“We’re going to kite it,” he said.
“Kite?”
“Yes, like the toys they sell in the mercantile. We will tow it with the coach, until it catches wind. Then, perhaps it will fly.”
My reservations grew with every passing hour as I saw the project coming together. It was bad enough that Tinker wanted to build a flying machine. The dangers there were obvious. Then I saw the thin, light frame, and I knew what would happen if the thing ever crashed. When I learned that the flying machine would travel without power, I felt like crying. I knew something bad was going to happen this time. I could feel it.
The day of our first flight was a cool, frosty morning. Tinkerman was dressed in his leather pants and jacket. He was padded with extra clothing beneath. His theory was that if he crashed, the additional layers would help absorb the impact. I could only shake my head at this thinking.
We carried the machine down to the field at sunrise, and by nine a.m. Tinker was ready to fly. I tried desperately to convince him that this was a mistake, but he refused to listen. “You just get me in the air,” he said. “I’ll take it from there.”
I obediently took my place at the driver’s seat and watched him with my head twisted around. Tinker crawled on top of the thing and strapped himself into position. When he gave me the signal, I held my breath and gunned the engine.
As soon as we started to move, the glider’s tail lifted into the air and it leveled out. Suddenly I could see Tinker’s face. He was wearing his leather goggles, the ones that he had been wearing on the day we met, and his eyes were hidden behind the dark glass.
The glider bounced along on its metal wheels, and it looked rather painful. Then it bounced into the air and, to my surprise, did not come down. The glider lifted into the sky. I could feel it tugging against the steamwagon. Tinker disengaged the rope, and flew free.
I engaged the brakes and sat there watching him for at least fifteen minutes. Tinker flew down to the end of the field, and then made a slow arc across the river and headed west towards where we had started. I spun slowly on the seat, my attention riveted on Tinker’s virgin flight.
He came back in my direction and then made another broad circle. He did this several times. As I watched, I noted that he seemed to lose altitude fastest over the river, but he quickly regained it when he flew out across the fields.
Eventually, he came in for a landing and I took the wagon to go meet him. He gradually lost altitude, until his wheels were just inches off the ground. Then he set down. To my horror, the wings snapped. The glider spun sideways and then flipped, turning over three full times before it finally landed in a wrecked heap.
Chapter 12
I sped across the field to the crash site and ran over to the debris. I located him off to the side, lying on his back, still strapped to a section of wing.
“Tinker! Tinker, can you hear me? Are you alive?” My heart thudded in my chest. I was terrified.
He raised his head and chuckled. “Did you see that flight?”
“I saw, Tinker. It almost got you killed.” I knelt down to help him get the straps off.
“Yes, but she flew, Breeze. Did you see? It was amazing. I could have stayed up there for hours. Until sunset, at least.”
“Yes, wonderful,” I said angrily. “Except that your glider is destroyed.”
He glanced around a the wreckage. “Ah, yes… slight miscalculation there. But I know how to fix it!”
I turned away and stomped angrily back towards the coach.
“Wait, Breeze. Wait!”
“What is it?”
“Umm. I don’t think I can walk. I think my leg’s broken.”
The doctor in town took a look at Tinker’s leg and proclaimed that it had, in fact, been broken. Just below his hip. Oddly, the treatment for this involved pulling it straight, which appeared to be ungodly painful, and then securing the leg to a long brace.
He gave me explicit instructions about keeping the leg straight, and not allowing Tinker to walk on it. I promised to do all I could, though I knew that the instructions wouldn’t sit well with Tinker. He was not the sort of man to spend a dozen weeks lying around the house.
The doctor also gave us a small bottle of medicine. A teaspoon of it he said would kill Tinker’s pain. Tinker took a swig of it on the way home, and by the time we arrived, he was in a stupor. I didn’t have the strength to carry him up to the loft, so I tucked him into my bed and I slept in his.
As I drifted to sleep, it occurred to me that we had somehow switched roles. For months now Tinker had been looking out for me and protecting me. Now, strangely, I found myself acting as the responsible party. How had that happened? I was too exhausted to give it much thought. I told myself that in the morning everything would be back to normal, and went to sleep.
It must have been three a.m. when Tinker’s scream woke me from a dead sleep. I flew down the ladder and found him on the floor next to my bed. Apparently he had been tossing and turning, and managed to knock himself out of bed. I rushed to his side. “Shh, calm down. Take a deep breath, Tinker. What happened?”
He was sweating and his breath came in gasps. “My leg is on fire,” he said. “Something’s wrong.” He clenched his teeth as another spasm of pain racked his body, and a loud cry escaped from his lips. I put my hand on his forehead. He was burning up.
“You have a fever,” I said. “We’ve got to get you back into bed. Can you help me?”
He nodded, and I grabbed him by the shoulders. I had him halfway up before I realized it may have been a mistake. The pain was killing him. Unfortunately, by that time it was too late. I heaved again, and he pushed just enough to get his torso back up.
Slowly and delicately I lifted the broken leg back into place. He howled as the brace that should have been holding it straight came loose. “I’m going to get your medicine,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”
I returned a moment later with the bottle, and poured some of the foul smelling liquid down his throat. Tinker’s cries died away immediately, and he fell to moaning and panting while I sat there. I put a cool rag over his forehead.
“Tinker, I wish I knew what to do,” I said. “I wish I knew how to fix you.”
“Just do it,” he mumbled incoherently. I looked at him sideways.
“Just do what?”
His only response was a grunt. I thought about it, wondering what he’d meant. Was he talking about what I’d done with the sleigh? Was that what he wanted from me? To reach into his body with my mind, and try to mend him? I wasn’t even sure such a thing was possible. Still, it seemed worth a try. I would have done anything to relieve his pain.
I placed my hands on Tinker’s thigh and closed my eyes. Instantly I heard his heartbeat, and felt the rhythmic pulse of his blood. I expanded my awareness and felt rather than saw the tiny sparks of electricity shooting through his body. I saw the bones and the way the skeletal system lined up with the internal organs and the muscles. My mind drew the connections between these different systems and I saw how they worked together as one. There was magic there, I realized. More magic than I had ever seen or imagined.
I pulled my attention down to Tinker’s leg, and immediately discerned the problem. The bone had not only been separated, but fine fragments were now floating freely inside his body. I saw the gush of uncontained blood and fluids, and knew that this had already started to become infected. I started by directing my thoughts towards the bone.
I pulled with my hands, separating the bone and getting it into a proper alignment. Then I mentally urged the tiny fragments to dissolve. I watched them liquify, and guided Tinker’s body to absorb the calcium and other minerals, and then to utilize these materials in rebuilding the bone. I didn’t know of course that this was calcium, I simply felt what it was, and how it could be used.
I caused the bone to move and stretch in some places, just enough to build a solid bridge across the break, so that I could remove the pressure from my hands. Once this was done, I was able
to give my full concentration to the healing process.
Tinker’s body knew what to do for the most part. It was up to me to urge it forward, to increase the speed of healing. During this process, I had to look to other sources for building supplies. The body needed energy, and it needed the building blocks of bone and sinew. I borrowed sparingly from the rest of his body, leaving the instructions that these areas should be rebuilt as soon as Tinker started ingesting food again.
The bone was not complete at the end of the process, but it was serviceable, and I knew it would be fully healed within a few weeks. Tinker still had the immediate issue of an infection, but I had removed the initial cause of the problem. It was now up to his body to clear the toxins from his bloodstream. There was nothing more that I could do.
Chapter 13
Tinker wasn’t quite his old self the next morning, but he was a far sight better than the previous night. He ate a full plate for breakfast. Then he asked for another, and he drank nearly a full pot of tea. I could tell that his body was working hard to replenish the resources I’d used in repairing his bone. I was concerned for him, and I desperately wanted to check the status of those repairs, but I was uncertain as to how to broach the subject.
What I had done to Tinker was an extremely personal thing. I knew that he was an open-minded and sensible man, but I wasn’t sure if I had crossed a line. Using magic to help build a machine is rather different than using it to go inside someone’s body. Especially since I didn’t have Tinker’s permission. Not in so many words, anyway. His unconscious babbling certainly didn’t grant me the right to do what I’d done.
I eventually determined that the best course was one of silence. If he noted what I had done, or asked about it, then we would discuss it. If not, then there was no point in bringing it up. This didn’t do anything to ease my nagging concern about the healing process, but I forced myself to believe that the healing would continue naturally, without further intervention. If I was wrong, I hoped I would see signs and be able to correct the problems before it was too late.
I managed to keep Tinker in bed for that first day, but thereafter he would have none of it. “I’m not going to lie around like an invalid!” he said. “Better to crawl into a cave and die than to live like that. Help me up or get out of my way, woman!”
It was a rare tone for Tinker, this condescending masculine attitude. I knew that it meant he was compensating for his fear and sense of inadequacy. He felt that his injury made him less of a man, that his need to rely on someone made him appear weak.
This realization shed new light on Tinker’s personality and in a way, on my father’s as well. Both men were proudly independent, and their lifestyles reflected their masculinity. They lived in remote areas where they wouldn’t be bothered with the trivialities of “civilized folk.” They ignored the inherent dangers that came with such a choice. It was important to them to be free of those societal constraints.
Strangely, I knew exactly how they felt. I would have hated to have someone watching and inspecting everything I did. I was more like them than I had ever realized.
I took this study to heart, and I gave Tinker all the space he wanted. I helped him get around once he was out of bed, until he built himself a pair of crutches. Then he was mostly on his own. I never strayed far enough that I wouldn’t hear if he cried out, or needed me to fetch something from some awkward place, but beyond that I let him have his privacy.
Meanwhile, I set out to get the yard organized. I had to do something to keep my mind from the fact that school was just days away. The yard seemed like an appropriate task. It had been on my mind for months, and finally I felt ready to take it on.
The piles shrank almost magically as I found proper places for the massive amounts of junk. The wood went behind the barn into carefully organized stacks. The metals went on the sides of the barn, steel and iron on the south side, brass and copper on the north.
I used some of the wood to build shelves on the outside walls, and then I moved the barrels, buckets, and other assorted containers into their respective areas. By the end of the week, the yard was starting to actually look like a yard. There were only a few spots of green here and there, but it was a start.
Saturday morning, while I was working outside, I caught a whisper on the breeze. It was the trees, and they warned of an approaching carriage. I found Tinker in the barn, and warned him that company was approaching. He left me there, and I stole a peek at his designs. He was still working on the glider.
I saw three different versions, all of which looked like vast improvements over the original. Their wings were broader and sturdier, their frames longer and more refined. The steering controls were entirely redesigned, using a wire system that actually controlled aileron flaps at the back of the wings. And on one of them, attached to the front, I saw a fan.
There was no explanation as to how Tinker planned on powering this new glider, but the direction in which he was headed was clear. The next version was to be powered.
I heard voices outside, and pulled myself away from the workbench to go peer through the cracks in the barn doors. It was Analyn, and she had packages! I ran outside, and she met me with a smile.
“Ah, just the young lady I was looking for!” she said. “Tinker, we’ll need some privacy so she can try these things on.”
Tinker nodded. “If you need me, I’ll be in the barn.”
The afternoon flew by. As Analyn dressed me up in my new clothes, she taught me about the customs of human women. I learned about hairstyles and perfumes, and about manners and social status. She was very concerned that I should use all the proper mannerisms of a young human girl.
“This is most important,” she said. “You are an attractive enough girl, but you have the look of your mother’s people. You must give no one reason to doubt that you are who you say you are.”
“I understand,” I said.
“Good. Remember, the children in our school have known each other for all their lives. You will already be a stranger to them. Therefore you must be just like them, in every way. The sooner they accept you, the better off we are.”
“I’ll do my best,” I promised.
“I know you will. You’re a smart child.”
Analyn left that afternoon with a stern reminder that school would begin at eight a.m. sharp, Monday morning. I was useless for the rest of the weekend. I was a nervous wreck. My heart soared with hopes and fantasies, but my mind was full of uncertainty and fear.
I had wanted this so badly for so long. It wasn’t until now that I began to think about all the things that could potentially go wrong. Ironically, it was Tinker that calmed this fear in me.
I was pacing across the front yard Sunday afternoon. I had gone out there with the intent of clearing my mind with some good, hard work. Instead I ended up wandering around the yard all morning with my head in a daze.
“Stop worrying,” he said.
I halted mid-step. I hadn’t even seen him watching me. “I can’t,” I said. “What if they find out? What if I do or say something wrong?”
“What if the moon falls out of the sky?” he said. “There are millions of things that could go wrong every day, from the time we get up in the morning to the time we hit the pillow at night. We can’t live our lives worrying about what-ifs. We have to focus on doing the best we can, and making the most of what we’ve got.”
I knew the truth of his words, but my stomach was a jumble of knots and I would not be calmed so easily. “I’m going to screw things up,” I said. “I just know it.”
He took my hand and we started walking along the creek. “Yes, there’s a chance that will happen. I won’t lie. We do our best to avoid mistakes but they happen, and then we fix them. Take my glider, for example. It didn’t work out well the first time…”
“Didn’t work out well? It almost killed you!”
“Exactly. But I survived. And now I can perfect it. I can deal with the flaws in the original design, and
make it better.”
I couldn’t mention the fact that he might have died if I hadn’t intervened. But that didn’t matter. I knew what he meant, and I understood the emotion behind his argument. I decided to change the subject.
“I saw your designs,” I said. “Did you figure out how to put an engine on the glider?”
“Unfortunately, no. I’m going to have to come up with some new kind of power. The engine is too cumbersome. Even if I could make it work without the water tank and burner, it still might be too heavy. I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out what else I can do.”
I thought it over. “I don’t know enough about your inventions,” I said. “I know how the steam engine works, but that’s no help… what about the light in the kitchen? How does that work?”
“The water wheel turns a magnet inside a coil of copper wire. It creates electricity. It’s like a sort of harnessed lightning. There’s no way we could make use of that.”
“What about your clocks?” I said. “What makes them keep working?”
“They have to be wound. They don’t have a power source, they merely store power… by God, you’ve done it!”
We stopped in our tracks. “What did I do?”
“You solved the problem! The glider doesn’t need an engine. It needs a spring, and a gearbox! Don’t you see? The gearbox controls the spring, only releasing a bit of the energy at a time. What we need is a powerful spring. Something larger than anything I’ve made before. It’s going to require a lot of steel.”
I could see him disappearing into that place in his mind. I didn’t understand half of what he was saying, but that didn’t matter. Tinker was already designing the thing. At times like that, it was always best just to stay out of his way.
He mumbled for a few more minutes about tension and carbon content, and then he went wandering towards the barn. I settled down on a rock next to the creek, lost in my own thoughts. Tinker’s problem had been solved. Mine couldn’t be solved. All I could do was wait and see what happened in the morning.
The Tinkerer's Daughter Page 6