Ezra Emmett's Arc

Chapter 1 of 5

Ezra Emmett pinched the candle wick between his shaking fingers and killed the flame. Outside, the constable's boots had stopped again in front of the shop. Three nights running now. Ezra stood in the dark behind his press, ink drying on his palms, a leather satchel of loose pages pressed to his ribs. The pages named the magistrate who had signed the false ledger against Ezra's father four years ago. If the constable rapped the shutters and saw candlelight, the search would find the plates, the pamphlets, and the name Ezra had spent three years learning how to print without permission. The boots did not move. Ezra counted to sixty and heard nothing but his own breath. He needed a reason for the constable to walk on, and he needed it before the man tried the door. On the workbench sat a small wooden beaver his father had carved him as a boy, one ear bent from a fall off the shelf. Ezra had kept it near the press for luck. He picked it up, crossed to the rear window in his stockings, and eased the sash open. Behind the shop, a neighbor's reed chimes hung under the eaves of a shed. Ezra pitched the carved beaver underhand across the yard. It struck the chimes and dropped into the weeds. The reeds knocked together in a long, uneven clatter. The constable's boots turned at once and moved off toward the sound. Ezra shut the window and leaned against the wall until his hands slowed. He had bought the night, but not the week. The constable had learned the shop, and he would come back with a reason. Ezra lit no candle. He worked the press by touch, feeding paper by the edge, pulling the lever slow so the frame would not creak. By dawn he had forty pages of the magistrate's name stacked inside the satchel. He would need somewhere else to print the rest, and someone willing to hide the plates before the next patrol.