Kercy of OakMoor (a Short Story) Part 4 - Conclusion: Out From the Shadows of Ignorance | Mixed Media Project

Judge Bixby gaveled the court from recess. Several more townspeople returned than he'd liked. It mean more misinformed, frightened tempers he must control.

He wasn't the only one concerned with more disapproving townspeople.

Ironwood stood with his hands crunching his waist. He took a deep breath, calming his raging fire, and looked toward the back of the room. As he surveyed the crowd, an idea struck him from a lesson taught by his master. Allow one of the non-believers to deliver the proof. Someone beyond reproach.

"Is there a child here? A boy. One who isn't yet blinded by superstition. One who desires to actually learn something today."

The room went dead silent. Parents pulled their children closer. But near the middle aisle, a thin boy of about twelve, with shoulders already slightly stooped from working the grain hand-cranks, stood up and stepped out.

"Thomas, no!" his mother gasped, reaching for his shirt. Turning to her husband sitting next to her, she pleaded, "Hammon, order your son back to his seat this instant." The father merely smiled and nodded to his son.

The boy pulled away from his mother; eyes now fixed on the glittering brass of the machine. He desperately wanted to romp in the fields and fish in the stream with his friends instead of hauling those heavy rocks.

"Come here, lad," Master Ironwood urged, his voice softening a bit. "What is your name?"

"Thomas, sir," the boy whispered, moving to the front of the courtroom.

"Well, Thomas, let us show these grownups how the world actually turns." Ironwood reached into his leather pouch and pulled out a flint and steel, handing them to the boy.

"There is water inside this iron belly. There is wood beneath it. Look for yourself and tell everyone what you see." Thomas complied, then turned to the crowd and smiled.

"Let's move on quickly here. First, you strike the spark. Second, you light the kindling."

With trembling hands, Thomas struck the flint. Sparks showered onto the dry shavings, and a small, bright flame caught.

The crowd gasped, many leaning forward, others gripping their pendants.

"Now, Thomas," Ironwood spoke slowly and distinctly, ensuring every word carried to the furthest corners of the room. "When that fire burns, it heats the water. In plain English, heat is just energy. When water gets hot enough, it changes. It turns into steam. And, as I mentioned this morning, steam demands sixteen hundred times more space than water.¹ Do you know what happens when you trap something that wants to grow, Thomas?"

"It pushes?" Thomas offered, hesitantly.

"Exactly! It pushes with immense weight. We call that pressure."

Ironwood pointed to a tiny glass gauge on the side. "Watch the needle. The fire creates the heat. The heat creates the steam. The steam creates the pressure."

The boiler began to emit a low, familiar hiss. The crowd recoiled, but Thomas stood his ground, fascinated. The needle on the gauge crept upward.

"Now, see this iron arm?" Ironwood pointed to the piston rod connected to a small, heavy stone wheel. "The steam has nowhere to go but down this pipe, directly into this metal chamber. It is going to push against a heavy block inside. Thomas, take this lever. When I tell you, pull it back. That will open the valve."

The hiss grew into a sharp whistle. The air in the courtroom grew thick with the smell of clean moisture and hot metal.

"Now, release the pressure. Give the steam its exit."

Thomas grabbed the wooden handle and pulled it back. With a resounding CLACK-THUD, the iron piston slammed forward. The heavy stone wheel spun a full, rapid rotation. The valve automatically flipped, venting a harmless plume of white steam into the rafters, and the piston slammed back down. CLACK-THUD. CLACK-THUD.

The stone wheel was spinning so fast it became a blur, humming with smooth, continuous power.

"Touch the wheel's frame, Thomas," Ironwood commanded gently.

Thomas placed a hand on the wooden support beam. His eyes went wide. "It's turning by itself. There's no ghost. It's just hot."

"It is just heat," Ironwood declared, turning his back on the machine to face the stunned town elders.

"The boy understood it in three minutes. A fire boils the water. The water creates the pressure. The pressure pushes the iron. It's called thermodynamics.² Remember that, Thomas. And the iron can turn your town's millstones until the end of time without a single child breaking a bone to do it. Kercy didn't bring a demon to OakMoor. She brought you your survival."

Master Ironwood again placed his hands on his hips and surveyed the crowd. This time, he counted the number of nods and words that were puzzling.

What he didn't hear was a group huddled together in the far right corner of the room agree that "if the machine didn't hurt Thomas and consume with his spirits, then there must be some truth in what Kercy told us the night she returned. "

The rest of the courtroom remained silent, except for the rhythmic clack-thud of the tiny engine, and the sight of a young boy smiling at the miracle of a turning wheel without his hand guiding it.

The clack-thud of the small engine slowed to a stop as the fire died down, leaving the courtroom in a breathless wonder. The town elders rose and moved away from the others, gathering in a tight, whispering circle. Their eyes darted between the heavy iron manacles on Kercy’s wrists and the pure ground flour dusting the base of the machine.

Gideon immediately noticed the air of opposition shift. He rose and stepped forward, his face contorted with desperation, his hands gripping the wooden pew.

"Elders," he shouted, "do not be deceived by this wizard's trick! He admits it himself. It's a power that screams, a force from the Old World that we swore to leave behind! If you allow this monster into OakMoor, you invite the corruption and damnation of our souls!"

The oldest of the elders, a man named Bartholomew whose own grandson’s shoulders were already permanently bowed from the grain cranks, stood up slowly. He looked at Gideon, then at young Thomas, who was still staring at the brass boiler with wide, inspired eyes.

"Gideon," Bartholomew reprimanded, his voice carrying the heavy weight of finality. "The only corruption in this room is the ignorance that would see our children broken before their time. There is no witchcraft here. There is only the math we chose to forget."

Bartholomew glanced at Judge Bixby and nodded.

Judge Bixby, in turn, nodded to the guards, then ordered, "unshackle the girl. The court finds Kercy Hartway innocent of all charges. Her machinery is not a curse; it's a blessing we sorely need."

A collective gasp broke into a wave of hushed chatter. Gideon reeled back as if struck. With fiery, fearful eyes he scanned the crowd for his faithful mob. But one by one, the townsmen looked away, staring at their own boots, scrutinizing wives, or looking at the miracle of the turning wheel.

Realizing his grip of terror over OakMoor had vanished into the clean white steam, Gideon pivoted sharply, cursed loudly, then stormed out of the hall, swallowed by the shadows of the doorway.

The heavy iron manacles fell to the floor with a hollow clang. Kercy rubbed her bruised wrists. Tears of relief blurred her vision. Before she could step away from the defense table, her father, with the help of her brother, parted the crowd, throwing his thick, grain-dusted arms around her.

"Forgive me, daughter," he choked out, burying his face in her hair. "I sent you away to save us, and I almost let them destroy you for it. I was a coward."

"No, Father," Kercy whispered, holding him tight. "You were just afraid for us both. Everyone was."

A heavy leather apron crinkled beside them as Master Ironwood stepped into their embrace, clapping a massive, grease-stained hand onto Axel's shoulder. "You have the honor of being the father of the bravest young woman I've ever known. Stand proud and defend her from this day, or you'll have me to answer to."

He then looked down at Kercy, a rare, genuine smile breaking through his wild, silver beard. "You held your ground well, girl," Ironwood grunted, his eyes shining with pride. "You didn't flinch when the boilers got hot. That is the mark of a true master. Never stop learning...and teach anyone who's willing to listen."

Jonas Krebb packed papers into his leather satchel, letting out a long, exhausted sigh.

"Well, Master Ironwood, it seems your lecture worked. Though I must ask, did you really have to call the town elders 'absolute fools' in a court of law?" Jonas asked, lowering his voice.

Ironwood snorted, picking up his small brass demonstration boiler.

"If the shoe fits, solicitor. Now, enough talk. We have a real mill to build, and a valley of crooked spines to straighten."

A year later, the autumn harvest of OakMoor was the grandest the valley had ever seen. Traveling townspeople ventured far selling their milled products and spreading the word about Kercy Hartway. Their town became a central market for grain and prospered.

At the edge of the river, where the old hand-cranked mill once stood as a place of human misery, a grand timber structure now rose into the sky.

From its roof, a steady, towering plume of clean white steam drifted into the mountain air. Inside, there was no sound of children weeping or heavy stones dragging over bone. There was only the powerful and victory heartbeat of the steam engine.

The massive bedstones and runners spun tirelessly day and night, turning mountains of raw wheat into mountains of perfect, snowy flour. The town's food supply was no longer dwindling. The grianeries were overfilled, and for the first time in memory, no child went to bed hungry.

Outside the mill, a group of children chased each other through the golden fields, laughing and shouting in the afternoon sun. Their spines were healing from the back braces Master Ironwood distributed to each.

Standing on the loading dock, Kercy watched them, wiping a smudge of coal grease from her forehead. Beside her stood Thomas, now fourteen, holding a wrench and a pressure gauge with the confident grip of an apprentice.

"Pressure is holding steady at forty psi, Mistress Kercy," Thomas reported, looking up at her with a grin.

"Excellent, Thomas," Kercy smiled, looking past him to the mountains where Old World lay. "Keep the fire fed. We have a lot more grain to grind before dark."

The town of OakMoor had finally abandoned the ancient ways of darkness.

Guided by a young girl and the unforgiving, magical (oh my word, did I misspeak?) laws of thermodynamics, they had stepped out of the shadows of ignorance and marched boldly into the light of the future.

[The End]

Thanks to all my readers for your patience through this 4-part story of enlightenment as a young girl attempts to change the course of her people's lives through innovation and education at a potential great cost to her own. Her perseverance won out over prejudice. That's all a society truly can hope to achieve.

^{Source 1: Steam
Source 2: Thermodynamics
Source 3: How to Calculate psi
Source 4: How A Steam Engine Works}

For Part 4 of my short story fiction and accompanying mixed media project, I wanted to drive home the point by repeating the mechanics of how water is transformed to energy through simple language that dealt with the time period.

I designed the image for this final part to reflect the small victory achieved by convincing the people of OakMoor that spirits weren't at play in the future milling of their grain. The female is sitting on the wheel of the steam engine she helped build. She raises her arms as she stares off into Old World. The background finally looks and feels peaceful as the grain is growing.

The second stable diffusion image depicts young boys carrying rocks to be milled.

I utilized the stable diffusion program, StarryAI with the following details:

Style: Cyberpunk Nouveau
Prompt: "Old world grain mill with backbreaking work carrying rocks."

I utilized Canva, my design program, to blend the different type images. I began with a blank, white canvas, then added layers of elements.

Below are the images I included in my project.

^{StarryAI-Female on mill ~ StarryAI-Boys carrying rocks ~ Eye with bird looking on ~ Rocks - Contributed to the #LIL by @agmoore ~ Purple Orchids - Contributed to the #LIL by @mariale07}