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by Pat Esden
Historical Fiction, 40 pages.
Originally Published in Challenging Destiny, 2006
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Stoke-on-Trent, England: 1837
Smoke from the bottlenecked kilns clung along the rooflines of the tenements in Burslem. Through this grayed light, Meg’s father pulled her by the wrist down cobbled alleyways, past the towering kilns, to the worker’s entrance of Clews’ Pottery.
“Stay by the doorway, Meg,” he said, and then staggered off to find the master of the works.
For a moment Meg stood motionless and watched as boys carried racks of pottery into the hot mouths of the kilns. But then she heard the soft suck of the clay and the whir of the potter’s wheel and they were voices she could not resist.
Meg crept into the potworks, and wove between the stacks of crocks and crates until she was close enough to see each movement of the woman seated at the potter’s wheel.
The woman’s long skirt was pulled above her knees, her leather apron dark and damp. Her foot kicked the wheel, the turntable spun, and, as if by magic, the clay rose between her hands.
The woman glanced up from her work, her eyes boring into Meg’s. “Seems no more than a lump of earth, but listen to Hattie: working the clay will either kill you young or steal everything that’s live about you.”
Trembling, Meg stared at the slick clay. She understood fear; it was something that came without warning, in the form of a flat hand when her father was into the whiskey or her mother was tired. But until now, words alone had never been enough to make her quake.
Before Meg could even catch her breath, she heard her father’s voice rise, “If you don’t have need for her, there plenty of potters in Burslem wanting a healthy girl.”
“She is not old enough to indenture. Take her home.” There was calm authority in the way the master spoke.
Meg turned from the whirling clay and peeked at him.
His eyes touched her body and a smile tweaked his lips.
Meg looked down. She knew the master had no intention of letting her leave.
* * *
One afternoon, when Meg was eleven years old, Hattie Savage hung herself.
Meg watched in silence as two of the laborers cut Hattie down, wrapped her in a length of canvas and lugged her into the hallway.
The next morning, Meg put on Hattie’s apron. Her thin legs were barely long enough to kick the wheel, but she had to try.
From the hall came the voices of the foreman and the master of the works, Mr. Clews. Sweat formed across Meg’s shoulders as their footsteps stopped at the throwing-room door. She didn’t look up. Clay, be kind to me — I’ll make you beautiful, she prayed as she kicked, her hands steadily forming a simple crock.
The foreman cleared his throat. “Sorry Meg, you’d best set your sights a little lower.”
She cut the crock free and started another. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mr. Clews. “She looks good there. It is easier to replace a laborer than an apprentice. Go ahead, Meg, show us.”
* * *
Meg closed her eyes –- her heart, beat for beat shadowing the rhythm of the wheel, the clay, warm and moist, moving beneath her touch. And while she worked, dreams came to her: dreams that pulled her far from Burslem, dreams that she kept in silence, but that became more solid with every passing year.
One evening, Meg opened her eyes and found that she was twenty-one: a journeyman potter sitting in Bull’s Head Tavern. She rarely came here, preferring to stash her coin. But tonight was Guy Fawkes’ Night and Mr. Clews was paying, so she had come.
And she got drunk.
At first, she listened quietly as the men swapped stories about which pottery offered the best bonuses, bragged on new glazes and talked about the strength of the American market. Suddenly the hidden seed of Meg’s dream sprouted into words. “I’m going to sell my cottage, go to America and buy a potworks. In five years I’ll sell twice what the Clews’ Pottery does.”
The brag came from her so loud and with such conviction that none of the men laughed –- not even Mr. Clews. His eyes caught hers and knew she had no choice, now, but to leave Burslem, and soon.
* * *
Northern Vermont, America: 1854
Meg stabbed her shovel into the bank of wet clay and looked up at her workshop. It was only a stone’s throw away, a short distance for her pony to haul the loaded cart. But with the wheels stuck tight, that distance might as well have been miles.
As she let out her breath and pushed her hair out of her face, her eyes followed the shafts of sunlight to where they struck the low eaves of her workshop and shivered along the tall chimney of the small brick kiln.
The man who had sold her the potworks last spring had not lied; the workshop and cabin were rustic, the kiln just adequate, and the pottery’s clients only a scattering of vill -- [End of Preview.]