Page 31 of Between Salt and Serenades
“You know, the name of your store isn’t very modest.” I forced a chuckle out to release the tension building up in my windpipe.
“Oh, I’m aware,” he said with a chuckle of his own. I wondered if his laugh was real, or if he also had to force out a lump in his throat before it transmuted into a sob. “Muliver was my father. He let me name his store when I was a wee lad, and at that age, everything he made was a masterpiece to me. When he passed and I took ownership of the shop, I didn’t have the heart to change the name from ‘Muliver’s Glass Masterpieces.’
“The two of us made that sign hanging out front a long time ago. I couldn’t imagine coming into the store each day and it not being there. This place is my life, my home, and until you stumbled in here, it was all I had left of my family. Funny how this place even brought me you.”
“I assumedyourname was Muliver,” I admitted, trying not to let my embarrassment show.
“Your father never really mentioned us, did he?” he asked. I grew silent, watching as hurt passed through his eyes. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. He never wanted to tempt you girls with any tether to land, didn’t want to be the reason you chose to leave your mother behind. My name is Wallace, by the way. I know you probably don’t want to call me Grandpa.”
I ignored everything he said except for his name, but that didn’t mean his words didn’t sit in my gut. I didn’t want to be the one to reconfirm his thoughts on my father, because the truth was, my father spoke of land often, just not the people he spent his time with. He all but erased his mother and father from my memory.
“Alright, Wallace. You can call me Sid.”
“Ouch!” I yelped, pulling my hand back. My milky skin had turned an angry red from the sheer heat emanating from the blazing oven.
“Careful,” Wallace said. He rushed over to me to take a look. Upon inspection, he clicked his tongue and ran a rag under cool water. When he pressed it to my skin, I let out an angry hiss. “When we wrap up here, you better get this hand of yours into the sea. It should heal you right up.”
“I can’t.” I shook my head, taking the rag he had pressed against my skin. While it stung at first, the coolness of it was a quickly dissipating relief as my hot skin warmed the fabric. “Last time I went near the water, I almost passed out from the pain. I started shifting while only having my legs in the water.”
“Take that cloth to the shoreline and wet it where the sea gets caught between the rocks. Press the wet rag to your palm, and that should do the trick. Fix you right up.”
“Thank you. I’ll bring it back,” I said, motioning to the cream-colored fabric in my hands.
“Don’t worry about it. I have more than I know what to do with,” he said, motioning to the staircase with his thumb. Wallace lived upstairs, just as my father had lived above a local shop. The only difference was, Wallace owned his entire building. I suppose glass sales were good.
“I guess this is a good spot to end for the day,” I said with a chuckle, still pressing the wet cloth to my palm. “I’m not a natural after all.”
“Don’t beat yourself up over it. You should have seen your father when he first started,” Wallace said with a twinkle in his eyes. “He was an utter disaster. I was walking him down to the water at least once a day to heal some kind of burn or another.”
“Really? I thought you said he was a natural.” I glanced at the oven embedded into the workshop’s far wall, fierce flames licking the stone with an insatiable hunger.
“A small fib,” he said with a shrug. The small piece of glass at the end of the long metal pole resting on a stack of bricks was a warped, opalescent blob, but it had promise. Tomorrow would be better.
Tomorrow.
I guess sometime during my stay, I’d already decided there would be a tomorrow here in this quaint workshop with my human grandfather.
As I watched him clean up, I said, “By the way, that man I was in here watching the other day is a fisherman from the Indigo Tide.”
I figured there was no point hiding that tidbit of information from him now. He was family, after all.
“Well, yes. He’s the captain. Captain Rory. Is the Indigo Tide the ship you ladies came on?”The captain? That scrawny little excuse for a fisherman is the captain of the Indigo Tide?
“It is. I overheardRorywill return on Wednesday, and I’d like to be here when he does,” I said. What I’d said had been more of a statement than a question, and I hoped he’d agree so I didn’t have to turn the sentiment into a demand.
“What are you going to do? Shake him down for answers?” he asked. “He may not look like much, but the man does have a bit of influence in Barthoah. All the captains do.”
“I wish a shakedown would solve this problem. I want to follow him home, find where he lives and if he’s the one who took Breena’s pelt. Good chance if he’s the captain, he’s the one who took the chest home with him,” I said, more to myself than him.
“Are you sure you want to go and do all that? What if he catches you?” Wallace asked. He sat down on the stool on the other side of me, closest to the oven. A bead of sweat rolled down his brow, and I wondered how he kept up his work in the dead of summer.
“It’s worth the risk,” I said with a shrug, watching that glistening bead of sweat as it tracked down his face, leaving a salty residue behind that he wouldn't be able to see.
“Says the woman who claims she doesn’t have a mate,” he said under his breath with a concealed smile. My grandfather knew all too well how fast a siren could fall, and he was going to keep rubbing that in until I had something to admit.
I rolled my eyes and shoved my shoulder into the older man, mumbling, “Cut it out. Can I be here on Wednesday or not?”
“Yeah, you can. And I’ll do you one better. I’ll ask the man for his address myself,” he said with a lifted chin. A hint of mischief twinkled in his eye, and I wondered if my troublemaking streak came from him.
