Grey’s Landing
A Grey’s Harbor Story
Book One in the Grey’s Harbor Series
Chapter One
Maddy Grey bent her head over her cutting table, scrunching her nose up as she considered the piece of glass. It was exquisite, blues and greens swirled in a soft wave pattern. It was going to be a bitch to cut, especially in the curve she had pictured in her head. She pulled the edge of her lower lip between her teeth as she calmed herself. She imagined the cut and her hand holding the tool just right.
Ssswwtt.
She could tell by the sound without even looking that the cut was good. The wheel had done its job against the glass, scribing the surface and breaking the tension. Now the hard part. She picked up the piece of glass in her hands, ignoring the gloves Tripp always insisted she use. But Tripp was gone. He wouldn’t be lecturing her again.
She blinked back the moisture threatening in her eyes, then shook her head, trying to clear it. She had work to do.
Expertly she checked the score, testing it. She could see the cut starting to run along the scratched line in the glass. In her right hand she held the running pliers, in her left she steadied the glass.
Just the right amount of pressure.
Clink.
The cut ran along the score and the one piece of glass became two, with a graceful curve along one edge of both. Maddy set aside the piece she didn’t want and critically looked at the other. The curve complemented the wave swirl of colors.
She picked up a clear piece of glass and her large circle cutter. She could do this in her sleep. A quick scribe of the circle and a few relief cuts were all it would take. She pressed the glass between her running pliers, here, there, and the edges broke away, the perfect circle left waiting for her to work her magic. She did it again to another sheet of clear glass, making a perfect match for the first one.
Cutting a half circle under her wave cut she stacked the pieces of glass matching the curved edges of the circle. She liked what she saw. In her mind, she imagined the flat pieces of glass fused together by heat, becoming a glossy painting of blues and greens then slumped into a mold forming the final bowl. She couldn’t wait to see it become what it was meant to be.
Carefully she cleaned all the components, making sure no fingerprints remained.
Picking up a soft gray colored thin rod of glass, she flipped on her torch, then dipped the rod into the flame, carefully softening it so she could bend it to her will. A stylized seagull emerged from the rod. Maddy heated the edge of the wing and set it free from the remainder of the stick. She placed the soaring gull on the bowl blank, flying the bird high above the waves of blue.
Two more times, and Maddy had a trio of birds winging their way across the sky of the bowl. She stared at the flat circles, imagining the design dipped into the curves of the bowl. It was missing something. Maddy looked up at her shelf at the jars of glass crushed into fine powders and crystals like a baker’s rack of decorator sugars.
Selecting a palette of reds and oranges, Maddy painted the sky of her bowl bank with the crushed glass crystals creating a sunset background for her birds.
Once she was satisfied, she donned a thin pair of cotton gloves and picked up the stacks of cut glass sheets and sprinkles. She set the stack in an empty space within the waiting kiln. Checking to make sure the birds hadn’t moved she straightened, groaning as she worked out the kinks in her back. She surveyed all the other pieces waiting in the kiln for the next step. Twelve bowl blanks, all ocean scenes designed to complement each other were waiting for her to fire them into their fused state.
She consulted her notebook, checking her firing schedule for the type of glass and thickness she had loaded in the kiln. She never trusted her memory. It would be a costly mistake to enter the schedule wrong and ruin the pieces. She entered the schedule into the computer controller, the ramp up time, the top temperature, holding, and the drop in temperature, holding to anneal before the final cooling off. She wouldn’t be able to see the results until the next night. Patience was a big part of being a glass artist.
The kiln started to make ticking sounds, heating up, the materials expanding. When she was certain everything was going as it should, Maddy turned and went to work cleaning up her workspace. After putting the large pieces of scrap glass away in the scrap buckets, careful to make sure they were in with the same kind of glass, she took the bench brush and carefully cleaned all the tiny shards of glass from the surface. She had learned the hard way early in her career that forgetting to sweep up the glass slivers led to a very bloody hand or two. Satisfied everything was in order, she walked toward the door, ready to leave her studio for the night. Just before she flipped off the lights, she turned her attention to the watercolor that hung next to the top of the Dutch door. It was the one Tripp had painted for her on their first anniversary of living together. The couple on the beach was obviously them, Maddy with her black hair French-braided and hanging to her waist, Tripp with his long shaggy hair lifted by the wind , his arm slung around her shoulder. The ocean was washed in the soft pastels of sunrise. Tripp had caught the moment perfectly in the transparent colors of paint.
Her heart hurt, the ache seeping into her soul.
He’d left her. He’d left Grey’s Harbor. He said he needed to be in a metropolitan area. For his art. To be fair, he’d asked her to come, to follow him and their dreams, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t leave Grey’s Harbor. She couldn’t leave her cottage and her studio by the sea.
She locked the door, painted a jaunty blue, and smiled at the wren who was sitting on the sunny yellow shutters. Her studio was perfect. Had been perfect until Tripp left. Now it was empty, the studio not so sunny anymore.
“Hey, Maddy!”
She looked up to see Maeve Wynn on the dune path coming up from the beach. Maeve skirted the old ruins of a foundation and fell in step with Maddy as she left her studio and followed the path to her cottage a few steps away.
“What brings you out here this evening, Maeve? Taking a break from the diner?” Maddy smiled at her friend.
“I just needed to get away for a bit. The diner’s in good hands, and I just wanted to take a walk on the beach. I lost track of time and space and never dreamed I would end up this far from town.”
“Are you okay?”
“Sure, I just needed to think some things out.”
“Tank driving you crazy again?” Maddy asked slyly, her hooded eyes watching her friend’s expression out of the corner.
“You really are perceptive, aren’t you? Must be the artist in you.”
Maddy gazed out at the ocean as she stepped up to her covered back porch. She patted an old-fashioned metal scalloped-back chair painted a cheerful coral. Maeve sunk into it gratefully.
“I don’t know Maeve. Tripp left, and I didn’t see that coming, so I’m not as perceptive as you might think. On the other hand, my guess is you would go for a raspberry iced tea about now.”
“I’ll take you up on that. I could use a drink before my long hike back. Need help?” Maddy shook her head and disappeared into the tiny cottage painted to match the airy studio next to it. Maeve leaned back in the chair and sighed. Men. They certainly could complicate things.
Maddy came back out, ice tinkling in the glasses filled with the refreshing brew. The antique wooden screen door slammed behind her, a comforting sound from her childhood. She settled into a matching chair next to Maeve and they sipped their tea in comfortable silence.
“You need a dog,” Maeve said suddenly.
Maddy laughed.
“What brought that on?” she asked.
“I don’t know. This porch needs a pooch, and you’re out here alone. Now that Tripp is gone, I don’t know, I just don’t like the idea of you alone.”
“It’s kind of peaceful,” she said, sadly. “And I lived here alone before Tripp moved in, so I can do it again.”
“I know, but it’s quieter when someone moves out.” Maeve watched the waves roll in, the tide moving the water closer while sea gulls hunted in the foam.
“You and Tank, you’re okay, right?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes we’re so right for each other, then other times we’re like oil and water. This is one of those other times.”
Maeve drained her glass and stood up.
“I need to be getting back. Thanks for the tea, sweetie.”
“How ‘bout I drive you? I’ve been thinking about your lobster mac and cheese all day. I might as well get some. Nothing else will satisfy me when I have my heart set on that.”
“Well, we’d better get going then, because you know I sell out of that early.” Maeve grinned at her friend, happy to have the companionship and ride back to the Cathead Diner.
Want more? Get it on Amazon here Grey’s Landing by Lark Griffing
Be First to Comment