The Unnameables (3 page)

Every time Medford looked at that map—four days a week, year-round except during harvest—his eye went first to Deadman's Shoal, just under a mile out from the harbor. That was where his Mainlander parents had come to grief. One of them, he didn't know which, had tied their infant son to a plank as their sailboat broke apart, and he had floated ashore on the incoming tide.

His parents' bodies followed, days later. When Med-ford was seven, Arvid and Fordy described that scene in detail as recalled by their father. Medford ran into the woods and got sick. After that he made himself stop reacting and they let it drop.

Papers in his father's pocket had identified them: Curtis and Maybelle Runyuin and their son, Medford. Useless, senseless names, all of them.

Arvid, in the next seat, saw where Medford was looking. "Guess you've still got that plank," Arvid whispered. "Guess you hug it and call it Ma."

Deemer came up behind them and skipped the ruler lightly across Medford's scalp. "No talking. Chalkboards to me, both of you."

It was a simple problem and both Medford and Arvid had the answer right. "Too messy," Deemer said. "Do it over." This was not going to be a good day.

When the time came for Ethics, Deemer called Med-ford up to read from the back of the Book, where the early Islanders had written in their own rules. Medford always hated his turn at the Ethics lesson. The handwritten text was much harder to read than Capability C. Crafts printed advice up front. Every time Medford paused to figure out a word, Deemer would roll his eyes and Hazel Forester would let out her shrill giggle.

"
Thou art thy Name,
" Medford read out haltingly. "
Let thy Name ... match thy Use to thy fellows. Do those things which thy Name ... demands—the Weaver ply her loom, the ... Tailor his needle. If thy Name demand it not, leave it to thy ... thy ... thy Neighbor whose name suits the task.
"

"Clumsy as always," Deemer said. "Discourse upon this, Master ..."—Deemer paused and smirked at the rest of the class—"Master
Runyuin.
Tell us, what do our forebears—I beg pardon, for of course they be not
thy
forebears at all. What do
our
forebears wish to convey to us in this passage?"

The heavy sarcasm in Deemer's voice, the titters of the other pupils—Medford barely noticed any of it anymore. At least not with the front part of his brain. The back of his brain felt his ears getting hot, a little more cheer ebbing out of him. But that, too, was familiar. All he wanted was to get this over with and sit down.

"The Originals tell us..." He stopped to think. The lesson seemed obvious but sometimes it wasn't. "They tell us to do what our name says we should and no more. So if your name be Weaver you should leave the tailoring to the Tailor."

"And thou, boy, thou wilt take care of ... what? What service wilt thou be to thy fellows?"

"Medford will be a Carver," Prudy burst out. "He'll carve, like Boyce."

"Mistress Carpenter, thou speak with as little wit as thy father. Sit down, boy."

As Medford gratefully took his seat, Arvid whispered, "Run-you-in, run-you-out."

Prudy straightened her back when she heard that. "
He who Ridicules his neighbor's Name,
" she whispered, quoting from the Book, "
maketh himself Ridiculous.
"

"Hah," Essence said out loud. "And if 'tis in the Book it must be true."

Deemer slammed his ruler on the lectern. "Enough! Mistress Carpenter, if thou be so eager to instruct, do thou drill the younger students in their letters. I shall test the older students on Edible Herb, Fruit, and Root Classifications."

Everyone stared at Deemer, stunned. Prudy stuck a braid in her mouth. They'd seen this before, someone other than Essence being singled out to teach lessons. Last time it was Earnest, Prudy's older brother, who had asked so many questions about the Originals that Deemer began to tell everyone he had the makings of a Learned.

Earnest was excited at first, working up in the Archives with Essence. Normally, no one but the Learneds got to read the three centuries' worth of journals up there. But the ones Deemer let him read turned out to be a bore. '"Tis all about planting and harvesting and what's for the Trade," Earnest told his parents. "I can hardly keep awake."

Twig and Clarity were happy to hear it. "I don't want my son turning out like that prune-faced fool," Twig said to Clarity, with Medford and Prudy standing right there to hear. "He was ever thus in Book Learning—lurking where he wasn't wanted, seeking what wasn't his."

"He wanted to be like you," Clarity said mildly. "At least he did until he decided to hate the ground you walked on."

"Tuh. Why Ada took up with him I'll never know."

"They both needed to marry," Clarity said. "And you wouldn't look her way."

Twig blushed but Medford thought he seemed rather pleased.

The main result of that conversation was that Med-ford and Prudy started calling Deemer Old Prune Face behind his back.

In the end, even Deemer had to agree that the Learned life was not for Earnest. In Book Learning, when he asked Earnest to talk about what he had learned upstairs, Earnest would stand there goggle-eyed and erupt with some unconnected nugget of knowledge. "They planted beets," he'd said once after a long silence.

"Crimson Boiling Root," Councilor Learned instructed him coldly, and it was clear Earnest would become a Carpenter after all. At the annual Transition ceremony the following spring, he put his collection of rusty motor parts into a bag, marched to the wharf with a gaggle of screaming children behind him, and threw the bag into the harbor.

Essence had wept that day as she burned her dead mother's bowls and spoons and took the Learned name for good, as the Council said she must.
Bend thy Will to thy Neighbor's need,
the Book said. Burning her mother's things had been Deemer's idea, and the onlookers had gasped to see such Useful items going up in smoke. "'Tis the Useless dreams of childhood she destroys," Deemer said, although no one actually had dared to ask.

Did Deemer think Prudy would succeed where Earnest had failed?

The silence in the auditorium grew as the Councilor waited for Prudy to obey him. Essence jumped up and ran from the room.

"Mistress Carpenter," Deemer said, "take thy braid from thy mouth and do what I have asked of thee." He flipped through the Book, found the page he wanted. "Master Fordy Tanner, what is the improved name for what the Originals called a carrot?"

Fordy stammered something about stew and the color orange. Medford watched Prudy take the youngest pupils over to a corner and sit with them on the floor. She would make a good teacher—better than Deemer, anyway. But she loved carpentry, working outdoors and nailing things together into logical and Useful shapes.

"Master Runyuin!" Medford came to with a start. Deemer was a step away from Medford's desk, hand raised to whap him across the scalp with the ruler. Among the Middle Learners, Hazel Forester was giggling so hard she could barely keep her seat.

"Welcome back, Master Runyuin," Deemer said, lowering his hand. "I ask again: Why do seabirds have no names?"

"I've wondered that myself," Medford said without thinking.

Hazel fell out of her seat at last. The class gave a shout of laughter that died when they saw Deemer's face. Councilor Learned was smiling, giving the class a rare glimpse of disorderly teeth. Even the dullest pupil could see the malice behind that smile.

Medford didn't see a thing, intent on the thought that had just struck him. "There are so many kinds of seabirds," he said. "We name trees, why not birds?"

"We need to know the difference between the Syrup and Tanningbark trees," Deemer snapped. "Surely Boyce hath taught thee that. There is a Use for such names."

"But seabirds have a Use," Medford persisted.

"Medford," Prudy said from her seat among the New Learners. "Don't."

"Nay, Mistress Carpenter," Deemer said. "Let Master Runyuin proceed if he will." More of his jumbled teeth became visible.

Medford knew he should stop, apologize, subside into his usual defensive stupor. But somehow he couldn't. "I like to watch seabirds," he said, "and sometimes they tell me when weather's coming. The gray ones huddle on the shore and—"

"The seabirds speak to thee, Master Runyuin?"

Arvid snickered.

"Nay," Medford said. "But if you watch them sometimes you can tell—"

Whap!
The ruler skimmed across the top of Medford's skull, making his eyes water.

Deemer towered over him, smiling no more. "Always the Runyuin. I said it from the start and I say it still: Book Learning is wasted upon such as thee."

"He ain't wrong, though," said an adult voice from the doorway behind them.

Everyone turned. Ward Constable, one of the pair of large, round brothers who took care of Town Hall and kept the peace, had come in to stoke the woodstove.

"Be about thy business, Master Constable," Deemer said.

Unworried, Ward opened the door to the stove and added a couple of sticks. He placed them exactly right and they caught immediately. "Seen young Raggedy watching the seabirds," Ward told the stove. "You do learn from watching animals."

"Art thou teaching this lesson, Master Constable?"

"Stoking the stove, Master Learned."

"Then do so in silence." Deemer stalked back to the Book and flipped its pages.

"For those less concerned with Nameless beasts," he said, "heed this:
If it hath a Use, give it a Name. Let the Name match the Use. If it hath no Use, it needeth no Name and wilt do thee no Harm. Turn thy Back and 'tis gone.

"But heed this also." His pewter gray eyes widened and he leaned forward as if to dive into Fordy Tanner's desk. "
The Unnameable is another thing entire. Take care, or
thou
shalt be Gone.
"

Medford wanted to ask. He had to ask. He would ask. He would ask now.

Fortunately, Prudy got there first. "Master Learned, what
is
the Unnameable?" she asked. "Wilt thou not say it plain?" She used Book Talk to soften the question.

"The Unnameable waits to entrance us, Mistress Carpenter. I can be no plainer."

Medford could see that Prudy didn't think that was very plain at all.

Hannah Waterman has asked the Council for a Mainland motorboat to ease the Trade voyage. I like not this challenge to our traditions, not least because the fuel for the smelly thing be one more item we must bring in from Mainland.

—Journal of Booker Learned, 1945

A
N HOUR PAST DAWN
and the air in Boyce's workshop already was sweet with sawdust, coarse with the
swisher-swisher-swish
of two carvers at work.

One Carver and one Runyuin, rather.

Medford and Boyce were silent as always. Nothing to say. Sanding hardly required instruction, after all. Med-ford started his second Platewood platter for the season's last Mainland Trade as Boyce was finishing his third. They bent over their work, intent, each rough spot a new world to tame and smooth.

Medford was shocked when Boyce set down his platter and sandpaper and said, "Thou must not go to Bog Island again. Least not with Prudy."

Medford kept his sandpaper moving but his attention was on Boyce. "Why not?"

Boyce met Medford's eye and looked away, as he always did when a conversation strayed beyond the polite and the technical. "Just don't go there with her, that's all."

"But why, Boyce?"

"'Tis all I have to say, Medford. Work for another hour, then go outside and run some." He picked up his sandpaper and turned back to his work.

Medford found a spark of courage. "Arvid said something about Bog Island the other day, about Prudy and me being up to something. I need to know what he meant, Boyce. I beg thee."

Boyce set his sandpaper down precisely where it had been when he picked it up. He spoke to the wall. "You are too old to be alone like that anymore."

"Alone like what?"

"People will think you and Prudy are courting."

Medford dropped his sandpaper.

"I don't mean 'tis time for that yet," Boyce continued. "But people wonder about you and they talk. They won't like a Carpenter girl courting a boy with no Useful name. That's all."

"Prudy's my friend." Medford felt like crying but he was too old for that, too. This ache in his throat, the itch behind his eyes ... none of it was any Use.

"People know that if they ponder on it. But they may not ponder. Thou art almost grown now and thou must be more careful."

"Careful of what?"

"Don't draw attention to thyself. That's all."

Boyce bent over his platter again, his back settling into the slight stoop he'd had ever since Medford could remember. For the hundredth time, Medford wondered whether Boyce would have taken in a plank baby if he'd known his wife would die just three years later.

"I didn't know young ones grew this fast," Boyce had said to Comfort Tailor when she was measuring Medford yet again. "I always figured Alma'd be here and she'd take care of all this."

A loud laugh and a quick hug, that was all Medford had left of Alma Weaver. Maybe she'd talked more than Boyce. Medford couldn't remember.

And yet there were times when he thought Boyce might be proud of him. The day Medford had turned his first Sweetwood bowl, Boyce had treated it as if it were his own, showing Medford how to oil the bowl for long life, buff it to a high polish. He filled it with fish stew to show Medford the beauty of a truly Useful thing.

When something of Medfords traded out—a loom shuttle for Prosper Weaver, a rolling pin for Clayton Baker—Boyce made sure the buyer knew who'd made it and noticed how well it was shaped. Because Boyce was standing right there, people had to smile at Medford and say how well he'd done. He treasured those smiles.

Medford went back to sanding the platter, which had a beauty of its own. As he sanded, his mind's eye transformed the patterns in the wood, made them pictures of real things. He began to see shapes. That big brown circle—didn't that look like Bog Island, the way a bird would see it?