Keys of Heaven

by Adina Senft

“With what?”

  Eric followed him over to the wedging bench. “The thing about being a potter is that there’s always something that needs to be done. And that usually means wedging the clay before you can work on it.”

  “I don’t know what that means.” The boy’s avid gaze took in the bench, the block of clay covered in plastic, the cutting wire with its two wood handles.

  “It simply means whacking the air out of it. Caleb usually does it for me—he’s the boy from the next farm—but he’s with his granddad today.”

  With Eric looking on, he cut a piece and began to wedge it, hitting it over and over and leaning his weight into the job. He explained about the bubbles and how they had to be worked out of it, then gave him a fresh piece with both hands.

  Eric was tentative at first, then, when he saw that banging it on the bench wouldn’t hurt it, he really got into it. The kid was strong for his size—he could put almost as much pressure on the clay as Henry could himself.

  “You’re a natural at this.” Bang—thump!

  “That’s what Priscilla said”—Bang!—“this morning when we were”—Whack!—“making the beds.”

  “You helped her make the beds?”

  “Yeah. Never did it before. Justin said he wanted to, but I did it.”

  “Does Justin make a habit of doing a lot of talk and not so much action?” Whack!

  “He’d freak if he saw me.” Whump—flip—bang!

  Punctuated by the sounds of wedging, Eric began to talk, the way Henry remembered his female cousins talking as they did the dishes. There was something about repetitive shared labor that freed the mind—and the mouth.

  “I want to do art—pottery, maybe, or sculpture—but I can’t. At home, I mean. To practice stuff.”

  “Why not?”

  A sidelong glance. “Do you know what Justin would do?”

  “What, make fun of it? Consider the source. You’ll have to grow a thick skin sooner or later, Eric. When you show a piece, or even offer it for sale in a booth at a fair, people will feel free to give their opinions about it.”

  “I still couldn’t. He’d probably break anything I made and say it was an accident that happened while he was admiring it.”

  “Is he really that small?”

  “No. But he’s the oldest. He’s used to being the one who gets the attention.”

  “But you doing what you love doesn’t take away anything from him.”

  “He doesn’t have anything that he loves doing.”

  Henry got a picture of a black hole—those phenomena in space that sucked everything in their orbit into their own dense emptiness. “What about your folks? Wouldn’t they be happy that you were doing something you liked?”

  “All they care about is grades.”

  “That’s reasonable. Good grades are important.”

  “But I’m only in eighth grade. Nobody cares what middle-schoolers do.”

  An idea flashed into Henry’s head. “Art academy high schools might care.”

  “What?”

  The banging and thumping stopped as Henry marshaled his flash of an idea into sense. “You’re going to high school next year, aren’t you?”

  Eric nodded, and from the look in his eyes, he wasn’t looking forward to it much. Who would, when your elder brother was probably a senior in the same school?

  “What if you asked your parents if you could go to an art academy high school? Then you’d have lots of studio time, and you could keep your pieces there, not at home.”

  Eric stared at him. “Is that what you did?”

  “I got serious about pottery later, in college. But that was me. There’s no reason you couldn’t start now, if that’s what you want to do.”

  “I didn’t even know there were art high schools.”

  “Ginny has a computer upstairs in the library—that place with the couch outside your room. You might do some research, and then bring it up with your parents. I don’t know, but you might still have time to get in, and a—” He stopped. “Do you have a portfolio?”

  “N-No. Just some drawings. I keep them under the bed so Justin doesn’t find them. Manga, mostly. Comics. For fun.”

  “Nothing wrong with drawing. You saw my sketchbook—you’ll need that skill. But you’ll need a portfolio to show the admissions people you’re serious. And if you’re going for pottery or sculpture, that means a freestanding piece or two.”

  Despair flooded into Eric’s face. “But how can I do that?”

  “Summer classes?”

  “We’re supposed to go to California to my grandparents’ place in two weeks. Me and Justin. For a month.” His eyes filled with tears of frustration, and he banged down his third or fourth piece of wedged clay, leaving it in a lump on the bench as he turned away, fists clenched and shoulders hunched. “This is stupid. I wish I’d never said anything.”

  And then he bolted out of the workroom before Henry could say another word. A sound escaped the boy—a sob—a gasp—and in utter shame, he whacked the door open farther and fell through it.

  Henry stood frozen in place, cool, forgiving clay under his own hands, as the boy’s running footsteps crunched in the gravel—skidded—and then voices rose, one of them Deitsch.

  Wiping his hands on a rag, Henry hurried to the door to find two boys outside. Eric glared at Caleb, who was blocking him with the air of someone trying to prevent a jumper going off a bridge.

  “Get out of the way!” Eric wiped his nose, clearly desperate to make sure no one had seen him crying.

  “I’m not in your way. You looked like you hurt yourself on the door,” Caleb said reasonably. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing!”

  With an internal sigh, Henry resigned himself to not getting much more work done that day. “Eric, calm down and come back inside.”

  “I’ve gotta go.”

  “To what? Your folks won’t be back yet, and I could really use a hand with that forty pounds of clay that needs to be wedged. Caleb, I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “We got finished early. Who is this, Henry?”

  “This is Eric Parker, who’s staying at the Rose Arbor Inn with his family. He’s interested in becoming a sculptor or a potter. We were just discussing his options.”

  “Ja? ” Caleb looked as though he didn’t believe it. He swiped his straw hat off the ground where it had fallen, and jammed it on his head. “Does he know how to wedge clay?”

  “Yes.” Eric’s tone was sulky, but at least he wasn’t running.

  “Then why aren’t you doing it?”

  Henry said smoothly, “Come on. Let’s continue our discussion while we work.”

  A month ago, if someone had told him he’d be holding a pottery class for teenagers in his aunt’s barn, he’d have said they were crazy. But two months ago, if someone said he’d be in Willow Creek at all, he’d have said the same.

  The Amish would say it wasn’t craziness at all, but the hand of God at work. Henry was going to reserve judgment and simply take the day’s twists and turns as they came.

  This was quite a twist, in his opinion.

  He brought Caleb up to speed with blithe disregard for any sense of privacy Eric might have thought himself entitled to, as they banged the clay on the bench.

  “If you can’t make something at home, then you’ll have to make it here,” Caleb said at last. “Unless you know someone in your town with a barn like Henry’s, to make things in.”

  “No,” Eric said. “What do you mean, here?”

  “When did you say you were going home, Eric?” Henry asked.

  “Wednesday.”

  “Morning or afternoon?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What are you going to make?” Caleb asked him. He wrapped his piece of clay, set it on the worktable, and cut the next piece.

  “I can’t make anything. The closest I’ve gotten to clay is making a jewelry tray for my mom in second grade.”

  “I bet you’ve had
ideas, though,” Henry said. “Choose something simple, without too many additions like handles or lids. Go for shape rather than complexity.”

  Eric stopped wedging, his hands wrapped around the lump on the bench. “No way can I make a—a whatever, get it in the kiln, put that glaze stuff on it, and have something the day after tomorrow.”

  “Why not?” Caleb gazed at him.

  “Because it’s impossible, that’s why not!”

  “The only thing impossible is a portfolio piece that you don’t make,” Henry observed mildly. “At least get a start on something. You could make some sketches for something simple, and by Wednesday it could be at what we call the ‘leather hard’ stage. Then you’d need to do a bit of cleanup, and it would be ready to dry. Once that’s done, I could give it its first firing with the batter bowls I’ll have ready to go by then.”

  “What if my parents want to leave after breakfast?”

  “Then you stall them,” Caleb said. “But I guess breaking a piece of harness wouldn’t work for you, nix?”

  “Nix.” But Henry could see the gears grinding into motion in the boy’s mind. And once they got started, well oiled with hope, he would bet they wouldn’t be stopped.

  Green eyes met Henry’s gaze. “What about a vase? Can you teach me to do that?”

  Henry bobbed his head from side to side as he considered it. “No handles. Shape is all-important. But it takes skill to create that shape—and I’m not sure anyone could develop that skill in the space of an afternoon.”

  “Aren’t vases kind of ordinary?” Caleb wanted to know. “Isn’t this like a contest?”

  “Sort of.”

  “You should make something nobody else has.”

  “Like what?”

  “I dunno. You’re supposed to be the artist, not me.”

  To hide a smile, Henry rubbed his face on his shoulder as if he had an itch. Caleb’s honesty left a man nowhere to hide—even in his own mind.

  Eric banged his clay one last time and covered it next to the others. He straightened, and his gaze traveled around the barn, clearly seeking inspiration. Walls, beams, loft. Bench, stalls now empty of horses, wire enclosure that held crates instead of chickens. Lamps, green ware batter bowls, shelving, buckets of glaze.

  Lamps. Batter bowls.

  Henry’s eyebrows lifted as he saw the moment an idea kindled in the kid’s brain.

  “We went to Williamsburg last summer,” Eric said slowly. “They had these lanterns with candles in them, made out of metal with holes in it.”

  “Punched tin?” Henry asked.

  “Yeah.” He glanced around. “Do you have a piece of paper?”

  “Right here.” He handed the boy his sketchbook.

  Eric’s hand was sure, and in a moment he’d completed a sketch. “What about this? How hard would this be?”

  It looked something like a round butter dish, with a domed top and a flat bottom. But the top was cut out so that the light from the candle shone through.

  “This is doable.” Henry took the pen and added a sketch below it. “You’d flatten a piece of clay, trim it, and drape it over a shaper of some kind—a mixing bowl, for instance. Then you’d cut out your design with a knife and let it dry. The plate for the bottom is easy. You could get the hang of it in a day or two. The trimming will be tricky, though, with all these internal edges. To say nothing of the glazing, when you get to that point.”

  “He could dip it,” Caleb suggested. “Mammi dips fabric in dye when it isn’t the right color for her quilts.”

  “Good point. Eric?”

  “Is it—a good idea?” He looked from Henry to Caleb, as though inviting comment would net him criticism, or worse, laughter.

  “The tourists would like it,” Caleb said. “There’s nothing like that at the market.”

  “It’s straightforward, different, and useful,” Henry said. “I can’t see a committee turning it away out of hand.”

  “And we could get it started—enough to take with me—by Wednesday?” Caleb kept his gaze on Henry for confirmation.

  “You could get it started. But you can’t waste any time.” Henry handed him the clay he’d just wedged, and dug a rolling pin out of one of the boxes under the bench. “So far today you’ve learned to make a bed and wedge clay. Ever tried to roll a piece of clay like a piecrust?”

  Chapter 11

  The sun was barely up on Tuesday when Sarah pulled Dulcie to a halt in Jacob and Corinne’s yard. The air felt moist and quiet, the crunch of the wheels in the gravel louder than usual by contrast. Her in-laws’ horse and buggy had been lent to Zeke today, which Sarah expected. What she did not expect was only the one standing ready, the horse they usually took to church and on long errands quietly cropping the edges of the lawn.

  If Zeke and Fannie King planned to do a little matchmaking between Amanda Yoder and Fannie’s cousin Silas, they were going to have to do a better job than this.

  She got down, tied up Dulcie, and found Corinne and Fannie in the kitchen putting a lunch in the big cooler, which would ride in the back.

  “Isn’t Silas taking Amanda over to Ruth’s?” she asked in a low tone, in case Amanda was within earshot. “Why didn’t you tell me you needed another buggy? I could have brought over Simon’s courting buggy last night.”

  “I don’t know if she’d want to go all that way in an open one,” Fannie King said. “It looks like it might rain later.”

  “It has a cover, and it’s nearly new. It’s very comfortable.”

  “I don’t know that Amanda would be willing to make such a show, Sarah.” Corinne screwed the lid on a thermos of lemonade and stowed it in the cooler. “It’s better that she goes with Zeke and Fannie.”

  “The two of them scrunched into the back of the family buggy? Silas won’t get much of a view of the country, will he?”

  Fannie chuckled. “I don’t know as it’s the countryside he’s looking at. No, Silas can go with you.”

  “Me!”

  “And Amanda, too, if you want. You girls can fight over who will sit up front with him.”

  This was not funny. It was even less so when Amanda came out into the yard with her and saw how the seating arrangements had been set up. Or not set up, to be more precise.

  “I’ll go with Zeke and Fannie, Sarah,” she said—but the only reply she got was a cheery wave as Zeke shook the reins and clattered off with his wife—and without anyone else.

  “Never mind. You can ride back with them,” Sarah said. Before Amanda could protest, Sarah had climbed into the back of her own buggy, leaving Amanda no choice but to take the seat on Silas’s left.

  “I’m a lucky man this morning.” He untied Dulcie and got in on the driver’s side as if he was completely unaware that the next best thing to a game of musical chairs had just occurred. “Sarah, you’ll have to give me directions. It seems Zeke is in such a hurry to see Ruth and Isaac Lehman that he’s left us behind.”

  Maybe this was better anyway. Sarah comforted herself with the thought that Amanda might not have liked being forced to be alone with Silas. Fifteen miles was a long way when you were as shy as she was. As it was, the three of them could talk as friends, and there was enough conversational fodder in the ups and downs of the road past the farms of the Gmee that there would be no uncomfortable silences.

  It took a good five miles, though, before Amanda recovered from her embarrassment at being in the front seat enough to make any contribution to the conversation. Though her comments were short and soft, at least she was talking. Sarah sometimes had to chime in when the silences got too long, but Silas was good about supporting anything she said.

  All in all, Sarah thought as he finally drew the buggy up in the Lehman yard and they all got out, it had been a good ride. Silas would see how womanly and modest Amanda was, and she herself would have the satisfaction of knowing she’d been there to witness the beginning of their romance.

  Ruth Lehman was not a demonstrative woman, but her pleasu
re in seeing Zeke and Fannie so unexpectedly cracked even her self-control, and she threw her arms around Fannie in joy. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” she exclaimed. “Oh my, I’m not going to get a bit of work done today—Sarah, you should have sent me a note!”

  “Maybe,” Sarah said with a smile that held more than a little mischief. “But when else would I ever get a chance to see you all verhuddelt like this?”

  “Never you mind, I have a recipe for you to make up whether there are folks come to visit or not. Come on inside, everyone, and we’ll have a snack. Oh, and Silas, maybe you could go out to the barn and tell Isaac to come in. He won’t want to miss a minute.”

  It soon became clear that, whether Zeke was the family prankster or not, he was also Ruth’s favorite. Sarah had never seen her face so animated or heard her laugh so much as she did this morning, and it was difficult, after coffee and then after lunch, to settle down to anything approaching a lesson in herbs.

  “I’m sorry, Sarah,” Ruth confessed out in her compounding room when Sarah let herself in to see the recipe she was to make. “It’s wonderful to see them, but I do feel bad that you and I haven’t had our usual time together.”

  “There will be other times for us, but not for Zeke and Fannie. You go and enjoy yourself with them, and I’ll ask Amanda to help me.”

  “You’ll need to wait—I think she and Silas went out to the barn to see the little pigs.”

  “You have pigs?” This was new. And it wasn’t even farrowing season.

  “Yes, have you ever seen them? They’re the potbellied kind. I don’t see the use in them, myself, but the Englisch folks seem to love them. It’s Christopher’s youngest boy’s project—but I think his Daed has as much fun with them as Jordan does.” She leaned over the table to see what Sarah had compiled so far. “Gut. You have everything except the elder flowers, which you’ll find up in the copse at the top of our hill.”

  “How much?”

  “Two cups. This is for my daughter Amelia’s middle boy, Elam. We think he might be developing an allergy to pollens, and this will help get his lymph system working again to clear it all out.”

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”