Listen close to everybody's heart...

The ceramics class had been a last minute adjustment to Sarah’s schedule. 

Sarah had considered taking the class once or twice, half-musing contemplations as she scrolled through the class catalog. There’d been something appealing about the idea of working with her hands, being able to shape and mold, to create. The idea had never borne fruit, until a need for more credits and a few empty hours landed her with the opportunity to see if the class had some merit after all. 

Needless to say the first class was quite the reality check. What the teacher was able to show as a seamless process of molding and spinning the clay, was an entirely different beast once Sarah gave it a try. It was messy and frustrating and nothing she did seemed to go right. The bowl she’d been trying to make had barely made it out of the original lumpy shape, only with a slight divot at the top that wavered dramatically near the edges.

By the time she got home she was stained and tired, hair thrown up into a hasty bun and what felt like drying clay on her face of all things. It had been tempting to stamp her foot and refuse to go back, as if she could obtain any kind of mastery in the allotted time for this class.  She would have if she hadn’t needed those credits, and since she couldn’t guarantee she would be able to get into another class if she dropped this one, she knew she had to stick it out.

“As you work, try to move with the clay,” the instructor said to Sarah and the rest of the students in their second class. Sarah barely refrained from rolling her eyes from her seat in the back. Clearly the advice was easier said than followed. 

She did eventually improve. It became a challenge of sorts; a battle waged between her mind, her hands, and the clay. Her hands couldn’t always follow through on what she wanted and more often than not the clay would fold in unexpected moments, collapsing beneath her fingers and earning another sharp huff of frustration. But by the fourth class Sarah could not deny that she was starting to enjoy herself. 

It was during the sixth when something...changed. 

From the moment she sat at the wheel and put her hands on the clay, Sarah felt a strange off-key restlessness come over her. As the clay spun beneath her palms she felt an odd tension gather behind her eyes and she would have pressed her fingers to her temples in an attempt to relieve the pressure if it wouldn’t have ruined the shape she was trying to create. A cup this time, she’d decided before taking a seat, something she could drink her coffee out of or the hot cocoa her mother used to make. 

She held onto that image as the pressure continued to press behind her eyes. It wasn’t painful but there was an awareness that it wasn’t quite right. By the time she finally finished throwing the cup and removed it from the wheel Sarah was gritting her teeth against the relentless pressure. The moment the clay left the wheel, the pressure vanished like a valve suddenly being released. 

Sarah could not contain her gasp as the pressure suddenly vanished. Blinking she endured the confused glances of her classmates and stared at the raw clay cup with no small amount of apprehension. Very strange. Maybe she’d overdone it with the coffee that morning?

She set the cup aside to dry and a few classes later it was dry enough for her to trim the edges and work more decorative lines into the sides. Sarah let her thoughts drift while she worked, and it was only once she declared her work finished that she realized what she’d done. It was rough and there was a chance the lines she’d worked in wouldn’t survive the firing process, but she’d worked the faint lines of the Goblin King’s labyrinth along the continuous curve. 

Once more unsettled she was tempted to push the partially finished cup off her work bench and let it shatter. But she stayed her hand. Curiosity pushed at her, just as it had before when faced with a strange creature’s machinations. Something was happening, and Sarah was curious and intrigued enough to let it. 

The day she brought the cup home she left it sitting in the middle of her counter. 

Sarah knew she was being foolish, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to use it at first. Some innate wariness had her hesitating every time she reached for it. It was hers, she knew that, but there was something else there as well. 

It was late and she was moving into her fourth hour of studying for her Chemistry final when caution gave way to the pragmatic. She was too tired to wash the mugs that had collected in and around the sink and this one was bacteria free, thus available for coffee consumption. So deep into her notes and scribbling questions to follow up with the T.A. for the last meeting, Sarah didn’t notice that her coffee never got cold. 

Her friend Bethany was the one to point it out to her the next time she came over. “Hey, is this one of those new heat conservation cups those ads have been shouting about?”

Sarah glanced up from her Calculus textbook, fingers threaded through her hair and giving little tugs as she debated whether she actually wanted to pull her hair out. “What?” she asked, trying to shake her thoughts back into order. 

Bethany held up the mug, waggling it hard enough a bit of coffee sloshed out and onto her hand. With a yelp she quickly put it back down. “Ow! Seriously, it is right? This is the coffee you gave me two hours ago and it feels like it just came out of the pot.” 

As Bethany abandoned dignity and licked the coffee off of her hand rather than grabbing the napkin that was literally right next to her, Sarah reached out and snagged the mug. “That doesn’t make any sense. Those are contained vessels, they literally have lids and are made of stainless steel. This is a clay mug I made in Ceramics.” Curling her hands around the mug she was surprised to feel the warmth radiating through the sides. Sarah smirked, “Are you sure you didn’t just refill it and forget? I wouldn’t put that past you.”

“I didn’t though. I basically forgot you even gave me the coffee once I started going over the study guide Ms. Carmichael’s gave us.  Can I see yours again? I don’t understand how I’m supposed to answer number three.”

The mug and the still warm coffee was forgotten in a flurry of notes and Bethany’s dramatic exclamations of living under a bridge since being a troll was all she was good for (Sarah didn’t have the heart to tell her there might be actual trolls who would object to her encroaching on their territory). It was only later when Sarah was cleaning up when she picked up the coffee mug and was startled to find it was still hot. 

“What on earth?” Sarah dipped her finger into the hot liquid and quickly pulled them back out again. Not hot enough to burn, but just enough to be uncomfortable. As she studied it, she felt some of that same awareness that had come over her while making it. It was a little like when she was little and staring at those magic eye posters. She would stare and stare until she focused her eyes just right, and then she would see it. 

She tapped her finger against the mug and mused out loud, “The coffee stays hot, no matter how long it takes.” Curious she took a sip. It was the perfect temperature. Fresh coffee, but not hot enough to burn her tongue. “It stays the perfect temperature,” Sarah considered. “What I think is perfect anyway. Hmm.”  

It should have been impossible. She wouldn’t have considered it if she hadn’t conquered the Goblin King’s labyrinth to get her little brother back. 

Clearly she’d claimed more than her brother if she was capable of...whatever this was.

Sarah narrowed her eyes in thought and then she smiled. 

By the end of the year Sarah had created quite the collection. 

A small bowl she used to hold small change that gradually started to accumulate it on its own. She no longer had to check under the couch cushions or in the bottom of her purse. If she needed some quarters or nickels she only had to check the bowl near the entryway.  The plaque with the small hook she used to hold her car keys. It didn’t matter where she put them down, when she was ready to leave they would always be waiting for her on the hook. The vase that had been her final project kept any flowers fresh as the day they were picked. Some experimenting revealed that she had to pick the flowers as well, but they would last until Sarah decided to replace them with new ones. 

They all accumulated into small things that made life easier. But Sarah had the feeling that was only the beginning. 

Each time she managed to create a new Shaped item, as she’d taken to calling them, she could feel something inside her stretching out. Getting stronger. It all made her rather curious, but not enough to go looking for answers. 

Not yet anyway.