The Tinkerer's Daughter (8 page)

Tinker wasn’t quite his old self the next morning, but he was a far sight better than the previous night. He ate a full plate for breakfast. Then he asked for another, and he drank nearly a full pot of tea. I could tell that his body was working hard to replenish the resources I’d used in repairing his bone. I was concerned for him, and I desperately wanted to check the status of those repairs, but I was uncertain as to how to broach the subject.

What I had done to Tinker was an extremely personal thing. I knew that he was an open-minded and sensible man, but I wasn’t sure if I had crossed a line. Using magic to help build a machine is rather different than using it to go inside someone’s body. Especially since I didn’t have Tinker’s permission. Not in so many words, anyway. His unconscious babbling certainly didn’t grant me the right to do what I’d done.

I eventually determined that the best course was one of silence. If he noted what I had done, or asked about it, then we would discuss it. If not, then there was no point in bringing it up. This didn’t do anything to ease my nagging concern about the healing process, but I forced myself to believe that the healing would continue naturally, without further intervention. If I was wrong, I hoped I would see signs and be able to correct the problems before it was too late.

I managed to keep Tinker in bed for that first day, but thereafter he would have none of it. “I’m not going to lie around like an invalid!” he said. “Better to crawl into a cave and die than to live like that. Help me up or get out of my way, woman!”

It was a rare tone for Tinker, this condescending masculine attitude. I knew that it meant he was compensating for his fear and sense of inadequacy. He felt that his injury made him less of a man, that his need to rely on someone made him appear weak.

This realization shed new light on Tinker’s personality and in a way, on my father’s as well. Both men were proudly independent, and their lifestyles reflected their masculinity. They lived in remote areas where they wouldn’t be bothered with the trivialities of “civilized folk.” They ignored the inherent dangers that came with such a choice. It was important to them to be free of those societal constraints.

Strangely, I knew exactly how they felt. I would have hated to have someone watching and inspecting everything I did. I was more like them than I had ever realized.

I took this study to heart, and I gave Tinker all the space he wanted. I helped him get around once he was out of bed, until he built himself a pair of crutches. Then he was mostly on his own. I never strayed far enough that I wouldn’t hear if he cried out, or needed me to fetch something from some awkward place, but beyond that I let him have his privacy.

Meanwhile, I set out to get the yard organized. I had to do something to keep my mind from the fact that school was just days away. The yard seemed like an appropriate task. It had been on my mind for months, and finally I felt ready to take it on.

The piles shrank almost magically as I found proper places for the massive amounts of junk. The wood went behind the barn into carefully organized stacks. The metals went on the sides of the barn, steel and iron on the south side, brass and copper on the north.

I used some of the wood to build shelves on the outside walls, and then I moved the barrels, buckets, and other assorted containers into their respective areas. By the end of the week, the yard was starting to actually look like a yard. There were only a few spots of green here and there, but it was a start.

Saturday morning, while I was working outside, I caught a whisper on the breeze. It was the trees, and they warned of an approaching carriage. I found Tinker in the barn, and warned him that company was approaching. He left me there, and I stole a peek at his designs. He was still working on the glider.

I saw three different versions, all of which looked like vast improvements over the original. Their wings were broader and sturdier, their frames longer and more refined. The steering controls were entirely redesigned, using a wire system that actually controlled aileron flaps at the back of the wings. And on one of them, attached to the front, I saw a fan.

There was no explanation as to how Tinker planned on powering this new glider, but the direction in which he was headed was clear. The next version was to be powered.

I heard voices outside, and pulled myself away from the workbench to go peer through the cracks in the barn doors. It was Analyn, and she had packages! I ran outside, and she met me with a smile.

“Ah, just the young lady I was looking for!” she said. “Tinker, we’ll need some privacy so she can try these things on.”

Tinker nodded. “If you need me, I’ll be in the barn.”

The afternoon flew by. As Analyn dressed me up in my new clothes, she taught me about the customs of human women. I learned about hairstyles and perfumes, and about manners and social status. She was very concerned that I should use all the proper mannerisms of a young human girl.

“This is most important,” she said. “You are an attractive enough girl, but you have the look of your mother’s people. You must give no one reason to doubt that you are who you say you are.”

“I understand,” I said.

“Good. Remember, the children in our school have known each other for all their lives. You will already be a stranger to them. Therefore you must be just like them, in every way. The sooner they accept you, the better off we are.”

“I’ll do my best,” I promised.

“I know you will. You’re a smart child.”

Analyn left that afternoon with a stern reminder that school would begin at eight a.m. sharp, Monday morning. I was useless for the rest of the weekend. I was a nervous wreck. My heart soared with hopes and fantasies, but my mind was full of uncertainty and fear.

I had wanted this so badly for so long. It wasn’t until now that I began to think about all the things that could potentially go wrong. Ironically, it was Tinker that calmed this fear in me.

I was pacing across the front yard Sunday afternoon. I had gone out there with the intent of clearing my mind with some good, hard work. Instead I ended up wandering around the yard all morning with my head in a daze.

“Stop worrying,” he said.

I halted mid-step. I hadn’t even seen him watching me. “I can’t,” I said. “What if they find out? What if I do or say something wrong?”

“What if the moon falls out of the sky?” he said. “There are millions of things that could go wrong every day, from the time we get up in the morning to the time we hit the pillow at night. We can’t live our lives worrying about what-ifs. We have to focus on doing the best we can, and making the most of what we’ve got.”

I knew the truth of his words, but my stomach was a jumble of knots and I would not be calmed so easily. “I’m going to screw things up,” I said. “I just know it.”

He took my hand and we started walking along the creek. “Yes, there’s a chance that will happen. I won’t lie. We do our best to avoid mistakes but they happen, and then we fix them. Take my glider, for example. It didn’t work out well the first time…”

“Didn’t work out well? It almost killed you!”

“Exactly. But I survived. And now I can perfect it. I can deal with the flaws in the original design, and make it better.”

I couldn’t mention the fact that he might have died if I hadn’t intervened. But that didn’t matter. I knew what he meant, and I understood the emotion behind his argument. I decided to change the subject.

“I saw your designs,” I said. “Did you figure out how to put an engine on the glider?”

“Unfortunately, no. I’m going to have to come up with some new kind of power. The engine is too cumbersome. Even if I could make it work without the water tank and burner, it still might be too heavy. I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out what else I can do.”

I thought it over. “I don’t know enough about your inventions,” I said. “I know how the steam engine works, but that’s no help… what about the light in the kitchen? How does that work?”

“The water wheel turns a magnet inside a coil of copper wire. It creates
electricity
. It’s like a sort of harnessed lightning. There’s no way we could make use of that.”

“What about your clocks?” I said. “What makes them keep working?”

“They have to be wound. They don’t have a power source, they merely store power… by God, you’ve done it!”

We stopped in our tracks. “What did I do?”

“You solved the problem! The glider doesn’t need an engine. It needs a spring, and a gearbox! Don’t you see? The gearbox controls the spring, only releasing a bit of the energy at a time. What we need is a powerful spring. Something larger than anything I’ve made before. It’s going to require a lot of steel.”

I could see him disappearing into that place in his mind. I didn’t understand half of what he was saying, but that didn’t matter. Tinker was already designing the thing. At times like that, it was always best just to stay out of his way.

He mumbled for a few more minutes about tension and carbon content, and then he went wandering towards the barn. I settled down on a rock next to the creek, lost in my own thoughts. Tinker’s problem had been solved. Mine couldn’t be solved. All I could do was wait and see what happened in the morning.

School turned out to be both everything I’d hoped, and everything I’d feared. Analyn, or Mrs. Trader as we called her in class, was a powerfully intelligent woman. Not only was she well-read, but she seemed to have memorized every book she’d ever touched. This knowledge came bubbling out of her so fast that at times, it seemed a waste of time to try and remember any of it. She had particular interest in some subjects, one of these being the war. We discussed this subject at the end of my first week. It was in the afternoon.

“Class, I must apologize to some of you regarding this next subject. You in particular, Breeze. I know that your father was recently killed in combat, and you should know we’re all very proud of him.” All eyes turned to me, and I shriveled.

I suppose it was Analyn’s way of trying to help break the ice. The fact that my father had sacrificed himself in the war effort was likely to earn me some respect from my peers. I don’t know if the ploy worked or not.

“As you all know we have been at war with the Tal’mar for centuries. Can anyone tell me how this started? Yes, Jesha?”

Jesha Miller was Mrs. Trader’s darling. She had bright blue eyes and perfect blonde hair, and she knew every subject so extensively that it was sickening. I was certain that Jesha would someday take Mrs. Trader’s place as the town’s teacher.

“No one knows how it started. Some people say that there was an agreement between the humans and the Tal’mar, and that the Tal’mar betrayed that agreement. Others say that the Tal’mar were involved in a civil war, and humans sent supplies to one faction but not the other.”

“Very good,” said Mrs. Trader. “In fact, these theories might both be true… or they could both be legends. You see, whatever the original dispute was, the animosity between our peoples has been passed down for centuries. At times the tensions die down, and it almost seems that we have peace. Then something happens, and it all starts up again.”

“Like the battle of Brell Creek?” Robie said. He was the oldest child in the school by a full year, but usually acted the youngest. For some reason, several of the girls liked him, but I simply could not understand it. He was immature and boorish, and generally quite full of himself.

Mrs. Trader frequently caught him breaking the rules, and when he wasn’t in trouble he was usually making jokes at her expense. It was beyond me why anyone would give him a second thought. Nonetheless, several of my female peers adored him.

“Yes, Brell Creek is our most recent example. A Tal’mar hunting party went missing and their bodies were found upriver, near a human settlement there. The Tal’mar assumed these men had been killed by humans from the nearby town of Brell Creek, and they attacked leaving no one alive.”

“How horrible,” said Terra Cooper. She was one of the nicer girls, a dark haired farmer’s daughter with big blue eyes. Of the five girls in my school, Terra was the only one who ever gave me a smile.

“Indeed, especially for the families of those murdered. And now, we have had several skirmishes with the Tal’mar, and the situation is escalating rapidly. At any moment we could be engaged in full-out war once again.” Mrs. Trader glanced at the clock. “It’s time to go children. Have a wonderful weekend, and stay out of trouble! Breeze, would you please stay for a moment?”

Robie couldn’t resist teasing me as he and the other students filed out of the room. He obviously assumed I was being held after class because I was in trouble. “What did you do Breeze?” he laughed.

“Mind your own business, Robie,” Analyn said. She shooed him off with a gesture, and he pranced out the door, laughing. The rest of the group disappeared behind him. As the door closed, Analyn turned her attention to me.

“How was your first week?”

“It was fun,” I said. “I’ve learned a lot.”

“I’m glad you think so. I’ve seen a huge improvement in your work already. Breeze, I’m sorry if I upset you by bringing up your father, but I thought it might help the other kids to warm up to you.”

“I understand. Actually, the more I learn about what he did, the more I feel like I know him.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I wish I could tell you more about him, but I never really knew your father. He came to the mercantile a few times for supplies, but he never had much to say. He mostly kept to himself. I do know that he wasn’t from this area.”

“Really?”

“Yes. He moved here a few years ago, probably just after you were born.” I realized as she spoke that my past was a dizzying black hole. Having been so steadily distracted by Tinker’s projects, and having matured so rapidly, I hadn’t had much time to wonder about my own origins. Suddenly these thoughts came flooding into me, and I felt a rush of apprehension as I realized I knew nothing about my past.