The magical journey of a countryside boy

By the time William stepped out of the forge, the sun was already on its last legs, casting long, bloody shadows across the lanes of Ashbrook. The stifling heat of the workshop slowly faded, replaced by a cool evening breeze that carried away the remaining humidity of the historic downpour.

​He walked quietly down the dirt path, his mind spinning. Somehow, he was carrying even more questions out of the forge than he had brought into it.

​“Hey! Orphan boy!”

​William looked up. A pudgy kid around his own age was waving frantically from the village square. “We’re playing Rain Man! You wanna join?”

​An older boy nearby immediately scoffed, shoving the younger one aside. “No, he’s gotta go make the rain first! Go find a stick, kid!”

​The whole group burst into a chorus of mocking laughter, already arguing over who would get to pretend to be the ragged traveler and who got to play the storm. William couldn’t help but smile faintly. He watched them for a moment, realizing that the heavy questions didn’t have to matter right now. He didn’t need to understand how the world worked. Under the gathering stars, he was just another child heading home to a warm hearth.

Stolen novel; please report.

​In the next seven days, Every spare moment William could wring from his chores, he sneaked back to the forge, anchoring himself near the door peppering the blacksmith with everything that crossed his mind—how to read the temper of steel by its color, how many guards patrolled Arindale’s stone walls, and whether the city knights ever hunted monsters in the deep timber.

​John never seemed to mind the intrusion. He answered what he could between heavy strikes, chuckled at the boy’s wilder theories, and simply shrugged at the things beyond a blacksmith’s scope. But he always ended their talks the exact same way, gesturing toward the southern road with a soot-stained hand.

​“You’ll just have to go see it for yourself someday, kid.” Then the hammer would fall, and the conversation was over.

​By the end of the week, William had wrung every story out of the man, yet the answers only made his world feel frustratingly small.

​The morning after his last visit, reality caught up with him. He was out in the western fields, his back aching as he worked alongside Uncle Rob, Aunt Gretchen, and the rest of the family. The recent rain had turned the parched earth soft and heavy, making the task of clawing up potatoes twice as miserable.

​A few rows over, Craig and Matt were turning the brutal labor into a loud, muddy competition over who could unearth the largest root, while little Emma ignored the work entirely, content with wiping dirt off a small, round potato she loudly declared to be ”pretty.”

​William kept his head down, his fingers caked in dark, sticky soil, but his mind was still sitting by the warmth of John’s coals. He was completely checked out, going through the mechanical motions of the harvest, until a sudden change in the daily routine gave him the exact opportunity he had been praying for.