The Bewitching Hour

✧ chapter eight: changing hands

Hunk Garrett is used to the sound of clanging metal-on-metal. He could probably sleep through it.

Scratch that— he definitely has. He's passed out in the workshop once or twice at least. When he was little he would curl up near the crackling fire and drift on in its warm glow. Until Hershel woke him, anyway. He wouldn't want his boy to get hurt just because he didn't want to disturb his nap.

As a tinkerer, Hershel can fix almost anything, but he specializes in all things mechanical. The Shiroganes, for instance, are frequent customers between the bakery's equipment and Takashi's arm. Every would-be inventor in town stops by on a weekly basis. Even when they don't need anything repaired, they value Hershel's assemblage assistance, or his advice, or want to buy some of his parts or borrow some tools.

Hunk's not where his father is just yet. He's got his own flashes of brilliance owed to the creativity of youth that Hershel doesn't have, but he doesn't have Hersel's learned wisdom. His craftsmanship, honed after years upon years of hard work. Hunk fancies himself more of an inventor than a tinkerer. A sort of mad scientist. He has his own little workshop where he collects everything he can— spare bits of metal too small to use, or loose nuts and bolts that don't seem to go with anything— and uses them to fashion creations of his own. People call them automatons and he's got at least one for just about everything he can think of. They don't all work, but they're getting there.

Before he can play with and assemble the parts, though, he has to earn them. He's fine with taking a smaller cash payout if it means that he gets the equipment he would have to buy anyway. So he started working in the shop once he got to be old enough that he could be trusted not to hurt himself with the flames or the sharp tools.

Today's not any different, at first, than any other day. Mom is baking sweets while his younger siblings wait at the table. She says she's making enough to sell the extras to some neighbors that will be stopping by. Hunk's brother has a few childish sketches for him— ideas for inventions, he says— and Hunk tells him that those are called blueprints and that he'll be sure to add them to his workbook. He's working on a machine that dispenses candy whenever the kids save up their allowance coins instead of spending them right away, but that's supposed to be a surprise, so he doesn't say anything about that just yet.

Hunk has a big breakfast with the whole family around an even bigger circular table. They hand a basket of bread around, and there's fresh fruit to go with everything. Hunk doesn't have to wake before dawn like Lance does. The shop doesn't open for business until later in the morning. It just doesn't make sense to open that early— this time of day, people are going to work and dropping off their kids and making their own breakfasts, not walking to a repair shop.

Uncle Filo is the one who walks Hunk's siblings to school most days. Hunk is often the one to pick them up just in case he runs into Lance. The first order of business is getting the workshop ready. Their careful routine means that Hunk and his dad can start the labor early, so they're already up and at 'em by the time Filo returns and puts the sign out. It's a busy day and the customers start appearing before long. Hunk's mother runs the desk and takes people's appointments. Her sweetness and charm are likely responsible for a lot of their customer loyalty.

It is, as it seems, a very normal day. There is an average amount of business. No remarkable interactions with the customers and no funny stories or splendid discoveries about the work itself. No accidents or injuries. Hunk might have forgotten the day entirely. But it isn't finished just because the work day has come to an end. He has promised to meet Pidge for a melding of the minds. They often combine their intellectual powers in the pursuit of making better and cooler automatons that can accomplish a wider range of tasks, and this goal has become an even loftier one now that Pidge has started studying a little bit of magick.