“It seems odd to me that it would be on my shop,” Roger continued. “I didn’t really even know Ross that well. Why would it be here? Any other reports of the same thing around the Village? ”
“None that I’ve heard. Look, Roger—”
“None on the dungeon, I bet.”
“I’m sure it’s not personal,” Chase argued. “What’s wrong with you anyway? It’s like everything I say is wrong.”
“Everything is personal.” Roger stalked back into the shop. A few seconds later, he bellowed my name.
“I guess I better go,” I told Chase. “Did you know that was strawberry jelly or did you just guess? ”
“If you look close, you can see the little strawberry seeds. It didn’t take a lot of brainpower. I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of it since the press played that phrase up big time.” He looked at the burn mark on my shirt. “You haven’t been wearing your gloves.”
“Bailiff!” Princes Isabel’s voice was demanding and a little whiny. “We believe we shall need your escort back to the castle. We are feeling rather faint after this ordeal.”
Chase bowed (at least ten visitors’ cameras flashed) but smiled at me around her. “Yes, Your Highness.”
Isabel put her delicate little hand on his forearm, and they fell in step as her courtiers hastened to go with them (more camera flashes here). I watched them go a little longer than I should have.
Henry was at my side with an evil smile on his face. “I bet Chase hates that.”
“Stay out of it,” I warned, walking past him to go back into the shop.
Roger was at my workbench. The look on his face boded no good for me. “You left your torch on to go outside, Jessie. That’s inexcusable, even for a newbie. I’m afraid there’s only one way to learn a good lesson on that.”
“Uncle Roger, you can’t put her in the stocks because she made a mistake.”
“Shut up, Henry.” Roger handed me a broom. “You’ll have to spend the rest of the day cleaning up. That’s what happens to lazy apprentices. An apprenticeship with an important craftsman is sought after, even fought over. A single mistake like this could cost your life.”
I didn’t want to spoil the theater, especially with a couple of visitors in the shop. I took the broom and the punishment without saying a word.
“I thought you told me the stocks were the punishment for making a mistake,” Henry continued. “You made me spend a whole night out there when I first started.”
Roger ignored him and went back to working on a large fairy with delicate wings. The two ladies followed Henry to his workbench and watched him start a new piece.
I swept toward the back door, glancing up occasionally to make sure no one was watching. Did Roger really make Henry spend the night in the stocks? Was Henry crazy enough to do it? It wouldn’t surprise me. People here actually took care of a lot of problems that developed. I wouldn’t have done it, but I wasn’t inheriting Roger’s glass shop either.
Sweeping the trash out the open door, I accompanied the little bits of hay and leaves that had found their way into the shop. The weather was glorious. Deep blue sky above me and cool breezes swaying through the small trees. It would be great if you could make glass figures outside. That torch was hot even when you stood away from it.
There was a smaller building behind the glass shop. I decided to check it out and found it was used as a supply area. The broken furnace was in there. There was also an oven that was used for annealing. I’d read about the process during my research before coming down here. The process took out the stresses, tiny fractures in the glass that happened when the glassmaker worked with it. I’d hoped to use an annealer. But not while I was in the doghouse. I had to admit it was careless to leave the torch on. I’d remember next time.
“Hello, Jessie.” Master Archer Simmons from the Feathered Shaft walked by and smiled at me. “Another apprenticeship? ”
“I’m learning glassmaking this time,” I told him. He made me long for the familiar, for something I was good at. When I had been his apprentice I’d done very well almost from the beginning with making and shooting arrows. I had a feeling working with glass was going to be harder.
“Good luck to you. I hope to see you at dinner one night, even though we’d be crossing guilds to sit together.”
“I’m sure it would be okay for one night. It’s good to see you.” Master Simmons belonged to the Weapons Guild like Daisy, who made swords, and Hans, the blacksmith. Glassmaking, pottery making, and basket making all belonged to the Craft Guild.
It was true the people from each guild tended to hang together. I didn’t live here all the time so I tended to ignore it. This wasn’t the real Renaissance—things had changed since then.
“Jessie!” Roger yelled from inside the shop. “What are you doing out there? ”
I ran inside with my broom and found him frowning at the back door. The breeze I’d thought of as glorious had blown sand, leaves, and hay into the shop while I was outside. “Sorry. I was just pushing the last of the sand and stuff out the back. Who knew it’d blow right back in? ”
I smiled, but he didn’t smile back. “You know, an apprentice during the Renaissance would be beaten for letting something like this happen.”
I glanced around the shop. It was just me, Henry, and Roger. I’d had just about enough of him treating me like a servant and quoting references from the Middle Ages about my position. “I really want to learn what you know about glass art. I know I made a mistake with the torch and some stuff blew in the door, but honestly, Roger, if you don’t start treating me like a person from the twenty-first century, I’m walking out and not coming back. I was led to believe this would be a good time for you because of the crowds they expect during this Halloween thing. If it’s not, let me know now.”
Henry smirked but went back to his work when Roger looked his way. I felt like I was trapped in a Scrooge movie marathon, only at Halloween instead of Christmas.
“I appreciate your help and your willingness to learn, Jessie.” Roger turned back to address me. “But if I can’t have authority here in my own shop, where will I have it? Now, let’s get back to work. You tidy up and then report to my workbench for further instruction.”
That didn’t sound like much of a compromise between his need to lord it over me and my need to be a person, despite being his apprentice. I handed him the broom and saluted him smartly. “I believe, good sir, you will need to find another apprentice to harass.”
I turned on my heel and strode out the back door with a confidence I didn’t necessarily feel. I’d never get another apprenticeship at this point. It had been hard enough to get this one. I’d have to spend the next few weeks in the Village zipping MasterCard numbers across the Internet or waiting tables at one of the food vendors. I didn’t want to do either, but I seemed doomed to it. I refused to let Roger treat me the way he apparently treated Henry. There had to be another way.
I was kicking rocks across the cobblestones when I noticed Mary Shift sitting outside her shop across the street. She was weaving a large sweetgrass basket. My memories of the pain and bloody fingers I’d experienced while working with her suddenly disappeared as I considered that she might take me on for the season.
“Hi!” I sat down next to her on the back stairs like I was working there again. “Nice day, huh? How’ve you been doing? Do you ever hear from Jah? ”
Jah was Mary’s son she’d rediscovered over the summer. They’d been apart for many years. She narrowed her dark eyes, and smoke puffed from her corncob pipe. “Throw you out, did he? ”
My shoulders slumped. Everyone in the whole Village would know within a few hours. Everyone would feel sorry for me. “I quit, if that makes any difference.”
“Not to me.” She shrugged and addressed the basket she was working on. “Might matter to you, though. It’ll be hard to get an apprenticeship now.”
“I know.” I stared at the old plum tree that was losing its leaves. “You coul
d let me work here until Halloween. I know the business. I could even make baskets. I got pretty good there at the end.”
She laughed, the sun picking out the web of wrinkles in her dark skin. “That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard since last week when the elephant trainer mistook the camel for his animal. Jessie, child, you were good when you were here. But I got a new apprentice now.”
A handsome, young black man stuck his head out of the back door and smiled at her. “Mary, there’s a customer who’d like to meet you.”
“See what I mean?” She put her basket down and told the young man she’d be right inside. “Damian’s a sweet-heart. I hope he never leaves. Unlike some people who get a mite cranky when they think they aren’t the only one in your life anymore.”
“Are you talking about Jah? ”
“You’re a slow top today, missy. Is that the only person you can think of who might mind Damian being here?”
A dim light was forming in my brain. Roger and Mary had been a couple for a long time. Was he worried about this young man in her life?
“I can see you got it now.” Mary laid her pipe down in a bowl next to the door. “He’s been like a bear with a thorn stuck in his paw for the last few weeks. He thinks there’s something going on between me and Damian that ain’t baskets. He told me to get rid of him or he’d break it off. I told him where he could put that notion, and the sun don’t shine there.”
I jumped up, suddenly understanding Roger’s horrible surliness. “So he’s all alone and missing you. Are you doing something with Damian besides baskets? ”
She snorted, a terrible sound no human should make. “I’m not going to answer that. He’s a fool to think I’d fall for some young, pretty face after all this time. But I’m not crawling back to him. He’ll have to come to me. Excuse me now. I have to sell some baskets. Good to see you, Jessie.”
“But you’d take him back if he was willing to make the first move, right?” A plan to save my apprenticeship, and Roger’s heart, formed in my brain.
“I’m not saying until I see him on his knees right here.” Mary pointed to the grass outside the shop.
I watched her walk inside and close the door behind her. I could do this. All my friends said I was the best matchmaker in the world. If I could do anything, I could get Roger and Mary back together. It would be good for them and good for me. Now that I understood the problem, I definitely had the answer.
I decided to wait until morning to implement the first step of my plan. I’d have to do some crawling first to get back in Roger’s good graces. But it was absolutely necessary if I was going to save him. I had to be close at hand to make things happen.
“You seem lost in thought, my dear.” William Shakespeare, aka Pat Snyder, addressed me as I walked by his usual spot for creating odes. “Dost thou wish for an ode or a sonnet to cheer you? ”
I’d known Pat since the first day I’d been in the Village. He’d created a sonnet about my eyes, comparing them to a summer’s day. Not terribly original, but it had cheered me up after getting my first assignment, which was to be a servant at the castle. A drudge, at that. I’d wanted so much more, but I’d worked myself up to being a varlet in no time. I always thought about Pat when I remembered those days.
“Yes, good sir.” I sat on one of the chairs in his gazebo. “I am feeling rather blue and would enjoy any kind word.”
“Prithee, allow an old man to remark on your beauty and charm. Yon sun shines the more brightly for you being here, fair maiden. Pray tell me what causes your sorrow? ”
“I can help with that.” Henry had zoomed in on my location and was standing too close for my peace of mind. “She lost her apprenticeship with Sir Roger of the Glass Gryphon. Not much an ode can do for that.”
“Go away.” I turned my back on him. “Pray continue, Sir Shakespeare.”
I should’ve remembered one of the first rules of modern warfare, which is: never turn your back on the enemy. It will only bring you grief.
In this case, it brought me Henry wrapping his arms around me with his hands in questionable positions on my chest. Shakespeare laughed and strolled away, probably thinking we were having a lover’s quarrel. I was so astonished that Henry would do something so blatantly stupid, it took me a few seconds to get my elbows ready to crunch him. Once he was bent over in pain, I planned to use a knee maneuver I’d learned in self-defense class.
“Jessie! I can’t believe I’m seeing this!”
I thought at first it was Chase. But I was spared that embarrassment only to see Portia’s unhappy face before me. The biggest gossip in the Village saw me with Henry’s hands on my breasts. It might as well have been Chase.
I reacted by painfully gouging Henry with my elbows, then using my knee to crunch him in the chest as he leaned over. “See?” I turned to Portia to make my case and try to stem the tide of mouth-to-mouth that would spread through every guild by closing time. “I didn’t ask him to do that. You can report that I hurt him for touching me. This doesn’t have anything to do with me and Chase. We’re just fine. Henry is an idiot.”
Portia nodded slowly. “Poor dear. I guess we all have our problems. Is that a burn hole in that shirt? You know we frown on that kind of thing.”
We talked for a few minutes about costumes and what it took to maintain them for residents and visitors. I sympathized with her problems, then offered to buy her chocolate at the Three Chocolatiers shop. After that, I walked with her as far as Kellie’s Kites beside the jousting Field of Honor at the far end of the Village. I prayed every moment that she’d take my gesture of fear and false friendship as the real thing and not spread rumors about me and Henry.
Only time would tell. I took a deep breath as I watched her walk away toward the Mother Goose Pavilion where Red Riding Hood was having a costume issue. I’d know within the hour how well I’d accomplished my goal.
Naturally, I was starving and thirsty after talking with almost hurricane-like force to try and distract Portia. I was close to the Pleasant Pheasant, which was too expensive during the day, but one of the carts carrying pizza slices from Polo’s Pasta was coming my way and the price was right. As a rule, I try not to buy food in the Village, but sometimes emergencies present themselves.
I glanced over at the dancing girls on the Caravan Stage, then walked over and slid into an empty seat in the back row. Normally these nubile ladies danced in harem outfits, silks, and scarves with bangles and beads. For Halloween, they were all garbed in black and red silk. The music was almost tortured as they danced across the stage, which was covered in black bunting. It seemed like overkill to me. I mean, what difference did it make what color their costumes were?
But there was an added dimension to their usual dance routine. A man dressed in a skintight red suit with a pointed tail and little horns on his head joined them. Now this was interesting.
Every woman in the audience perked up. It was hard to tell what the Devil really looked like under the gold and red mask, but his body language spoke for him. He advanced on the dancing girls, tossing some of them up in the air as though they weighed no more than the silk they wore.
“He’s really something, isn’t he? ” Maid Marian of Sherwood Forest settled down beside me, tucking her green cape around her. This Marian had been at the Village for a few years now. When I’d first started, there was a new Marian every few months. Those Merry Men could get a little too merry.
“Yeah. He’s interesting all right.” I watched as the Devil sidled up to one of the dancers and pulled her against him, running his hand down the length of her body.
Marian cleared her throat and moved her cape around again. “I love to watch him dance. He’s a real artist.”
I had to agree with her. Both of us were lusting for him in our hearts. By the time the dance was over and the Devil disappeared in a puff of red smoke, leaving the dancing girls prostrate on the stage, Marian and I were fanning ourselves with our hands.
“I wish I could teach Ro
bin to dance like that.” She sighed.
“First you’d have to paint him red. I don’t think the Devil was wearing any clothes, do you? Maybe just red paint.”
“Except . . . well, you know.” Marian actually blushed, and we both laughed.
“I know where I’m coming for lunch from now on.”
“He does an evening show, too. He looks even better with some shadows around him.”
I was wondering who the likely dancer was playing the Devil when I caught a glimpse of red leaving the back of the stage. Marian was already on her way back to the forest. Probably just out for a little shopping, maybe some spying. I think Robin had assigned her the job of locating the toaster ovens the Merry Men often made off with; she also kept her finger on what was happening in the Village to report back to him.
No harm introducing myself to the sexy Devil and finding out who he was. I mean, it wasn’t being disloyal to Chase just to talk to him, was it?
The dancing girls were getting to their feet again and complaining about different aspects of the performance as well as various aches and pains. I skirted around the stage and picked up on the bright red Devil as he cut through the open space behind the privies and the tree swing where the old storage huts were located. “Excuse me!” I said before I lost him. He was tall and long-legged, so he moved fast. “I just wanted a minute of your time. I was watching you dance. You’re really hot.”
Some people might think this was a little forward, especially since I already have a boyfriend, but life is short. Getting to the point is always the best way.
He stopped and turned to look back at me. Marian was right. He was painted red from head to toe. His only clothing was a small band around his groin and a cape draped down his back. He was in great shape. Not better than Chase, but there was something about him that was incredibly fascinating. Maybe it was the same charisma that always accompanied the Prince of Darkness.
He laughed. “You think so? ”
I knew that voice! Suddenly I was totally disgusted and felt like taking a dozen hot showers. “Tony? Is that you under there? When did you start dancing? ”
Ghastly Glass Page 6
