The Unnameables (4 page)

The familiar buzz started at the back and the very bottom of his brain. Or perhaps the top front. Not a buzz, really, more like a rush of air after you opened a window. No, a hum, almost a song. But not a song, not at all. Nothing like a song. More of a tingle.

He envisioned trees, which would take the sharpest of blades to carve. He could color the leaves with berries and—

Unnameable thoughts. Medford shuddered and shoved the platter away from him.

"Go out and run," Boyce said. "I can do this."

Medford left but he didn't run. He wandered down the alley between Boyce's workshop and Clayton Baker's oven house. He thought about hanging around to beg a heel of hot bread. But he found himself heading for the large Pipewood tree next to Boyce's house and sitting down to think things through.

He and Prudy had found their little island five years ago while slogging around Peat Bog getting gloriously muddy. The air had been warm and fragrant, buzzing with insects. They hopped across rosy peat and tea-colored water, from log to hummock to log again, until they reached a place where brambles arched over a log pathway.

The logs led them to a rise of solid ground, a place so beautiful Medford could hardly talk at first. The mossy space in the island's center was still as green as June, shouting back at the blue sky. Brambles and small trees flamed with every color known to autumn.

A pair of fallen trees, pewtered with lichen, made a seat in the sun where Medford and Prudy ate the bread and cheese they'd brought. They talked about the barns she'd build, the perfect bowls he would carve. No one could see them through the brambles, no one could make some sly comment about plank babies or Med-ford Run-you-in.

Since then they'd seen Bog Island in all seasons, even creeping out over icy logs to be dazzled by it in snow. Prudy had woven branches into a three-sided shelter against the wind.

What if they never let him be alone with Prudy ever again? She and her brother, Earnest, were the only people he really talked to. Without them, his tongue would shrivel up. He'd be a moaning, tongueless person sanding platters all day.

The idea of Prudy and him courting was ludicrous, humiliating. What would he say to her when she suggested going to Bog Island? He would have to say why he couldn't. How would he face her after he'd said it?

With a rush of heat he realized that Prudy had known exactly what Arvid meant yesterday when he spoke of them "sneaking off"—that was why she'd gotten so angry. Maybe he couldn't talk to her at all. Maybe he'd already lost his only friend.

"Medford!" He hadn't heard Prudy's footsteps but she must have been running. She'd spent the last four days teaching the New Learners, Deemer hovering over her. Now she was breathless, glowing with the joy of being outside on a day with no Book Learning. "Medford, come down to the wharf. Something's Nameless."

He ran after her, glad he hadn't had to talk. By the time he reached the wharf, two streets away from Boyce's house, he was winded but braver.

Prudy was on her way down the ramp to the floats below the wharf. At first, everything seemed normal. Cooper Waterman and Adele Fisher sat against wharf pilings splicing rope. A cluster of Fishers had nets spread out for mending. The large motorboat used for the Mainland Trade was rocking at a float beside two fishing sailboats. All as usual.

Except ... there, down on the float, Deemer Learned lurked like a molting blackbird in his Council garb, as out of place on the waterfront as on the beach. Why did he wear his Council robe all the time? None of the other Councilors did.

Master Learned was in dour conversation with Violet Waterman, whose face was wrinkled up as if she hurt. Essence stood nearby, head high but looking at nothing, holding herself so tense with a face so white and tight she might be ready to split in half. She had a bundle at her feet, wrapped up in Common Stuff with a wooden handle tied on.

Prudy headed for the float like a Honeybug to its hive. "Essence," she said. "What's that bundle for?"

Essence shook her head. Medford had never seen anyone look so scared, even Fidelity Spinner after the Great Northeast Gale took the roof off right over his head.

"Into the boat," Deemer told his daughter. Essence swung her big bundle into the Trade boat, where it toppled into a puddle of seawater and sat there, soaking it up. Deemer ignored it, and ignored Essence as she prepared to step down from the float.

Violet offered her hand. Essence took it and stepped aboard. She lurched onto the aft bench and sat there, ankles crossed, hands folded, eyes down.

"Essence," Prudy tried again, yelling over the engine noise. "Are you going somewheres?" Essence didn't seem to hear her but Deemer gave Prudy a look that should have made her braids smoke.

He stepped down into the boat himself, waving off Violet's hand exactly when the vessel bucked under him. He stumbled across the cockpit and barely saved himself from hurtling over the side. Violet met Prudy's eye and hastily looked away, biting her lip.

Cooper Waterman came down to cast off for his sister, and the boat moved away from the float. Medford and Prudy watched it churn toward the mouth of the harbor, the motors drone fading away under the cries of the seabirds.

"Too bad he was in such a hurry," Cooper said. "Should've sent some Trade goods for a Useful trip."

"Where's Essence going?" Medford asked.

Cooper pretended no one had said anything. Medford felt his face go red.

"Cooper," Prudy said, "where's she going?"

"She's gone," Cooper said.

"Gone?"

"Gone to his place." Cooper jerked his head at Med-ford. "Off to Mainland and won't come back."

Prudy gasped. "Why, in all the Names?"

"Banished 'cording to the Book, that's all Master Learned would say."

The motorboat kept getting smaller and smaller out there on the cold sea. Medford had heard of banishings, of course, but he'd never seen one.

He thought about Essence laughing at Earnest on Seaweed Beach, her kindness to the New Learners. She didn't deserve this.

When would he be old enough to stop wanting to cry?

"What will happen to Essence?" he said. "How will she live?"

This was such an interesting question that Cooper forgot to ignore it. "They'll leave her on the Trade Beach and come back," he said. "Nobody needs to know more than that. And now we'd best be about our Uses, Mistress Carpenter."

He turned toward the ramp but Prudy blocked his path. "Master Waterman, shouldn't there be a ... a Council discussion or a Town Meeting or—"

"Seems not." Cooper clamped his mouth shut the way only a Waterman could and went back to his splicing.

"
Take care, or
thou
shalt be Gone.
" That was what Deemer said in Book Learning. Could it be this easy? Medford couldn't see the motorboat anymore, but he kept staring at the last place it had been. Maybe it would come back. Maybe this was all a mistake.

His mouth tasted like iron. It was all he could do not to run home and set fire to everything hidden under his bed. How could he have been so foolish?

"Clayton Baker got a Town Meeting when he was in trouble," Prudy said to Medford.

"Clayton Baker? He's still here."

"Aye, but they almost sent him away, Pa said. Couple of winters ago. He made a sugar paste, shaped it like flowers, and put it on muffins. Council said 'twas a waste of time and good sugar. Which was true, of course."

Medford couldn't help agreeing. He liked Clayton's muffins plain.

Essence's boat wasn't coming back in.

"Clayton said he wanted to cheer people up, but they put him out in that little shack on the North Barrens for a week and he almost died, he was so cold and lonely. He promised not to do it anymore, so they let him stay. Pa said Deemer was furious."

"You never told me this before."

"Pa only told me about it last month. Anyways, it didn't seem important. Clayton's still here." Prudy was hugging herself, shivering as if the sun had gone cold.

"'Tis important enough." Nearly banished for sugar flowers. Medford shivered, too. Not that sugared muffins were a good idea—good thing the Council put a stop to that.

How could he get rid of those carved things hidden under his bed?

"Earnest won't like this," Prudy said, as Medford followed her up the ramp.

"Maybe Essence is better off," he said. "Imagine apprenticing with Deemer."

Prudy stumbled as if the words had struck her in the back. He'd forgotten about Deemer making her teach the New Learners. Why didn't he ever think before he spoke?

She faced him at the top of the ramp, the roses gone from her cheeks. "Maybe Essence refused to do it anymore. Maybe that's why she's gone."

"Whatever it was she did, Deemer read about it in her journal." He tried to sound comforting. "You don't keep a journal yet."

"Medford, what if that dried-up old prune says I have to be a Learned now?"

"Your parents wont let that happen, Prudy. They want you to be a Carpenter."

"They couldn't stop it. Earnest would have had to do it if Deemer had said so."

"Then you'll have to say no."

"But maybe that's what Essence did. And look what happened to her."

"Aye." Medford checked the mouth of the harbor again. Still no boat returning.

"Medford, what would make them send her away like this? I have to know."

"According to the Book, Cooper said. Guess she did something Unnameable."

"
The Unnameable is another thing entire,
" Prudy quoted. "
Take care, or
thou
shalt be Gone.
But Old Prune Face never says what the Unnameable is exactly, does he?"

"It must be in the Book somewheres," Medford said.

"So let's find it."

In a cold House that ye wish to heat up quick, a Log of Wood be thy Friend. For Baking and other pursuits requiring a Steady Heat, a Peat Fyre be best.

—A Frugall Compendium of Home Arts and Farme Chores by Capability C. Craft (1680), as Amended and Annotated by the Island Council of Names (1718–1809)

"F
IND IT? FIND IT HOW?
" Medford wondered if he sounded as squeaky to Prudy as he did to himself.

"We'll look at the Book. We can do it right now, whilst Deemer's away."

Medford swallowed, trying to think. Reading the Book by yourself wasn't exactly forbidden. But usually you did it in Book Learning, with Deemer glowering at your back. After Transition the Council told everyone what the Book said—and it was usually the Learned Councilor who did that, too.

"Would the Book be out of the safe when there's no Book Learning?" Medford said, buying time.

"I think Deemer takes it out every morning in case the Council needs it." Prudy squinted at the sun. "Dinner hour. No one will be in Town Hall. Come on."

Medford slouched along beside her, hoping to fade into the wooden sidewalk. "Don't draw attention to yourself," Boyce had said. Well, he was trying.

They walked up three blocks from the harbor and turned right at Merchant's General Store, white clapboard like every other building in Town. Freeman Merchant, Councilor for Trade, was standing on the porch, tidy as ever with his watered-back hair, his clean shirt nearly sparkling under his apron. He peered into his pickle barrel, poking into it with a pair of tongs.

"Councilor Trade!" It sounded like a screech bird but actually it was Comfort Tailor, Councilor for Naming, whose haberdashery was across Main Street from the general store. Sure enough, her plump body filled her shop door. Medford and Prudy slowed down so they could listen.

"Aye, Councilor Naming," they heard Freeman call back wearily, trying to fish out the tongs he'd just dropped into the pickle barrel. Once elected, most Councilors proudly used their Council posts as their unofficial last names. The Learneds were the exception, the Learned name being proud enough for anyone.

"May I ask why my fine linen neckerchiefs have returned unpurchased from the Mainland Trade?" Comfort Naming demanded.

"I've told thee before, Councilor, men don't wear linen neckerchiefs over there. They haven't done so for a century." When he was angling to become Councilor Trade, Freeman actually had spent a couple of nights on Mainland, visiting the Traders. He had returned to become the Island expert on the entire rest of the world.

"Thou liest. I was at the Trade just last spring and the motortruck driver had on something like."

'"Twas not the same thing, ma'am, what that driver had on. The Traders don't know what to do with thy neckerchiefs, fine linen or no."

"As ever, sir, thou runnest the Mainland Trade as if 'twere thine own private treasury." Comfort's voice followed Medford and Prudy down the street. "I will bring it up next meeting, see if I don't."

Marvin Glazer was standing outside his workshop, scowling at the sidewalk while Patience Waterman talked into his good ear. "They left just now," Patience said in a low voice, not even noticing as Medford and Prudy sidled past her. "No Town Meeting, no word to nobody. She's gone, my uncle says."

Marvin grunted. "Ain't by the Book," he said.

Patience said something more but Medford couldn't hear it. Prudy stuck a braid in her mouth and speeded up.

Town Hall was Islands only three-story structure, even more imposing because its ground floor actually was a dozen steps up from the sidewalk. Prudy marched up as if she belonged there. Medford slunk up as if he belonged at the bottom of the harbor. "Stop looking so guilty," Prudy hissed. "Were not doing anything wrong."

Once they were inside the door, though, she was just as sneaky as he was. She tiptoed over to the Council office to make sure no one was in there, even peeked into the little room that held the radio, a Mainland contraption used to contact the Traders.

"We'd better leave as soon as someone comes back from dinner," Medford whispered. A Carpenter could be excused a little youthful curiosity, but not a Runyuin.

Upstairs in the auditorium, Medford pulled a stool over to the Book's wooden lectern and began to turn the huge pages. He could feel the centuries that lay on them like dust. There had to be a place that talked about the Unnameable. But how to find it in a book a foot thick?