Anvil novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: The Forge

Lizzie's POV

On Saturday I broke my own rule and walked my daughter through the door of the Forge.

She wore her red rain boots, though the sky was clear, and she carried a rolled sheet of paper in both fists.

"Is this where Dad works?" she asked.

"Where he sits with his friends, sometimes."

"It's very big."

"It used to be a foundry."

"What's a foundry?"

"A place where they poured hot iron into shapes."

"Can I see the hot iron?"

"There's only the cold kind now, baby."

She looked disappointed, and then she saw the long tables, and the smoke from the fryers, and sixty people eating fish off paper plates.

"Mom," she breathed. "They have a bounce house."

"Somebody's brother brought it."

She was gone before I finished the sentence.

The whole town had come.

The diner crowd sat at the folding tables with their plates on their knees.

The Kings stood around in their cuts, and every one of them nodded at me as I passed.

The green toolbox stood empty on a shelf by the door with a small brass plate screwed to its lid.

DANNY HATCHER. HE KEPT IT SAFE.

I stood in front of it for a moment, and then I put my hand on the lid.

"You old fool," I whispered. "You did it."

On the wall above the shelf hung my brother's patched cut, in a glass case, under a light.

Dutch had put it there on Thursday.

He had asked me first, with his hat in his hands, and I had cried in front of him and said yes.

"Lizzie."

I turned.

Tucker stood behind me in a clean shirt, with his arm in a lighter sling and his cut on his shoulders.

His beard was trimmed.

He looked tired and happy, and a little afraid.

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