28. Kit
Kit
A week after the celebration of Penny’s first sale, he was still buoyant. Given the first Oath looming a few days away, it was a small blessing that he didn’t seem to be as full of constant dread as I was.
He spent more time at Rosie’s in the afternoons as she taught him her bread recipes.
I suspected that was part of why he was too distracted to give the branding much thought beyond what we’d discussed in the orchard.
As irritated as he’d been at her intrusion on our dinner at the pub, he’d gotten over it quickly, which I was thankful for.
I was glad he had a friend in this place who could match his sunny disposition.
I’d finished Penny’s knife the day before, so I closed up the forge after he left with Rosie and headed home by way of the butcher shop for a roast. If I timed it right, I could have dinner ready for him when he got home for once.
As much as he took care of me, he didn’t give me many opportunities to return the favor.
He refused to hear me when I told him that I didn’t expect him to handle all the house chores, and he persisted in doing them anyway .
The quiet of the house felt strange after a month of Penny’s constant presence.
For as often as I tuned him out, I’d gotten used to his chatter.
Without the near-constant background noise, my mind had too much room to wander and dwell on things I didn’t want to think about, so I filled it thinking through what I needed to do to get dinner ready.
I set the roast on the counter in the kitchen and lit the cookstove.
When I turned to take a pan from the rack on the opposite wall, my eyes caught on Penny’s sketchbook laying open on the dining table.
The exposed pages showed the sketch of Rosie’s cat that he’d been working on at breakfast. I smiled at the memory of his excitement at the prospect of her having kittens soon and how he’d gone on about how plump she’d become.
He rarely went anywhere without the book, so I hadn’t had much chance to see what occupied so much of his attention every evening.
Roast momentarily forgotten, I settled at the table and flipped through pages of sketches of the town square and designs he intended to try on tool handles in the forge.
And there, tucked between a drawing of a grasshopper and one of Thoma’s colts in the stables, were a handful of folded sheets of brown paper I recognized from Rosie’s bakery stand.
I pulled out the top sheet and opened it, expecting to find more artwork, but instead finding it packed tightly with Penny’s scrawled handwriting.
It was a letter dated the day after we’d arrived in Ashpoint and addressed to his mother and sister.
I had every intention of returning the paper to its place until my eyes caught on my name partway down the page. Curiosity stayed my hand as I skimmed the letter.
I met a girl in the market today while I was getting supplies.
Her name is Rosie, and she runs the bakery.
Everything in her stall looked so perfect and delicious.
The muffins I got for Kit and me were mouthwatering: orange cranberry, just the right balance of tart and sweet.
I can’t wait to introduce the two of them.
I think Kit will like her. She’s nice, and even though he sees the worst in people sometimes, even he couldn’t find fault with her.
I hope they’ll be friends. I get the feeling Kit needs more of those.
My stomach lurched at the mentions of me, though I couldn’t tell whether it was from guilt, discomfort, or something else entirely. It made sense he would write about me to his family. He was supposed to be my apprentice. I just hadn’t expected him to be so… candid.
I should have put the rest of the letters away, but my interest was piqued.
And I couldn’t dismiss the concern that he might reveal more about Ashpoint than he should, so I unfolded the second letter.
It was dated a little under a month prior and was much shorter than the first. Again, a scan of the text found an alarming number of mentions of me.
Yesterday was a bad day. I was homesick, and missing both of you and Father, and worrying about not doing well in the smithy.
But Kit was so kind and gentle with me. He sat and let me talk until I got tired and then sent me to bed.
He even let me sleep in and made me breakfast this morning.
And today, he let me try my hand at carving leather for sheaths and straps.
I wish you’d gotten the chance to see this side of him when we were there.
He’s not as reserved as he seemed when we visited.
He sees potential in me, and he’s the first to step in to defend me, even when it’s from myself.
He’s a good man. I’m lucky to have found such a good master to apprentice under.
I was relieved to see that he’d omitted the altercation with Merrick in the stairwell, but the rest had me feeling almost sick. I wasn’t sure there had been a single point in my life where I’d seen myself as a good man. Maybe I wasn’t as bad as the rest of them, but that didn’t make me good.
The remainder of the letter made brief mentions of meeting Reimond and Thoma and baking shortbreads with Rosie, but somehow everything Penny told his family became him telling them about how I reacted to the cookies and how I didn’t notice that the two men were more than friends.
The third letter was from two weeks back once his baking lessons with Rosie were in full swing. I was sure he’d spend the whole thing gushing about the treats he made, but it didn’t take more than a few words before my name cropped up.
I’ve been spending every afternoon at Rosie’s lately because she’s teaching me to bake.
Cookies and cakes and pastries, and she always lets me bring some home for Kit.
He’s been working himself to the bone in the smithy catching up on repairs that piled up while the town didn’t have a smith.
I’ve been glad to be able to have dinner and something sweet for him when he gets home.
I’ve also been making progress on my carving. Kit always makes sure to tell me how well I’m doing. I like making him proud. And knowing that I’ll be able to contribute to the work in the smithy and bring these skills home when this is over is nice, too.
I didn’t understand how a man I’d known for a month and a half had more to say about me in his letters than my own father did in the eight expansive journals he filled after I escaped. There were so many other things Penny could have talked about or focused on, but he always ended up back at me.
We spent a good deal of time together, yes, but where was the endless prattle about Rosie’s pregnant cat or the enthusiastic babble about the colts in the stable about which he’d spent hours telling me every detail?
What about the wild pecan orchard that he’d drawn over and over for days after Rosie took him the first time?
I didn’t think I was a particularly interesting person, at least when you discounted my past, which thankfully Penny hadn’t included.
Still, he managed to find endless things to say about me, even if they were mundane everyday occurrences.
I wasn’t sure what it meant, but there was one letter left, dated the day after our dinner at the pub.
Unlike the others, this one was addressed solely to Sayla.
I sold my first commissioned piece to Rosie’s father, so I finally have some coin of my own. It took a little convincing, but I got Kit to agree to let me take him to the pub for dinner last night.
Luck was not on my side when we got there. What should have been an intimate meal was quickly interrupted by Rosie and Tessa inviting themselves along. So, we left before we even had a chance to eat and took a walk in the pecan orchard instead. It was chilly, but the moon was so bright.
Then I did another stupid thing. I kissed him, and I’m not sure he liked it.
But he said he didn’t dislike it. Maybe it’s hopeless, but he put his arm around my shoulders to keep me warm on our way home, and he smelled like smoke from the smithy.
I always thought I hated the smell of fire, but it’s pleasant on him.
He’s so different when we’re alone together.
He’s freer and more relaxed, and sometimes I catch his eyes on me when he doesn’t think I’m paying attention.
And when he smiles at me, my insides go all twisty.
He doesn’t smile like that at anyone else.
He’s polite with others, but he’s nice to me.
I don’t know how to explain it, it’s just different.
He’s not placating or humoring me. He genuinely cares that I’m happy.
I couldn’t read anymore, so I carefully folded each letter and tucked them back where I’d found them.
My mouth was dry and, much like Penny said happened to him when I smiled, my insides were twisting themselves into knots.
I never should have invaded Penny’s privacy and wished to return to that place of being ignorant of how he really felt about me.
I was his friend, and I was responsible for him and his safety here.
That was where our attachment ended, wasn’t it?
I wasn’t ready to think about whether that night in the orchard had revealed anything to the contrary, or about how the moonlight had made his pale hair seem to glow.
I refused to dig into what had possessed me to tuck that hair behind his ear.
There could be no feelings to be had beyond taking care of him and protecting him from the threat the Bone Men posed.
It was too dangerous to consider anything more.
I would need to be more careful in our interactions going forward. I didn’t want to break his heart.