Elfhome

34: AMARANTH AND FORGE

Since finding Merry outside the train station, Oilcan’s life had veered off onto a strange road. Despite the fact that the way was full of twists and turns, winding through a dark country, he had felt in control. He’d decided to be responsible for the kids. He’d chosen to move to Sacred Heart. He had been holding off on sponsorship, trying to see if they could open an enclave without the commitment to any one clan.

He had an uneasy feeling, though, that the brakes on his life were going. Any moment, he would go hurtling down a steep hill, stomp down to stop it all, and the pedal would sink to the floor and nothing would grab the wheels.

He went to his project board in an attempt to find things that would make him feel like he was staying in control. Of the countless projects yet to be done, the one that spoke to him was painting. The bullet holes had been filled and the plaster sanded and primed, but none of the walls had been given a final coat of paint. The whole building looked infected with the countless white spots bright against the grimy walls. Fresh paint would erase the last traces of the oni on the enclave and make it wholly theirs. Buying paint would also take him to one of his favorite places: the hardware store.

Wollerton’s had ruled over the South Side, like so many of the successful surviving businesses in Pittsburgh, for generations out of mind. Its narrow, dim aisles had everything conceivable for keeping a home livable on Elfhome, from paint and ladders to flamethrowers and wolf traps. Becky Wollerton leaned toward crockpot dishes while tending the store, which wreathed the place with the smell of stewing meat. Occasionally there was the thunder of little feet overhead as the next generation of storekeepers played soccer or tag in their sprawling apartment. It was a comforting safe place for Oilcan.

He guided his kids to the painting section while Thorne slipped through the aisles like a grim shadow. He couldn’t imagine the pain she was going through, losing all her brother warriors in one night. At night, in bed, she allowed herself the freedom to cry, but he’d learned that daylight meant she was working, and she preferred her space.

The kids stood silent and still in front of the massive array of colors, apparently stunned at the number of choices.

“They’re so pretty.” Merry fingered the paint chips. “We can only choose one?”

“You can choose two or three if you want.” He pulled out cream and paired it with a dark green in the same family. “The trick is to pick colors that look good together. See, we could paint three of the walls this cream and one wall this green.”

He put the chips back into the trays. “The rooms are big. We can paint them any way you want, but the easiest is just to pick one color you like a lot.”

“What does this say?” Cattail Reeds held out a warm gold to him.

“Each color has a name. That one is”—he paused a moment to translate into Elvish—“Happily Ever After.”

“Happily Ever After,” Baby Duck echoed and took the chip from Cattail.

“But what kind of name is that?” Cattail protested. “It doesn’t tell you anything.”

Oilcan waved a hand at the large section of yellows. “We ran out of names and started to make up new ones.”

“I like this.” Merry held out a chip of pale buttery yellow. “What’s it called?”

He translated the name. “Pure Joy.”

Merry did a little dance. “I love it.”

Cattail laughed dryly at Merry and drifted toward the reds.

Rustle of Leaves picked out a deep green called Paradise Valley and Barley chose a warm tan called Honey Oak. Oilcan found a rich brown called Weathered Oak for his bedroom and paired it with a cream.

“This one.” Cattail held out a strong purplish red called Raspberry Truffle. “And this one.” A warm dark gray called Stardust. “And this one.” An off-white called Mannequin Cream. “And this.” A lighter gray called Sandlot Gray.

Oilcan laughed. He had no idea how she was going to use all four, but he trusted that she would figure it out. The four chips harmonized in his hand. “Okay.”

Cattail and Barley started into a debate on colors for the foyer. Oilcan deposited the chips with the paint mixer, ordering three five-gallon buckets of every color that the kids picked out. After the “family” bedrooms, they would need to paint the guest bedrooms, too. It would cost over a thousand dollars in paint, but it would be another step closer to opening the enclave.

Paint ordered, he went in search of drop cloths, paint brushes, rollers, paint pans, and ladders. The tile section reached out and took hold of him as he passed through it, reminding him that he needed to start on the bathing room on the third floor. They were doing bathing out of the sinks. There was a marvelous iridescent glass tile of blues and purples that whispered to his soul. Of course it was hideously expensive, but it would be beautiful.

“He shapes stone with coarse hands,

rough as rock, unyielding.

Builds a palace to capture light, a stolen gem,

an artist’s restless eye.

She illuminates his silent walls and empty rooms,

fills the lonely

Corners with impossible color,

paints a secret language

Only he can read; every word fractures

the jewel of his heart.”

He realized he was singing and laughed at the tune. It was the song about the quirky romance between Forge and Amaranth. The male had loved the painter Amaranth at first sight but for some reason didn’t think his love was returned. He hired her to paint the palace he’d built, and then to be sure the task would take as long as needed to win her heart, he’d added rooms and wings and outbuildings to it. The chorus was an urge to build faster, as Amaranth had nearly finished painting.

Oilcan tore himself away from the tile and moved on to the painting equipment. The bathing room would have to come later.

“Sama.” Baby Duck was suddenly beside him with two kittens in her hands. All three stared at him intently.

“Where did you find those?”

“Upstairs.”

Oilcan sighed. He was going to have to have a long talk about privacy with her. “I’ll see if they’re for sale.”

Aaron Wollerton laughed as he explained the situation. “We’re about drowning in cats, so she can have them.”

They started with his room; his theory was that he liked to repaint often anyhow. It wasn’t so much he grew tired of the old color, but that he enjoyed trying new colors. If the children messed up painting his room, he would only have to live with it for a short time.

He taught them how to prep the room, taking covers off the light switches and electrical boxes. He showed them how to tape off the areas that were going to be painted later. He trained them on cutting in with brushes and rolling with rollers.

“Please, no painting each other,” he said as he stepped back to let them work.

“Why would we paint one another?” Merry asked as they all stared at him in confusion.

“I’m not sure.” He and Tinker had done it when they painted for the first time; he could no longer remember why. He was sure it made sense at the time. “Just don’t.”

They were neat and careful painters, if painfully slow. He’d never realized that living forever meant there was no rush to get work done quickly; apparently their whole lives they’d been taught to do things right, however long it took. They kept stepping back and frowning at the coverage. For having paintbrushes in their hands for the first time, they were doing a wonderful job. If they expected perfection, though, painting the entire building could take forever.

“Sometimes it takes two or three coats for complete coverage,” he cautioned them. “Just be as neat as you can and keep working. Trust that the end product will reflect the care you put into it.”

“Sama.” Barley was cutting along the chalkboard at the front of the room. “How are you paying for everything?”

“I’m using my own savings for now,” Oilcan said. “I don’t have enough to buy everything to open an enclave, but it’s more than enough to make this place livable.”

“What are we doing for sponsorship?” Barley asked.

The others paused in mid-work to look at Oilcan. He didn’t really want to talk about this now; it felt too soon. Still, they had a right to meet it head on. “Wind Clan is willing to give me sponsorship, but if I took it, all of you would have to become Wind Clan.”

Their looks told him everything. Their clan was their last anchor. They’d been utterly lost once — the idea of being adrift again terrified them.

“I’m waiting to see how far my money will take us.” Oilcan tried to temporize.

“If you’re domana,” Cattail Reeds said, “can’t you get funding from Stone Clan?”

He laughed, shaking his head. There were so many things wrong with that question, starting with the idea that he was domana. What he was, though, wasn’t the heart of the issue. “Even if the Stone Clan offered me sponsorship, I probably wouldn’t accept.”

“Why not?” Barley had given up everything for the dream of sponsorship. Obviously he couldn’t conceive of refusing. It felt so selfish to deny the kids. If there were only one or two of them, it would be a simple balancing act, but with five of them and Thorne to consider. .

He knew, though, he couldn’t sacrifice his heart and not become bitter at them. “I was raised in Pittsburgh, surrounded by Wind Clan,” he said gently as he could. “I saw myself as part of the Wind Clan before my cousin became Wolf Who Rules’ domi. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to change clans any more than you want to.”

“But we’re still a household.” Merry reached out a hand to him, imploring him to say “yes” with her eyes.

“Yes.” He gripped her hand tight. “We’re a household. We have money to make this place livable. And we will be able to scrape enough money together, eventually, to furnish it as an enclave. Let’s just focus on today.”

Merry had picked the bedroom beside his, so he decided that they would do hers next. They painted the walls the cheery yellow called Pure Joy, the ceiling a very pale yellow called Lemon Ice, and the trim a crisp white. Cattail insisted on painting Merry’s bed the crisp white and draped one of the fresh painter’s cloths above it. The voluminous canopy made the room seem a little less empty.

“Window dresses. Paintings here.” Cattail Reeds motioned to the long blank wall opposite the windows, then pointed at the hardwood floors. “And put down some sort of rug, it will look even better.”

Oilcan nodded, making note to add the items to his growing list of things they needed. The other kids only had mattresses donated by the hospice. None had lamps or bulbs for the overhead light fixtures and had been relying on elf shines. Still, the room was a hundred times better with its bright and cheery color than it had been with its pockmarked grimy white.

After their six bedrooms, they painted the four spare classrooms on the “family” level, the hallway, and the restrooms. It surprised him that Cattail Reeds and Barley settled on Merry’s color scheme for the “family” level. With the clean windows, it made the entire third floor a happy place.

In just a day, the children had become seasoned painters. They set up the ladders, opened up buckets, stirred the paint, and laid out drop cloths without him having to give direction. Cattail taped, deciding what would be painted which color. Barley cut in high, carefully balancing on the ladders. Rustle cut in low, using his one good hand. He had only lost one paintbrush and his left shoe. Merry and Baby Duck rolled. And they talked and talked.

Cattail Reeds’ household made clothes for all the domana that attended Winter Court. “Oh, the clothes are so beautiful that they bring tears to your eyes.” Cattail sighed as she ran blue painter’s tape along the wainscoting. “But the dresses are all basically the same. Show the charms.” She cupped her breasts. “Nip the waist. Train, train, train.” She motioned as if to an invisible train of fabric behind her. “But then the slickies started to come from Pittsburgh.” She used the English word for the high-end digital magazines. “Vogue. Elle. Such colors! Such beautiful fabric! So wearable!” With the magazines came rumors that the Wind Clan artists that had made their way to Pittsburgh were selling their crafts to humans. “Earth Son’s offer of sponsorship seemed like the perfect opportunity. I could open a boutique that caterered to humans that wanted a hybrid of fashion. Elf high couture meets human common sense.”

“We can still do it,” Merry said.

Cattail Reeds nodded. “I intend to once we’re settled and have more people.”

Barley looked slightly worried until Oilcan said, “Most human enclaves — we call them hotels — have boutiques.”

Barley talked about the remote enclave where he grew up. “It’s perched on this mountain alongside the silk road. We’re high up where no trees grow, so the land is all wind-swept bare. On clear days you can see far, far away far in the distance, to the next enclave. There’s a female there that is seven hundred and twelve years old; she’s the only person under a thousand years old for a hundred miles, and she’s already in love.”

“There was no one our age in my village, either,” Rustle said. “It was nice going to Summer Court to study, and meeting Merry.”

Merry blushed.

Fields of Barley continued from his high perch. “I liked working at the enclave, but no one would ever listen to me. My mother was the youngest before I was born; my father was a weaver that passed through once a year until he’d been killed in a landslide. My household taught me how to cook, but I could never choose what we would make. We would order a new set of dishes every fifty years, retiring the old dishes which were now chipped and worn. It showed how well-to-do we were to our returning clients to have an obviously new pattern. The salesman would bring books with the china patterns and everyone would sit and marvel over them. There was this one pattern that I loved. It was elegant in its simplicity; nothing about the dish called attention away from the food being served. Our sama, though, believed that the dish itself should be stunning, so when it sat empty after the meal and the bill came, the customer felt that the tab was justified. I realized as I sat looking at the patterns that we would never, never pick one that I wanted, not that day or in all the years to come. I would never be able to decide what to cook or choose how we would serve it. The only way I’d have a say in anything would be if I started a new enclave.”

After years of trying to find a means to follow his dream, Barley had heard of Earth Son’s offer and immediately set out for the coast. “And that went so well.”

Baby Duck quacked nervously. She had little to offer as to why she’d traveled to Pittsburgh; her life prior to the whelping pen was still a complete mystery to her. “I remember we had big barns with kittens and chicks. I remember the smell of hay, like the barn was one big nest, and how safe it made me feel.”

Oilcan mentally added hay to the list of things to track down. There were farms in the south hills, source of most of the locally grown produce. They were going to need a shelter for the indi and would have to find enough food to get the animals through the winter.

They were finishing the last classroom when Baby Duck suddenly pointed out the large window to the faire grounds and cried, “Gossamer!”

They paused to watch the great living airship glide in from the east. The sunlight gleamed thru the massive translucent body, rendering it into a moving cloud of cut diamonds.

“It’s one of the Stone Clan’s,” Thorne Scratch murmured as they watched ropes being thrown down to the ground crew to be tied off at the anchors.

The gossamer itself looked no different than those that Windwolf owned, but the teak gondola slung under the creature was painted black with accents of gold.

“You’ll need to go out and meet it,” Thorne said.

“Me?”

“You’re the senior Stone Clan domana in Westernlands.”

“How do I outrank Forest Moss when I’m human?”

“He does not have a household. Also, currently he’s not lucid.”

“Fine.” He put down the paintbrush he’d been using and started out of the room.

“Do you really want to meet them dressed that way?” Thorne asked.

Oilcan glanced down at his painting clothes. His old blue jeans and black T-shirt were splattered with years of paint. “I look more human this way.”

Thorne made a little noise of agreement with that and followed him down the stairs.

Who had the Stone Clan sent and how would they change things in Pittsburgh? They couldn’t take the children from him, but they certainly could offer them a more secure household. They couldn’t take Thorne Scratch from him, but they could offer her a true beholding.

It hurt to think of losing them. He knew he could fall back to how his life had been before he met Merry, but that life seemed achingly empty. He had grown to love this new pattern of his life.

He reached out and took Thorne’s left hand. She looked down in surprise at their fingers intertwined.

“It’s something humans do,” he said.

She smiled slightly and tightened her hold on his hand. Together they strolled across the wide meadows toward the incoming Stone Clan domana who could steal all his newfound happiness away.

The first of the newcomers was landing from the gondola via a steel-caged elevator as Oilcan and Thorne strolled up to the anchors. Laedin warriors in black were securing the area. They gave Oilcan and Thorne surprised looks but moved off to establish a perimeter.

The elevator climbed back to the gondola and then glided downwards again, this time loaded with sekasha. Thorne slipped her hand free. Oilcan expected Thorne to start a conversation with the newly arrived sekasha, but apparently that wasn’t how it was handled. After one surprised glance to Oilcan, one of the males shifted forward and squared off against Thorne Scratch, locking into a silent stare-down. Thorne Scratch had her warrior’s mask on and looked wildly beautiful, stone cold and deadly.

A minute later, the elevator returned again, this time bearing a male domana. For an elf, he was plainly dressed. He wore slouch boots, doeskin pants, and a white silk shirt that showed off the fact he was strongly built through the shoulders and chest. All the hair in his braid was dark brown, and the only lines on his face were laugh lines at the edges of his dark eyes, but there was something vaguely grandfatherly about him.

Oilcan knew enough about elf customs that he should introduce himself first. “Welcome to Pittsburgh. I’m Oilcan Wright. Lacking any other candidates, Prince True Flame has deemed me head of the Stone Clan, because I’m a descendent of Unbounded Brilliance of Stone.”

The male stared at him with hurt and dismay on his face. His gaze dropped, taking in Oilcan’s clothes and paint-speckled hands.

“Forgiveness, I was painting.” Oilcan held out his hands as evidence.

The male breathed out a laugh like it been kicked out of him. “You could always tell what room she was working in by what colors were on her hands.” He reached out and rubbed at Oilcan’s face, scrubbing at a splotch of paint. “You have her eyes and her smile.”

“Forgiveness — I–I don’t understand.”

“You have your grandmother’s eyes.” And the male wrapped him tight in a hug. “My child, I have prayed for this day.”

And then the whole grandfatherly feel became clear. The male was a weirdly younger, elfin ghost of his grandfather, Tim Bell. “You’re Forge of Stone?”

Forge smiled. “I’ve come to take you home.”