Chapter 5: Back Room

I didn't answer Tori.

I didn't post anything at all.

On Monday morning I walked into the back room of the glassworks with a notebook and a tape measure.

It was full of iron molds.

Hundreds of them, stacked to the ceiling, some older than the building's wiring.

"Dad never threw out a mold," Carrie said from the doorway. "He said every one was a bottle somebody might want back."

"Did anybody ever want one back?"

"Once. In 1994. He talked about it till he died."

The crew moved the molds to the loft in two days.

Nobody asked them to.

I came in Tuesday and the room was empty, swept, and smelled like the river and old iron.

The oldest of them was standing in the middle of it with his arms crossed, inspecting the floor.

"Benches," he said, and walked out.

By Thursday there were two long workbenches made from the shop's old pallet racks, sanded smooth.

I spent half my savings at a university surplus auction on a balance, a hot plate, a pH meter and a box of glassware.

Matt looked at the box and laughed.

"You bought glass," he said. "And brought it here."

"It's lab glass. It's different."

"It's glass."

"It's borosilicate. It doesn't crack when I heat it."

"Neither does mine, if you know what you're doing."

"Can you blow me a beaker?"

He picked up one of my beakers and turned it in the light, frowning at it.

"I could blow you a better beaker," he said. "With a handle."

"Beakers don't have handles."

"That's the problem with beakers."

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