The Unnameables (25 page)

"Wherever didst thou hear such a thing, Mistress Learned?" Verity asked.

"From Medford. He read it in a journal from the Archives."

"I continue to be amazed that anyone believes what Master Runyuin tells them," Deemer said. "'Tis true, he and the creature broke into our Archives last night and stole extremely valuable records from our history. It pains me to say that Mistress Learned and Master Earnest Carpenter were there, too, although perhaps they wished only to protect the Archives from destruction."

"As a matter of fact," Earnest said, "Prudy and I let Medford out of jail and I took the lock off the Archives door."

"Thy father's influence, no doubt," Deemer said. "But that is neither here nor there. The point is that Master Runyuin hath misread a journal and misinformed those around him. This is why there be a lock on the Archives and Learneds to guide the reader."

"Oh, aye?" Chandler thundered, making Deemer's voice sound like a Honeybug by comparison. "Why, then, do the precious Learneds never guide us up there? Why can't we read them journals? Why ain't they part of Book Learning, hey?"

"If thou object to my teaching practices, Fisher, I invite thee to suggest improvements," Deemer said.

"I'm no teacher and maybe I don't care about going upstairs to read every day like you do. The point is, if I did want to, why couldn't I?"

"From what the real Mistress Learned tells me," a voice said from the doorway, "I think that is exactly the point."

"I go by Mistress Cook these days, Twig," a second voice said. "Essence Cook, they call me on Mainland."

Earnest jumped up so fast his chair fell over like Arvid's.

"Hullo, Earnest," Essence said. "Still taking things apart, I see."

Earnest blushed. "Hullo, Essence. Where'd that hair come from?"

Medford thought Earnest had asked a good question—he'd never seen hair of such a shade, bright red as autumn leaves and hanging down to Essence's waist. She had on a sweater in colors nobody on Island had ever thought of before and also some kind of skirt, if you could call it that. He'd never seen so much bare leg, except his own in a bath, nor such shiny black boots with such tall heels.

She had a woven bag hanging from her shoulder, stuffed with papers. It swayed as she walked in on those tall heels. She walked like the Goatman except she didn't have a staff to lean on.

Earnest, grinning like a Farmer at harvest, gave his seat to Essence, who crossed her legs and waggled a shiny black foot at the Council.

"Hullo, Pa," she said. "Thou lookst bummed." The only color on the Councilor's face was the purple, green, and yellow lump Medford's fist had put there.

"Who is tha-a-at?" The Goatman tried to whisper but didn't.

Essence glanced over to see who was talking. Her eyes went round.

"I fa-a-are well," the Goatman said.

Essence swallowed hard. "Another one," she croaked.

"Pardon, Mistress ... er, Cook," Grover said. "Did I hear thee say another one'?"

Essence swallowed again. "I never thought to see one in the flesh," she said.

"Thou has seen one
not
in the flesh?" Grover asked.

"Aye. And so have Earnest, Prudy, and Medford. At least I hope they have."

Cordelia's cloth man. How could Essence know about that? Medford craned his neck to look at Prudy. Her back was rigid and one braid was straight up and down.

The other braid was in her mouth.

"I never saw any horned man not in the flesh," Earnest said.

Essence frowned. "Earnest, I know you got my message. I can see Pa's crates right there on the floor beside Prudy. Didn't you find my grandma's journals in there?"

Earnest looked at Medford, who looked at Prudy, who refused to look at anyone.

"Your grandma?" Earnest said.

"Constance Learned," Essence said. "The 1963 one is the best, but there be others."

Medford had been a
child
when Constance Learned had died, but Islanders still talked of her in reverent tones. In thirty years as Head of Council, she never wavered on matters pertaining to Island Ethics.

Everyone said she had brought up her son in her own joyless image.

"Fellow Councilors, I regret to say my daughter appears to be raving," Deemer said. "My mother kept no journal after 1955, as the girl knows full well. Constables, please remove Mistress Essence Learned from this room. I will decide her fate later."

The crowd made a throaty sound, almost a growl.

"Mistress
Cook
is a year and a half past Transition," Grover said. "Thou decided her fate last year and 'twas over before we could stop it. But she was an adult then and she is one now. I believe this be a Council matter. And so I ask thee, Mistress Cook, what in the Names art thou talking about?"

Essence stood up. "Councilors, I left a note up in the Archives," she said.

"Not a ve-e-ery good note," the Goatman interjected.

Essence blinked, then persevered. "I hoped Prudy would find my note—I could see when I left that she'd be my pa's next apprentice. Councilors, Pa sent me away so I wouldn't tell about things I learned in the Archives. Before I left he packed up the important journals and had the Constables take them to his house so no one else could read them and threaten him as I did. My note said where the journals were and I know Prudy found them because there they are."

"I looked at all the journals in both those crates this morning," Earnest said to Essence. "There wasn't anything by a Learned."

"Two crates?" Essence asked Earnest. "Where's the third one?"

And Deemer said, "I see nothing wrong with a Learned, a
descendant
of Learned upon Learned, taking our ancestors' journals home for contemplation before the fire."

Prudy took the braid out of her mouth.

"Before the fire?" she said. "
In
the fire, more like."

As my life wanes I worry about my journals. I should burn them, but 'tis a Learned's charge to preserve such records of our past. Can I fail in that duty now?

—Journal of Constance Learned, 1981

"I
N
THE FIRE
, Mistress Learned?" Grover said. "What dost thou mean by that?"

"Do not answer, Mistress Learned," Deemer snapped. '"Tis not the time for public discussion. As Master Physick himself hath said, this be a Council matter."

Prudy ignored him and spoke directly to Verity. "Master Learned was burning journals, Mistress Head. Medford saw him through the window. And the Goatman lured Master Learned away so we could go in and rescue the journals that were left."

"Still more lies from Master Runyuin—," Deemer said.

"Bweh-eh-eh," the Goatman said. "Carver Boy doesn't tell tanners."

Verity raised an eyebrow at Medford. Boyce elbowed him in the ribs.

"Ah," Medford said. "The Goatman has decided to call ... uh ... tales ... well, he calls them after Master Tanner. He calls them tanners."

"Not ta-a-ales," the Goatman said. "Lies."

"Hey!" Dexter Tanner said. A wave of chuckles swept across the audience.

"Very ingenious, Master Goatman," Grover said. "But we name a person after what he does. We do not name the product after the maker, apt though the name may be."

"Hey!" Dexter said.

"Why not?" the Goatman said.

"Because we don't," Grover said.

"Anyways," Prudy said, getting back to the subject, "Medford does not lie."

Deemer pointed at the seabird bowl. "No? Didst thou know about these carvings, Mistress Learned?"

Prudy went pink. "He didn't lie about them. That is, not so much lie as ... not say."

"Pa," Essence said. "Tell me you wouldn't burn your own mother's journals."

"My mother kept no journal after 1955," Deemer repeated, his face expressionless.

Essence flung herself to her knees and burrowed into the crates of rescued journals. She flung them out onto the floor in a jumble. "Comstock, Mitchell, Weaver, Constable, Spinner, Carpenter...," she muttered. "Nay, no, nay, nay, nay."

Prudy knelt beside her and straightened the discarded journals into neat stacks.

Essence pulled the last journal from the second crate and stared at it as if it had just spoken to her. "They're not here," she said. "They must be the ones he was burning."

"I told you," Deemer said, his face gleaming in triumph. "My mother kept no journal in her later years."

"Burning thine own mother's journals...," Essence whispered, white-faced.

"They were not my mother's—" Deemer stopped short, took a breath. "I was not burning journals and no one can prove that I was."

Prudy said nothing. What could she say? They couldn't prove it, could they?

"Begging Mistress Head's pardon," Bailey Constable said. "I got something in my hankie you might want to see."

Verity didn't look as if she wanted to see what Bailey had in his hankie. Bailey did not let this bother him. He pulled his handkerchief carefully out of his pocket, unwrapped it, and carried it to the Council table as if it were a bird's nest with an egg in it. He placed it gently in front of Verity. The other Councilors got up to see what it was.

Verity took something out of the hankie and examined it closely. "What is this, Constable? 'Tis all burned up."

Bailey loomed over the table, pointing with a huge finger. "Not all of it, Mistress Head. See there? Red leather, like the covers of them journals upstairs. Got it out of Master Learneds sitting room stove this morning."

"You went through Master Learneds stove ashes?" Grover asked, amused.

"Them journals be Island property," Bailey said stiffly. "Nobody has the right—"

"Nobody has the
right
to enter my house without permission," Deemer said.

"That's true, Councilor," Verity said, squinting at Bailey's charred object. "But why is there burnt red leather in thy sitting room stove?"

'"Tis not leather," Deemer said. "'Tis bark, altered by the flames."

Grover contemplated his fellow Councilor. "One hates to jump to conclusions, Master Learned, but burned-up bark never looks that way in
my
stove." He turned to Verity. "Are there no other crates where the missing journals could have been ... er, secured? Mixed in with town records, perhaps?"

"There be no missing journals," Deemer said, glaring at Grover.

"All town records are in the Council office," Verity said, "and I know the contents of every box."

But not all town records were in the Council office, Medford reflected. There was that crate outside the jail cell, wasn't there? One lonely crate. Odd.

Hardly knowing what he was about, Medford stood up. ("Not again, boy," Boyce whispered.) Medford gave Ward a look. Ward gave it right back. They started for the door at exactly the same time.

"Master Runyuin!" Verity called after him. "Constables! Stop the boy!"

"The boy seems to have a Constable with him." That was Grover Physick.

"Just a notion, Councilors!" Ward yelled as they ran for the staircase. "We'll be right back!"

The crate marked
TOWN RECORDS—NOT FOR TRADE
was in the corridor outside the jail cell, where Earnest had used it for a seat the previous day. The slats on top were nailed down. "Ward," Medford said, "we need..."

But the Constable already had a prying bar in his hand, and in seconds he had the top off the crate. It was packed full of brown journals. Medford removed a top layer written by Hazel Learned in the late 1800s, a second layer by Wilfred Learned, early 1900s. And there, in the very next layer, he found ...

Constance Learned, 1965. 1970. 1959.

And 1963.

THE QUIET IN
the auditorium was so intense Medford felt his skin tingle as he walked to the front and handed Essence her grandmother's journal.

"Essence," Deemer Learned said. "I beg thee to think before acting."

"I've had ten long months to think, Pa," Essence said. '"Tis not for the Learneds to decide what people know."

Islanders were leaning forward in their chairs. Some of them might have been about to walk out. A person could take only so much in one Town Meeting.

Essence faced the crowd, hand in the air like a Learned. "Many of you remember my grandmother," she said. "She was an impressive woman but difficult to know. 'Twas only after she died, when I saw her journals, that I felt I could love her."

Deemer moaned and covered his face with his hands.

"Although he wouldn't say so himself," Essence said, "I like to think my father feels the same. I hope that's why he couldn't burn her journals. But then, you didn't burn any Learned journals, did you, Pa? You'll burn the thoughts of Weavers and Constables, but never the Learneds."

She flipped pages, found the one she wanted, cradled the journal open against her chest. "My grandmother's journals described her life in detail, down to what her fellow Councilors wore under their robes. But she also did this."

Essence showed the journal first to the Council. Deemer did not look at it. As Essence was about to show it to the crowd of Islanders, Freeman grabbed her arm so he could look at the journal closer. Then he sank back in his chair, blinking hard.

Watching Essence walk past the crowd was like seeing a woodpile collapse after you'd removed the wrong log.

Clarity and Prudy whispered to each other as Essence drew near. They leaned in close when Essence held the journal up to them. They goggled, reared back in surprise, leaned in to confirm what they'd seen. Prudy clapped her hand over her mouth.

Finally, Essence held the journal out for Twig, Med-ford, and Boyce.

The left-hand page was covered with spidery writing in brownish-black ink, just like the journals Medford had seen upstairs. But the right-hand page was like nothing Medford had ever seen before.

It was a sketch in soft lead, but not like the sketches Medford had seen Twig do when they were planning his cabin. This wasn't rafters and windowsills. This was a person, a man, frighteningly alive.

A man with horns and hooves, hand raised to call the wind.