Lilac Child Chapter 12
Just below Zini’s home was a cluster of workshops that never seemed to rest. All day and every day except for those set aside for the worship of the gods, the workers hammered at sheets of metal. Pounding away but never producing a single item of use. It stumped Zini as to their purpose, but she never knocked on the door or sidled up to the men as they walked home at the end of a shift and asked them what they did. It was an innocuous puzzle that Zini was more than happy to leave unsolved. Of course, she knew well that if it ever turned out that the metalworkers were building a machine intended to destroy the city, she’d be in trouble. She’d claim she didn’t know, but word would reach Mother Olo about how her spy had sat and listened to their work while drinking her cold marel tea.
The tea was excellent, though. The dog didn’t care about the metal workers either. Kola slept on the step next to Zini, rocked to sleep by the rhythmic clang of a dozen tiny hammers. Zini had been late to bed and even later rising, a fact that Mrs Greeves had noted with some concern. A hand against the forehead had brought a shaking of the head and she’d confined Zini to the front step. Any other day and Zini would have thanked her for her concern and gone about her business, but she was feeling adrift that morning and welcomed the intrusion. Her dreams had been silent plays, full of shadows and glimpses of light. Statues under a moving sky, silhouetted against violet light. An endless dream that lingered after waking.
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