been exhibiting some minor sleep
disturbances, but—”
“When did these terrors begin?”
“Well, I’d hardly describe them as—”
“It is not your place to teach me what I know! Answer the question, Professor.”
“Some months ago,” he said, curbing the desire to snap. Was this a test? Was this woman deliberately trying to provoke him?
“And how does he describe the
dreams?”
“He doesn’t. He appears to forget everything by the morning. We’re not sure why.”
The Aunt closed her eyes. “Who is his counsellor?”
“Thorren Strømberg.”
The corners of the woman’s mouth
twitched into a sneer.
“You disapprove of him?” asked
Harlan.
“I have heard he is very able,” said the Aunt, “though his methods are considered ‘questionable’ by some.”
“In what way?” asked Eliza, looking concerned. “We took David to him in
good faith, Aunt. We only want what’s
best for our—”
“It is of no matter,” Aunt Gwyneth muttered. She flapped a hand, startling the firebirds out of the tree. They fluttered away and landed on the slanting roof of the pod. Her sober gaze travelled with them and stayed there. “I wish to ask you a question, Eliza. You put in your application that you would like your daughter to inherit the demeanour of those creatures. Why was that?”
Once again, Eliza seemed a little lost for words. “I… I find them… graceful,”
she said.
Harlan came in again before she could flounder. “Eliza has always had a strong affinity with the firebirds. They’re regular visitors to her gardenaria. They seem at ease here. We think if we could reproduce that same mutual fondness, that level of attraction in our daughter, then—”
“Do you talk to them, Eliza?”
“
What?
” said Harlan.
“My question was intended for your
wife
,” hissed the Aunt.
Once again, Harlan composed himself. He bowed and took a step back.
“Well, I
do
talk to them,” Eliza said, playing with a corkscrewing strand of her hair, “they seem to enjoy the sound of my voice, especially if… ”
Aunt Gwyneth stared at her, probing her
fain. “Go on.”
“… especially if I sing,” Eliza said. She looked down at her feet as if she was ashamed. “It’s more a kind of humming, really. Don’t ask me why. It just feels natural. They like it and it seems to attract them. But I don’t converse with them, of course. That would be silly.”
Aunt Gwyneth tapped her manicured fingers together. Her nails, Harlan noticed, were completely black. “Have you ever attempted to commingle with their fain?”
“Aunt Gwyneth, is this really—?”
“Professor, be silent!”
Now it was Eliza’s turn to signal to her husband that she was confident enough to deal with the questions. “Yes,” she said, boldly. “Haven’t we all at some time?”
With no success
, she added into her fain,though the sentence hardly needed to beraised. No one had ever linked into thefirebirds’ consciousness. No one. Not
even an Aunt.
Aunt Gwyneth made her own kind ofhumming noise. She strolled down thegardenaria a way, stopping to admire abright yellow rose. “I cannot approve yourapplication,” she said.
Eliza covered her mouth. She looked at Harlan, who immediately placed himselfwithin Aunt Gwyneth’s line of sight. “Why?” he demanded.
Aunt Gwyneth brushed past him.
“
Why?
” he said again, grabbing her
arm.
“Harlan, what are you doing?!” Eliza
gasped.
Aunt Gwyneth whipped around andconfronted the professor. Her eyes werewide and green and blazing. “How
dare
you touch me or question my authority? Icould have you banished to the Dead Lands for less. The imagineering of achild is a selfless act that must benefit and
support the continuity of the Design and the welfare of all Co:pern:ica. You have already constructed one ec:centric and I am not convinced you won’t do so again.” Harlan reeled as her fain powered into him. He stumbled back, clutching at the sides of his head.
Eliza immediately rushed to his aid. “Aunt, please stop this. Harlan means noharm. He’s a good man. Believe me. He’ssimply disappointed. We’ve wanted adaughter for so long now.”
“Yet you only decide to call in an Aunt when your dysfunctional son has been removed to a librarium.”
“I… ” Eliza felt the heat in her eyes. “No, it’s not like that. Penny is not a replacement for David. I love him dearly. He… ”
Aunt Gwyneth raised a hand. “Enough,”she said. “My decision is made. I cannotgrant approval for a daughter at this time.” She glanced down. Boon was pawingplaintively at Harlan’s leg. One of thefirebirds had landed on a fence post andseemed to be carefully observing thesituation. The other had flown away. Aunt Gwyneth pressed her hands together andwent on another of her little walks. “Yourhusband will recover in a moment. When
he does, he will be aware that I have
branded him with a warning. This is not something to be taken lightly. His temperament is partially the reason for your son’s ec:centricity and should have been dealt with by your first Aunt. But it is not the entire reason your son now finds himself removed from the Design. You are responsible, too, Eliza Merriman.”
“Me? Are you saying my auma is flawed?”
Aunt Gwyneth turned. Her eyes were glowing violet. “No, quite the opposite. There is a purity in you that I rarely observe in other applicants. As such, I am prepared to offer you an arrangement. You will have the daughter you desire, but first you will come away with me – for training.”
“Training?” said Eliza. “Training? In
what?”
“In
this
, of course,” Aunt Gwyneth said. She ran a hand down her body. “I have chosen you as an aspirant. You are to become an Aunt.”
10
In the librarium, time seemed non-existent. True, there were always days and nights. The windows darkened and lightenedagain. The daisies closed and the daisiesopened. A moon rose occasionally. A softrain fell. Co:pern:ica span around itsyawning fire star. But to David and Rosa,this changing scenery was just somethingthat occurred outside their frame of
reference. All that mattered, to them, was
books.
Now that there were two putting thelibrarium in order, the building hummedwith the spirit of competition. And yet itrarely observed David and Rosa in thesame room for long. For each child had
their own ideas of organisation, and what this generally translated to was a frantic crossing of paths, not a selfless joining of forces. Several times a day – nay,
dozens
of times a day – one child would sweep past the other, usually with books stacked up to their chins, en route to whichever shelf was occupying them. Their snippets of conversation would go something like this:
“I’ve done forty-seven ‘L’s this
morning.”
“I bet you didn’t know there are twentyfour books about cushions.” (Thirty-eight, as it happened; David still had a way to go with that subject.)
“My shelves are so tidy you’d
faint
if you saw them.”
“My archaeology collection is going to
fill
two rooms.”
On top of this there were the reading exchanges. For when the pair of them were finally too exhausted to sort or stack, they would sit down as Mr Henry had suggested and actually
read
a text (usually with food in their hands, for their days had no timetable and there was no insistence on formal meals). Rosa was quicker at reading than David and could whip through as many as two hundred pages in a single afternoon. But what David lacked in speed he made up for in depth. He also liked to walk as he read, mainly because Mr Henry did it. Many a time David had poked his head into a room and seen the old man sailing through it with a book in his hand, spouting the words (sometimes he followed him, just for fun, though the
building seemed to know it and would eventually steer him off course). Once in a while, the curator would call both children to his study and enquire of their progress. And it was usually David who gained the most credit when the darts of factual information were flying.
This was Rosa, for instance: “In our history, there were these things called pi:anos that were, like, polished wooden boxes on legs. They had these parts called keys – which sort of looked like teeth – and when you hit the keys with your fingers they made a sound. People used to play them and make music come out of them, which is weird, but there you go.”
“And what made you read about pi:anos?” asked Mr Henry.
“I was doing some ‘S’s,” Rosa said. “I
found a book written by this man called Steinerway. I thought they looked interesting.”
“Excellent,” Mr Henry said. “You might also look out for Petrov, Graveau, Beckstein and Frazioli. All of them famous for making these instruments. And how about you, David? What have you been reading lately?”
“I know about the music pi:anos made,” he answered.
“Typical,” said Rosa, sounding trumped. She flicked a piece of her sandwich at him.
“I’ve been gathering books about composers,” said the boy.
“What’s a composer?” Rosa asked Mr Henry.
“Think of them as people who
imagineered music for the masses.”
“Oh,” said the girl. She didn’t seem impressed.
“I read about a man called Shopan,” said David, “who composed melodies so beautiful – on the pi:ano – that people thought he had captured them from the wind.”
Rosa looked through the window at the stationary clouds. No melodies there today.
Mr Henry encouraged David to continue.
“People talked in strange ways about the music he wrote, saying it was as light as the air, or as easy on the ears as sleep is on the eyes. They said it was like poetry. What’s poetry, Mr Henry? I’ve looked for it, but I can’t find any.”
Mr Henry studied the boy carefully. “It’s an ancient, lyrical form of writing.”
David thought back to the flipchart Mr Henry had used on his first day here. Writing again. “Where is it? Can I seesome?”
Mr Henry smiled. “It’s on the upperfloors, David.”
“The upper floors?” said Rosa. A slightgasp escaped her mouth.
David sat up at once. “I’ve beenmeaning to ask about that. I’ve tried to gothere, to the top of the librarium, but Inever get further than—”
“Floor 42.” Rosa looked at him andshrugged. “It’s right. I’ve counted thewindows. You can’t count upwards above 42 because of the clouds. I bet Runceyknows, though. I’ve seen him flying up
there.” She sent a stream of tongue clicks
across the room.
The firebird, sitting by the window,preening, turned his head and went
rrrh
?
“Why can’t
we
go up there?” Davidasked the curator.
Mr Henry pushed his glasses backfurther up his nose. “You will,” he said, “when everything is in order.”
“What’s it like up there?” asked Rosa. “What can you see if you stand on theroof?”
Mr Henry looked at his helpers in turn. “Everything,” he said. “All the world canbe seen from the roof of the librarium.”
This extraordinary, if somewhatmetaphorical, notion almost sent bothyoungsters scuttling back to their shelvesthat instant. For the incentive in Mr
Henry’s statement was clear: whoevercompleted their labours first wouldprobably be the one who made it at leastas far as Floor 43. And what an
achievement
that
would be.
But he told them the next day must be arest day. From now on, there would beone in every seven, he said. They shouldgo out. Walk. Enjoy the daisy fields. Chase around. Play. Be tiresome children. Make a nuisance of themselves. (He meantthese last two jokingly, of course.) If theywanted to be helpful, the water butts werelow.
Water! Rosa sat up brightly. “Tomorrow morning, first light.” Sheelbowed David in the ribs.
“What are we doing?” he asked.
“Getting water, of course!”
Of course. Everything was obvious ifyou lived in Rosa’s head.
But he was ready, bright and early, atdawn the next morning, with a knapsack offood (mainly biscuits) on his back, leaningagainst the wall outside her room whenshe emerged. She was surprised to seehim, but pleased, he thought. She’dchanged her clothing: new white kickerboots, pretty yellow dress. He looked herup and down, not sure if he shouldcomment. She folded her arms as if to say, ‘And what do you think
you’re
staring at?’ He wanted to reply but his tongue was inknots. She knew it, and was soon incommand again. “Better tie your lacesup,” she sniffed.