Free Thieftaker by D. B. Jackson Page B

exactly that. “I did it for the girl,” she said. She glanced toward the body. “Will that glow go away, or do you need to cast again?”
    He could have claimed that he needed to do one more conjuring. That way he could try the second spell again. But he couldn’t bring himself to lie to her in this place.
    “It’ll fade on its own. She should look normal by nightfall.”
    “Good,” Bett said, and left him there.
    He put away his knife and pulled his sleeve back down. Then he picked up his waistcoat and shrugged it on. He paused at the doorway to look at Jennifer once more. “Grant her rest, Lord,” he whispered.
    Ethan climbed the stairs back to the sanctuary. Troutbeck was nowhere to be seen, but Pell stood by the altar. Ethan raised a hand in farewell and continued to the door.
    The young minister merely watched him leave.
    Ethan thought about making his way directly to the Berson home, as Abner Berson’s man had instructed. But Bett’s remark about the blood on his shirt had reminded him that he ought first to change. He walked down School Street and then on to Water. With each step the stink of the harbor grew stronger.
    Dall’s cooperage, which had been built by Henry’s grandfather, stood on the east side of a lane named, appropriately enough, Cooper’s Alley. It was a modest building, but sturdy, with a small sign out front that read simply “Dall’s Barrels and Crates” and a second sign, on the oak door, that read “Open Entr.” Blue-gray smoke rose from a small, crooked chimney on the roof.
    Shelly and Pitch lay together outside the door. At Ethan’s approach they raised their heads, their tails thumping the cobblestones in unison.
    Ethan stepped over them, pushed the door open, and entered the shop. It was warm within. A fire burned brightly in the stone hearth. Henry sat on a stool by his workbench, his leather apron covering a worn gray shirt, the sleeves of which he had pushed up. The cooper was a small man with a lined, grizzled face, a bald head, and thick, muscular arms. Whenever he worked he furrowed his brow in concentration and opened his mouth in a sort of grimace, revealing a large gap where his two front teeth should have been. That was how he looked now, as he struggled to set the final hoop in place on a large rum barrel. There were fewer distillers in Boston now than there had been as recently as five or ten years ago, but Henry still did a steady business supplying barrels to those that remained.
    He was working the hoop into place with a large mallet that he had covered with cloth so that it wouldn’t damage the wood or scrape the hoop. Seeing Ethan enter, he raised a hand in greeting, but continued to work. Ethan remained by the door, watching, saying nothing, until Henry gave the hoop one last whack, threw his mallet onto his workbench, and pushed himself off the stool.
    “Damn hoop’th th’ wrong thizthe,” he said, with his usual lisp.
    “Is it from Corlin?” Ethan asked.
    Henry nodded, frowning with disgust.
    “Well, he’ll make you another. He’s been smithing for you for ages.”
    “I know. But I wanted this one done by today. I have other things t’ do.”
    “Well, this should brighten your day.” Ethan pulled from his pocket the pouch given to him by Berson’s man and handed two pounds to the cooper.
    “That should pay for my room through the rest of the year.”
    Henry stared at the coins as if he had never seen so much money in one spot. “I should say it does. Where’d ya get all this?”
    Ethan shook his head. “Not important,” he said. It wasn’t that Henry didn’t approve of thieftaking; in fact, he enjoyed the stories Ethan told about his past jobs. But he grew alarmed whenever he knew too much about what Ethan was working on at any given time. Ethan wasn’t sure how much of his concern was for his shop and the room above it, and how much was for Ethan himself, but he couldn’t deny that the old man fretted after him, as if he were