Spiral Path (Night Calls Series Book 3) (19 page)

The world is woven of secrets. I would help carry this one
for a while.

That was all right. My shoulders were broad.

o0o

The next morning came much too early. A soft scratching at
the door awakened me, and then Elizabeth entered, heading straight for my
little fireplace, it sounded like. It felt like a storm was sitting on my head,
but it wasn’t any worse than some winter days, so I pulled myself upright and
wrapped my robe around me.

I heard the “woomph!” of flames, and looked through the
curtains to see a small, bright fire burning. Elizabeth was definitely fast!
Then I heard water splashing into china.

By the time I was off the bed, Elizabeth was picking up a
bucket and a coal scuttle. “I’ve brought you hot water, Miss Sorensson,” she
said, nodding at me. “Breakfast is half a notch from now, and if they run out
of eggs, you’ll just have to make do with toast and pork rashers!” Her hand
brushed the candle, lighting it. She pointed, and I could see the tiny slashes
running down the side of the candle.
Notches.

“
Do
I need to bathe again?” I asked.

“
Every
other day for girls, unless you have done work that requires bathing every day,”
she replied, heading for the door. “Don’t forget, blow out the candle and flip
up the guard on the fire screen before you leave!”

Remembering Margaret’s warning from the night before, I
pulled out my oldest dress. Elizabeth’s handiwork could be seen in its
condition.
I
certainly hadn’t had time to press it. People didn’t seem
to wear skirts here, so this old pale green dress would have to do. Maybe skirts
were just too old-fashioned for the East. I wondered what I could do to thank
Elizabeth . . . .

Breakfast was simple, warm and filling, with plenty of back
bacon and fresh cracked-grain bread. The eggs were brought around quickly in
tiny cups that held them up like little wooden soldiers. Margaret showed me how
to behead my eggshell to get at the partially cooked yolk and hard white. The
entire business was messy, but if it meant having eggs in the winter, I would
learn the knack.

“
Professor
Livingston thinks that students learn better if they eat early, as the servants
do,” Margaret explained as we ate. Her face lost expression as she went on. “My
family eats at 10:00 am or later for breakfast. It’s the fashionable hour for
the first meal.” Whacking off the head of a second eggshell, she added, “The
food is quite good for a school.”

I’d bet my desserts for a month that no one knew she had
attended other schools before this one. I kept that information tucked deeply
away.

Margaret and Catherin had pulled me over to their table, but
I scarcely had time to meet anyone. The older boys apparently were not finished
with their lessons and had to go work on papers. Miss Smith was eating when we
arrived, and had tea with us while we started our breakfast.

“Only two more weeks of morning boundaries,” she said with
relief in her voice. “I look forward to morning classes once again!”

“What do you do on boundaries?” I asked quickly. Rebecca
Smith’s ghostly companion still hovered near her, but the girl did not seem
aware of the woman. Both Margaret and I pretended we didn’t see the ghost.

Margaret was working hard at a conversation with Catherin. It
meant she did not have to look at Rebecca.

I did not want to upset Margaret, but Miss Smith seemed
friendly, and I wanted to be friendly back.

“We practice farseeing by watching over the grounds of
Windward,” Miss Smith replied. “I have learned so much these past two weeks! My
ability to hold an image at a distance is much stronger now.” Leaning toward
me, she said in a lower voice, “Next I get to help with the early night group!”

I could tell that this would be a long conversation.

“I have testing today,” I shared in turn.

“Oh, then good luck to you!” she said as she rose to leave.

I suppressed a sigh. It was going to take time to get to
know people here, the way they kept running off.

We took our empty dishes to something called a pass-through
and gave them to the kitchen staff. Then Catherin took my hand and pulled me
through the dining room and out into the entryway. Margaret came running up
after us.

“
Professor
Livingston does the school testing in her sewing room. Have you read for your
academic classes yet?” Catherin asked.

“
She
asked me questions about the mysteries when I arrived, but there has not been
any time—” I started.

“
Then
you will start here. We must go get our books! Good luck!” She pressed my hand
before she let go, and Margaret touched my elbow before the two of them headed
down the hall toward the back stairs.

They had left me at Professor Livingston’s doorway. I
wondered if she wanted me this early? In Sun-Return we had a bell that rang to
call us to school. Here, people seemed to know where they were expected.

Cousin Esme had mentioned bells. I had not noticed bells
yesterday, but then I was paying close attention to other things.

Well. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I shook my skirts
out evenly and scratched on the door.

“
Enter,”
came my cousin’s clear voice.

And so I did, shutting the door behind me.

The fire had warmed the little room to a very comfortable
level. Cousin Esme sat in her accustomed chair, facing between the door and the
fireplace. The only thing different in the room was a desk set near her, its
chair welded to it with a bar that rolled underneath, and a large chalkboard
mounted on wooden legs.

“
Sit
down here, Alfreda,” she said, gesturing to the chair.

The desk was for students. Its armrest could be on either
side of the writing area—the inkwell was centered. My mother had told me once
that a lot of practitioners were left-handed.

“
Here
at Windward we do not pay a great deal of attention to whether students are
studying with children their own age,” she began. “There are times to be with
your age mates, and times to study with others at the same level of learning.
Because our students come from such varied backgrounds, it is the simplest way
to handle classes. I find that more problems are caused by boredom—forcing
children to retake lessons they already know—than by their associating with
older and younger children. I note that someone suggested you might wear older
clothing today.” Esme smiled at me.

“
Eventually
you, too, will mentor others. For now, let’s get you placed into classes and
started on your studies.” She produced several pieces of paper, already copied
out with problems and sentences. “Let’s begin with mathematics. I have prepared
a sampling of problems and questions for you. In some of my tests, you may find
that you know all the answers, or that you do not know many of them at all. I
do not expect you to know everything here. There is chalk in the pencil box of
the desk. For this test, you may use the large blackboard behind you.”

So began the most exhausting morning of my short life.

Starting with one of my weaker suits wasn’t my favorite, but
I knew this game and was able to do my work. I knew most of what was on her
sheet. There were a couple of questions about figuring the trajectory of a
boulder thrown from a trebuchet, but since I didn’t ever expect to be storming
a castle, I wasn’t worried about not knowing that one. I also had no idea how
to make a bridge strong enough to hold a wagon of wool and a four-horse team.

I wasn’t planning on building bridges, either. But you never
know. Maybe they would teach me that, too.

Next, Cousin Esme handed me a piece of paper with an
invitation written out on it, and a smaller, heavier blank piece of paper. “Turn
this into an invitation suitable for mailing to a guest,” she said.

Oh, dear
. I
studied it a while, and then took up a piece of chalk to outline a shape that
matched the smaller pressed page. Fortunately, I had seen wedding invitations
mailed to my parents, so I wasn’t working in the dark. This was probably to determine
whether my cursive writing was acceptable yet.

I am left-handed, and some schools will not permit you to write
with your left hand. But the tradition in the Schell family was that no one
should be forced to use a hand not given to them by God—a fancy way of saying
that left-handed children would stay left-handed. Some of my ancestors were
left-handed; my great-grandmother Emma had borrowed letters from different
styles of writing to make an elegant script for a left hand. Once I’d found her
alphabet in
Denizens of the Night
, I
had done a lot of copying of it in chalk and in the dirt until I had developed
a penmanship that pleased me. But I had not practiced on paper.

“
May
I write on the back of this?” I asked, indicating the page she had written her
invitation upon.

“
Yes,
you may,” Cousin Esme replied. She set a jar of ink into the well, and laid
down several goose quills and a tiny knife with a blade that was flat on one
side and convex on the other. “Have you ever written with a goose quill before?”

“
Yes,
ma’am. But my father always sharpens the quills for me.”

“
Well,
you will learn here how to sharpen your own quills,” she said. “I think that
these two should be sufficient for your needs. I must run an errand, so you
work on that, and I will be back in a bit.”

And with that, I was alone.

A woman was expected to keep her family’s books, recording
every cent spent and taken in. A readable hand was essential, and copperplate
signatures were admired. Really fancy finishing schools for young women taught
fine penmanship.

This was important.

The chalkboard allowed me to work out where I would place
words on the card. Centering would be required, and even spacing between words.
Deciding how the stiff stationer’s card would look did not take very long. The
hard part was mastering several of the capital letters in the card. I
recognized the French at the end of the invitation, and had no idea where to
put it. Finally, I decided to put
répondez s’il vous plaît
at the bottom
of the block of writing, centered, in a slightly smaller size.

When my letters felt good, I carefully dipped the pen and
practiced the words on the back of the sheet my cousin had given me. She had
not given me any sand to help dry the ink, so I hoped I could do this
carefully. Since I kept my hand below my words, I wasn’t worried about smudging
the invitation, only about drips and sputters from the quill.

The finished card was neat, and my imitation of my
great-grandmother’s cursive looked clear and not unattractive. Some of her
letters I had trouble with, like the capital “E,” but fortunately I did not
need one here.

Once I finished, I capped the ink and left the card to dry
in the warm room. I spent the rest of my time looking at the interesting things
in Cousin Esme’s sitting room. She had a beautiful globe, and a small bookcase containing
many old books. I wondered if some of these were her own journals, which was
why they were there and not in the family library.

Cousin Esme did not give me enough time to “get into trouble”
as my mother often said. She was back by the time the ink was dry, and examined
the stiff card intently. Nodding, she set that aside and asked how I was
feeling. It seemed abrupt, but then I remembered the vaccination, and said that
other than a little achy, I was doing fine.

“
Excellent.
Then let us move on to reading comprehension and essay work and use of the
globe.” Several books were set on my desk, and she pointed at the globe.

“
Use
of the globe” turned out to be simple—did I know where a lot of common places
were? Could I find odd places, like Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg?
(Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, if you do not know, was not in one place, like you’d
think it would be. It was a Duchy controlled by one man, although it was
divided up later. But he had to ride through other people’s duchies to visit
parts of his own. The Germanic people were always swapping duchies like
horses.)

I did a pretty good job with the globe, knowing most of what
she wanted and able to find the rest with clues like the sound of the words.
Then I found myself reading, and talking about the Bible and Shakespeare’s
work, which were the major things considered permissible for young ladies to
read. (Clearly, some people didn’t read certain stories in the Bible, or
certain plays. Or young ladies would not get to read them.)

My cousin wanted me to write about what I knew Shakespeare
got right in his works about the “Good Neighbors,” or the Fair Folk as we call
them when they’re not around. She also wanted me to examine the Bible for
references to magic, but I pointed out that it might take me several days.
There was a lot of magic in the Bible, if you knew what to look for, and
miracles might be magic, too. After all, God didn’t say that Powers did not
exist; he said not to consult them. He wanted people to seek enlightenment from
only his own priests.

Cousin Esme told me that I had good questions, and that
there would be classes where those things could be discussed.

So I picked a couple things to write about in “A Midsummer’s
Night Dream,” and wrote about how Shakespeare gave the concerns of the littlest
fairies to the great
daoine sídhe
,
and how he got right the ability of the small ones to temporarily beguile Sidhe
eyes. I also pointed out that Oberon’s own gods punished him for his little
trick against his wife. The son she bore from her frolic with Bottom was a
member of the court for a long time, a handsome, brilliant young man, who was
evidence of Titania’s infidelity—something Oberon could not punish, as the
court knew of the magic he had ordered used against her. The changeling boy
Oberon stole from his wife lived the length of a normal human life, and then
died. Changelings tend to keep their youth, but they die untimely.