writing_shadows

Rea Smith huffed a little into her cheek as she glanced at the ruined walls of the College. It might not be her college—Autumn had as good as said that—but Autumn had also strongly suggested that the Court might wish to start anew. Rea counted any suggestion she actually noticed as “strongly suggested.” Usually they started with “Rea, for God’s/pity’s/fuck’s sake,” but this one had been quiet, like the pool and the trees. She’d been determined not to stop moving, as this time none of her motley knew where she’d gone—fuck, she hadn’t known where she’d gone—and over her pacing the voice had issued from the trees, like her sister at the Spring tower in London, but different, somehow, though she couldn’t put words to it. Carin would have been able to, if he’d been there. But he hadn’t been. He wasn’t here now.

Rea was not in love with Carin.

She could, of course, just make the wooden scaffolding erect itself. But that was, in a way, cheating, like doing sculpture or carving by contracts. She’d chosen wooden scaffolding because it was traditional; because it was lighter; because it was hers. Tradition to acknowledge what had been here; lighter so that she could explain to Nemoria how you erected the struts and poles, trying very hard all the while not to show her certain knowledge that that thin, weedy girl, in her awkward black coat, would never be able to lift more than a fraction of a pole, let alone the stones that were needed. She had skills, and some eagerness, though Rea was damned if she could hear any nuance of emotion in the whispered voice.

But she explained as she set up the scaffolding, what type of wood she was using and where, and what lashed the bits together, with what knots, and why. Which allowed for wind, and which for flexibility as you hauled rocks up and down. This was her knowledge. She might not be a great reader, and she might not know many stories of Things Beyond Mortal Ken, or be able to see a sigil or charm and know instinctively what it pertained to—but she did know things. How best to find strength in things. What shapes materials contained. How to release—not emotion, she couldn’t claim that—but things that had a certain type of beauty. Even in rawness. Sometimes to shape you had to leave be.

She couldn’t explain that, of course. Couldn’t explain how sometimes she just knew.

But the rest she could, talking in her uneven half-sentences even when she couldn’t see Nemoria because, hell, she couldn’t see her more than half the time, even when she knew she was there somewhere. Because, as Rea saw it, and, amazingly, Sid and Scarlet had agreed with her stuttering words, teaching had to be part of it. She didn’t have the vocabulary or the eloquence to put forward the metaphor that keeping something even as nebulous as knowledge completely walled off, up, and out was the same as keeping someone in a cage. Maybe not a physical one, but a mental one. Rea hated cages.

So she worked tirelessly on the scaffolding, and sorted what rocks remained and hadn’t been structurally damaged by the fire—there were more than she’d expected—and the deep gashes in her bark gradually crusted and started sealing over. She’d be fine by week’s end.

And when it was erected, and she’d slept, and the sun was shining thin but free and high, so Nemoria probably wasn’t about, she took a clipping of ivy from her crown, set it deeply in the ash-enriched soil, and gave it the breath of Autumn so that it would flourish.

Something here would be hers. She would carve a niche.