Read Online Goblin Moon by Teresa Edgerton - Free Book Online Page B

supposed young Belinda had equally nice things of her own,
anyways. The other domestic arrangements consisted of two bunks
built into the wall, two patchwork quilts in colors as faded as the
wallpaper, a hammock suspended from the ceiling (which accommodated
Jed’s nephews when they came to visit), some pots, pans, tin
cutlery, and a wash-tub which occasionally doubled as a second
table.
    Jed took his chances with one of the chairs, sat
down, and began to relate the events of the day. Much to his
surprise and chagrin, Caleb greeted his new position and his
prospects for the future, not with delighted approval, but with a
burst of outrage.
    “A bottle factory? Blister me if the boy ain’t gone
and thrown his lot in with the d----d Glassmakers!” Caleb pounded
his fist on an arm of the rocking chair. “Didn’t I never warn you
about the Glassmakers Guild and all their tomfool rituals and
mummery?”
    “I guess you have,” Jed replied, with a sigh. “I
guess I remember it all pretty well, you being so particular about
telling me. What I don’t understand is what it—“
    But Caleb was not about to spare him another recital.
He folded his arms, rocked his chair, and fixed Jed with a beady
black eye, so fierce and full of fire, the boy knew there was no
use continuing until Caleb had had his say.
    “Them other guilds is mostly harmless,” said Caleb.
“Do they dress up in fancy robes on festival days and chant
nonsense? Yes, they do. Do they carry on between times with secret
handshakes and passwords, all real mysterious? They do that, too.
But the difference is: it’s mostly play-acting, just calculated to
impress ignorant folk like you and me, to keep us in awe of the
all-mighty guilds and their all-mighty craft mysteries, which even
the guildsmen they don’t hardly none of them know what they’re
about. The words and the rituals has all lost their meaning, and
you ask me: ‘tis all for the best. But them Glassmakers are
different, they take it more serious than most. Yes, and they got
good reason,
because they know what the
ceremonies is for, they remember the magic and the mystery at the
heart of them.”
    By now, Caleb was rocking his chair so hard that the
floorboards creaked in protest, and the cups and plates on the
sideboard rattled and jumped, ‘til it seemed likely that the old
man would bust them all.
    “What they don’t know—or won’t know—it don’t make no
difference,” Caleb continued, “is the danger in what they do.
They’re dealing in mysteries they don’t rightly understand, and I
know for a fact them guildsmen has been tampering with things they
had much better leave clean alone.”
    But by this time, Jed’s patience was wearing pretty
thin. “Yes, but I don’t see what none of that has got to do with
me. I ain’t been apprenticed to Master Ule or nothing like
that.”
    “
They ain’t all of them
glassmakers—I told you that afore,
” thundered Caleb. “There’s
gentlemen . . . bookish gentlemen, joined the Guild as well, hoping
to be let in on some of their secrets . . . think them guildsmen is
some kind of magicians, and if’n they join the Guild, why,
they’ll
become magicians, too.”
    “I think you’ve gone plumb crazy,” Jed told him
frankly. It was not his way to give his granduncle any sass, but
Caleb had pushed him beyond all endurance. “Magic! You’re obsessed
with it, you and Mr. Jenk. But I was there at the bottle factory
all day long, and nobody said nothing about your magical rituals.
They was all too busy making bottles or shipping them out—and
there’s naught mysterious or magical about any of that!”
    “Hmmph!” sniffed Caleb, though it was obvious Jed had
given him pause. The old man became thoughtful; the rocking and the
rattling gradually ceased.
    “Aye . . . well, I reckon not, not likely they’d make
you a ‘prentice nor let you in on any of their secrets, you being
related to me and all,” he sniffed resentfully. “But didn’t