Page 31 of Kiln Me Softly

Juniper never thought she’d say it, but she missed sitting on those uncomfortable stools in the workshop.

Anything would have been better than setting up camp on the muddy grounds behind the teacher car park on the coldest month of the year.

It didn’t help that, thanks to her snotty-nosed little cousins climbing over her all Christmas, she’d had caught some kind of flu.

Mum had tried to blame it on Juniper being run-down, further proof she was incapable of surviving uni, but it was January.

Everyone was ill. Tilly was blowing her nose in front of her right this very minute.

‘If somebody were to fall in this pit and die,’ Luc said, shivering with their hands in their pockets as the wind whipped their scarf over their shoulders, ‘would we be allowed to go back inside?’

‘I volunteer as tribute,’ Juniper murmured.

Since opening the letter from RACA, she hadn’t had much zest for life.

Apparently, she wasn’t the only one to have her bursary suspended.

When she’d gone to visit the student finance office first thing on Monday, she’d discovered from a chatty receptionist that the school’s private funding – probably from some big, snobby investor who had realised art wasn’t nearly as profitable as other business ventures – had been cut in half, which left them in a ‘sticky spot’.

Luc’s bursary had been frozen, and Amir’s, too, though neither of them were as distraught about it as her.

Luc had a separate grant for being an international student, and Amir had claimed his family were loaning him the money to cover the rest of the school year.

Not like Juniper, who didn’t have anything else to lean on.

She’d worked until nine last night, preparing the café for the following morning, and with this cold bogging her down, she was close to breaking point.

She and Tilly had at least ended up buying a shared two-person tent, and thank goodness, because Juniper might have been sleeping on the grass tonight otherwise.

At her words, she felt Aiden’s heavy gaze press into her like thumbs against a bruise.

He stood beside Luc and had done nothing but scrutinise her.

She got it. She wasn’t being fair, not after his Christmas gift, but she couldn’t engage with him in the middle of this.

He would pity her and her poorness or, worse, try to help her, and the last thing she needed was the one thing she’d always despised: Whittaker money.

No, she’d get through this on her own. If she kept picking up extra shifts, she’d probably be able to pay with the instalment plan the school had offered her.

It might mean borrowing some cash from her parents and only leaving her room for work and class, but she’d manage.

It would be easy enough to make a small fortune before April, right?

‘That’s the spirit! I can imagine they had just as much enthusiasm in ancient times,’ Chris said on the other side of the pits, a comically oversized raincoat protecting him from head to toe.

The sky was already darkening above them, daylight a thing of the past this far into winter.

Juniper hated it. She wished she could bury herself in her duvet and never emerge.

A few murmurs of discontent proved Juniper and Luc weren’t the only ones suffering.

She closed her burning eyes, laying her head against Tilly’s shoulder, whose coat cooled her feverish skin just slightly.

Meanwhile, Christopher taught them about the origins of pit-firing, most of which they’d already learned in his lecture yesterday before they’d thrown their own designs on the wheel in preparation.

Juniper’s had been wonky thanks to her weak hands and pounding head, which still hadn’t eased, but she’d managed to make a teapot.

Keeping with the theme, she’d brought dried coffee and tea leaves pinched from the Caffé Verde’s compostables bin to create colour variations in the fire, at least one less thing she had to pay for as part of her studies.

On another day, she would have been fascinated with the rich roots behind firing pottery this way, learning how different combustibles created unpredictable effects, but today, she was barely able to keep upright.

With eight dug pits available, one used by Christopher as demonstration, Tilly and Juniper shared theirs. Of course, Aiden and Luc took the one beside them, Aiden nudging Juniper lightly as she tried to figure out first steps. ‘You okay, Hodge? You don’t look well.’

She wondered if he’d ever stop trying, and worse, if she wanted him to. It seemed as though no amount of pushing him away changed things. Nothing on her surface mattered; like this pit, he would always dig, and she didn’t know if she was strong enough to withstand it for much longer.

‘Fine. Never been better,’ she murmured through chattering teeth, despite her body feeling like it was on fire.

Aiden’s forehead scrunched, and he began peeling his arms from his sleeves, revealing a thick hoodie underneath. ‘Here. Take my coat.’

‘I’m fine—’

But it was already draped over her shoulders, and the weight of it soothed her sore limbs.

The smell of him eased her, too: boyish aftershave and woodsy cologne that transported her right back to the stolen moments they’d spent together last term.

It shouldn’t have been a comfort, to feel like he was wrapped around her again, but she was tired.

Feeling taken care of, in this moment, didn’t feel quite as scary as getting through this week all alone as planned.

It wouldn’t last. She wouldn’t let it. But she sighed and put her arms in the sleeves with a ‘Thanks’ that seemed to satisfy him.

‘So, are you two still boinking or what?’ Tilly asked, motioning between them.

Aiden spluttered. ‘Are we what ?’

‘They clearly are,’ Luc commented, pulling materials from their bag: sandpaper and…

‘Oh, god!’ Tilly wrinkled her nose, leaning away from Luc with her coat sleeve covering her face. ‘Is that horse shite wrapped in newspaper?’

Juniper had never been more grateful to have a blocked nose, but the sight of it still made her gag.

Luc shrugged and threw it into the pit. ‘Manure is great for controlling heat.’

‘Where did you even get it?’ Aiden’s lips trembled like he was trying hard not to laugh.

‘Horse.’

‘Aye, obviously !’ Tilly shouted.

‘It is cheaper than buying saw dust!’ Luc defended quickly.

Speaking of, Juniper had plenty of that to spare from Cerberus’s supply, and she sprinkled it into the pit as she listened to the others joke about Luc and their manure.

She wanted to join in, but felt like she was underwater, everything too far away to focus on.

Finally, she placed her teapot in the pit and Christopher came around to light their materials.

As they waited for the fire to smother the clay, RACA’s kiln woman, a tall redhead named Annie, arrived bearing hot chocolate and marshmallows in polystyrene cups.

Aiden brought Juniper a drink over. She was too groggy to tell him that she could have gotten it herself, accepting it quietly.

He sat on the ground beside her, closer than he needed to.

With the fire burning behind, she watched the marshmallows and cream melt, feeling sick at the thought of drinking it.

‘I think maybe you should go home, sweetheart,’ he whispered.

Sweetheart . He’d only used to call her that during sex, and she didn’t know what it meant that he was bringing it out in the open, away from their intimate corners.

‘I’m fine.’ She wiped her nose with a scrunched tissue that had been falling apart inside her pocket all day. The skin around her nostrils stung enough to make her wince.

He shook his head with a tut. ‘Do you always have to be so bloody stubborn?’

‘Yes.’ She took a sip of hot chocolate just to spite him, but the sweetness left nausea swirling through her, so she was quick to pour it over her fire.

The flames sputtered in time with Aiden. ‘Juni, you’re not supposed to do that!’

She blinked. ‘Why? It’s already got a tonne of other crap in it. Coffee beans and hot chocolate basically make mocha.’

‘Were the coffee beans at least dry?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. They were old.’

Aiden pinched the bridge of his nose, and then, patiently uttered, ‘Juniper. Moisture will make the clay crack.’

Shit . She hadn’t even given it a thought, but she could hear the fire fizzing in anger now.

Even her panic felt far away as she shot up to her feet, Aiden there to catch her when her jelly-like legs stumbled too close to the pit.

Her poor, wonky teapot. It might have been terrible, but she’d been excited to see the results of the firing.

And… oh, god, Tilly’s plates. They were in there, too. She’d ruined both of their projects.

‘I need a fire extinguisher!’ she declared.

‘And this is why I oversee the fires,’ Christopher said, and then sauntered over to her with his hot chocolate in hand. ‘Whatever’s the matter, Juniper?’

‘I poured – dropped – my drink into the pit, completely by accident!’

‘You did what ?’ Tilly broke away from the group to rush over, her eyes wide in alarm. ‘My plates! My beautiful, beautiful plates!’

‘I’m so sorry.’ Juniper swallowed the lump of guilt in her throat. How had she been so careless? Why was it always her who made these silly, thoughtless mistakes? ‘Can we save them? Please?’

‘Dear me, this isn’t an episode of Clay’s Anatomy, ’ Chris said. ‘No, we can’t save them. We’ll just have to see if they make it through the night.’

Tilly’s face dropped. Crestfallen. Because of Juniper.

She sank back on weak knees, finding that Aiden’s support was the only thing holding her up. His arms locked around her hips as he said, ‘Chris, do I have permission to take a very ill Juniper home before she damages herself as well as the pots?’

Christopher squinted. ‘I sensed you had the lurgy. Yes, go, before we all get it.’ He waved her away.

‘But my teapot—’

‘Is probably broken. Like my plates.’ Tilly didn’t sound angry, just devastated. Somehow, that made it worse.

‘Tilly, I’m so sorry,’ Juniper whispered.

‘I know. You’re going through a lot. I just wish…’ Tilly shook her head and closed her eyes. ‘Never mind. Go home. Get some rest. I’ll watch the pit and pray to the kiln goddesses for us both.’

‘They might be fine,’ Aiden provided, but he didn’t sound sure.

Juniper hadn’t been joking about falling into the pit before.

She would have quite happily stepped in and let the fire ruin her like it was their pieces if she thought it might make things right.

Tilly had worked hard on those plates, and she’d been so excited to see what would happen with her copper wiring and recycled yarn.

She didn’t deserve this. She’d been nothing but wonderful to Juniper.

‘C’mon, Juni. Let’s get you home.’ Aiden nudged her, grabbing her backpack from Tilly and slinging it over his shoulder. Juniper didn’t know what to say.

I’m sorry didn’t feel like enough. She walked away from the fires feeling even worse than she had before.