I wished I’d had room to write loving a hundred times. Every sentence was a lie concealed in truth. I wanted to tell them what an adventure I was having, but I had no space and didn’t dare.
The scribe waved a fan over the parchment to dry the ink. “You write a fine hand, young mistress. Don’t set up in competition with me.”
I paid, while watching for thieving cats. The tins changed hands without trouble, and I started back to my masteress. As I turned into Lair Lane, I stopped, then ran into the lair, leaping as I went.
“Masteress!”
IT looked up from ITs game of knucklebones.
“An abecedary of vegetables!” I brushed aside the bones and put the book on the floor under ITs snout. “Look!” I opened to the first page. “A for acorn squash.” I turned to the end. “Z for zucchini. It’s an A to Z in vegetables.”
ITs smoke grayed.
Gray smoke for sadness, but I rushed on. “Mother taught me to read with an abecedary. I’ll teach you. We can start—”
IT sat up. “What did you see and hear and smell in the town?”
“Don’t you—” I stopped myself and told IT everything except Goodwife Celeste’s warning.
When I finished, IT had me read again until the evening meal, by which time I had progressed as far as mustard. After we ate, IT challenged me to knucklebones. I sat cross-legged on the floor, and IT stretched out facing me with the tip of ITs tail in the smoldering fireplace.
I couldn’t win. IT tossed the jack higher and straighter than I did and so had more time to pick up bones. My sole advantage lay in the variations. IT knew none, so I showed IT the ones I excelled at: round the castle, fairy fling, rolling the gnome. But soon IT surpassed me even at these.
And then, in the middle of a game, IT said, “Lodie, three scribes have attempted to teach me to read, and all have used abecedaries. But the letters fly apart. Straight lines curl. Curved lines throb. I know a single letter.” ITs right claw drew a circle in the air. “O.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, O. The trouble must be in the dragon eye, or in my eyes.”
I wasn’t convinced IT couldn’t learn. Clever as IT was, IT seemed meant to read.
We played a while longer, and then I slept, unafraid, not barricaded. Goodwife Celeste was certainly misinformed about my masteress.
In the morning IT gave me instructions. “Walk through the town and proclaim my powers. You will say”—IT inhaled deeply—“‘Today, in Two Castles and only in Two Castles, the Great, the Unfathomable, the Brilliant Meenore is available to solve riddles, find lost objects and lost people, and answer the unanswerable. Three tins for a riddle solved . . .’”
So now I knew what three tins would buy.
“‘. . . fifteen tins for a lost object found, three coppers for a lost person found—’”
I blurted, “A lost person should cost more than three coppers.” A person!
“What is a person worth, Lodie?”
“Many silvers.”
“And if the lost person is the son of a servant, who may never own a single silver, the son should remain lost?”
I blushed. “No. But what if the father or mother may never own a copper?”
“Then we will negotiate. You must also say, ‘The fee for answering the unanswerable will be decided between the parties. The Great, the Unfathomable, the Brilliant Meenore may be found in the square. Speak to IT with respect.’ Elodie, I charge you: Make the residents of Two Castles take note. This is your most important task. Make them listen.”
Or soon IT would find another assistant.
Outside, the morning was as bright and cold as yesterday. I filled myself with enthusiasm and began proclaiming at the top of Lair Lane. “Today,” I cried in a burst of awe, “in Two Castles and nowhere else, the Great . . .” A man hurried by, face turned away.
I rushed to the man’s other side. “IT is available to solve riddles, find lost”—I wailed lost piteously—“objects and—”
The man pressed his cap tight over his ears. “Hush! I know Meenore.”
“Sir, but do you know all IT can do? Unriddle riddles, answer—”
“I know what IT does. Every week IT heats water for my household. I pay IT fourteen tins.”
“Oh,” I said weakly, then rallied. “IT can perform many other wondrous feats.” I skipped sideways along with him. “Find anything. Anything.”
“If I lose anything and cannot find it,” he said, stopping to retie his cap strings, “I will seek out Masteress Meenore.” He started off again. “Do not pursue me, girl, or I’ll call the constable.”
I waited until he turned a corner before proclaiming again. I proclaimed on Lair Lane, Roo Street, Daycart Way, and Mare Street along the harbor, but wherever I went, everyone already knew Masteress Meenore. A baker told me that for ten tins, IT started his oven fires when they went out. Weekly, for two coppers, IT boiled the water in the town’s wells to purify them.