Chapter 13: Temporary Haven

The room was small and sparse, its metal walls holding the day’s lingering heat like a copper pot cooling after use. Yet Hannah felt profound gratitude for its simple shelter. Their remaining quill had rented them this space – a mattress on the floor, a small window that caught the last rays of sunset, and most precious of all, a moment to breathe without watching the horizon. After the vastness of the Wastes, even these cramped quarters felt like luxury, though they were little different from their hovel in Coghaven.

The window faced west, and through its scratched pane, the setting sun painted golden patterns across the room’s worn floor. Each beam caught dust motes that danced like memories in the air, reminding Hannah of countless evenings in their old home, when Thomas would try to catch the light in his small hands while James watched with quiet joy from his workbench.

Thomas sat cross-legged on the mattress now, Sebastian clicking contentedly in his hands as he examined the mechanical mouse in the fading light. Their earlier meal still lingered in the air – simple fare from a street vendor, but it had tasted like luxury after their journey across the wastes. Real bread, still warm from the oven, its crust crackling beneath their fingers like precious secrets being shared. Soup that carried actual vegetables rather than just the memory of them, each spoonful a small celebration of flavors they’d almost forgotten existed. Even a small, sweet cake they’d split between them, each bite savored like precious metal, the sugar dissolving on their tongues like promises of better days ahead.

“Do you think Sebastian enjoyed watching us eat?” Thomas asked, his voice carrying that mix of childhood wonder and inherited wisdom that sometimes made Hannah’s heart ache. He held the mouse up to catch the last rays of sun, its brass whiskers gleaming like strands of captured light. “Papa always said mechanical things experience the world differently than we do.”

Hannah settled beside him on the mattress, feeling its thin comfort like a blessing against her travel-weary body. The springs creaked beneath her weight, singing their own mechanical song that echoed softly off the metal walls. “And what do you think?”

“I think…” Thomas turned Sebastian gently in his hands, studying the intricate gears visible through worn patches in the mouse’s copper plating. “I think he experiences everything through clicks and whirs. Like how we use words, but in machine language.” He demonstrated by touching Sebastian’s head gently, producing a series of delicate clicking sounds that cascaded through the small room like musical notes.

The sound pulled Hannah back through years of memory to James in his workshop, the quiet conversations he’d have with his creations as he brought them to life. The way his hands would move with such certainty over gears and springs, teaching Thomas that even the smallest mechanisms deserved respect and care. She found herself laughing – a real laugh, unexpected and pure, born from the joy of remembering love rather than loss.

“You sound just like your father,” she said, pulling Thomas close, breathing in the desert dust still clinging to his hair. “He used to say the exact same thing about his projects. That they had their own language, if we just learned to listen.”

Thomas giggled, the sound bright as newly minted copper in their small room. “Remember when he tried to teach that mechanical cat to purr? And it came out sounding like an angry teakettle instead?”

“And your father just nodded seriously and said, ‘Well, that’s one way to express comfort.'” The memory bubbled up between them like fresh spring water, sweet and clear. James had spent three days trying to adjust that cat’s voice box, determined to get it right, while Thomas watched with complete faith in his father’s ability to make magic from metal.

They dissolved into shared laughter, the kind that comes when exhaustion meets joy and creates something precious. For a moment, they were just a mother and son sharing a joke, the weight of their journey temporarily lifted. The room seemed to grow warmer with their mirth, as if happiness itself could chase away the evening’s growing chill.

Then Thomas’s laugh caught in his throat, transforming into the cough that haunted his every breath. Hannah held him through it, feeling each spasm rack his small frame. Sebastian’s gears whirred faster in his hand, as if trying to help somehow, to translate pain into something more manageable through mechanical means. The mouse’s clicking took on an almost frantic rhythm, matching Thomas’s struggle for air.

When the fit passed, Thomas sagged against her, his breathing ragged but steady. Hannah cradled him close, humming the lullaby James used to sing on bad nights. The same one she’d sung in their tiny hovel in Coghaven, when the damp air made Thomas’s lungs fight for every breath. The melody floated in the darkening room like a prayer, each note carrying memories of James’s voice twining with hers.

“Tell me about the house again,” he whispered, his voice rough but determined. “The one we’ll have when we find Papa’s gift.”

Hannah shifted them both to lie on the thin mattress, Thomas curled against her like he used to as a baby. The last light painted copper patterns on the wall as she spoke softly of window boxes and clean air, of rooms where breathing came easy, and hope grew like flowers in summer soil. She wove the story they both knew by heart, each detail a promise waiting to be kept: the workshop where Thomas could build his own mechanical wonders, the kitchen with real windows to let in morning light, the garden where healing herbs would grow strong and green.

Thomas drifted off to her words, his body gradually relaxing as sleep claimed him. Sebastian clicked quietly in his loosening grip, a mechanical lullaby counting out the moments between breaths. Hannah held her son close, feeling the slight rattle in his chest like a clock counting down their remaining time.

Tomorrow they would face the wastes again, chasing James’s last gift toward either salvation or heartbreak. But for now, in this small room with its borrowed safety, Hannah let herself believe in window boxes and healing herbs, in futures where laughter didn’t turn to coughing, in dreams sketched on crumbling walls that might still come true.

She closed her eyes, keeping Thomas cradled close as sleep approached. His breathing steadied in slumber, each inhale a little prayer, each exhale a reason to keep moving forward. Outside their window, Steelwatch’s endless machinery sang its night song of metal and motion, but here in their temporary haven, mother and son dreamed together of cleaner air and kinder skies.