Young Writers Society

Ivy

~1,123 words

After she closed up shop on Monday evening, Ivy paced the cherrywood floor. Most evenings, she spent relaxing or catching up with chores. But tonight, all she could think about was the volcano boiling under the surface of the Earth, about to explode and cover the world in darkness. Was there truly anything more important in the world than putting a stop to that? It was this line of thinking that caused Ivy to set aside her novel and go out alone to the Workshop.

She entered the Workshop with a little trepidation. Would she be welcome here on a Monday? Hadn’t Grey said the society only met on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays? The workshop seemed strangely quiet as she made her way through the rows of machines toward the epicenter and Alder’s current, world-saving project. But when she reached it, no one was there. No longer able to abide the unsettling silence in a place normally full of noise, Ivy called, “Hello?” The word echoed all around the room, along with the sound of glass shattering.

“Good gravy!” came Alder’s voice from the far side of the room. “Who’s there?”

“It’s Ivy. Where are you?” Ivy didn’t know what was on that side of the room except for the spiral staircase with a million steps.

“By the drafting table! It’s right by the stairs to the back exit. Just follow my voice!”

Weaving her way through the machines again, Ivy traced the sound of Alder’s voice and only got cornered by a dead-end in the machine labyrinth twice. Eventually however, she found him seated at a huge table covered in paper, pens and ink bottles. There was also an ink bottled shattered on the floor that Alder was now trying, on hands and knees, to clean up with a blotting cloth.

“I’ve never seen this table before,” Ivy admitted.

Alder looked up at the sound of her voice and smiled at her from the ground. “It’s where I draw up mechanical plans for my inventions. I was working on one when you startled me and I knocked this off the table with my elbow.”

“I’m really sorry about that,” said Ivy. There was going to be a huge black ink stain on the floor now all because of her.

“So what brings you here on a Monday, Ivy?” Alder asked, sweeping up the remaining shards of glass into the cloth.

“Well,” she shifted her weight, unsure how to ask. “Does the Lightbox Society meet only on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays?”

Alder chuckled and stood up, leaning heavily on his cane. “Ivy, until you and Nikki joined, the Lightbox Society was only me and Grey. We both live and work here. We meet every day.”

“Then why did he say it was only those three days?”

“Probably because he didn’t want you to feel overwhelmed with obligation to come every day. That would be my guess anyway. I personally thought you only came those days because those were the only days you were available.” He set down the blotting cloth on a paper-free place on the table. The ink had bled through the cloth. There would probably be a stain on the table as well. But it was already covered in ink stains.

“That’s sort of true for Nikki. She’s only in town Tuesdays and Saturdays. But I’m free every night.” She took a deep breath. “And I guess I was wondering if I could come work here every night,” she finished in a rush. She didn’t know why she had been so nervous to ask. Perhaps because she hadn’t wanted to impose at all on Alder if he didn’t want her there all the time.

Alder’s unruly white eyebrows shot up and he peered at her over his thick spectacles. “Of course! You can help as much as you want! But why would a young’un like you want to spend all her time at a dingy old workshop? Wouldn’t you rather spend your evenings… doing whatever young people do these days?”

“Of course I’d enjoy that, but it’s not really about what I enjoy, is it? It’s about saving the world! And I want to help in any way I can. Because if I don’t give my all and people get hurt because of it, then that’s all my fault.” Ivy was surprised at the conviction with which she spoke, but a ball of warmth settled in her stomach that let her know she spoke the truth. “There’s nothing more important than this. Let me help.”

Alder blinked, and just looked at her for a moment. Then, he began slowly shaking his head as a smile crept over his face. “If Grey had half the spirit you did… But yes, you’re absolutely right, and of course you can help. I will always need help.”

“I’m still not very good with machines, even after all Grey’s training,” Ivy admitted. She looked down at the sketches of machines that littered the drafting desk. They made no sense to her, and she couldn’t even read Alder’s scribbles, but for some reason the diagrams comforted her. Perhaps they reminded her of her father’s drawings in his notebooks.

“Pish posh!” the old inventor said. “No one becomes an expert at something overnight, or even over a fortnight. Grey’s had years and years of tutelage under me and he wasn’t nearly as motivated to learn as you appear to be.” He paused for a moment, and then looked inquiringly at Ivy. “Are you interested in learning everything? I can teach you a bit about drafting, and show you how to interpret the sketches for my current project so you’ll understand more what you’re doing when we work on it.”

“Of course!” Ivy exclaimed. She was growing excited. She was finally doing something worthwhile. “I always just rely on Grey to tell me exactly what to do. It will be nice to know without asking.”

So, for the next several hours, Alder patiently taught her how to read not only his scribbled handwriting, but also every other facet of his mechanical sketches. There were many things Ivy had left to learn about drafting in general, however, by the end of the night, Ivy understood Alder’s sketches for his current project front and back. She knew it as well as she knew the flowers in her shop and this knowledge made her feel confident. She also realized Alder wasn’t just playing mad scientist: he was truly a genius inventor. His machine made sense in a way Ivy could only understand with her intuition. That machine could swallow the darkness before the darkness swallowed the Earth. It just needed to be built. And there was a long way to go.