Sixty-One Nails

by Mike Shevdon

  He listened for a moment and then continued.

  "Yeah, the power's been down here as well. It must have been some sort of problem with the supply." He glanced at his father and then at me and then mouthed a single word to his mother, presumably the name of the caller.

  "It's fine now and we're all OK," he said. "Yeah, thanks. Did it? Yeah, me too. I'll talk to you later. Bye." He looked at his mother. "That was Jaz. The power was off in the village and for miles around. Her mum wanted to know if it was off up here too." He looked over at me again. "I think she was just ringing to see if we were all right."

  "You mustn't speak of this James," his mother instructed him. "Tell no one, understand. You too Lisa, not even your best friends, OK?" They both nodded solemnly.

  "What do you want from us?" She addressed Blackbird and I directly.

  "We need to get something remade." She unzipped her bag and pulled out the wooden box, placing it on the table and sliding it towards the far end within their reach. "It's been broken for some time, but we've only just found out."

  The old man stepped forwards and unclipped the catch. He lifted the lid of the box and the wrongness spilled out of it. Blackbird hissed between her teeth. "Snapped clean through," the old man commented professionally, holding up the handle end. He showed it to his son who took it from him and examined it. "It shouldn't break like that. Any idea what happened to it?" he asked us.

  I was grinding my teeth together at the jarring dissonance it created in the room. It was Blackbird who answered for us.

  "We think it was dropped." Her expression of distaste echoed my own.

  "Still, it shouldn't break like that. What do you think Jeff?"

  Jeff held it up to the light. "I think it was cooled too quickly. Look at the way the discoloration's taken here." He scratched his nail on the flat of the blade near the break.

  Their love of the dark metal was a reflection of our own distaste. It came to me that it was what was wrong with the house. It was nicely fitted-out, but it was steeped in iron. When you looked, there were nails hammered flat into the beams, an iron trivet sat on the worktop next to the stove. Everywhere, little bits of it were incorporated into the fabric of the house. "Can you fix it?" Blackbird's question was straight to the point. We wanted to spend as little time near the knife as possible.

  "No, once broken is broken. You can't weld it or even re-forge it. The iron's too pure to work it after it's cooled. We can make you another though. We've got the metal, haven't we, Jeff," the old man offered. "That would be excellent. When can you do it?"

  "We can do it tomorrow. It'll take about a day to make."

  "You'll have it in the morning," Meg Highsmith interrupted, "even if they have to work all night." They both looked at her, then at each other. Then the old man nodded.

  "Tomorrow then, but late morning," he agreed. "Lisa, go light the forge, will you?"

  The girl nodded seriously to her grandfather and went around the room the long way around the table to avoid us, slipping out into the yard and the last of the daylight.

  The old man dipped into the box again and pulled out the other knife.

  "This must be the Dead Knife. I've never seen either, though I was told about them, of course. This one is something different, though." His voice had a tone of respect in it. He passed it to his son, who gave him back the broken Quick Knife to replace in the box. Once the broken parts were seated in the recess made for them, he closed the lid and Blackbird and I could relax. He smiled at our obvious relief at the closure of the box. "It was never meant for your kind, that knife. Cold iron, it is, and hard as it could be made, though brittle with it. That's why it broke. The tiniest fault would be enough. This is a different matter, though."

  He took the Dead Knife back from his son.

  "This was made by the High Maker of the Six Courts. Fey metal, it's near enough unbreakable." His voice was filled with respect as he examined the leaf-shaped blade, then put the point on the surface of the table and flexed the end of the blade, the tip bending so it formed an elegant curve. He let it go and it sprang back, ringing lightly with a clean clear note.

  "Here, it was made for hands like yours." He passed it across, holding the back of the blade so I could take the handle.

  The wooden handle was smooth with use. It had a metal core that spiralled back around the handle end so that it formed part of the handle. As soon as my hand touched the metal, the blade shivered and went black. It didn't just darken, it went completely black. I turned it and it moved without reflection, giving it an odd hollow aspect.

  "It was made to respond to the Feyre, just as the Quick Knife was made for human hands," Ben added. I put it on the table and slid it towards Blackbird. As soon as my hand left it, it returned to the dull metal it had been. She hesitated and then tapped her forefinger on it, lightly, to test it. Nothing happened, so she picked it off the table and it flickered to life. The blade changed colour, turning ruddy grey and then glowed a dull red. "It's not hot," she said, but was then startled as the blade burst into flame, long licks of flame travelling up the blade away from her hand.

  "Wicked!" That was the boy, James. It was pretty impressive.

  She turned the blade in her hand, the fire rippling up the blade like a burning brand. "What happens if you–"

  The fire along the blade turned blue and intense, the tip turning slowly white, spreading down the blade. I realised that I could now feel the heat coming off it, though Blackbird was unaware of it. She placed the blade back onto the wooden table and then picked it up quickly as she realised it had scorched the surface of the bleached pine. The dark outline of the blade was there, scorched into the surface of the wood.

  "I'm terribly sorry…" she apologised, glancing at Meg. The blade returned to yellow flickering flames again. She turned it this way and that, looking for somewhere heat-proof to place the burning knife. "Here," I said, "give it to me."

  She hesitated, then passed it to me and for a second both our hands touched the knife, my open palm and her fingers on the handle. The flames went black, like the reverse of fire. They still rippled off the blade, but they were flames of shadow, not light.

  I glanced up and met Blackbird's look. She felt it too; a meeting in the metal, a mingling of her magic and mine. Her eyes widened and she snatched her hand back. I had felt her warmth. What had she felt that made her snatch her hand away like that?

  The blade went black in my hand. It was cool, cold even, and I was about to place it back on the table when I changed my mind.

  "What did you do to make it hot?" I asked her.

  "I just focused on it, like you do with the Ways," she answered, clearly as mystified by the knife as I was. I focused my will gently on the knife and tried to connect with it. It was as if it answered but there was only vast emptiness. I reached further into it and it appeared the same, like a bottomless well. It didn't react to me the way it had to her. I shrugged and was about to put it down when I had another thought.

  I reached within and let the darkness inside me connect to it, then pour into it. The room vanished.

  Nineteen

  When I poured the darkness into the knife it took me aside, slipping between the cracks of the world. We're so used to describing geometry in terms of up and down, in and out, that the vocabulary to describe it is inadequate. There were places all around me at impossible angles, intersecting with each other, passing through each other. My eyes refused to register the complexity of it all. I floated through them, sampling each one as if flicking through the pages of a paperback. In some it was night-time and others not. Some were searing cold or unbearably humid. It was like a dish with too many flavours, or an orchestra with every instrument playing a different tune in different time, I was overwhelmed by it.

  It wasn't like being lost on the Way. I wasn't lost, I was just disoriented. I knew where I was because I was there. I could be anywhere though. I could be in the farmhouse in Shropshire.

  There was a shriek.<
br />
  "Oh God! You made me jump."

  Meg Highsmith had her hand across her chest as she calmed herself. Blackbird burst through the doorway from the yard.

  "Are you all right? Where have you been? Are you OK?"

  "I'm fine," I admitted under the barrage of questions. "Where did everyone go?"

  "They're readying the forge. You've been gone over two hours."

  "Have I?" I looked at the knife in my hand and then placed it carefully on the table. It faded to grey. "Two hours?" I glanced at my watch, confirming what she was saying, but still finding it hard to accept. "Where were you?"

  "I'm not sure. I think I was in lots of places, all at once. They all overlapped, it was confusing. Some of them were different, really different."

  Jeff Highsmith burst into the door behind Blackbird. "What happened? Are you OK?" He looked to his wife.

  "I'm fine," she echoed my remark. "He just made me jump. One second he wasn't there and the next he was."

  "You've been gone for hours," Blackbird repeated, coming close and looking up into my face. "I didn't know what had happened to you. You just vanished. "

  "I was floating." I tried to conjure up a mental picture of the myriad of places jumbled up together but it just made my eyes ache. I tried again. "There were facets of places, like slivers." I shook my head, trying to clear the fogginess shrouding my thoughts.

  Meg Highsmith was practical. "Do you want tea? Tea is supposed to be good for shock."

  Blackbird declined her offer. "No thank you, Mrs. Highsmith. I think we should go. We've prevailed on your hospitality too much as it is. Is there anywhere nearby where we could stay the night?"

  "I'd offer you a bed here, but…" Jeff trailed off, looking at his wife. She didn't say anything, but her answer was written on her face.

  "That's OK, we understand."

  We could see they were not going to be comfortable with us in the house, given what they'd seen, and neither would we be comfortable there. There was too much iron in the place.

  "Let me phone down to the village for you," she suggested.

  She went through the door into the rest of the house. Jeff stayed with us, unwilling to leave us unsupervised, but with nothing to say.

  "Would you put the knife back in the box for me, Jeff?" I nodded towards the Dead Knife resting inert, its shadow burnt into the tabletop beside it. I didn't want to touch it again and find myself somewhere else.

  He nodded and there was a brief moment of discomfort as he opened the box and slipped the Dead Knife in next to the broken one.

  "What time should we return to collect the new knife tomorrow?" I asked him, taking the box from him and passing it back to Blackbird to stow in her bag. "If you come late morning, we'll have it finished."

  "Thank you. I appreciate that we've just appeared and asked you to drop everything to do this."

  "That's the agreement, isn't it?" he shrugged.

  "Yes, I suppose it is. Is there anything we can do to help?"

  "Not unless you can hold a pair of tongs over a hot forge?" He smiled at our expressions. "No, I thought not."

  Meg returned. "The nearest hotel is in Bridgnorth, but there's a pub in the village called The Chequers that would put you up for the night. They don't take guests normally, so it might be a bit rough and ready, but it's clean. They do nice food. "

  "That's great," Blackbird thanked her.

  "Do you want a lift down to the village, Jeff will take you?" She was obviously feeling guilty now about turning us out.

  "No thanks, Mrs. Highsmith. I think the walk would do Rabbit some good. The night air might clear his head."

  "We'll see you tomorrow, then," she said.

  There was an awkward moment when we would have shaken hands, but Jeff rescued us from it. "Come on then, I'll have to open the gate for you." He escorted us out into the yard. It was full dark now and clouds had appeared to dapple the sky, backlit by a low moon. There was a slice of missing time I couldn't account for that left me feeling slightly at odds with the world.

  "The village is about fifteen minutes' walk down the lane. Are you sure you don't want a lift?"

  "No thanks. We'll be fine making our own way."

  "Yes. I suppose you will. The Chequers is on the main road through the village, on the right. You can't miss it. See you tomorrow then."

  I wished him a good night as we slipped carefully through the gate and into the lane, walking into the darkness a little apart.

  "I was worried about you," Blackbird said, after a few minutes. "You just vanished. I had no idea whether you were coming back." There was a note of accusation in her voice. "I'm sorry. I didn't know it was so long. "

  "Where did you go?"

  "Everywhere, and nowhere. I must have lost track of time. It wasn't anywhere but it was close to a lot of places. You said your elements were fire and air, and when you held the knife, that's what appeared. The same must have happened with me and the void. I think I was between things, in the space that separates. Does that make sense?"

  Blackbird considered this. We were walking along separately and I couldn't help thinking back to when we had both touched the knife. I had felt her presence then, a kind of warmth running through the contact, and I was pretty sure she had felt my presence too. The question was, what had she felt?

  The void was there all the time now, not as an intrusion but rather like a thought mulling away at the back of my head, unresolved. Just thinking about it reinforced the connection with it, calling it forward. So when the flames on the knife held between us had turned black, had she touched that aching emptiness, felt the endlessness of it?

  At first I had been frightened by the void but then I began to understand that it knew me, welcomed me, that it was home for me. Blackbird didn't have that connection. She was something else, a creature of fire and air. Did that mean it felt different for her? Did it frighten her. Repel her? I wanted to ask her, but it was too close to other questions I was avoiding. I had seen Blackbird embrace a monster, shaggy with hair and with tusks for teeth. But the Feyre didn't tell stories of trolls to frighten their children. The Feyre had a different idea of what constituted a monster. They frightened their children with the wraithkin.

  Walking along the lane, the hedges silhouetted against the moonlight, I wondered. Was my future to become like Raffmir and his sister?

  "How are you feeling?"

  She hadn't raised her voice but it sounded loud in the stillness broken only by the rhythmic trudge of our feet. How was I feeling? In the context of my thoughts it was not such an innocent question.

  "OK, I guess. Tired."

  "It's been a long day for you."

  "And a strange one. Full of surprises." I glanced sideways at her, seeing only her outline.

  "Yes, for me as well."

  A car came out of the dark towards us and I dropped back behind her to allow it to pass more easily. It rolled down the lane, coasting past us, its lights bright then gone as it faded into the lanes. I increased my pace to catch up with her, feeling even that small effort draw on my depleted reserves.

  "Not far now," she encouraged.

  We came to the first streetlight of the village and passed beneath it. Houses bunched along the road and a few windows still had curtains drawn back showing families clustered around the bluish light of the TV. A man walked a dog towards us, the dog pulling at the lead to investigate the strangers and then trailing behind to sniff at our passing. At least it didn't start howling. The Chequers was an island of brightness in the village, the car park half-full and the noise of rock music emanating from the bar. It was a large two-storey building with a high peaked roof and tall bay windows with mock-Tudor beams painted black against the white of the walls. We followed the signs to the lounge bar where it was quieter. It was still brash after the quiet intimacy of the darkened lane. There were a few couples sitting at tables and a group of friends, drinking and laughing at the far end of the bar.

  "A very good eveni
ng to you both. What can I get you?" The landlord was a stocky man, with a neatly trimmed beard and bushy eyebrows. The welcome was warm considering that he must have known we weren't local.

  "Mrs Highsmith phoned for us earlier, about accommodation?" Blackbird explained.

  "Ah, yes. I spoke to her myself. It's for the one night, is it?"

  "Yes please."

  I leaned against a bar-stool.

  "And it's just the one room, or is it two?"

  "One," she said.

  "Two, please," I said at exactly the same time.

  She turned and looked up at me, and there was something in her eyes I hadn't expected. She looked hurt.

  "One," I said to the landlord.

  "Two," she said at the same time.

  She laughed and the hurt vanished, replaced by amusement.