What
does a girl do when the fantastical creatures she creates for a charm bracelet
come to life?
Emily questions her sanity when troll lifts his mace and wizard defends with his staff, and hightails it out of her studio. When her dad phones the next morning to say he’s coming over, she is beyond relieved. In the light of day, with her dad present, her imagination can’t play tricks … right?
Holy smoke! Even Dad is gobsmacked by what he sees. Elf brandishes his flute like a knife and fairy bites troll … how is this real?
Only one thing to do now.
Call in the cavalry because Mom will know what to do … right?
ONE
HOLY SMOKE!
My
chair screeched as I shoved away from my workbench. Right, seriously, I’ve
burned the midnight oil a few too many nights now; how else to explain my
current hallucination? Ha, chances were, it might also be fury making me see
things. Yeah, definitely. When a girl was angry, the real world was out there
behind a haze of righteousness, and only her own mutterings and, face it,
visions, made any kind of sense.
You
know the state, am I correct? Even your favourite pasta ends up tasting like
crap because it may be something you once enjoyed with the one making you so mad
in the present, and right now you need no bloody reminders. Yeah, you know the
feeling. So, you know where I’m at.
Still.
Weird.
Inhaling
one of those mighty breaths that folk tell you will calm your heart
palpitations, I stared at the scarred bench I inherited from my dad. Oh, he was
still very much in the land of the living, but he gave it to me a few years ago
when he and my mom downsized. I think he was secretly relieved his favourite
bench wouldn’t end up as firewood somewhere.
I
was ecstatic. This workbench was part of my childhood, and I adored the
solidness and loved every scar, burn, and hole drilled in error when a project
went a mite haywire. How we laughed when the metal bit scored the bench rather
than the dollhouse’s roof, the printer’s tray’s corner piece, the cat caves we
made, birdhouses, until the day Dad nearly drilled through his thumb. He
screamed, and given I had never heard him do that, I burst into tears.
Man, Mom nearly floored both of us with her withering looks, which I now know
were all about anxiety, not anger. She was in such a huff that the next day Dad
and I giggled for hours about it. Dad’s thumb ended up wrapped for weeks, but
it didn’t stop him from finishing the trellis for the sweet peas.
This
old thing had stories to tell.
So,
maybe old memories and my cocoon of anger now played tricks. I had been
thinking about asking my dad to come over to fix the old sander - another item
he passed to me - or more correctly, whether if I could get him to come over
before his stated day next week - needed to sand the cabinet in my bathroom - while
also swearing repeatedly about Pierre and his stupidity. Really, such a
goddamned idiot! Had he been lying on the bench right now, I’d drill multiple
holes in his nether parts, and then I’d start on his thick skull. Dick and
head. Ha.
Rubbing
my eyes, I stood up from the high stool I used when doing finicky work.
Standing was for power tools and hectic wrenching and stuff but led to unsteady
hands when engraving or creating the small details. Dad and I made the chair
from an old wrought iron railing, and the damn thing was heavy, shrieked when
dragged across the untreated concrete floor, but it did the job. It grew roots
and held fast when I needed to be as unmoving as possible. Mom rolled her eyes
every time she saw it; I nearly sliced my thumb off in the making of it.
Bet the foam below the now threadbare seat upholstery still sported a blood
splash or two.
Deep
breath, Emily. Deep. Slow. Breathe.
Focus.
Approaching
the bench, I breathed, in through the nose, out through the mouth, slow …
Holy
smoke!
What
was the matter with me? Yes, I had an over-active imagination, had to, to
create bespoke jewellery, my passion and my income, but certainly not of the
kind that had tiny metallic creatures come to life.
The
commissioned charm bracelet would adorn the wrist of a little girl on her
twelfth birthday in about three weeks, and her mother had asked for a host of
tiny beings to link to the silver chain because her daughter loved the magical
realms, ever had her nose in a fairy tale or fantasy book.
So
far, I’d cast, sculpted and engraved a silver troll hefting a mace, an elf
playing a flute, a fairy with spread wings, a dragonfly wearing a crown, a cat
with a bushy tail, a wizard and his staff, and tonight I intended to put the
finishing touches to a penguin cradling an orb on its webbed feet. The tiny
characters, the size of a thumb nail, waited in a line at the edge of the
toughened glass expanse embedded into a section of the old bench’s scarred top
- finicky stuff required a smooth work surface, after all - while I ironed out
the small sphere at the penguin’s feet - just know the girl would thumb it much
like one rubbed a tiny buddha’s belly, I’d bet anything she wouldn’t be able to
help herself - and caught, peripherally, a flicker of movement.
The
troll swung his mace …
…
and the wizard countered with his staff.
Nope.
Uh-uh, oh no, not happening.
Life-like
renditions wasn’t life.
The
high stool screeched.
Next,
I breathed like an expert at meditation. In. Out.
Seeing
things, too tired - had spent many nights creating moulds, melting silver, and
so forth, before starting on the details that made a piece come to life - ha! -
while wrapped like a comfortable blanket in my fury thinking of my best friend
Pierre and his idiot moves that might lose him the love of his life. Nicola, my
other best friend, did not deserve his suddenly cavalier treatment. Pierre,
meanwhile, acted the innocent …
Argh.
Stop it!
Chatterbox
mind, you know it, right? The thing that happens when you seek to distract
yourself from something you’d prefer not to think about too much? Round and
round your thoughts go, an insane rollercoaster and merry-go-round all in one,
until you cop what you’re doing, and basically scream at yourself to stop being
a nincompoop. Yeah, that. My chatterbox, if you haven’t yet noticed, was in
overdrive.
So.
Where
was I? Oh, right. I breathed, nose, mouth, et al, and moved closer to my workspace
to check on the state of my sanity.
The
cat bared its claws …
…
and the fairy took to wing.
Nope,
nope, nope. Seeing things. So not doing this. Gonna warm up the
left-over pizza, guzzle a mug of strong coffee, and to hell with this.
Can
you hear how hard the door slams as I leave the garage converted into my
studio? Yeah, that.
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