The Unnameables (18 page)

The books on the shelves were thin, a foot tall, bound in brown leather or pasteboard. They looked like Boyce's journal. And Cordelia Weaver's. Did Prudy think about Cordelia when she was up here in this musty room all day, reading, reading, reading?

A long table stretched down the center of the room, lined with oil lamps, ink bottles, reams of soft and yellowish paper, and trays full of dipping pens. Straight-backed chairs were arranged along the table, four to a side.

In a far corner was a comparatively cozy nook, furnished with a desk, a lamp, and a wooden armchair. Whoever had put up the bookshelves had left space for a wall clock and its pendulum. The clock's ticking was barely audible, muffled like every other sound in that room.

"Now," Prudy said briskly, "these shelves here against the wall are the 1900s. The 1800s are over there, but I haven't read any of them yet. Those are the 1700s at the back of the room. Earnest, what color were the books Essence read, mostly?"

"What color?"

"Aye." Prudy smiled in a superior way. She was enjoying this. "Red or brown?"

Earnest screwed his face up like a Pickler tasting brine. "Red, I think."

"These here." Prudy bustled over to the corner where the desk was. The books on those shelves did seem to be red. "These are the very oldest. Light this lamp, Earnest."

"Thi-i-is book looks good," the Goatman said. He picked up a journal and ripped a page from it, stuffed it into his mouth.

"No!" Medford and Prudy yelled, then clapped their hands over their mouths.

"Books aren't to eat, Goatman," Prudy said, taking the journal away from him.

"They're words on paper," Medford said. "I thought you knew all about them."

"Not a-a-all about them," the Goatman said, sounding grumpy. "I don't know why you don't eat them. Or why you put the words on pa-a-aper in the first place."

"The people who wrote these books are dead, but we can still read what they wanted to tell us," Prudy said.

The Goatman looked slightly impressed. "Wha-a-at did they want to tell you?"

"We don't know," Medford said. "That's why we came up here to read."

"I can read," the Goatman said. "
Walk.
And
Yield.
I don't li-i-ike that one." He paused for thought. "
No Left Turn.
"

Medford didn't know what any of that meant. But it occurred to him that the only thing worse than reading in a hurry would be reading in a hurry with a bored
Goatman trying to sneak a bite. "Would you keep watch outside the door?" he asked the Goatman.

The Goatman picked up a stack of paper from the table. "Ma-a-ay I take this?"

"Of course," Prudy said. "Wouldst thou take a pen? Ink?"

"I don't know." The Goatman bit into the paper, chewed it thoughtfully. "Is it be-e-etter with ink?"

My heart aches for my Dear Son, who hates to Weave. I try to interest him with Colours, but must not waste Time gathering Berries when Common Stuff will do.

—Journal of Hester (Comstock) Weaver, 1723

W
ITH THE GOATMAN
comfortably set up at the head of the stairs, Medford returned to find Earnest studying the red journals in the corner by the desk. He was shaking his head. "Where are they all?" he asked Prudy.

"What dost thou mean?"

"These shelves were full when I was up here," he said, sticking a hand into an empty space as if to make sure it was really empty. "Half of the books are missing now."

"'Tis the way it's been since I've been coming up here," Prudy said.

Earnest surveyed the room. "There are journals missing everywhere."

"Where are they?" Medford asked, squatting down to look under the long table.

Earnest snorted. "You wont find them under there. He's taken them away."

"He would not do such a thing, Earnest," Prudy said, fists on hips, braids straight. "These journals are precious, Master Learned says. This is Island's history."

"Oh, very precious," Earnest said. "Like
Rose afore dawn, planted peas?
"

"Aye, every single word." Prudy's voice rose. "How darest thou suggest that Master Learned—"

"Shhh," Medford said.

'"Tis just as I thought, Prudy," Earnest whispered furiously. "'Tis plain as Baker's bread—Essence read something he doesn't want anyone else to see. So he got rid of what she read and then he got rid of her."

Prudy looked like she might cry. "But I'm the only one who ever comes up here. He would trust me."

"Oh, aye? Have you read about anything other than planting and harvesting? Ah, beg pardon, I forgot... sweaters, you've read about sweaters. And motorboats."

"Master Learned says I have to work my way backward. Of course the recent journals aren't very interesting, but—"

"Prudy, I'd say about a fifth of these journals are missing. Look at the gaps, look here." He strode over to a half-empty shelf. "Here ... Oh, look, his own mother, Constance Learned, 1945, 1946, all the way to 1955 and then nothing. She lived until the 1990s. Think Constance just stopped writing journals the last half of her life?
Something happened, something she wrote about, and Old Prune Face doesn't want anyone to know."

Prudy slumped into the chair behind the desk. Medford forgot, for the moment, that she was Mistress Learned. She was Prudy, trying not to cry. And succeeding, as usual. He cleared his throat. Prudy didn't look at him but Earnest turned around.

"Should we even bother with the journals that are left?" Medford asked. There had to be seventy-five or eighty red books up there on the shelves. Just looking at them made him tired. "I mean, if the important ones be gone..."

"Tuh," Prudy said. "So Earnest wants to believe."

"What about the desk?" Earnest asked her, as if there were no disagreement. "Think he keeps anything in there?"

Prudy tugged listlessly at a drawer. '"Tis locked."

"Oh dear," Earnest said, hauling out his screwdriver. "Whatever shall we do?"

He heaved Prudy out of the chair, sat down, and started prodding, rattling, and jiggling Deemer's bottom desk drawer. He was making entirely too much noise but Med-ford couldn't think of what to do about that. To distract himself he grabbed one of the red journals, sat down at the end of the long table, and opened it up to read.

Prudy sat down opposite him. She had a red journal, too. "Master Learned never lets me sit in this chair," Prudy said.

'"Tis where Essence sat," Earnest said.

Prudy sniffed and opened her journal.

Medford could barely read his book, the ink was so faded. The handwriting didn't help—the letters were tiny and jammed together, probably to conserve paper. "Earnest," he whispered. "What are we looking for?"

"I don't know," Earnest said, rattling something. "Just read."

Even if they found the missing journals, how could they possibly read enough in a few hours—a few months even—to do Medford any good? Especially when they had no idea what could possibly help. The hope born at sunset began to fade. He'd be on a boat for Mainland before the sun went down again.

Benefit Weaver, His Booke,
he saw at the top of the first page, and under that,
1780. Third Day of the Growing Moon.

Warm,
Benefit Weaver had written.
Light breeze from Southwest. Planted late pole Beans. Linen Thread from Mstr's Spinner, gave her a bolt of Common Stuff in Trade. Picked young greens for supper, ate last of chicken.

Medford forced himself to skim that page, then the next. Then the one after that. He could see why Earnest had told the Book Learning class, "They planted beets."

"There's nothing to unscrew on this thing," Earnest said softly. "Guess I'll have to..." He grunted. There was a bang and a snap. "Ah. That helps."

"Did you break it?" Prudy whispered, horrified.

"Might as well be banished for a sheep as a lamb," Earnest said, head down, screwdriver scrabbling at something Medford couldn't see.

"Fleece Creature," Prudy muttered. "Newborn Fleece Creature."

Medford went back to his book.

Benefit Weaver had had an ordinary life, not much different from Boyce's except that he was a Weaver instead of a Carver and said "chicken" instead of "Egg Fowl." Boyce, too, recorded the weather and what he'd sent to the Trade. Did Boyce ever write anything interesting in his journal? Medford doubted it.

Medford imagined himself writing down everything he'd done in a day. He'd write,
Started another Unnameable Object, hid it under the bed. Met a goatman. Betrayed by best friend. Taken to jail.

His life, he realized with a start, already made more interesting reading than Benefit Weaver's. On the other hand, Benefit probably never faced exile to Mainland.

Medford suddenly wasn't sure which life he'd prefer. The idea that it might be all right to be uncomfortable and miserable, rather than just plodding along planting and weaving, surprised him so much that he stopped reading to think about it.

He imagined waking up every day and carving just what he was supposed to carve. One spoon after another, followed by plain bowls and walking sticks. He would take pleasure in smoothness, in Usefulness, in beautiful wood well shaped and sanded. There was comfort in the
thought of all those virtuous, Useful days. But would it content him? He couldn't decide.

"Here we are," Earnest said, depositing a handful of metal parts and wood splinters on the desktop. He hauled the drawer open and took out a stack of about twenty red journals. "Not many, but 'tis a start. You two read. I'll work on the other drawers."

He disappeared from view and started rattling things again.

Prudy was blinking fast. Were
those tears? Couldn't be.
"Why would Councilor Learned hide them from me?" she whispered. Medford wanted to tug on a braid, take her out to run, anything to make her feel better.

He grabbed a journal off the top of the stack. It was by someone named Jeremiah Comstock. "What's a Comstock?" he whispered to Prudy.

Prudy shrugged.

"Comstock, Comstock," Medford mused, tantalizingly. "What could that mean?"

Prudy heaved a deep sigh and straightened her back. "Thou art forgetting thy Book Learning," she said in a tone so annoying that Earnest snorted from under the desk. "They all had different names, meaningless names, when they got here. This Comstock must have been writing before they renamed themselves." She took a journal from the stack, too.

Medford opened Jeremiah's journal. He read:

Fifteenth day of the Codfish Moon, 1718. Today I he fifteen years of age, and Pa hath giv'n me this Booke to keep as journal of my days. Bright today, hot, winde from the southwest. I made a round potte on the wheel, of local claye. Pa put it in the kilne & baked it and it came out faire.

Medford darted from page to page. He found nothing of interest until he reached the twenty-third day of the Snow Moon, 1719:

A bright daye, cold, winde from the northwest. Studied Grammar with Grandfather. He recalled Days of his Youthe in the Olde Colony and why they come here to escape the Evils of Rank and Prejudice. I asked why they chose the Compendium Booke to bring with them. He said 'twas the beste they cld finde as they prepared to depart, not all of them knowing what was needed to survive.

It seems a good Booke for the most part, since we have survived by its precepts. I still have my Warte, though, and Ma believes my sore throat would have cured on its own without my stocking wrapt round it like the Booke says.

And then, a page later:

Twenty-eighth day, Snow Moon—Cloudy, warmer thanne before. Samuel Baker says there be not enuff
Werke for another Potter. More Weavers be needed, as stuffe be easy to trade on Mainland. Pa said I must be a Weaver and do as is best for this Island & the Trade.

Medford heard an odd noise outside the door. It sounded like "
Aaaahhh-hooooo.
" He turned the page and read about Jeremiah's grandfather's recipe for mussel stew. Jeremiah was just warming up on the subject of bad mussels and stomach cramps when—
whup!
—one blast of wind slammed into the building behind Earnest, who dived under Deemer's desk in a downpour of red books.

The door opened. "So-o-orry," the Goatman said, trying but failing to whisper. He was beaming. "I slowed it down."

"Goatman," Medford whispered. "Not now."

"You said I mu-u-ust practice."

"I know. But not right now."

"Bweh-eh-eh." The Goatman shut the door again.

"Practice?" Prudy said in a horror-struck tone.

Medford couldn't imagine how the Constables would have slept through all that. But he went out to check and was sure he heard snores rising from the basement.

Jeremiah continued:

Twelfth day, Ice Moon. Cold and Damp all the day. I like not to Weave and cannot conceive why we must divide up like this. I say I could make potts some, too. But Pa says a man gets good at only one thing.

Ma taught me to dye Linen thread with maple bark. She's got an old blue cloth I like, but she says 'tis Indigo and must be brought over the sea. What we got right here will give us Brown enough to hide the Dirt she says.

And, on the next page:

Eighteenth day, Ice Moon—The ponde so cold it crack'd. Samuel Baker and Resolve Mitchell propose a Meeting to decide on names for everyone, matching what they do. They want to write our new Names in front of the Compendium Booke. They said 'tis time to break with the Old Ways and Names be as quick a route as any. Grandfather ain't so sure, nor Pa neither. They say Comstock's a fine name and proud. Grandfather don't like Samuel telling me what to do for my Living.

Medford skimmed ahead several more pages:

Twenty first day of the Worm Moon—Warming nicely. Samuel Baker here again. He said there should be Order, with so many of us on Island now, and some Things should be written down as new Texte at the end of the Compendium Booke. "Thou art thy Name" be one.

Pa yelled. He said Samuel desireth to rule like a King and thatt's what we meant to leave behind. Pa said Capability C. Craft be naught but a fake. Some of his advice works same as anything Pa's gramma would have done, just like common sense. But others be just
Fibs, like moleskin to cure the Cancer or saltwater on a Wart.

Pa said all knew there was no Person named Capability C. Craft...