The February story, “Etchings,” is available now, exclusively for patrons!
Torra was working, as usual, in the back room, focusing on inserting the gears perfectly so that her new project would work correctly, when she heard voices from the front.
“This is unusual,” said a man’s voice. Torra didn’t know the voice, but she sat up straighter and listened harder—it seemed familiar to her somehow. “Beautiful workmanship.”
“My apprentice,” said Missus Frigta warmly. “A very remarkable young lady. She’s only fourteen, been working for me these two years, but her skills are outstripping mine already.” Torra smiled at Missus Frigta’s praise, though she didn’t believe it.
“A twelve-year-old child, already your apprentice?” The man’s voice, though reedy and hesitant, sent shivers of warmth through Torra. Where had she heard it before? Not in the orphanage, surely, and she had no memories from before it, except–she quashed the thought. She hadn’t met Kandel until they came to the orphanage, so those memories couldn’t be real.
Clare K. R. Miller 