The room was as large as a gym. Bigger, even than that if she was to guess

correctly. It reminded her somewhat of the “Hall of the Mountain King” animated movie she had

loved as a girl, all the bombastic music, and the over the top hero, and the grand, royal open hall of the title character who held the damsel captive…

Ellen knew she was staring, but just couldn’t stop herself. The small edifice with the heavy metal bound door of the building had given her no clue as to just how huge the interior actually was. After a brief introduction to some members of the staff, Elgin had set Banner up at one of the jewelers benches to do some work. He said it was a sort of aptitude test for …”Tinker.”

She didn’t quite like that as his name, and thought he could do better. But, she had to admit, his broad, clever hands had made short work of untangling a horrendous mess of chains before he had set the now cleaned and polished golden strands aside in a towel lined tray, to repair a stodgy looking silver bracelet.

Ellen sat dazed in the chair by Banner, or Tinker, as he now worked at the old jewelers’ bench to smooth the rough edges from a set of newly cast rings of some white-ish metal. They didn’t look like silver to her, but the rings, even as rough as they were from the casting process, were quite intricate.

A fine boned, petite little woman with a grand cascade of strikingly silver hair practically danced by Ellen, delivering a hardy mug filled, she was relieved to see, with a lovely black tea.

A slow turn of her head brought more things into her line of sight she couldn’t quite

yet grasp. The inside of this small shop was at least six times the size as that presented by the outside edifice. At first she thought it was just a trick of the building; maybe one narrow storefront had bought out the stores on either side to expand.

But, no; her memory of the street was quite clear. The small stone, glass and

bronze face with a tall slender windowed edifice was surrounded on either side by two other

busy storefronts.

But the facts of a twenty foot wide two storied shop withered before the three to

four storied interior with many spacious rooms, and a fifty foot wide workshop, and a

back that traveled further than it had any right. Ellen felt her eyes drying out as she stared

unabashedly around the workroom floor; forcing herself to blink was fast becoming a

new hobby for her. Somewhere off in the back of the building, or at least further back in the building, machines rumbled and made the floor vibrate just enough that she was aware of the motions.

The overly tall, even to her mind, Curt was crouching by the double sized two-pot

coffee maker filling a huge brown mug. A stone’s throw away, literally, Trout was cleaning another bench, and complaining loudly to no one about how dusty his tools had become while he had been away.

And the furtive young man, Cole, sat behind a desk totaling up figures on what must be an antique example of an extremely old calculator, while listening to a streaming set of some kind that obviously predated the modern Crystal sets most people used when not just using either hand-held devices, or the Inset devices most common now.

The little box sat by his elbow, emitting music she couldn’t quite identify by either style nor band.

Some mixture of what might have been the newest pop melodies drifted over to where Ellen sat, from the forearm Inset of a pretty woman, busily using a kind of laser to make micro welds on various pieces of jewelry at incredible speeds. Certainly faster than Ellen though such things could or should be done.

Younger than herself, petite, thin, with a narrow face, and cornflower blue eyes, and cornsilk fine, yellow hair, the woman introduced to her as “Miss Amy” sat at the large and elaborate bench nearest where Banner now worked.

Fine, wispy, golden hair cut into a very short page boy did nothing to soften the sharp angles and high cheek bones of an otherwise pretty, if thin face.

Pity she’s so thin…obnoxious little twig, she probably gets called things like “cute” and “pixyish” and “willowy”…must be starving herself…Ellen had to shake her head to loosen the

uncharitable thoughts gallivanting around her mind. Taking another sip of her excellent tea, she was quite happy to see the lovely little waif looking as stunned as Nurse Lindsey felt. Her long elegant fingers slowly and curiously caressing the tools on the work top in front of her as she sat, large icy blue eyes watching absolutely nothing for a few moments as she took a break from her precious metal welding duties.

She was staring at Banner as he flew through the quickly shrinking pile of work Elgin had left with him.

Hands roving over tools of the jewelers’ trade closest to where she sat, most of which Ellen could not even find a name for, worked to bring Miss Amy back to herself.

A few seats down the line, a crusty looking older man sat at a corner bench fiddling with a pair of fuel tanks and counting under his breath. His long face and rapidly balding pate labored to give him the appearance of a much older, and oft put upon, man. Sour looks he gave the world around him did nothing to endear him to Ellen.

Beside him sat a cute young man with dark tousled hair and a serene grin; to her

mind he would never be handsome, he would always be cute. One of those young men you can never imagine growing up, much less maturing. He even, as she watched, pulled a sleek black

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handled jump rope from his back pocket to be placed on the side of his bench near to what looked like a large coffee mug. She knew it was a coffee mug, because the word “COFFEE” was picked out on the ceramic surface in lurid red letters.

As he turned, he graced her with an entirely genuine grin that near enough lit up the freakishly huge room.

A discreet silver six pointed star pendant Ellen could just glimpse at his throat

caught her eye as he turned back to his daily load of broken, but shiny finery.

The woman to whom Nurse Lindsey had been introduced to as Celia, who had gifted her with such wonderful tea, wafted gracefully past, long silver hair cascading out behind her. Older and dressed in an artsy-but-homey style, she exuded a happy calm Ellen found pleasant. A handsome older woman, with a proud prow of a nose cutting the way before her as she moved about with a slow purpose, placing a small stack of cards on one bench then turning with ballerina aplomb Ellen could never match to hand a note to Trout in passing. She could be graceful, she knew, but no amount of lessons her father made her attend would ever have her matching these swanning steps.

The light must have been off, to Ellen’s eye while her hair was beautifully

uniform silver sailing quietly to her waist; the woman’s skin was very dark, with just a hint of a tint of red. Not the rosy cheeked red one obtained from cold, not the painful magenta of a sunburn either. Not even the dusky red tones some of the peoples here in the Americas were born with; this was as a solid scarlet that could still look like a natural skin tone. A red to make bricks green with envy. Real red and homogeneous from nose to fingertips.

It must be the lighting, PLEASE let it just be the lighting… her mind began to race as she sipped more of her tea.

“She’s a D’jinni,” the sudden voice by her side made Ellen jump. Spinning to face

Banner, she saw him smiling at her with mischief plain on his face. “Though, I’ve never

seen one with hair before, the skin tone, and the way she moves make it plain to me she is

D’jinni.”

His beautiful smile spread wider still as he watched Ellen gasp for air as she

remembered to breathe after her start. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you. I know it

happens too often, but it is not intentional.” Sheepish smile further earned her forgiveness.

Then Banner too jumped up with a startled “WAH-ha” as a new deep voice from

behind him broke in, “Celia is my daughter. So she gets her lovely hair from me, it used

to be such a splendid raven color. As black as a dreamless sleep. And my nose, I like to think.” He smirked, his expressive face looking put upon. “Though my wife used to argue the very idea with me at every opportunity. Her daughters from a previous marriage, Caroline and Meghan, live up on Northside. Caroline has the loveliest auburn hair.” Here, he pointed to a lovely woman at a desk at the far side of the room, talking on a Vid-Feed to someone. The curly auburn hair bounced and bobbed as she spoke to whoever was on the other end of the call.

“Meghan, however, has bright red hair. Blood red. She gets that from her father, I guess.” Here he pointed to another woman, with a scowl on her face as she shuffled through stacks of envelopes, clearly looking for something she was not finding, her blood-red hair tied up in an intricate bun.

“All three of these half sisters meet up on birthdays and go out on the town, whatever town they meet in, and leave a swath of devastated hearts behind them.”

Mister Stark stood smiling, as still as stone behind Banner’s chair as her startled patient caught his own breath, smiling all the while. From three separate points across the great room chuckles tumbled from sly, grinning mouths.

He then smiled up at Ellen, and gestured broadly around the cavernous room, “These, all are my friends, and in some cases close family. Co-workers and employees. Some of

them will take no notice of us, and what we do and say, like Ed over in the corner there

by David. He is under a glamour to not see anything out of the ordinary. It saves me a

great deal of time to occasionally just hire a real jeweler and change their perceptions, rather than only hire gifted members of the fringe peoples. Though, in Ed’s case, he is working off a debt to me on behalf of his family. It’s complex.” He paused. “There are deeper issues.”

The phrase “fringe peoples” sounded to her ear like a bad euphemism, as did his statement of “It’s Complex.” But after the last two nights Ellen was beginning to get the point. There were more kinds of “People” in the world than she had previously ever been aware.

“Others,” he continued in a warm voice. “Others are more closely related to me, and my direct family than they know, but are being very slowly introduced to the differences of the Peoples of the Greater World. It is, as I am certain you know, a frightening prospect, and I would prefer to do such introductions much more slowly than the once into which you were forced. Again, my apologies.”

Looking past them to Amy, Elgin almost leapt to the girl’s side as her wandering

fingers almost closed upon a tiny wooden handled hammer with an almost toy-like small, dull steel head. The little hammer hanging from a leather thong on the wall by a hook over the bench at which she sat. Elgin scooped up the hammer from where it hung, and gave it a quizzical look before addressing Miss Amy.

“Please don’t touch that, my dear. It’s such a nice day out, and nobody here would like the effects this little mallet makes. But sometimes it likes to wander when I’m not watching it. Mind of its own, you might say.” Smiling gently he took

the little hammer from the wall and placed it gently in the top most pocket of his vest, the bulging bottom of its fine wooden handle where the thing attached just peeking out from the vest.

“Let’s just move you to this chair, shall we? Please and thank you, Miss Amy.” He grinned almost a Cheshire’s span of manic friendliness, offset by his Southern charm.

“Your grandmother is due to come by the shop today; we’ll send you home with her. I

told Claudia not to wait too long with her family history for the grandkids, but you know

her…” His deep bass voice shifted into a hideous high pitched nasal whine, “But I know

what is best for my family and, you mark me, for everyone else too!”

Amy’s eyes refocused, and she gave a giggle at what had to be an impersonation of her own grandmother by this blunt featured little man.

With that, the willowy wraith of a young woman was awakened to the world around her once again, and easily made the move to the offered chair. It was an old lacquered thing that may have looked comfortable, but had seen better times… possibly better centuries.

“Sir,” her voice was very pleasant and light as she focused on Mister Stark; “I

don’t want to seem rude or ungrateful, but last night after my shift I saw some odd things

and I have to know.” Her hesitation drew itself out as she struggled with something

difficult. “Are you people faeries?”

The stunned silence that rushed into the great room was a physical presence all

its own as all eyes turned once more to her and Elgin. Ellen winced at the abrupt

assertion; but was impressed the frail little thing came to it so quickly. Ellen herself was

still chewing hard on the mythic nature of the folks with whom she now traveled for several days.

As she watched, Banner turned a shade pale; his golden skin lightening to a sickly

yellow around the edges. Conversely, a slow and crooked grin spread itself leisurely across Elgin’s mouth; and in a gradual reveal of its more risqué nature, showed a few white teeth on the right side of his jaw.

“But Miss Amy, Fairies don’t exist.”

“What?” You could almost hear her heart sinking as Elgin said this.