Chapter Five #2
“Yes, Senior,” I said, giving a reflexive little curtsy, as if he were one of the sternest professors.
Guilt crept through me like a fever. I’d become so swept away that I’d lost sight of the duty I had to this town and to all Children of Industry.
Swept away by what, precisely, I did not care to dwell on.
As I left him to his work and his supper, I paused in the doorway, recalling his comment about decency. “Do you object to me hiring a tailor to fashion my dress into trousers?”
In Sterling City, plenty of women had adopted menswear, but not everyone found it proper. To my relief, he rolled his eyes. “I do not care what you wear to work, Apprentice Haven. I care only, and marginally, about what you choose not to wear.”
Recalling his unease at seeing my bare feet, I hid a smile until the door closed behind me.
In my room, I crammed myself against the narrow window to watch my first sunset over Frostbrook.
In the distance, snowcapped mountains stretched toward a smudge of clouds.
Even in the summertime, the towering mountains looked foreboding.
No wonder the last of the Animators had perished there in their attempt to defy the House of Industry.
No one—not even someone capable of harnessing wild, living magic—could survive somewhere so desolate.
The sky changed color in increments both slow and altogether too fast. Vivid orange and shocking teal met in a riot of hues.
Wonder stole my breath and my appetite until long after the sun had set behind the range and the mountains’ hulking majesty was nothing but a gray bruise against the sky. I came back to myself reluctantly.
I lit an oil lamp with a spark of radiance and forced myself to eat in the trembling light, surprised to find that I was ravenous.
The cheese was soft and faintly musky, stranger than the hard, sharp cheese we’d eaten in the House of Industry.
For a moment, I hated it, and then I loved it and smeared every bit on the grainy brown bread.
Julian had left a pitcher of water on my worktable, but I knew better than to think he would again. As I drank the sweet, tepid water from a copper cup, I reminded myself that I wouldn’t have helpers or caregivers here.
We were alone in this massive Mission.
I was alone.
Despite the beauty of my surroundings, the weight of that crept up on me like the shadows in my room.
I’d never been so isolated. No one was going to shake me awake when I talked in my sleep or gossip with me in the morning or yelp alongside me over how cold the wash water was.
I wanted to tell Gertrude and Tabitha about Frostbrook and the particularly fuzzy nature of Ezra’s thick eyebrows.
My chest abruptly tightened, and I squeezed my hands together and paced to stop myself from crying like a child.
It was folly to miss the other girls. None of them would miss me.
But the size of the sky, and the size of the mountains, and the size of all that I did not yet know made me feel impossibly small. I was too much. I was not enough.
I was so alone.
That night, I slept like a corpse and didn’t wake until a rooster heralded the first morning light.
I sat up blearily, my face sticky with drool and my waist pinched terribly by the dress I’d neglected to remove before fretting myself to sleep.
As I stretched, scowling, I knew what I needed to do once I finished my chores.
Trousers.
After leaving Julian’s tedious breakfast outside his room, I followed the directions written in elegant script on the paper that he’d slid under my door in the night.
I held it to the milky light from my window, studying the simple map that would lead me from the Mission to the mill upriver, then to check the progress of the first conduction box that was being installed on the main street at the center of the little town. There, I’d be sure to find the tailor.
Though I knew better than to expect anything like the streets of Sterling City, I was eager to see the center of Frostbrook.
The train station had been set apart from town, as was customary to make space for new development and industrial growth.
My walk from the train to the Mission hadn’t taken me close enough to get a glimpse of where people were doing their best to establish a community at the base of the foothills.
I wondered, with a traitorous thrill, if Ezra would be in Frostbrook—or if I’d meet the midwife he apprenticed under.
If I saw him, I’d be wise to ignore him entirely, but I couldn’t imagine seeing him and not thanking him for showing me the hot spring.
After all, it would only be the polite thing to do. No one could fault me for that.
As I left, I nearly tripped over a tin box with blue enamel details. I opened it to find a set of tools and a soft leather belt to keep them safely fastened to my waist. My heart swelled with joy and surprise. These were meant to be my own—not well-worn and shared between a dozen students.
I ran my fingers across each tool. Side-cutting pliers.
Locking pliers with deep grooves. A stripping blade.
Needle-nose pliers were my favorite—strong but precise enough to pluck a single hair from a brow.
With great care, I put each tool in place and fastened the supple belt.
With the familiar weight against my hip, I didn’t feel quite as adrift.
I felt like a Conductor.
Unlike the humid summer mornings in Sterling City, Frostbrook at dawn had a crispiness that whispered a warning of what winter had in store.
Like all Children of Industry, I had an affinity for heat and a natural preference for sunlight over darkness, and summer over winter.
Eager to warm up, I turned my face to the glowing dawn as I picked my way along the road that was only beginning to bustle with workers.
They traveled in groups from the massive encampment in the woods where they’d set up temporary housing during the construction of the Mission.
Canvas shelters dotted the tree line like a hundred ghosts.
The clanking pans and tired groans reminded me of early mornings at the House of Industry, when we busied ourselves in the kitchens and forced ourselves to wake up with water so cold, it felt like a thousand needles.
Even the youngest children at the House of Industry had duties, and all of us rotated from task to task seasonally, until we knew how to do everything from sharpening knives to darning stockings.
It made us well-rounded, prepared to run a Mission.
Or, if we failed, suited to return to the House to serve the students and professors.
Growing up, I’d been busy every waking moment, whether I was learning how to manage a Mission or how to control my radiance.
A quiet morning walk had been unheard of, let alone in a place where birdsong rose with every growing beam of sunlight and the air smelled like pine sap and something else I couldn’t quite place, something I could only describe as clean.
I’d loved Sterling City, but clean was the last thing anyone could describe it as.
Whether in summer or winter, most people suffered from a lingering cough, and illness ravaged the population, claimed old and young alike.
Many, like the women I’d met on my travels, left city life to find this very thing—the unblemished sky and dancing trees.
Progress would bring more travelers to Frostbrook, and would allow them to find the solace and opportunity they couldn’t find in the city.
I was part of a beautiful migration, and soon this quiet town would be a bustling young city, propelled by trade along the river.
Pride swelled in my chest as I walked, swinging my arms and feeling once again like part of something grand and good.
Then a pine cone hit me square in the side of my head, catching in my hair.
I cursed and windmilled my arms, momentarily convinced I’d been struck by a treacherous bird.
Laughter rang out, and I knew the sound before I could quite form the word that ripped from my throat like a growl. “Ezra!”
He dropped from a tree. “I’m terribly sorry. My aim is poor.”
“Poor?” I shouted. “You nearly removed my head.”
“I meant to miss!”
“And what good would that have done?” I demanded, charging at him with my hands balled into fists. His eyes widened, and he took a stumbling step back. The color drained from his cheeks as if I’d sucked all the blood from his body.
I followed his panicked gaze, looking down to see a pale blue current of radiance dancing between my clenched fists. Horror, sudden and cold, coursed through me.
The light dissipated in an instant, leaving only the faint smell of ozone.
“I didn’t mean to do that,” I whispered.
It would have been nothing back at the House.
A few nights forced to meditate on my lack of control.
A missed meal. A singed dress. But Ezra wasn’t a Child of Industry. I could have killed him.
He had his back to the tree he’d perched in. “It’s fine,” he said, voice wooden. He didn’t take his eyes off my hands. His were pressed against the bark.
“No. It’s not fine. Losing control of radiance is forbidden. My temper … I would not blame you if you reported me to Senior Gray.”
Ezra coughed out a bitter sound. “I’ll pass on that, thank you.”
“Then allow me to repay you somehow. I won’t receive wages until next year, but if there’s anything I can do—”
“Are you trying to bribe me?” The color returned to his cheeks a bit too rapidly. His brown eyes widened.