pockets. For a terrible second she thought she’d lost the glasses case, but it was just the unfamiliar arrangement of the pockets in her alien jeans that confused her. The case was in a narrow pocket almost behind her thigh and not much above her knee. She got it out, snapped it open, and flung on the glasses.
The linen room looked quite different through the crazed lenses, but not because the view was all blurry and cracked. In fact, to Leaf the glasses were perfectly clear, but she could see strange fuzzy colors in things that hadn’t had them before. Sorcerous auras, she supposed, or something like that.
Quickly she scanned the shelves and was immediately rewarded. Most of the colors overlaid on the various items of linen were cool greens and blues. But one shelf stood out like a beacon. It was lit inside by a deep, fierce red.
Leaf sprang at it, pulling away a rampart of pillowcases. There, behind this linen wall, was a clear plastic box the size of her palm that had formerly been used to store sterile bandages. Now it had a single square of white cloth in it, but with the aid of the glasses, Leaf could see rows and rows of tiny letters across the cloth, each letter burning with an internal fire.
She snatched the box and backed away, pausing to tip another shelf-full of towels over the nurse, who was staggering to her feet.
Leaf was out the door and in the corridor when the nurse got her head free and shouted after her, her voice a strange mixture of a woman’s and a boy’s. Whatever she said—or the Skinless Boy said through her—was lost as the door slammed shut on Leaf’s heels.
Though Leaf couldn’t hear the exact words, she caught the tone. The Skinless Boy knew she was infected with the mold. Sooner or later, it would control her mind and she would have no choice but to bring the box and the pocket back.
After all, there was nowhere for her to go.
Chapter Nine
A fter the ironing lesson, Corporal Axeforth tediously demonstrated how to smear a kind of white clay over the recruits’ belts, preferably without getting it anywhere else. This was followed by painting their boots with a hideous tarry mixture and then sanding the very black but rough result back to a smooth finish before applying a glossy varnish that was the stickiest substance Arthur had ever encountered.
Following the demonstrations, when they got to practice what they’d been shown, Arthur talked quietly with the Piper’s child, whose name was Fred Initial Numbers Gold. He was a Manuscript Gilder from the Middle House and had been drafted the day before.
Fred was optimistic about their future Army service and even welcomed it as a change from his nitpicking job of applying gold leaf to the numbers in important House documents. He’d heard—or he remembered, he wasn’t sure which—that Piper’s children were usually employed in the Army as drummers or other musicians, or as personal aides to senior officers. This didn’t sound too bad to him.
After the final lesson on preparing their recruit uniforms, the section was dismissed for dinner. Only there wasn’t any—and there wouldn’t be any, Corporal Axeforth explained, for six months. Food was a privilege and an honor to be earned by good behavior and exemplary duty. Until they had earned it, the dinner break was merely an hour to be used to prepare for the evening lessons and the next day’s training.
Arthur missed the food, though like everyone else in the House he knew he didn’t actually need to eat. He spent the hour going through all his equipment and the uniforms that were laid ready on his bed and in his locker. The most useful item of the lot was a thick, illustrated book called The Recruit’s Companion, which, among its many sections, listed and illustrated every item and had short notes on where and how each would be used, though Arthur still had to ask Fred to explain some of its contents.
“How come we have so many different uniforms?” he asked.
Fred
The linen room looked quite different through the crazed lenses, but not because the view was all blurry and cracked. In fact, to Leaf the glasses were perfectly clear, but she could see strange fuzzy colors in things that hadn’t had them before. Sorcerous auras, she supposed, or something like that.
Quickly she scanned the shelves and was immediately rewarded. Most of the colors overlaid on the various items of linen were cool greens and blues. But one shelf stood out like a beacon. It was lit inside by a deep, fierce red.
Leaf sprang at it, pulling away a rampart of pillowcases. There, behind this linen wall, was a clear plastic box the size of her palm that had formerly been used to store sterile bandages. Now it had a single square of white cloth in it, but with the aid of the glasses, Leaf could see rows and rows of tiny letters across the cloth, each letter burning with an internal fire.
She snatched the box and backed away, pausing to tip another shelf-full of towels over the nurse, who was staggering to her feet.
Leaf was out the door and in the corridor when the nurse got her head free and shouted after her, her voice a strange mixture of a woman’s and a boy’s. Whatever she said—or the Skinless Boy said through her—was lost as the door slammed shut on Leaf’s heels.
Though Leaf couldn’t hear the exact words, she caught the tone. The Skinless Boy knew she was infected with the mold. Sooner or later, it would control her mind and she would have no choice but to bring the box and the pocket back.
After all, there was nowhere for her to go.
Chapter Nine
A fter the ironing lesson, Corporal Axeforth tediously demonstrated how to smear a kind of white clay over the recruits’ belts, preferably without getting it anywhere else. This was followed by painting their boots with a hideous tarry mixture and then sanding the very black but rough result back to a smooth finish before applying a glossy varnish that was the stickiest substance Arthur had ever encountered.
Following the demonstrations, when they got to practice what they’d been shown, Arthur talked quietly with the Piper’s child, whose name was Fred Initial Numbers Gold. He was a Manuscript Gilder from the Middle House and had been drafted the day before.
Fred was optimistic about their future Army service and even welcomed it as a change from his nitpicking job of applying gold leaf to the numbers in important House documents. He’d heard—or he remembered, he wasn’t sure which—that Piper’s children were usually employed in the Army as drummers or other musicians, or as personal aides to senior officers. This didn’t sound too bad to him.
After the final lesson on preparing their recruit uniforms, the section was dismissed for dinner. Only there wasn’t any—and there wouldn’t be any, Corporal Axeforth explained, for six months. Food was a privilege and an honor to be earned by good behavior and exemplary duty. Until they had earned it, the dinner break was merely an hour to be used to prepare for the evening lessons and the next day’s training.
Arthur missed the food, though like everyone else in the House he knew he didn’t actually need to eat. He spent the hour going through all his equipment and the uniforms that were laid ready on his bed and in his locker. The most useful item of the lot was a thick, illustrated book called The Recruit’s Companion, which, among its many sections, listed and illustrated every item and had short notes on where and how each would be used, though Arthur still had to ask Fred to explain some of its contents.
“How come we have so many different uniforms?” he asked.
Fred
Similar Books
