Chapter 139: 139: The New Path XVI
---
Pim made a face. "I did not spill. The bucket betrayed me."
"The bucket will betray you again if you call it names, and play with it by swinging." Penny said. "Go."
Pim led John to the back door. The hinge squealed like a rat that had just figured out it lived with a cat. John took the pin out, cleaned it with oil, wrapped the hinge, set it back in, and asked Pim to open and close the door five times.
Pim did. The hinge went quiet. Pim looked impressed, then tried to cover it with a shrug. "Anyone could do that," he said.
"You did not," John said, mildly.
Pim rolled his eyes like a boy who knew he was seen and was suddenly shy.
They moved on. A floorboard near the hearth had lifted from the summer dryness. John showed Pim how to wet the wood, clamp it, and nail it after the wood remembered how to lie flat. Pim tried to hammer and hit his thumb. He swore a very soft swear. John passed him a rag and did not laugh.
"You aim with your eye, not your arm," John said. "Line first. Then swing."
Pim tried again and made the nail go where it should. He checked to see if John had seen. John pretended he had not. Pim stood a little taller and scowled for cover.
In the yard, a rain barrel leaked from a low seam. John wrapped a strip of old linen and pine pitch around the place and told Pim the trick of pressing the patch from inside with a stick while someone outside tied it off with a cord.
"What if there is a frog in the barrel," Pim asked.
"You ask the frog to help," John said.
Pim snorted, pleased.
By midmorning, the place looked more itself. Penny set a bowl of porridge with a square of butter on top and a cup of water by the back door without comment. John ate in three slow bites. Pim ate in six loud ones. He got butter on his nose. He refused to notice.
Pim tried to sneak a pickle from the big crock when he thought no one was looking. Penny’s voice came from the front: "Pim." He froze. He put the pickle back. He tried to fix the brine level with his finger. John took the ladle from his hand and set it back where it belonged.
"You are not subtle," John said.
"I am very subtle," Pim said. "You just have very rude eyes."
They went out to the small yard when the deliveries came. A man brought sacks of flour. John helped carry them. He moved like a man who liked to stack things so the stack would not argue with gravity. Pim tried to lift a sack that was too big for him. He staggered. John took the other side without making a speech about it. Pim pretended he had meant to share.
At noon, the Bent Penny filled with the mid-day crowd. John stepped back to the kitchen and did what hands do: fetched, carried, wiped, boiled, shut doors, opened others. He stayed quiet and listened to the way a room moves. He liked rooms. He liked how sound shows you where to stand.
In the afternoon, the rush passed. The place exhaled. Penny counted coins behind the counter. Pim counted crumbs and chased the cat. The cat let itself be chased because mercy is a skill.
Pim came back with a question on his face. "Can you show me... you know... the thing," he said, trying to act casual.
"What thing," John asked, knowing.
"The thing you did in the yard," Pim whispered, eyes too big. "With the air. With the ball. The doom ball. The one that Lord Fizz told me."
"No," Penny said from the front, not even turning. "Not in my room."
"Not in the room," John said. "In the yard. Small."
Penny made a face like a woman who has raised both children and fires. "Small," she warned. "If you destroy my tavern. You must fix it."
"Small," John promised. "No damage will be done."
They went out to the strip of grass by the shed. The cat came too and sat with an expression of long suffering. John looked around: no one at the gate, no one at the wall, only a sky with a few thin clouds pretending to be sheep.
He picked up a spoon from the wash tub and set it on a stool. He held out his hand, palm up, and breathed like a man washing his face at dawn. A black dot formed. Small. A seed. It rolled on the air like a drop of ink on glass.
"Do not touch," he told Pim.
"I would never," Pim said, fingers behind his back, leaning forward like a flower with opinions.
John lowered his hand until the little dark rested above the spoon. The spoon rattled on the stool and then lifted, slow and humble, and floated up to meet the seed. The dot softened and took the spoon in like a pond taking a leaf. The spoon was there and then not—no clang, no scream, no trick. Only gone.
Pim’s mouth fell open. "Where did it go," he asked, whispering.
"Elsewhere," John said.
"When will it come back," Pim asked.
"When I ask the world to remember it," John said.
"Can you make my mother’s broom go elsewhere," Pim asked at once. "She always asks me to clean the room with it."
"No," John and Penny said together from two different places.
John frowned at his hand, then opened it again. A breath later, the spoon popped back into the world above the stool. It fell, clinked once, and settled.
Pim clapped both hands to his head. "Do it again," he begged. "Make the cat else—"
"No," the cat said with his eyes.
John shook his head. "Enough."
Pim bounced in place, then tried to look serious. "I will keep your secret," he said. "I will tell only my five best friends."
"No," John said.
"Three friends?"
"No."
"One?"
"No."
Pim sighed. "Fine. I will only tell the cat. He already knows."
The cat blinked exactly like a teacher who had decided to forgive a student for something small and stupid.
They put the spoon back in the tub. Pim asked ten more questions. John answered five and left five for Pim to answer by standing still and paying attention. Pim did not like that. He liked it anyway.
"Where is the cool lord Fizz," Pim asked at last, flopping on the step.
"Out," John said. "Doing Fizz things."
Pim nodded, understanding more than he could say in words. "He will come back sticky."
"He will," John agreed.
The day kept moving. John fixed the latch on the upstairs window that liked to lie and say it was shut. He scraped the scale from the kettle so it would boil faster. He sharpened the small knives and told Pim why oil is not the same as water, even if both are wet.
Pim showed him the wooden sword he had made from a broken chair leg. John corrected his grip. Pim tried to argue and then tried it the new way and then pretended he had always held it like that.
"You are not a naughty boy," John said at one point. He didn’t mean to say it out loud. It just fell out.
Pim froze and stared at him and then frowned hard, because that is what you do when a truth lands on your head and you do not know whether to wear it or throw it at someone.
By late afternoon the light went gold. The crowd thinned. Penny set stew to simmer. John washed his hands and looked at the small stone looped on his wrist. He channel it with mana. It warmed. He said, "Fizz."
A beat later, the stone hummed. Fizz’s voice came small and clear, as if he sat inside John’s palm. "John! Report: greatness achieved. Snacks acquired. Adventures had. Edda learned three new ways to sigh at me."
"Where are you," John asked.
"On the way back," Fizz said. "Near the old bridge. We saw a man balance on a barrel and a woman sell knives that were also spoons. I ate a thing that might have been legal. It was delicious."
"Did you burn anything," John asked.
"Only with words," Fizz said. "Do you miss me."
"No," John said.
Fizz made a tragic noise. "My heart."
The stone cooled. John let his hand drop. He felt something he would not name: a small lift in his chest the size of a laugh he did not show.
He did not ask Edda what they bought. He would hear what he needed when he needed. Secrets are a kind of rope; you do not pull both ends at once.
The sun began to slide behind roofs. The lane changed color. Pim lit the first lamps with a long splint and managed to scorch only one eyebrow a little. He was very proud. He pretended not to be.