Serial Saturday: "The Last Inkweaver" Part 6

Part 6

"The Legality of Things"

The idea of dreams held about as much notoriety in society as a favorable opinion of the Wordspinners--which is to say, any mention of them in polite circles was hushed, and one had to be very conscientious of admitting that the thoughts in one's head were in no way rooted in one's immediate experience. To put it bluntly, if one was having dreams, it was surely a sign of something deeply, fundamentally wrong with one's psyche.

As my father would say, “Dreaming is both unhealthy and unproductive, and those who dream amount to nothing.”

By the time I'd finished hemming and hawing about it, the ladies had moved on, anyway. I shrugged off the worthless thoughts and pulled open the gate guarding the path through the front yard to my door.

I opened and entered just as my mother was also heading toward the door with a guest.

"It was so good seeing you, Perla--thank you for stopping by," she was saying, following the recognized social protocol.

Perla finished placing her cap on her snowy-white head and pulling on her gloves. She smiled at my mother. "The same to you, Vena--and my!" She blinked in theatrical surprise--another common social practice when confronted with the children of one's neighbor. "Is this not your little Callista? What a fine young maiden she's become!"

I returned her smile with one of my own, but said nothing.

My mother accepted the praise on my behalf. It was mostly meant for her, anyways. "Yes, and she's become quite the accomplished and self-sufficient student--all set to graduate from the Academy as soon as she has somewhere to go!"

Perla gave a slight chuckle and patted me on the shoulder as she walked by. "Oh, have the lads been flocking around yet, missy? I dare say you must have your fair share of prospects knocking at your door already!" Her crooked fingers went for my cheek, but I stepped back, closer to my mother. 

I hated this kind of talk, but it was true and everyone knew it: the Academy was loath to let go of its students, unless they had a compelling reason to leave. For most of us--girls, especially--those reasons would either be marriage, or gainful employment. 

"Actually," I said quickly, "I am seriously considering the possibility of staying on after my graduation, and applying for a Tutoring position at the Academy."

Perla's brow lifted, and she caught my underlying meaning--I didn't have much that I was interested in, employment-wise, beyond the thick walls and vaulted ceilings of the Academy, and as of yet, no young man had come seeking after me, the way they gravitated toward other girls.

Mother cleared her throat. "See what I mean?" She interjected brightly, "Such an intelligent, motivated girl, is my Callista!" She had her hand on the door, politely ushering the older woman over the threshhold. "We shall chat again sometime. Good bye, Perla!"

"Good evening, Vena!" Perla nodded and waved as she traipsed down the path.

Once the door was closed, Mother turned right around and headed back toward the kitchen, at the back of the house. 

"Your father will be home soon," she called over her shoulder, "and we talked longer than I intended. Do you mind helping me prepare supper?"

I slipped off my cape and left it on the handle of my bedroom door, where I would remember to bring it in with me and hang it up later. "Not at all," I responded following her.

"Thank you," Mother sighed. She pulled out the soup kettle and picked out the recipe card for tonight, while I retrieved the pre-sorted packet of ingredients.

Mother adjusted the fringes of her hair around her face, so it wouldn't fall into her eyes as she worked. I had no idea how long her hair was, because she always wore it up in a softly-gathered bun, but it was the same color as mine--with a scattering of silver streaks throughout. I would look at my mother and hope that my hair looked half as good as hers by the time I reached her age.

"So, how was your day at the Academy?" Mother asked, pouring in the broth and spices to simmer.

I chopped the root vegetables and onions, pausing to turn my face whenever the fumes overwhelmed my eyes.

"Classes were fine," I answered, choosing my words carefully. "A girl vomited in Science class, so the teacher dismissed us early." I shook my head and wiped my streaming eyes. "That was exciting."

It might have been alarming at first, but now I couldn't resist a small chuckle at the memory of Madame Hephreny's face when Sheranne lost her willpower so badly. Not everyone could stomach stuff so well as she could, yet time and again, the Madame displayed complete disregard for that fact.

"Oh dear!" Mother clicked her tongue in sympathy. "Oh, that must have been awful for you, being made to sit and wait for the next class period. I know how much you detest idle time."

"I wasn't idle today, though," I assured her as I added the vegetables to the pot. "I had permission this time to go to the library for a special assignment, so I used that time for study." And a good portion of the next class period, but I'm not going to mention that, I thought.

Just then, I heard the front door open and my father's heavy footsteps entering the house. I hadn't realized how extraordinary my comment sounded until my mother turned.

"The library? I thought the Scholars provide all the materials you need for each class. What do you mean by a special assignment?" she asked. 

I balked as my father's footsteps approached the back of the house. To admit that I was given the assignment because I had been caught "dreaming" in class would lead to having to admit I had been dreaming in the first place, and I already knew just how my parents would respond to that. "I, um... I saw Terra in the hallway and she begged me for help with researching a history project. The Archivist requested that I accompany her." There! I winced as a rush of noise--the hubbub of a busy city street, and the giggling of children--arose in my ears, even though things were quiet and still in this house. I couldn't let on that there was anything out of the ordinary.

I finished speaking as Father entered the room. "What's this about you and Terra?" he asked with too much concern in his voice.

I glanced between my parents, acutely aware of how nervous they were. "Is it wrong?" I asked. "We had permission... Terra always needs help, it's not out of the ordinary for me to help her study."

Mother pressed her lips and gave Father a warning look.

"Rubin," she warned softly, "she doesn't know." To me, she said, "Don't worry, dearest--we know that you never wander anywhere in the Academy without permission. It's just..."

"Something wrong with Terra?" I guessed. "We've spent nearly all of our free time together for as long as we've known each other, and you've never once expressed any kind of issue! What don't I know? What are you not telling me?"

Father sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "I've just been to the Council offices these last two days, finalizing and cataloguing evidence. Jon and Sadie Witter are under investigation for possession of illegal wares and substances. They couldn't produce any physical items that fell into the banned categories by the deadline given on the summons, so the Authorities have sent men around to clear the house of suspicious possessions and will hold everything for inspection until the infraction has been confirmed or disproven."

I felt my chest tighten at the thought of my best and closest friend getting into some kind of trouble because of a simple purchasing mistake. Would they end up sending the Witters out of Mirrorvale because of it? I glanced around the house, my mind quickly jumping to the conclusion that if a family like Terra's could accidentally bring something illegal and dangerous into their home--who among us would be next?

"What kind of items were they?" I asked. "Was it something in the furnishings? An heirloom from generations past, or decor?" Mother didn't usually buy any of the functionless decorative pieces sold in the Factory Housewares market--but maybe a certain kind of vase held some vast secret... What if that was the reason for my relentless fixation on Wordspinners? 

"Callista," Mother murmured, "stop turning around, dear. You'll make yourself sick." She pursed her lips and set the lid on the soup pot to simmer for a while. "I spoke with some neighbors from their loop, and the conclusion seems to be that it's not just any kind of a certain item that has been banned, but whether or not it comes from the Factory that makes it illegal."

Father nodded. "That's right. Whatever it was, the evidence confirmed that the item--or items, we don't know how many--didn't come from any Factory Market, or even any Factory."

I frowned as the vision from that morning, of the small booth outside the Factory Market, replayed in my head, like a true memory this time. "But why?" I asked. "People can buy specialty items--that's why we have traveling merchants like Matthias' father, isn't it? The Factory Market isn't the only place to buy things!"

Again, my parents exchanged nervous glances.

"You're right, it's certainly not forbidden," Mother said with a wag of her head. "Sadie always did love to go bargain-hunting in the most back-corner places, to buy pretty, useless things!" She gave me a sorrowful look. "But don't you see? Such heedlessness of what one is bringing into the home puts the whole household at risk!"

"It has to do with the materials used to make the things--hazardous substances and the like," Father added, rubbing his chin. "In fact, there has been some talk among the Councillors, concerning the notion that only items from the Factory carry any kind of safety guarantee, and the use of non-toxic materials. There are no such regulations on artisanal items, so perhaps, in the interest of keeping citizens safe, and being able to guarantee the prevention of exposure to hazardous substances, there is talk of requiring that all materials, even those used by private crafters, must follow Factory regulations and guidelines."

I knew they were doing their best to explain things to me as clearly as possible, but I still had so many questions! "But what--"

"Dinner is ready!" Mother announced, pulling a stack of dishes from the cupboard for us. "Now, let's not discuss this any further. We wouldn't want to gossip." 

We sat at the small, round table, just the three of us. Mother reached across and gave my hand a squeeze. "Don't you worry dear. I am sure this is all just a misunderstanding that will be cleared up within a week."

"All we're asking is that you avoid spending time around Terra too much, unless absolutely necessary, until all this blows over," Father concluded. "Do you think you can manage that? I know the two of you have a lot of classes together--but maybe if you chose a seat far enough away from her..."

"Yes, I can try my best," I nodded before he could offer any more suggestions. Avoid Terra? I didn't think our friendship would ever come to this! It wasn't going to be easy, I knew, especially if Terra's parents didn't think to have a similar conversation with her.

[...]

Wordspinners. Were they merely crafters or religious mystics? I'd settled on some benign combination of the two on paper, but at the same time, there was one thing both Senevere and Allius agreed on: they made things, and they held a peculiar power to affect the mind. What if the things that got Terra's parents into so much trouble--the things that had been surreptitiously banned, but never clearly defined--had actually been made by Wordspinners? How could one know the difference between a thing made by a normal crafter, and one made by a Wordspinner? Was it some artistic pattern they used, some special mark they shared? 

I lay in my bed, and in the silence, the paranoia deepened: What if spending all that time with Terra, who had contact with a Wordspinner-made item, had affected my brain, and that was why I saw visions and suffered hallucinations and dreams? On the one hand, I genuinely enjoyed her friendship and fidelity--but on the other, what if I actually benefitted from avoiding her like my parents asked?

I shook my head to clear it of such confusing thoughts. I focused on the sounds of crickets outside my window, of the gentle Greyfrost breeze, and the feel of the blankets over me. Grounded and peaceful, I slipped into sleep.

I remembered a playdate with Terra, back when we were both small, only just old enough to go romping around town my ourselves. She and I clambered over rocks and through bushes in the woods behind the Council building where Father worked. At one point, Terra took a tumble, and her dress ripped, right in the front. I could clearly picture the gap in the yellow fabric of her skirt, and the muddy stain on the front of the bodice. I remembered thinking that we ought to go to the tailor's, or at least tell her mother so she could mend it--but Terra had other ideas. She seemed far too distraught for a mere tear, and I remember being confused when the things she was wailing about did not match the state of her clothes--she was talking about voices and other people and stories, not dresses and thread. Terra grabbed my hand and pulled me along behind her, down another path--and as I visualized it with my adult cognizance, I realized that the path we took was the same one that currently led straight into The Wall today--but back then, apparently, the road held no such barricade. Or perhaps we'd been playing somewhere else, and my memories had mixed the locations of our play and the place we ended up somehow. Surely The Wall had been a feature for much more of Mirrorvale's history, according to the sentiments of the first Explorers like Senevere, and not just a portion of my own lifetime.

I remembered waiting by a fence while Terra walked up the hill. She conferred with a woman I'd never seen before. Even in my mind's eye she held a vague shape, with clouded features that I couldn't quite distinguish, but at least I could see clearly her interactions with my friend.

The woman held Terra's hands as my friend poured out the entire nonsensical sob story, once again dithering about paths and someone's being in danger, rather than the fact that we'd been playing and she'd ripped her dress. I remember thinking how odd it was, that she seemed afraid of telling this adult that we'd been climbing--but why should she be ashamed of such a normal thing, compared to this other story she told? What happened next was still rather vague, as I'd been distracted with my own thoughts and surely missed something. One moment, Terra was speaking, then the woman spoke, asking her questions and explaining something very patiently and in much detail. The next moment, Terra skipped back to join me, all smiles--her dress is fresh and clean, like new. We scurried on our merry way. 

I didn't look back toward the woman again, but I did wonder how she could have repaired the dress in such a short time. There wasn't even any stitching.

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Serial Saturday: "The Last Inkweaver" Part 5

Part 5

"Dreams And Delirium"

The sun had sunk to the very top of the Academy steeples as I made my way across the Square. On the other end of the wide, central space stood the Council Building and the adjoining Great Hall, where all of Mirrorvale's social Gatherings were held. The Council Building, itself, held the offices for all the municipal authorities, the town records meticulously maintained since its founding, and all the laws that kept things running smoothly.

Around and between these were the common industry buildings: the tinker, the tailor, the baker, the butcher, the carpenter, the apothecary, and various other skilled workers whose job it was to create and maintain Factory-made items according to Factory standards. Mirrorvale was unusual, in that it was too far away from the closest Factory. Long ago, the town council had effectively argued against stripping dozens of buildings away for the sake of one large, unseemly warehouse, all in the name of "aesthetic." There had even been a few farms at first, tasked with growing crops and raising animals to provide our own food--but it wasn't long before the Civil Authority got wind of our self-sufficiency and stepped in, saying that everything grown and raised in Mirrorvale still had to be delivered to the Factory for processing. This kind of distant oversight didn't last long--the families all packed up and left after the second "Factory reaping." While this was happening, the Civil Authority got wind of all the other independent industries going on, and very soon, every one of our shops had to be beholden to the Factories in some way. The shoemaker could continue to receive shipments of shoes from the Factory to sell, and in the meantime repair any worn-out shoes until the next set arrived. The baker could continue to make her loaves, cakes, muffins, and rolls according to Factory recipes; Mistress Needle could serve as Mirrorvale's tailor, sewing dresses and trousers with Factory patterns and repair those clothes as necessary--and even though we had avoided the usual requirement of a centralized Factory Market, all the little shops around the Square functioned as one.

By-and-large, Mirrorvale could continue to pass itself off as a thriving municipality, even though just about everyone who lived here ended up dying here. Sure, we might see a few families arrive to settle here, and it might happen a few times in the course of a generation, but either they stayed long enough to earn their spot in Mirrorvale's long and tradition-laden history, or they didn't stay at all.

I gave a wry glance at the vacant inn set up at the end of the row of shops. It was built back when the City Planners believed Mirrorvale would become a thoroughfare to the western coast of Hemptor, just like all the other towns... but not even Mirrorvale's residents used the long trail to the Old Dockyard, anymore. Rather than being a gateway, this town had become very much an "end of the line" sort of place. In a way, it seemed like we had found a safe, predictable rhythm a long time ago, and never left it.

I trudged up the small hill at the edge of Mirrorvale proper, over the small copse that separated that half from all the houses where people lived and such, and turned around to get the best view of the town. I could see all the way from the inn and the carriage house across the street, back to the Academy and the Council Building--and just beyond that, The Wall.

I shivered when I saw the way the sun's rays seemed to pass beyond it, leaving the whole structure in shadow. The Wall had stood there, marking that particular edge of the town's boundaries, for as long as I could remember--but the only reason I had ever been given for its existence was "it stands as a memorial to the day the Wordspinners left." To hear some people talk, the Wordspinners themselves had built The Wall, as some kind of warning, or a threat, maybe--though what sort of threat could a wall really pose?

I gave myself a little shake to break the thrall that had come over me, and marched down the hill toward the clusters of stately, identical houses, grouped in sets of ten or twelve around circular communal spaces we called "loops."

Various neighbors moved around the outdoor spaces, gathering up their children, or getting one last walk in before the sun went down completely. I waved at a couple of neighbors who stood at the front of their loop.

"Good evening, Callista!" called the one whose name was Dorthy Galvesyn, a matronly sort with two brown braids hanging down her back.

I smiled and returned the wave. "Good evening!"

The other, a pinch-faced woman with close-cropped pewter-colored hair, scowled discreetly at me. Mrs. Cordelia hated being interrupted, and she loved to tell long-winded stories and complain about every little ache, pain, and inconvenience.

"Anyway," she resumed speaking as I passed, "I've just been to the apothecary for a sleeping tonic."

Dorthy clicked her tongue in sympathy. "Oh, is your back bothering you again?"

I had crossed the street already and reached the edge of my home loop, and I still caught Mrs. Cordelia's reply.

"It's not my back so much as a plague of memories that afflicts me," she said in a tone that sounded more boastful than pitiful. "Oh, my troubled mind will not let me rest!"

I entered the loop for my home and stopped. Some part of what Mrs. Cordelia said caught my attention and almost drove me back toward the women. If I didn't know any better, I could almost think that Mrs. Cordelia's "mental malady" was not too far off from the inconvenient "dreaming" I experienced almost on a daily basis!

I stood there, thinking about retracing my steps and asking Mrs. Cordelia about her experience with the "dreams", if that was what they were. One didn't talk about "dreams" in a proper society--well-bred ladies spoke of "memories" or "night worries" instead.

The thing that held me back, though, was the recollection of exactly what had happened the first and only time I tried to tell my parents about a dream I'd had.

I had just started Level 5 at the Academy, when one of the farms had a break-in at the last Waning of Verdant, and the intruder had slaughtered several animals and damaged the barn they were in, spoiling the newly-harvested crops as a result. No one could discern the culprit, and yet the notoriety increased to the point of four big-city investigators coming out to see what they could learn. They stayed at the inn, and they questioned many people, staking out the entire property and searching it over and over again, in every corner. People started mistrusting one another, and all sorts of secrets came out between people--but though the investigators stayed a week and scarred some relationships for the rest of time, still they had to leave empty-handed. Theories ran wild, from a jealous ex-lover or a roving band of crooks, to whole packs of savage dogs or wildcats--but nobody could confirm for sure exactly what had happened at that farm.

Nobody except me.

I remember dreaming about the farm in question, even before I knew that something so extreme happened there. I had the dream the exact same night it happened, and while I dreamed I actually felt like I stood there in the grass, just outside the gate, while three huge, wolves--all mangy and starved to skin-and-bones--trotted onto the farmer's land and slipped in through a loose board in the barn wall. I remember the screams of terror from the animals, and the awful crashing and banging of splintering wood as the wolves fought their way out again. Somehow, the dream gave me the impression that they had wandered deep into the forest and died of hunger by the first cold snap of Harvest--which would have been just after the investigators left Mirrorvale--but when I awoke in my bed and everything about me was totally normal, I took it for an errant burst of imagination.

My parents weren't so dismissive, however. The next morning, I remember Father describing the grisly scene of the purported crime, and I simply mentioned that I had dreamed of just such a scenario the night before--and the moment I said "dream", my Mother cried out in shock and said that I must have studied too hard and overtaxed my brain. They held me home from Academy classes, sending word to Headmaster Guillem that I had awoken with a case of "fever and delirium" and I would not be resuming my studies until I felt well again.

That was the part that scared me the most--their insistence that I must be unwell, when I felt absolutely fine. Every day, Mother let me stay home and do as I pleased (provided I didn't leave the house, and stayed in my room when guests came over), and every morning, they would ask if I'd had any more dreams. For two weeks, I did dream, but it was the same event over and over again. Meanwhile, the investigators still pressured the town as if a person was at fault for the whole thing, but when all their efforts still did not produce a satisfying culprit for them to arrest (because in fact no person was actually guilty!), they gave up and returned from whence they came. From what I heard, they didn't even offer the farmer any kind of compensation or assistance.

By the time I finally felt miserable and bored enough to inform my parents that the dreams had "stopped" (they hadn't), and that I had recovered enough mental acuity to prevent them from ever happening again (as if I had any control over the thoughts in my brain), I was sure of two things:

First, the vision I had witnessed was the actual truth, but no one else seemed to realize that, so I could never figure out how to confirm it; and

Second, I was never going to mention any kind of dreaming or speculation to my parents ever again.

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Serial Saturday: "The Last Inkweaver" Part 4

 Part 4

"Information Gap"

I stood in the midst of several huts made of various natural materials: sticks, stones, mud, and even animal hides or canvas. Everyone around me, moving in and out of those buildings wore the same kind of old-fashioned clothing, robes and tunics instead of dresses and trousers.

"The Wordspinners serve the community by their craft," a large, warm voice boomed out from all around me. I watched a dark-haired man with a short beard--looking a good deal more civilized than the rest of these villagers--emerge from a canvas tent. He smiled and greeted the people he saw, and they responded with courtesy and politeness. Was I looking at Dobran Allius, himself?

"They made clothes and wares for the people, and also grew plants for food and medicine to give to those who needed it, as well," continued the voice, and I saw several booths just like the one I'd witnessed in History class, with people selecting items they wanted, or the seller picking out what they wished to distribute.

The ground before me tilted and twisted, and when my vision balanced again, I saw the small settlement had been replaced with a large village of modern buildings. For the second time that day, I saw the woman selling hand-made pots outside the Factory Market, and the people walking by as if they never even noticed her.

"The King's reforms are less about fixing what is necessarily wrong with the native's practices," observed my disembodied narrator, "and more designed to alter and replace their normal way of life. However..." and here the scene shifted to the grand hall of some palace or something. I saw a crowd of courtiers in fine clothing. Some of them bore a grand medallion hanging from their necks. "With the relocation came opportunities. The King saw much benefit in welcoming a few Wordspinners into his court. He heeded their advice, and the land flourished. So began a Golden Age for the kingdom of Gramble..."

I watched the medallion-wearing people gathered around the king, and it all made sense somehow in my mind. Were these the Wordspinners?

The ground lurched again, and I felt someone grab my hand...

"Whoa, Callista, are you all right?" Terra's voice broke through the dense fog around my senses, at at a blink, I was back in a seat a the table in the Academy library. Dobran Allius' book, mercifully, had been placed out of my reach.

I inhaled a deep breath, feeling exactly the way I did when swimming underwater for too long.

I stared at the fair face beside me. "Terra! How long was I out this time?"

Terra's face was rarely serious, but she looked it now. She fiddled with the laces of her bodice as she declared, "Out? You mean you had one of your bizarre memory-flashes just now? You've only been sitting there long enough for me to finish the passage and realize you'd stopped moving." Her hands lifted to the edge of her collar. "Well? Tell me everything! What did you see?" She leaned forward with a giddy expression on her face.

For once, I didn't feel afraid of discussing this strange phenomenon. Terra was the only person I could talk to about it, and between the two of us, she had been the first to embrace it as something exciting for me, rather than evidence of some aberration in my brain.

I stared down at my notes, once so thorough and concise, now sounding so pedantic and hollow, after what I'd just witnessed.

"I saw the Wordspinner encampment," I said, "and the same seller's booth I witnessed in History Class." I gave her a meaningful glance. "And that is what sparked my outburst in the middle of Scholar Mikel's lecture--what he was saying didn't match up with what I was seeing, and I wanted to know which one to believe."

Terra made a contemptuous noise and leaned back, easing the tension on the laces of her bodice. We were taught during our formative seasons that a flat stomach appeared healthier than a distended, bulbous one--but on girls like poor Terra who enjoyed good food far too much for the limited capacity of the laces, the effect was rather less aesthetic and more tortuous. "It wouldn't be the first time our authorities chose to ignore the obvious in favor of the preferable narrative." She perked up with a sly grin. "At least you were sitting down for both flashes, so you didn't start wandering around in the middle of class! Wouldn't that have been hilarious?"

I snorted and went back to my notes, filling in the details based on what I'd heard from Dobran Allius. "Of course, Terra--it's always absolutely amusing to go dashing about like a headless chicken, with my eyes seeing impossible dangers that aren't even real!" Terra had seen it happen to me before: if I was standing when the images overtook me, I tended to wander around within them, my eyes not registering the same places my feet traveled. As a result, I ended up in more strange, out-of-the-way places than I was comfortable with! "Anyways, this time I heard... I think I was hearing Allius giving his own account."

"Oh wow!" Terra breathed, leaning in and running her fingers over the sweeping script. "Like, you heard from the Explorer himself? Was he old and creaky? Did it sound really pompous and stuffy, or did he have a strange accent that twisted his words into unintelligible gobbledegook?"

"Terra!" I folded my brow at her. "He just spoke, it sounded normal, and I think--" I broke off speaking as I reached for the journal. I hesitated to pull back the cover, after what had just happened to me, but I had to see for myself.

I glanced through the words on the pages, and his kind, calm voice rang in my ears as I comprehended the words, but thankfully my psyche remained rooted in the present.

"Unbelievable!" I muttered, reading the very words that had narrated my experience just moments earlier. Even entries that the visions had somehow skipped still filled in the missing details, resounding in that same voice."It's the same as Senevere's report," I mused, flipping back in my notebook to compare, "but so different!"

Allius spoke of the Golden Age, yes--but Wordspinners were still accepted as contributing members of the burgeoning society. They weren't welcome at the Academies because of their religious ties, of course, but they could still make and sell wares in the local market square. According to this record, as Academies taught and trained more of each generation, the number of Wordspinners arrested, accused of spreading falsehoods and tried for treason also increased. Allius at one point concluded that they retreated into hiding, and then died out in obscurity some time later.

I scribbled down what I could of Allius' perspective, and handed the book back to Terra.

"You need to put this back exactly where you found it," I warned her. "I don't want either of us to get into trouble for breaking the rules!"

Terra nodded and eased over to the shelf as I put away my pencil, packed up the notebook, and left the book exactly as the Archivist directed. High over our heads, the great bell tolled the end of one class period and the impending start of the next.

Something in the sound gave me pause. I felt as if we'd been in the library for three days, not just half a class period.

On our way out, I asked the Archivist, "How many times has the bell rang since we entered?"

He sniffed and stepped out from his desk. "The bell? It's rung twice since you walked in."

Twice! I grabbed Terra's hand and groaned. "I've missed Sewing," I muttered. "Mistress Needle is going to expect me to make it up tomorrow. Why didn't you tell me the first time the bell rang?"

Terra wagged her head. "You were out of it, I suppose--I thought we both heard it, and the reason you didn't respond is that you had permission to skip as many class periods as you needed for this project. How was I supposed to know you were up to your eyeballs in some invisible environment?"

"But you could have left me!" We emerged in the hallway at about the same time as other ranks of students swapping classrooms. "Just because I had permission didn't mean you could also stay behind!"

Terra tossed her lively red curls. "It's only Dance--I'm Level 9 competent in that subject already. But let's get back to you." She fixed her gaze on me and pressed her lips. "Are you going to be all right? Two memory-flashes in one day--"

"Hush!" I gripped her arm and gave it a little shake to stop her as eyes slid and heads turned ever so slightly in our direction.

Terra didn't take the hint. "Well, I mean, really--aren't you the least little bit curious as to why it happens all of a sudden, and today has seemed worse than ever--you don't think people have already noticed and are starting to wonder?"

"Not if I can help it!" I retorted, falling in line for Level 9 Etiquette. "Go on to Music, Terra. We'll talk about this later."

Sitting in my straight-backed chair, listening as Madame Collette explained the proper use of one's fan for communicating careful signals, I thought about Terra's parting words.

Why was I singularly plagued with these rampant memories that hardly seemed to have anything to do with me? What did it mean when one historical account reflected everything I'd been taught, and another one triggered bizarre visions and communicated just the opposite?

I blandly went through the motions of the lesson, copying Madam Collette exactly, and the final bell rang to release me. I shuffled along with the crowd flowing toward the front doors of the Academy, my thoughts spinning as I thought of my house, my family, and the long, confusing essay I would need to write before tomorrow.

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