I opened my eyes.

It was dark.

I blinked, but the darkness was persistent.

Yawning and rubbing away the sleep, I sat up and looked blearily around the room. There was the vague outline of Cliff in the blankets of the other bed in the room, and the table. Against the wall next to the door was a dresser, and I padded across to it, feeling above my head. Finding a chain, I tugged at it, and light flooded the room. Cliff groaned and tossed a pillow at me with amazing accuracy.

In a tired croak, I said, "You have to be at the Winery in an hour and a half."

He opened one brown eye, attempted to kill me with a glare alone, then turned away. "I can get ready in less time than that."

I shook my head to clear some of the cobwebs of the night, and reached into the dresser for some clothes. Since I slept in loose flannel pants alone, a shirt would be a good start. "Do we have to have this same conversation every morning?"

I could hear the smirk in his voice as he said, "You know, I think we do. Why do I have to get up this early?"

I frowned, both at him and the dresser. I kept my shirts in the third drawer, and always had. They had apparently decided to sew each other into pants overnight. I reached farther into the drawer to find them as I answered, "So that you can ask Ann very nicely to please get you some breakfast, then casually talk to her all the time she takes to make said breakfast, then gallantly volunteer your services as dishwasher. And then ruin everything by being a klutz and dropping the plates the instant she tries to hand them to you. So, you'll have about half an hour to get ready."

I took my hand out and stared daggers at my stubbornly un-shirt-like pants. "Where the he-"

"Your shirts are in the third drawer, not the second," Cliff supplied prematurely, sitting up and reaching toward his own dresser. "You always do that."

I pulled open the drawer below, and, lo and behold, there were my customary yellow shirts. I shrugged one on, stripped the flannel pajamas from my legs, and pulled on beige pants from the assaulted second drawer. A red tie was, after a short inquiry, discovered to have taken up residence on a picture frame. I picked my beige jacket up from the back of a chair, running my hands through blonde hair and then settling my blue-and-yellow baseball cap low over my forehead.

Who cared if I could only see out one eye? I looked good, baby.

I opened the door, turned back to my roommate and said, by way of farewell, "You look like a raccoon."

He waved from across the room without turning around and replied, "Love you too, Gray."

I snorted, walked down the hall, poked my head into Ann's room to say hello and goodbye, walked down the stairs, out the door, down the street and into Rose Square. This was how every morning went. As I inhaled the spring air that still tasted of snow, I finally opened my eyes and let out one laugh. The emptiness of the square and cold, still air let it carry a long while, exaggerating it and making a clump of soggy, half-melted snow fall from the top of a lamppost. I followed it with my eyes.

It landed directly on top of a guy in blue overalls, an off-white shirt, and a backwards blue cap. As he sputtered and worked to wipe the muck off his hat, I rushed forward to help. When it was determined that the hat had suffered only a fading watermark, he smiled up at me from a fair four inches below and said, "Thanks, stranger. Where are we? Care to hazard a guess?"

I looked around. Now, I had only been staying in the town for a little while, but even I knew where we were. "Rose Square." As he pulled out a map that would be impossible to fold up later, I watched in amusement. "You must be that guy that Mayor Harris was talking about. You took over the farm just down the road from Saibara's Blacksmith, right?" I held out my hand. "I'm Gray. Saibara's my grandpa."

A slow but genuine smile spread from ear to ear, and my hand was shaken vigorously. "I'm Jack. Nice to meet you." He looked down at the map, looked embarrassed, and added, "Sorry, I'm lost. Where's the General Store from here?"

I said, "Up that way to the Church, take a left, then go until you pass the Clinic," automatically. A look of pure relief washed over his face, and I was a little glad for the discipline with which I tried to keep my face from being an open book. "Say hello to Karen for me."

He nodded tiredly, and went in the direction I had pointed out. "Thanks…Gray, right?"

"See? You're learning things already." I watched him go, then checked my watch.

It was nine thirty. I was due in the smith by nine forty, and it would take me twenty minutes just to walk there. Look on the bright side: I had made a new friend, and at least we didn't open till ten. I had time enough to get there…

"I apologize, Grandpa! I was distracted on my way here." I was kneeling in a pose of remorse behind the counter, occasionally throwing a handful of coal into the furnace whenever Grandpa's cane thudded on the ground. An hour I had spent like this, can you imagine? No orders had come in, even, and still I had to tend the furnace.

"And what could have been so important, Gray?" he asked at length.

"I met the farmer down from the road. He was lost, and I helped him. Is that such a horrible thing?" The cane came down, and I reached in the bucket of coal to throw more into the flame. I was beginning to notice a correlation between the amount of coal and the time between the feeding.

He seemed to consider it, then grunted vaguely and motioned for me to take to my feet. At the same time, the door opened. I was busy dusting myself off, and didn't look up until an angel's song seemed to form the words, "Mr. Saibara, do you have the ink elements I requested yesterday?"

Grandpa answered with a half-smile, "Of course, Mary. I'll just have the errand-boy go and fetch it, he'll only be a moment." He turned to me, poked my shoulder with his time-keeping cane - reminding me to close my mouth - and barked, "Go get that case of iron and zinc powder for the lady, boy."

Reluctantly, I turned away and grabbed the box that Grandpa had badgered me into making the day before. I looked back to see Mary's large black glasses - somewhere, presumably, there were brown eyes under them - staring at me apprehensively. "Thank you, um …Errand...Boy?"

I ignored Grandpa's sniggering and worked past my choked throat to say, "Don't listen to Grandpa. I'm Gray. And you're Mary, right?"

She nodded quickly

"You're the daughter of that naturalist, Basil, right?"

Another nod.

"Don't you run the Library?"

She nodded yet again.

"Is this ink for the books, or something?"

Now her eyes lit up. "Actually, it's for my writing. I'm working on a novel."

"Really? That's amazing! What's it about?"

She blushed and looked at her hands, which were fiddling with her skirt. In her beautiful voice, she said, "Oh, you know…it's neither here nor there…not interesting, I swear…"

"I've never known anyone with talent like that."

Grandpa cleared his throat with an admonishing glare, grumbling, "The furnace needs its coal, Gray. Get a move on." In a kinder voice, he said, "Mary, that's one hundred gold. I hope you'll drop by for a visit soon enough."

I rolled my eyes at him, and looked at the back of Mary's head. She had turned to looked at Grandpa when he spoke. I cleared my throat to get her to turn back - wasn't it scary how similar I was to Grandpa? Maybe I would end up a grouchy old curmudgeon like him, scary thought though it was - and said with a small smile, "Mary, I would love to look around the Library sometime. Can I come by?"

She nodded so quickly that her glasses slipped off her nose. I saw it coming, caught them, and slipped them back on her. She had a deep blush plastered across both cheeks. "Thank you! And yes, of course you can come. I never have any visitors as it is, I would love to see you more often." Her eyes grew the size of dinner plates at what she was saying. "I mean…get to know you better. I mean, show you some of the books I have."

My smile widened. "I'd love to get to know you better, too."

If anything, her blush was worse. I was worried that it would be deadly if left unchecked. She quickly gave the money owed to Grandpa, flashed me a furtive smile, and hurried out of the smith once more.

I watched her go and raised my hand half-heartedly in farewell. Staring absently at the last place her face had been seen, I began to daydream about what we would talk about, if ever I could pluck up the nerve to talk to her again.

Grandpa cleared his throat.

Maybe I could ask more about her novel. Who writes a novel? It absolutely stunned me to know someone like that.

Grandpa tapped his cane on the ground impatiently.

Maybe she would be interested in hearing about metals and what they told me. No, no, she wouldn't be interested in that. No one ever was.

Grandpa threw a small hammer at me, hitting me square in the forehead and wrenching me painfully from my thoughts. "OW! Grandpa! What have I said about violence in this house?"

"Shut it, boy. The furnace needs its coal."

I grumbled as I grabbed some of the heavy rocks and tossed them on the contained flame.

"So," he said thoughtfully, "Are you going to court this girl?"

I shrugged. "Maybe."

"She's very nice, you know."

"I got that."

"You should ask her about it when you go to that Library of hers today."

I smiled widely and asked in the sweetest voice I possessed, "Which reminds me, Grandpa, may I-"

"At two in the afternoon, Grey, and not before. I don't care what you do with your time, but you will spend a good six hours learning your craft. I'll not have this smith pass into incompetent hands."

I gritted my teeth and bit back a sharp retort. I was good at what he told me to do. I knew I did everything right. Whatever he gave me, even if he thought it was supposed to be a challenge, was simple.

It worried me, how easily I could mold the metals into any shape I felt like. Sometimes I could see in Grandpa's eyes that I shouldn't have been able to do half the things he asked of me.

I viciously picked up another lump of coal and threw it on the fire. I needed to calm down.

Grandpa tossed me a shaped and tamed block of mithril. I gripped it tightly in my fist and said slowly, "Why did you give me this, then, Grandpa?"

"I want to test something." We stared at each other in silence for a moment. "Let me see that mithril again." I set it on his counter belligerently. He examined it, and looked back up at me sharply. "You did this just now." It wasn't a question.

The block was twisted and formed as though crushed under fingers. There was even a thumbprint. Grandpa took a ladleful of water from the bucket we kept in the smith, and poured it over the warped mithril.

It spat as though just come from the forge.

Slowly, hesitantly, I reached out and touched it. He leaned forward quickly to stop me, but I picked it up and balled my hand into a fist around it. It fit there perfectly.

I had done this just now. I looked up at him in growing horror.

He looked from my stunned face to the metal in my hand - still sizzling from the water - and shook his head. "My boy, I knew you were a lunatic from the day your were born."