A sign beside the toy shop door listed its hours.

Open 16:00–18:00 Wednesday and Friday.

It was Sunday.

The town was quiet, and every other shop we passed was dark. 

Then Dani stopped.

Someone was inside.

Through the window, we could see the owner hunched over a workbench among shelves of wooden toys. 

The room was almost dark. 

A tiny point of light appeared beside her hand, disappeared, then appeared again.

We stepped closer.

She looked up.

Then she smiled and waved.

The door was ajar.

~

The shop occupied a single room no larger than the ice cream parlor next door. 

Everything inside seemed carved from the same pale wood.

Dolls hung from the walls. Wooden animals crowded the shelves. Swords and shields filled barrels near the door.

Dani immediately began browsing.

She picked up a wooden horse.

Then a little figure.

Then a sword.

A few minutes later she handed it to me.

“For you.”

I looked at it.

“I don’t need a sword.”

“It’s for sword fighting with the boys.”

I looked at it again.

“Yeah. Okay then.”

Dani was already walking toward the counter.

I followed.

The woman looked up from her work as we approached. 

“That one is strongest. It can take a real clobbering.”

She then picked up an electric engraving pen.

“Can I burn your name into it?”

“Sure. Uh… Caleb.”

She nodded, then her hand paused.

“Just Caleb? Or do you want something else? Sir Caleb or Father Caleb, perhaps?”

The lights of the hilltop castle twinkled over the roofs outside. 

“What is German for king?”

She smiled.

A moment later, smoke curled from the wood as she carefully burned letters into the blade.

König Calib.

She held it up.

“Good?”

I nodded.

Then she pointed toward the boys’ swords.

“Can I burn their names too?”

“We bought those in Koblenz.”

She shrugged and held out the pen.

“Corbin.”

Dani was pointing to one of the kids.

She nodded approvingly. 

“Yes. A strong biblical name.”

I looked at my wife, eyebrows raised, but she shook her head, and I didn’t interrupt.

Then she paused at the next sword.

“Avery,” Dani said.

“Avery?”

She rolled the unfamiliar name around for a moment before carefully engraving that one too.

The pen hissed and smoked as it worked.

Corbin watched nervously.

“Hot and cold. That’s what my husband says.”

She touched the fresh lettering with her finger.

“Hot first. Cold after. See?”

Still, he refused to touch.

As she wrapped the swords, I asked about dinner. 

“We’re trying to find somewhere to eat. But everything seems to be is closed.”

She looked mildly puzzled.

“Yes. Well, it is Sunday.”

Then she thought for a moment.

“Try the Old House.”

She pointed across the street.

“My husband takes me there when I don’t feel like cooking.”

Then she began listing what we should order.

We thanked her and stepped outside carrying three wooden swords.

~

Outsides, the kids hesitantly inspected the letters burned into their blades as we walked to dinner.

I looked down at mine.

König Calib.