your own. You have a good rapport. I’ll go back in the house and keep Julie distracted for a while.”
I started to tell her how wise she was, when I noticed she’d put on her most innocent face, which alerted me right away. She was up to something.
I shrugged and said okay. Let her have her secrets. Better than me making a bigger ass out of myself with Julie. As Katie sauntered back to the house, I caught a glance from Bub that made me think maybe he was in on the plot. I have no idea what she and Katie could possibly have to talk about. Definitely nothing about a wedding.
Did I mention a wedding? I wasn’t nervous. Not one little iota.
For the next hour, I went back to basics, going over the shaping techniques Anezka had shown me previously. Bub had a way of highlighting things that didn’t raise my hackles. Anezka always exuded a level of chaos that kept me on edge. She was crazy talented, and I knew I could learn things from her. Just thinking of her and her teaching methods had me on edge. So, I abandoned them.
That took a monumental effort, let me tell you. Bub helped. I was always surprised how much he’d changed when I took possession of the amulet that tied him to this plane. With Anezka he was erratic and violent. With me, he had become thoughtful and kind. Not docile, by any means. I wondered how much of that had to do with Jai Li’s influence.
Without my erratic energy bouncing off the walls of the smithy, things went much smoother Bub was enjoying himself and before we were done, I’d made a small vambrace that wouldn’t make your average warrior weep.
While Bub and I were celebrating with tall glasses of water—he ate his—Julie came back out of the house. She examined the vambrace and declared it a fine bit of craftsmanship. I beamed. Her praise was hard won and always heartfelt. I was feeling pretty good about myself. Then she launched right in with her patented lecture on personal responsibility and playing well with others. It chafed, but she was right. Then she walked around and inspected the shop, giving me some suggestions on improvements and showing me how I could shuffle things around enough to put in a coal burning forge.
“That way you can really work some armor,” she said with a smile. “I know you’re frustrated, but this is how you always are. Remember how you were with that first set of andirons I had you make?”
I winced. They were a disaster, and I was sure Julie was going to fire me at the time.
“You had me spend a week making shoes and sweeping floors.”
She laughed. “Is that how you remember it?”
I shrugged, feeling churlish. “There were some other things in there, I guess.” I smiled at her. “You lectured me a lot.”
She clapped me on the shoulders and laughed louder. “Damn it, Beauhall. You have the most convenient memory. I spent half a dozen sessions after work hours helping you with your technique. You don’t remember all those late nights with bad Chinese takeout and how sore your arms were?”
I was sore a lot that first year. And bad Chinese takeout wasn’t exactly a rarity in my life. “What did we talk about?”
She patted me on my cheek and stepped back, crossing her arms. “Your da and how you’d never find anybody to love.”
I grew hot all of a sudden. I think I remembered this. Oh, dear lord. “Was there music?” Please say no.
She laughed again, great bellyfuls. “Oh, Sarah. You played some mix tape you’d come up with in college. All sappy love songs.”
My eyes widened. I remembered. “Oh, dear lord, all the Journey?” And then I laughed. That had been a hard time for me. It was right before I met Katie, as a matter of fact. “Man, I was so bound up with fear then.”
“Fear and shame.” She looked at me square, not judging, not laughing then. Just my old boss and mentor. “I’m proud of how far you’ve come.”
I stepped forward and hugged her, letting the truth of it wash over me. I had no reason to hold back, no reason to worry about judgment or scorn. I was safe here and making mistakes was part of learning. I’d just forgotten that with all the dragons and necromancers lately. Those were places where mistakes got you or your friends killed. I had to learn to separate the two.
After Julie left for home, Bub and I cleaned up, putting the tools away and generally making the place shipshape. It was always more work to clean up and get ready for a day’s work when you came into a cluttered space. Better to leave the place ready for next time. Besides, this wasn’t really my smithy. Others had the opportunity to use it. It was just good manners.
Just as I was cutting out the lights, Skella called and asked if she could come over. I told her Bub and I were at Black Briar and she popped over through the mirror we had custom built for the smithy. She was looking pretty haggard, like she’d been crying.
She said she had to get away. Another kid up at Western had killed himself the night before—wasn’t even on the news yet. Sprocket had told her that these things went in waves: once one kid broke the taboo, sometimes others followed.
She said this young man named Ian had been well-liked, that Sprocket and Dante were pretty upset. She thought maybe I could talk to them, give them one of my pep talks. She was afraid they may quit the movie.
I didn’t even realize I could give a pep talk. Usually I figured I just ended up pissing people off. But I promised her I’d do what I could. She said she’d set something up for the next day. They’d need a chance to get everyone gathered up.
Not really sure what I’d just signed up for, but I liked that Skella thought I could help.
Jai Li’s laughing screech greeted us as we left the smithy. She and the troll twins, Frick and Frack, scampered across the yard and grabbed Bub—a gale of youthful exuberance and mirth echoing across the yard. Bub cast me a sheepish grin, waiting for my approval.
I smiled and waved him on. He scampered after the others and I watched them, delighted in their joy. I couldn’t tell if they played tag, hide-and-seek, or some game Bub had created called tickle tag, which Jai Li loved. It was bizarre to see Bub acting like such a little kid after the conversation we’d all had earlier about killing our enemies to protect hearth and home.