Chapter 30 Tristan
TRISTAN
Tristan stood in front of the garage side door, not entirely sure how the place worked. Was he supposed to make a wish out loud? Or was thinking it enough? Did he have to have a clear prize in mind? What would Haisley even want?
“I need a Christmas gift for Haisley,” he finally said, putting his hand on the door handle.
It stuck just long enough that he thought it was locked and then the latch moved under his hand and the door swung open.
Tristan went in, and his glasses fogged immediately.
It was like shopping, only worse, because he didn’t know what he was looking for, and nothing was for sale anyway.
Haisley wouldn’t want an antique file, or a bent bicycle wheel.
She didn’t need a bird cage or a 2x4 or a handful of concrete anchors.
The garage looked less hospitable than ever, and Tristan was pretty sure that some of the overhead lights had burnt out since he was there with Haisley. He should have brought a flashlight.
He wandered the stacks in growing frustration, and when he tripped over a concrete curb that was lying across the only clear walking way, he crashed into a stacked tool box that tipped threateningly. Something fell off the top and rattled across the floor to come to a stop at his feet.
Tristan crouched down and picked it up.
It was a key.
In fact, it was a rather ordinary key, with a leather strap on it that said ALASKA MOUNTAIN CHALET, each letter stamped in separately. The kerning was terrible.
Tristan replaced the key on the top of the tool box, which seemed incredibly sturdy on second inspection. He wasn’t sure how it had tipped. And it didn’t help his quest.
He should make Haisley something beautiful. A flower.
Bamboo? his bear suggested helpfully. Bamboo flower?
“You have a one-track mind,” Tristan said out loud.
But a flower was something he could work with.
Maybe he could make something out of metal.
He didn’t think he was much of an artist, but he’d seen some videos on lapping petals of soft copper sheet.
Hadn’t there been some copper sheets in the toolbox where Haisley had found the pom poms and pipe cleaners?
There were certainly some lengths of random electrical wire he could strip for a stem.
He squeezed through the garage back to that toolbox and opened all of the drawers.
There were no copper sheets, though there were several boxes of hooks and one drawer was completely full of hangers for some reason.
When he shut the last drawer, he heard something fall off the top of the toolbox, and when he went to pick it up, he was somehow not surprised to find a key on the floor.
If it was not the same exact key that he’d found halfway across the garage, it was a convincing replica, with identical crappy kerning on the leather band.
“What does this even mean?” Tristan asked out loud. “Does it unlock something?”
He found a locked cabinet, but the key didn’t even fit into it, let alone turn.
Tristan put the key into his pocket thoughtfully, and went to gather up supplies to try to make some kind of posy.
If he couldn’t find copper sheets, could he hammer down some wire?
There was an anvil under a stack of insulation, and a dozen hammers hung above the workbench.
Underneath the insulation, resting on the anvil, he found a single strip of lightweight aluminum.
There were tin snips on the workbench where he hadn’t seen them before, and an awl.
Tristan looked at them skeptically for a moment, then cut the strip into a few petals, used the awl to punch holes, and strung them into a perfectly suitable flower, pinching everything into place with needle-nosed pliers.
By the time he was finished, he was stumbling with exhaustion, his fingertips were screaming in pain, and his eyes were badly strained from working in the poor light, but Tristan felt like he had something he could give Haisley for Christmas without shaming himself.
He left the garage and shut the door behind him before him before he thought about finding a vase for his flower gift.
Surely the garage had an old jar or a bit of tubing he could use…
The door was locked behind him.
Tristan tested it several times, putting all of his shifter strength into trying to open the latch, and it didn’t budge at all.