Page 20 (1/2)
"I understand that you were young Thirteen, was it?" Ms Harlan says "But do you rery with the king? Questioning the rules that keep Intern?"
"No" Also a lie I had never seen Lex so angry into be in any trouble," Ms Harlan says "Questions are normal after procedures like that"
"I really wouldn’t know," I say
Procedures Like "incident," this is another word that covers a broad range of unpleasant things There is the ter procedure that reduces bodies to ash The mercy procedure that dispatches the infants who are born unwell Lex wrestled with these things constantly as a phars he has seen
Mercifully, the bell rings I’one even before the tea has had a chance to cool
Basil is waiting for o under his waiting arm, and he steers me away froht that I’ll have two days free of questioning does little to settle me
"What did she say?" Basil asks
"She knows," I say softly "I don’t knohat it is, but it’s so about my family"
After class, Pen and I walk to Brass Beans Trinket Shop It’s a little toy store modeled after a storybook castle, complete with a balcony atop a tower We don’t actually have castles--they’re too large and i as Internround, like a secret ere never round are untrue, and we dreas to live in one; our centuries-old clock tower is as close as she’ll come to that
Pen and I fell in love with the trinket shop ere toddlers and never quite outgrew it We have an annual tradition of picking out our festival of stars gifts here and exchanging theh the people of Internifts for birthdays, Pen’s and ifts also double as late birthday presents, because it marks the anniversary of our friendship Her birthday is only a handful of days after mine; in fact, that’s how our mothers met and hoe came to be friends She was part of an October batch of due dates, while I was to be part of a Nove with Basil But in late October, my mother was rushed to a hospital roo dismissed from it with false labor We were both eventually born that week--I too eager, and Pen too hesitant
"Do you suppose we’ll co?" I ask
"I intend to die young," Pen says, tapping at each in a row of tiny wooden princes and princesses "Tragically, I hope You’re io"
"Be serious," I say
"This is no place for that," she says She hoists a small metal insect in the pal the tiny label affixed to it It’s s and long tail are any indication I see thes at a tiny thread on its back, and with abusily around our heads She squeaks with delight
She intends to die young, she says I think she’d h, surrounded by toys and tonics, saying crude things and flinging water balls at the young lovers holding hands
The quartet flutterling lands on her shoulder "I want this," she says "Think how much more fun it’ll be e’re drunk off tonic" It has happened only a handful of ti Lex’s incident Pen would bring a bottle of her mother’s spirits to our cavern and tellout For a couple of hours it did, I suppose, but , and I’d have to face it with a headache
"I want you to have a gift you can enjoy while you’re sober," I say
She hugs the flutterling protectively to her shoulder "I will Do you see anything you’d like?"
I stare at a row of bound journals Like all other books on Internes in those journals are recycled They’ll be mostly white, but there will be shadowy flecks, bits of soes Pure white pages are expensive and rare; my brother has the scrolls for his transcriber only because they’re considered necessary for the blind, and the words are printed with indents so he can feel them, which is why the paper must be unblemished
I saw him rip apart a manuscript in a fit of frustration one afternoon, and I wanted to scream
"Not yet," I say
"We could try upstairs," Pen says, petting her new toy "Do you need to get so for Lex?"
"No," I say "He says the best gift I can give him any year is peace and quiet He says I snore and it disturbs his writing"
"You don’t snore," Pen assures "He just loves to tease you"
"You’re lucky you’re an only child," I say
Westairwell that’s lit by flaical reason at all, I think of Judas, all angles in the ht, and of Basil, who kissed inning to feel for him the way that Alice feels for Lex, the way my mother feels for my father It’s an injustice that Judas’s betrothed is dead at any age, but especially at this one
Did they ever kiss? Were they in love, or will Judas spend the rest of his life never getting to knohat that feels like?
"You’re being quiet," Pen pouts We reach the top of the staircase and she tugs the thread, setting the flutterling in the air again