I honestly wasn’t sure that would be enough time.
* * *
I’d spent five days in hell and the place still wasn’t any closer to being livable. Every night, I had to burn Tadgh’s clothes. Not that that was painful for me by any means since all his clothes belonged in the fire.
The sun beat down on my back, and I found myself longing for the breeze that had frozen the bollocks off me every other day this week. Hiding beneath the glamour felt like an extra layer of wool over my skin, making it difficult to breathe. I’d removed the bulk of the old roof tiles. For the first time, Phil was nowhere to be found.
As far as I could tell, the trusses appeared in good condition. No spots of rot, and they didn’t fall over when I kicked them. That had become my test of durability: kick it, and if it didn’t crumble or wobble or disintegrate, it passed. I bent to finish the second line of tiles.
“Yer not doin’ it right,” called a voice from below.
I glanced over my shoulder to find the farmer who’d sold me this place leaning on the post barely holding the sagging gate.
“Mind your own business, old man.”
“First storm we have, that’s gonna topple like it’s made of sand.”
Maybe I would kill him. He was so old, no one would suspect foul play.
“You think you can do better? Here.” I held out the slate tile. Let’s see him climb the ladder without breaking a hip, balance on the roof without falling through, and fix the feckin’ thing.
The old man picked up the ball ping hammer beside the rusted saw I’d found out back, tucked it into his belt loop, and climbed the ladder like he could have done it with his eyes closed. He spun the hammer in his hand and tacked the tile down with onethwack.
“Well? Are ye gonna do somethin’ useful and hand me another or stand there lollygaggin’?”
I knelt and handed him another tile. And another. And another. Before long, we’d finished the front side of the roof.
“How’s that?” he asked, wiping the sweat from his eyes with a handkerchief.
I hated to admit that he had saved me at least two days of work. So I didn’t. Instead, I gestured to a tile at the end. “That one’s crooked.”
He wheezed a laugh. Phil popped his head up from the other side of the wall, rolling a load of weeds between his teeth.
“You know anything about windows?”I asked.
“I might. Feed me, and I may even be persuaded to tell ye,” he added, stuffing the handkerchief back into his breast pocket.
I could go into the shack and shift food from the castle kitchens; Eava usually left a meal or two when we weren’t there to eat them. But then I’d have to use magic, and I couldn’t take the chance of leaving a signature behind.
“I don’t have any food,” I confessed.
Snorting, the man slid down the roof, descended the ladder with the ease of a man half his age, and let the hammer fall next to the other tools I’d amassed as he started for the gate. “Are ye comin’ or not?” he asked without turning.
I glanced around in case I’d missed someone else. Nope. Just that disgusting goat shitting in the corner. Was I going to go with him? He seemed to know what he was doing. I’d be a fool to look help in the face and turn it down, wouldn’t I?
The goat narrowed its beady black eyes at me.
I started for the road, shouting for the man to wait up.
On the walk back to his house, he finally introduced himself as Marcus. Not that I’d asked. He also made me a ham sandwich on a thick slice of bread without washing his hands, like an animal.
Marcus tore into his sandwich, bits of bread falling from his mouth. “What’s yer name, boy?”
I caught a glimpse of my glamour in the window above the dry sink. Mousy brown hair, unremarkable face. Entirely forgettable. I looked like a, “John.”
“I hope ye don’t mind me sayin’, but that place of yers is in right shite. Whoever sold it to ye must be havin’ a good laugh right about now.”
“Yousold it to me.”