The Hammer - Cor Series Book I

Chapter 7

When Corvan woke up, he was lying on his back. The hammer was on his chest with both hands folded over it. He had finally slept peacefully through a night without any bad dreams.

Hammer in hand, he rolled out of bed and tiptoed across the floor to his grandfather's oak chest. It was over four feet wide and so heavy it had never been moved from the place where it rested. If his theory from the previous night was correct, when he inserted the hammer's handle into the hole in the front of the chest, a secret compartment should open inside the chest.

Gently propping the thick lid against the wall, he checked inside. Each of the sliding trays was filled with treasures he had collected over the years: bottle caps, agates, arrowheads—anything he could scavenge around town and the area around their farm.

Kneeling in front of the chest, he examined the design his grandfather had carved into the front panel. It looked identical to what he'd seen glowing on the end of the hammer's handle, only the carved version was twice the size. In its center, there was a shallow hole exactly the size of a half dollar. He knew this for a fact as a year ago he'd pushed the fifty-cent piece he received for his fourteenth birthday into the hole. It got stuck, but since it seemed as good a place as any to save it, he had left it there.

A board creaked on the stairs up to his room. Jumping to his feet, Corvan closed the chest, and dove back under the covers, thrusting the hammer under his pillow. He closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep.

The door open, and his mother spoke. "You won't get a proper rest if you stay up so late you need to sleep in."

Corvan pulled his head back under the covers like a shy turtle. He was hoping she would think he was too tired and let him be.

"You need to get up, eat your breakfast, then clean up the rest of the dishes. Your father was called to another meeting at the mine, and I'll be baking bread and canning peas. You've got five minutes." Her footsteps echoed down the stairs.

Corvan hoped his father's meeting at the mine meant it would reopen and he could get back to work. Personally, he wouldn't like to be underground all day and only come up at night, but his dad thrived on it. He spent as much time underground as possible and was always reading about mines and caves. He repeatedly told Corvan that the continental crust of the earth was more than twenty-five miles thick, but most mines and caves were less than a mile deep. "There's a whole world below us waiting to be discovered," he would say.

Under the covers, the hammer's blue insignia was glowing softly. He turned it around until the letters were in the same orientation as on the front of the chest. If the hammer was a key to open the chest, then whatever was hidden inside must be a special fifteenth birthday present.

Throwing the covers off, Corvan dropped to his knees in front of the chest. He didn't have much time, and his hands trembled as he lifted the hammer toward the hole. A loud thump almost made him drop it. His mother banged again on the kitchen ceiling with her broom handle. Corvan groaned. If he didn't move fast, she would come up and make sure he was awake and washing up. Placing the hammer inside the chest, he covered it with his stamp collection book and closed the lid. He moved silently down the stairs as he was getting dressed.

The scene in the kitchen caught him off guard. His mother was at the sink, and a dishcloth hung limply in her hand as she stared into the backyard. She was singing his special song in a quiet, broken voice.

Backing out of the kitchen, he made his way back up to the landing. What was going on? His parents were both acting strange. After crouching at the top of the stairs for a few minutes, he heard his mother putting dishes away in the cupboards. Corvan bounded down the stairs, this time humming loudly. As he rounded the corner into the kitchen, the screen door banged shut behind his mother.