Free Quiet Magic by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller Page A

reveal a stoutish woman of
indeterminate--though undeniably middle--years; apron tied around
her sturdy waist and a smear of flour on her cheek.
    He smiled. "My name is Rob Davis. Miss
Brown invited--"
    "You to dinner," she finished for him,
a broad grin on her face. "Of course she did. She had an aversion
to poor Mr. Marley, too. Bell was the first thing out of the kiln
when she came to us." She pulled the door wider.
    "Well, come on in, if you're company.
I'm Jessie Martin." Having gotten him safely into the hall, she
turned and pointed up the stairs. "They're all in Elmira's studio.
Up the stairs and follow your ears. Might as well go on
up--dinner'll be awhile" She grinned again. "Did she tell you
seven?"
    Rob admitted it, a little
dazed.
    "Well, we do hit seven sometimes,"
said Jessie, as one being fair. "But tonight it'll be close on to
eight." She tipped her head. "Starving?"
    He laughed, "No'm, not quite
yet."
    "You start feelin' that way, you send
Jeffrey down for some beer and cheese, because I tell you the
truth, sugar, dinner's been as late as nine, some
nights."
    Again he laughed, and she joined; and
seemed about to shoo him upstairs when an odd look crossed her
face.
    "What can I be thinking of? You hold
on a minute right here." She startled him with her speed, heading
off into the back of the house, toward what must be the kitchen. He
surveyed the hall in which he stood, glimpsing a portion of
comfortable living room filled with older furniture and what
appeared to be piles and piles of books--at the side of the sofa,
by each chair, overflowing one table. On the walls were candle
holders and --
    "Oh, I do forget sometimes when I'm
cooking. I just don't know sometimes where my manners go..." Jessie
Martin, returning.
    She carried a white taper in her right
hand, a bulky box of strike-anywhere matches in her
left.
    Bustling past, she nodded at the
center branch of the five branch candelabrum to the left of the
front door; its fully lit twin was on the right.
    "Now light your candle and put it up
there in that middle spot." She shook open the box and laughed when
he looked around for a place to strike it. "Right there, sugar,"
she directed with another nod and Rob saw the rough metal plate set
into the door.
    He lit the candle, noticing the
fineness of the wax. It wasn't dyed white or tinted white; the
candle itself was of fine, translucent, white wax.
    The candle flame steadied after a
moment, and the efficient Jessie Martin took the match and hurried
him up the wide stairs.
    "Do we have one of Jason's?" Heard
through the door Jeffrey's voice had an edge to it, but Rob wasn't
able to determine if it was annoyance or excitement. "He makes
those grayish ones, like fog--you know."
    Rob tapped on the door and the boy's
voice cut off, to be replaced by a cool, "Come in."
    He did, and slammed to a halt just
inside the door, mouth a little open. He began, for lack of any
other way to deal with it, to take inventory of the
place.
    Start with the kiln over to the left,
standing tall on its blue tile pedestal, flanked by workbenches,
tools hung neatly above on pegboard sheets, clay confined to
covered pans. Proceed to the potter's wheel nearby; catalog yet
another bench piled high with sheets and shards of stained glass,
coils of copper ribbon, gnomish lumps of lead.
    Moving his eyes past the workbench, he
stared at the easels--three--each with an unfinished painting upon
the prop.
    Rob finally took a second step into
the room, and then a third, craning to see. One painting was--would
be--a round black vase stuffed full of blown red roses. Another was
very nearly an ocean lashed furious by a wind almost seen, pounding
against towers of rock. The canvas flanked by these contained a
mist-blue castle poised high on an indigo cliff.
    A faint clink drew his eyes up, and he
began to inventory all over again, counting windchimes of pottery,
of stone and glass and shell--dozens of windchimes, hanging from
every exposed beam.
    "Hi