Sarah’s life story was interrupted by the waitress bringing their food.
After dinner Raven ordered both of them a slice of boysenberry pie for dessert and picked up the conversation. “Where does your dad live now?”
Sarah lowered her eyes, “He passed away two years ago.”
Raven reached over and gave her hand a friendly squeeze. “Sorry for your loss. The way you talk about him, I can tell you cared a great deal for each other.”
The blonde smiled her thanks as the waitress brought out their dessert and ticket. When they finished, Raven grabbed the check. Sarah complained that since Raven was the guest in town, she should pay. Acting like she hadn’t heard, Raven handed the waitress fifty gullions, more than double the cost of the meal. The waitress and Sarah blinked at the generosity.
“I want to see your shop, Sarah. Why don’t we run over there real quick?”
As they reached the coat rack, Sarah pulled hers on but noticed Raven didn’t have one. “Didn’t you wear a jacket? The storm is pretty bad.”
Raven gave an impish grin, said they had a lot to talk about, and ducked into the howling maelstrom.
Once outside, Raven went straight to a car where a man was holding open the back door. Ferocious winds tugged at her jacket and beads of water ran down Sarah’s face in streams as she stood staring in shock. Cars weren’t really uncommon in Vestavia but only the upper class could afford them.
“You coming or not?” A flash of lightening and tremendous crash of thunder helped make the decision for her, but Sarah figured this was part of what they needed to talk about and climbed in.
After a short ride, with Sarah doing her best not to puddle on the leather seats, they pulled to a stop in front of a weather beaten building. Even through the driving rain it was obvious the shop had seen better days. Raven opened her door and both women dashed up the steps.
Sarah walked into the room, the only light coming from a small lamp in the corner. She bent down and began fussing with the fireplace, water dripping from her hair onto the matches. After a few sparking failures she muttered about it not being all that cold.
“Stand back a little bit,” Raven told Sarah, “I think I can help.”
Sarah backed away and turned to her guest, who was calmly holding her left hand out, palm up and pointing towards the fireplace. Raven flicked something invisible.
The action was simple. The effect on both Sarah and the previously dark fireplace was anything but. With a loud pop, a blaze set to dancing merrily on the wood. Sarah screeched and tumbled over a stack of iron rods she forgot to put up earlier.
“You’re a witch!” She stammered, pulling herself hastily to her feet, keeping her eyes firmly fixed on Raven, who was bent nearly double, guffawing as if she’d just heard the world’s funniest joke.
Raven wiped a tear from her eye as Sarah stood and brushed the iron dust from her jeans. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” The now slightly disheveled girl asked.
“Cause you didn’t ask.”
Since she couldn’t argue that, Sarah sat down on a stool and motioned for Raven to do the same. “You said earlier we had a lot to talk about. I’m guessing that was part of it?” She studied the alabaster skinned woman in the flickering light as she spoke. For some reason the fire reflecting in Raven’s eyes gave Sarah a sense of unease. The emeralds were gone, washed away in liquid crimson. Something in a fairy tale her mother had once told her.
“First off my sisters are witches.” Raven turned from the fire and her eyes sparkled again. The disquiet flittered from Sarah’s mind like a butterfly’s breathe on a spring morning. “I’m a sorceress.”
“What’s the difference?”
Figuring it would be easier to show than to explain, Raven drew her sword and laid it on two nearby anvils, each supporting one end. “If you can break this sword, I’ll give you 500 hundred gullions.”
Sensing easy money, Sarah grabbed a nearby hammer and swung. Metal met metal with a loud clang and sparks flew from the clash. The sword clattered to the floor but remained remarkably undamaged. Her face a mask of bewilderment, Sarah turned to Raven. The sorceress picked up the sword and walked closer to the fire.
“Look at this.” Raven gently brushed her hand over the metal. Sarah stared in amazement as what she thought were scratches moved as if alive over the metal, grouping together in seemingly random patterns.
“Runes.” She whispered as the markings stopped. There were tales of such things but they were forbidden years ago.
Raven nodded. “I couldn’t let you see them earlier because there were ten members of the Protectorate in that bar. You would have been arrested on the spot just for being there with me. You know that, right?”
“Because of the restrictions on magic.” It was more statement than question.
Raven sheathed her sword. “A witch and sorceress can both cast spells, which you saw me do with the fire place. A sorceress, however, can also inscribe runes onto objects, endowing them with magical properties. This sword will never break; never lose its edge unless it is hit by another object of greater magical power. The amount of magic power given by runes is directly attributed to the magic power of the sorceress.”
“So it can cut through anything?” Sarah was stunned that such a powerful weapon was here, in her shop.
A laugh that tinkled like crystal answered, “You’ve been reading too many bed time stories. This sword will cut through anything I’m strong enough to make it. I could hit this,” she popped the nearest anvil with her hand, “a hundred times and I’d be lucky to even nick it. There are some runes that will augment a person’s abilities but those are extremely rare and enormously difficult to inscribe.”
Sarah sensed Raven was close to going off on a lecture about the magical properties of such and such so she quickly changed the subject. “You said your sisters were witches. I don’t know anything about your family.”
The redhead pirouetted once for no reason Sarah could discern. “I have three sisters. Liz is the oldest; Bekah is second, then me, and then Mandy. Those three are full blood sisters; I’m the half sister by our father.”
Sarah looked confused and Raven tried to work out the family tree as best she could, “I don’t know the whole story but after my mother passed away, I was sent to live with my father and his family but he died shortly before I arrived. His wife was still pregnant with Mandy but she found it in her heart to give this little orphan a home. I never have understood why, but I’m real happy she did.”
Sarah reached out and put her hand on top of Raven’s, asking why she referred to her step-mother as, “his wife” instead of mom.
Raven shrugged. “She’s not my mother. We’re not related by blood.”
Seeing the unspoken questions, Raven continued her family history, “I’ve never been forced to do menial chores. My sisters and I got the same amount of presents for birthdays. We all went to the same school and had the same advantages. We even got punished exactly alike. I’ve never been treated like anything other than her daughter. It’s simply that we are not related.”
Raven walked to a window staring outside as the constant flashes of lightening illuminated pale skin, lending her an almost ethereal quality. Thunder growled close by as Sarah followed, stopping a few paces behind.
“There’s something else, isn’t there. Something you’re not saying?”
The grin never dropped as Raven drew a shape in the window’s condensation. “Here’s a star, Sarah. Sorry it’s not gold but you’ve earned one.” Then she shrugged her shoulders. “She’s always been a bit standoffish with me, not really quick with the hugs and kisses when I got a boo-boo growing up. I can’t really blame her, since her husband, my father, cheated on her with my mother. The fact she even let me stay with them shows what a truly kind hearted person she is. It’s just that recently there seems to be a wall between us, like she doesn’t trust me or something.”
The redhead looked at a clock on the wall, “I’ve
been talking for over an hour and we haven’t even discussed our business plans.”
Sarah smiled at her new friend and asked what they should talk about first. Raven started right up. “Was this your father’s smithy?”
“No. That was taken and sold at auction after he passed away to pay for back taxes. I rent this place and the equipment.” Sarah didn’t like having to rent but there was no other choice.
Raven tapped her front teeth with her thumbnail, trying to think of how best to phrase the next question. “Sarah,” she began, still searching for the right words, “how would you feel about moving to Valentria?”
Sarah just stared with open mouth at the woman who had just asked her to give up everything she had worked for and move to a different duchy over 500 miles away. “That’s a bit sudden, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Why would I want to move to Valentria anyway?”
“A better shop for one.”
The blacksmith narrowed her eyes suspiciously, “What do you mean a better shop?”
Raven giggled, “Thought that would get your attention. You see, I recently purchased a large shop intending to go into business for myself. However, and here’s where a blacksmith comes in, the front is a store while the back is a rather large smithy with all the latest tools and instruments. I need someone to take advantage of it.”
It was difficult to resist the lure of her own shop but discretion reared its head. “So I would be renting the space from you, right?” Sarah couldn’t see the benefit of trading one rented shop for another.
“Absolutely not, I got a loan to pay for this place. If we were to work together, we’d pay the loan back and for the materials out of the profits. Then split the rest right down the middle. A fifty-fifty partnership.”
Her own shop! Sarah could hardly believe this was being offered to her by someone she met just a few hours ago. Still, it was probably too good to be true. “How do I know this isn’t a scam?” Doubt, fueled by years of real life, crept into her voice.
Raven nodded again and pulled out five hundred gullions, handing the bills to Sarah.
“Here’s what I’ll do.” Sarah’s mind was abuzz with a million questions as she blankly took the stack of bills, “Think about it tonight. Tomorrow I’ll come by and you tell me if you want to go look at the shop. If you do, we’ll head to Valentria and take a gander. I’ll buy you a return ticket home if you decide you don’t like it. Consider the money payment for the work you’d miss because of the trip.”
Fondling the money in a daze, Sarah barely heard herself asking, “What if I’m just not here tomorrow? What if I deposit this and hide for a few days?”
Raven cocked her head to the right and scrunched her eye-brows together. “How can I ask you to trust me if I don’t trust you? You’re sort of weird you know.”
Focusing on the business at hand, and not the small fortune in her pocket, Sarah rubbed her chin thoughtfully, “I think I have your plan figured out. You’re going to, ‘inscribe’ I believe you called it, the weapons and armor I make then sell them, right?”
“Exactly my plan.”
Sarah wasn’t done yet. “There are a few things I would like to know more about.”
With a flash of pearly teeth, Raven said she was an open book.
“First off, could you not simply buy the weapons you want to inscribe? That is probably a lot easier than having a partner.” Sarah sat up straighter on her stool and crossed her arms.
“Probably would be a tad easier to do it that way, I suppose.” Raven agreed while she sat up and crossed her arms, mocking Sarah in a friendly way. “I could have already opened the store if I’d gone that route. Thing is, I don’t like having to rely on strangers to help my money supply. Plus I’d like to be able to do special orders and give customers an idea of when they would be ready.”
“Second question, and the most important, how are we going to do this without the Protectorate shutting us down?”
Raven snorted loudly. “Valentria is not, and will not be, under the boot heel of the Protectorate. Our duchy is free to do as it wishes.”
Sarah mulled this last bit of information over for a minute before standing up. Then she nodded to her guest. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.”
The two shook hands and Raven promised, “I’ll come by tomorrow to speak with you again.”
After seeing Raven out, Sarah locked the door with a bemused smile. Her own shop, she thought as she started getting ready for bed. Standing alone in the darkness, the girl studied her situation. This ramshackle building was all she could afford now, and it served as both a workshop and an apartment. A small shower and bedroom were located just off of the shop but gaps in the wood made sleeping there impossible. She pulled her roll away cot out from beneath a shelf in the back. After it was opened in front of the crackling fire Sarah lay down to think over the day’s events.
She hadn’t even dared to dream of something like her own private shop, with her own tools. Money was very hard to come by these days and she wasn’t really sure how she planned to buy groceries this week if Raven hadn’t been so quick with the check. Now here was someone offering her everything she couldn’t even think about hoping for, someone with enough money to pay her 500 gullions just to consider going into business. That would pay the rent for two months and give her a little cash to buy some much needed supplies. But could she move was the question. Could she trust this strange redhead who had popped up like some mystical genie, granting wishes Sarah never thought to ask for?
She flipped her pillow over to fluff it and pulled the quilt tighter to ward off the night’s chill the fire was just keeping at bay. With a nod, she decided that she should at least go and look at the place since there was nothing to lose. Besides, her father would want her to be successful.
All of these thoughts and emotions kept Sarah Petty awake until the small hours of the morning. When she finally drifted off to sleep, it was with a smile.
CHAPTER 2: A GAMBLE
The sweltering heat hung over the city like a damp blanket as Raven walked up to the smithy. Shielding her eyes from the glare of the mid-morning sun, the redhead looked into the shadows of the stall adjacent to the building and spotted Sarah, hard at work shoeing a horse. Her mind was a hornet’s nest of problems, but the most pressing was if Sarah had decided to join her in opening a new shop back in Valentria. The second most pressing was the message she had received from her ever annoying step-mother this morning. This was a simple business trip and Elspeth knew it. Cursing slightly under her breath, she forced a friendly smile and hailed Sarah, who turned, raising her hand in greeting.
“Good morning, Raven.” Sarah sat down the hammer she was using and swiped a grimy arm across her forehead. Despite the calendar promising it was early spring, the humidity from last night’s storm made sure she worked up a sweat. Blonde hair clung to her cheeks which were already dirty from the morning’s labor. She decided last night that she was going to take a chance on going into business with Raven but a trip to her landlord had dashed that dream.
“Well, not yet it isn’t but I hope you can change that. You think any about my offer?”
Sarah wiped her hands on the leather apron she wore wrapped around her waist, more out of habit than necessity. Raven propped her elbows on the top bar of the stall and looked hopeful.
This is going to be harder than I thought, Sarah sighed to herself. She really wanted to leave, to get away from this city and possibly start making some real money doing what she enjoyed. Mr. Jackson, the man who owned the building she rented, pointed out the fine print in their contract which said if she left before the lease was up, she would be subject to deadbeat laws. She tried everything she could think of, even offering to pay for the next two months rent out of the money Raven gave her last night, but the lecherous old man was intent on keeping her around for only one reason. He was trying to force her to marry his son, an annoying little shrimp who had been pestering he
r since their school days.
“I’m sorry Raven, but my landlord won’t let me out of the lease. I am thankful that you thought enough of my work to offer me the chance but there is just no way I can join you right now.” Sarah fished the money out of her right pocket and insisted on giving it back. Raven refused, calmly stepping an arms length from the stall.
Just the landlord, Raven chuckled to herself happily. She needed someone to go to the ball with her tonight and she liked talking to Sarah. Plus she could work out some of the aggression she’d built up since her step-mother’s message. “If the landlord is the only problem, why didn’t you just offer him that money to pay off the rest of the rent?”
“I tried that. He said he would have me thrown if jail if I left before the lease was up. Now please Rave…” The last word died as she spoke and Sarah swore the temperature fell.
“Why would he be able to do that?” Raven’s cheerful demeanor dropped for half a second.
It took a concentrated effort on Sarah’s part to suppress a small shudder. “It was written into the contract. I didn’t have a whole lot of choice in where I sat up shop.”
The constant smile instantly brightened Raven’s face, and Sarah welcomed it with a silent word of thanks. She hadn’t known this weird girl very long but somehow got the impression that situations degraded quickly when the smiling stopped.
“Let’s make a wager.” The woman in purple laughed.
Struck speechless, Sarah considered things for a moment and asked what the terms were. Raven smirked with a gleam in her eyes. At that moment Sarah learned a valuable lesson that would serve her well in the future; that mischievous grin was a lot more troublesome than no smiles at all.
“It’s really quite simple.” Raven still looked way to much like the cat that swallowed the canary for Sarah’s comfort. “If I can return here in thirty minutes with your contract annulled, you have to go to a party with me tonight.”
WINDOWS: A BROKEN FAIRY TALE Page 2