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Chapter 24: Roasting Limbs over a Fire
When a knife’s edge whittled through wood, it would present a momentary ‘bite,’ then an immovable wall of resistance, then a sudden slip as if cutting through water, and lastly another wall of resistance as if that fluid-like behavior had been a lie.
It was a feeling Craft was used to, along with the feeling of being watched while he did so. While he worked on turning four sticks into the four limbs of a weird new bow, Lei-rei was on the other end of the short bench, hunched forwards and propping her chin up by her hands, her elbows resting on her knees. She watched quietly without comment, even as Craft committed small mistakes only he knew about.
It was half a familiar feeling. The last person who used to watch him should be over his right shoulder. Any time now, Raffie would tell him what he was doing wrong, but he knew she wasn’t there.
It was half a confusing feeling. Directly to his left, Lei-rei continued to watch. She had literally killed him once yesterday, and she threatened to withhold breakfast if he didn’t get this done. Why was he glad about it?
Working with glasswood, whittling with a knife felt more like using sandpaper to grind down a pane of glass. There was very little gain for so much effort — just a snow-like shower of dust for each stroke of the knife — yet he persevered.
An hour passed, and he finished the first limb. It was a millimeter thick, little more than a veneer, but when he tried to bend it, it felt like it could be used as a truck’s leaf spring.
He presented it to Lei-rei. “What do you think?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s thin. I still can’t see a bow coming from it.”
The limb was about an inch wide and a lot thinner than that — to the point that he might be accused of trying to make paper the hard way.
“Well, I’ve got to make it like this. If it’s thin enough, even dinner plates will bend, after all.”
Lei-rei chuckled. “Quite a metaphor.” She turned for a moment, and when she faced him again, it was with a plate of eggs and potato chips in one hand. “Here,” she said.
He hadn’t even noticed her go inside the house to get it. Had he really been that focused? He took it with both hands. “Oh, giving up your leverage so soon? Who’s to say I won’t just get up and run away from this awful project?”
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“You can’t run away from my cooking.”
Craft clicked his tongue. Not that he wanted to leave a project unfinished anyway.
It took breakfast, a gathering of curious wolves, and two-and-a-half more hours to finish the other three limbs, each taking less time than the last as he learned to work with the strange material. He had also made sure to shorten one pair of limbs, making it even thinner at the same time. When that was all done, he laid them out on the ground — half for admiration of his handiwork, and half to take a short break.
“Is that supposed to be a smaller bow?” Lei-rei asked, pointing at the shorter pair of limbs.
“Pretty much.” Craft hunched forward and rested his arms on his knees. It was still early in the morning, but he felt like he’d already gotten through half the day. “I can’t do any better with just a knife, so I’ll just call it here. Next step’s to heat-form the wood.” He looked at Lei-rei. “You don’t happen to have a portable barbecue grill, do you?”
“No. Why?”
“Really? How do you cook outdoors, then?”
“I’m fine with some bricks and charcoal.”
“That’s kinda sad.”
“Do you want a fire going or not?”
They got a fire going. Lei-rei also offered up some rags for sacrifice, rags which Craft soaked in a bucket of water and wrapped around some test pieces — some thin sticks just lying around — placing each over the fire like skewers over a barbecue grill.
He twisted a wet rag over the fire, dripping water over the other rags and the coals, causing them to steam. It would weaken the fire, but a high temperature would be pointless anyway.
“Smells nice,” Craft said. Glasswood might make good incense.
Lei-rei shot a weirded-out look at him. She stoked the fire while Craft continued wetting the coals. “Hey, you’re making a bow, right?”
“I wonder how it tastes,” Craft said with a chuckle.
“Hey — oh, you were joking.”
They looked at each other.
“So you’re the type who takes things literally by default, huh?” Craft said.
Lei-rei shook her head and looked away. “I can’t believe it. Even Night says so.”
“Hey, it ain’t so bad. Everyone needs someone who takes things seriously when it counts.” He bent down to dip the rag in his hand in a basin of water, coming back up to squeeze it over the fire and make it steam. “At least I know I can turn to you, and you wouldn’t play down whatever I say with a joke. I’m sure Nightshade thinks the same way.”
Lei-rei acknowledged it with a weak hum. She could never have told him how appreciated she had felt because of his words — and how she was starting to intuit why he seemed less enthused with his Hobby, and more nostalgic about it.
Using two sticks, Craft picked out the test pieces from the fire. He placed one end on the ground, the other on a rock, and eased his foot in the middle.
The one-forearm-long, thumb-diameter stick showed some promise, actually bending for once —
Crack.
“Ah,” Craft blurted out. The stick hadn’t even dipped more than an inch. “Well, at least the heat did something. Hey, Lei-rei, can you” —
When he faced her, she was roasting a bare stick over the naked fire.
“What are you doing?” Craft said.
She looked at him, then back at the stick. “You’re right. It smells good. I was just wondering if any part of the bark can be used in a dish.”
Neat, was all he could think. He was all for better-smelling food, but he was still stumped over the fact that glasswood wouldn’t even soften when steamed. He continued to stare at the stick she was roasting as he pondered over his next move.
They both stared at it.
“Craft.”
“Yeah, that’s weird.”
The stick wasn’t charring.
Plot events shall indeed occur.
