‘Blacksmith!’ Gruff gasped, as soon as he had enough breath to speak. He pushed himself to his feet, the hammer heavy in his hand. ‘Blacksmith!’
No reply. The Weeping Stone was just a stone and Gruff was alone on the hilltop with an ancient hammer and the wind for company.
Gareth ap Ifan had missed some of the detail of the handle’s carving in his wooden replica. Here, the bear reared on its back legs and raised its paws to birds in the vine-like tree above. A mouse and a squirrel chased one another through the vegetation. The dog-headed beast’s body became the tree itself, all the animals linked together in an interconnected knot. The carving was still and solid, not like the moving decoration on the sword.
The hammer was formed from a single piece of stone. It had left behind a hammer-shaped hole in the Weeping Stone, a fresh, sharp-edged wound with no weathering or lichen. The blacksmith had chipped her hammer from the living rock and used it to give form to water. After the accident, it must have been returned to its mother-stone. Hidden. Safe. Waiting.
The hammer felt good in his hand: heavy and real. This wasn’t going to suddenly burst into water droplets. Gruff swung it experimentally. He thought about hitting the Weeping Stone but decided against it. Who knew what would happen if he did that.
Triumph rose in him again and he punched his hand to the air, hammer held high. ‘I did it!’ he shouted into the face of the wind. He laughed. ‘I did it!’
Finish the sword.
Finish it, or he’ll kill us all.
Gruff sighed. ‘Well, anyway. I did a bit of it.’
Raindrops began to patter softly around him.
‘We can do this,’ Gruff whispered. He slid down the hill, the rain quickly turning the path to mud, and set off across Evan’s field.
As he climbed the gate back into the farm, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He took it out and checked it before he remembered he was expecting a text. He’d been so intent on trying to help the island, he’d not been thinking about the fact he might have to leave it. But when he saw who the text was from, the hammer was forgotten.
Mam.
Gruff stopped in his tracks and opened the text, his heart thumping painfully and rain running down his neck and dripping off his chin.
Sweetheart, what’s brought this on? Of course you can, if that’s what you want. I could fix up the study, turn it into a bedroom. I do most of my work at the kitchen table anyway. I’ll ring later. Love you xxxx
Raindrops splattered the screen and blurred the words. Gruff looked at his home, the low grey farmhouse with its steep roof and crooked chimney, as though it was a photograph of somewhere he had known long ago. Nostalgic. No longer his.
‘Gruff!’ Dad appeared at the back door, waving an arm to get his attention. ‘Where’s your coat? You’ll catch your death!’
Gruff shoved his phone back into his pocket and ran the last hundred yards to the house, going round it to the front door so he could abandon his muddy trainers there and avoid a lecture from Nain. He stood in the hall in soggy socks, realising how wet and cold he was. Dad was whistling through his teeth in the kitchen and Nain had moved her accounting inside; he could see her stationed in the living room in her armchair, deeply focused on her spreadsheets. He had an unsettling feeling that he was not really there – that he could see and hear his family but they could not see him. That he was already gone, and Dad, whistling in the kitchen, was making dinner for just two.
Gruff dug his fingernails into his palm. I’ll visit in the holidays, he promised himself. It’s not like I can’t ever come back. The text seemed to make his pocket horribly heavy. He wished Mam hadn’t said yes. He wished he’d never asked her.
‘Gruff!’ Dad stuck his head out of the kitchen. ‘You’re sopping! Get changed, now. I don’t want to be calling the air ambulance out for a case of self-inflicted pneumonia.’ His eyes flicked down to Gruff’s hand. ‘What’s that?’
Gruff looked down at the hammer, feeling slightly surprised that it was still there. ‘Um … a hammer.’
‘I can see that.’ Dad emerged from the kitchen, dusting floury hands on his trousers. Gruff held the hammer up for him to see.
‘What beautiful markings,’ Dad said. He put his hand out and Gruff gave the hammer to him without thinking, and then felt a sudden spike of panic that it might disappear or something – but it did not. Dad turned it over in his hands, admiring it.
‘It’s made of stone. How strange!’ Dad said. ‘Where did you find it? In the shed?’
‘Owain!’ Nain called from the living room. ‘I thought the Woolly Warmers shop was asking for more stock?’
Dad’s face fell, worry settling into the tight line of his mouth. He handed the hammer back to Gruff and went to join Nain in the living room. ‘They didn’t have a good year themselves,’ he said quietly as he closed the door. ‘They don’t want any new stock from us.’ The latch clicked shut and Gruff was alone.
The text still sat heavy in his pocket, but balancing it against Dad’s worry made it seem somehow lighter. This. This was why he should be glad Mam had said yes.
He had been going to tell Dad about the hammer, but now he didn’t want to add to the worry etched into his face. Also, Dad would probably just try and stop Gruff from being involved, in case he got hurt. Dad could be like that sometimes. Barrelled down by a sheep, no problem, but stand in the rain without a coat for five minutes and he became all parent-y.
He would tell Dad. Just not yet.
Gruff climbed the stairs, leaving damp footprints on the threadbare carpet, and changed into dry clothes. His wet ones were muddy but that would brush off when they were dry. He took them downstairs and hung them on the clothes horse in the living room. The worried conversation about Woolly Warmers had finished: Dad was back in the kitchen whistling as though nothing had happened and Nain had disappeared.
Gruff sat on the rug, next to a sleeping Hywel. He put the hammer at his feet and traced the lines of the beautifully carved handle with his finger. How long would it be before he wouldn’t be here to sit in his favourite spot on the rug anymore?
Nain gasped as she came into the room. ‘You found it?’
Gruff grinned despite himself. ‘Yup.’
‘Tell me everything!’
As Gruff helped Nain file the papers and put the folding table away in the corner of the room he explained what had happened since he and Mat had left Nain in the garden. Nain inspected the hammer with her glasses perched on the end of her nose. ‘Incredible,’ she whispered. She looked up at Gruff. ‘So what next?’
Gruff took a shaky breath and smiled. ‘Now I guess we have to finish the sword.’
Finish it, or he’ll kill us all.
‘Before the storm,’ Gruff added, reaching out to take the hammer back. He weighed it in his hand, this ancient, magical object hidden in stone for longer than memory. ‘Finish the sword before the storm.’
Beside him, Hywel whined in his sleep.