The Hand Collector

by Marian Gray

  “You know who I am, Alec,” Idris said.

  “Then, I guess you’re in the wrong line.”

  Idris didn’t argue. He turned to leave but I grabbed his hand and pulled him back to the counter. “He’s my guest.”

  The attendant stuttered, dumbfounded. It was obvious he didn’t know what to do but eventually gave in and presented us with two tickets for the ferry.

  “Why do we need to take a ferry?” I asked as we sauntered to the canal edge.

  “Blacksaw;s on an island. The only way to reach it is by boat.” He glanced down at the blue and gold ticket before looking back up to meet my eyes. “Thank you for this, by the way.”

  “It was nothing.” I shrugged.

  “It may feel that way to you but it’s extremely rare that the aristocracy shares its privileges with commoners.” There wasn’t a hint of joke or jest in his voice. He was being serious. “It feels good to hold value in someone’s eyes, especially if that someone is born ahead of you in class.”

  I didn’t know what to say and kept my mouth shut. I wasn’t going to erase a lifetime of classism in one conversation. “It’s the least I can do for you getting me to Blacksaw.”

  It wasn’t long before the ferry arrived. It was large enough for at least fifteen but only the two of us boarded. It was strictly for the noblesse. The seats were clean, comfortable, and overly cushioned with a tarp strong overhead and gold tassels dangling down in decoration. It felt like a medieval barge made for a king.

  The ferry navigated through the canals for no more than a minute before it broke into open waters. The lake was a deep teal color with shallow waves. The sun sparkled across the surface, making it seem as though we were in a field of diamonds. But the scene was quickly overshadowed when a rocky island stock full of trees emerged into view.

  “That’s it,” Idris said. “That’s Leentje Island.”

  From afar it appeared a wonderland. A gigantic glass dome poked through the tree canopy. Birds flocked to and fro between the branches as curtains of ivy draped to the floor and spilled into the lake. The glimmer of flittering hummingbirds glittered blog the eastern end.

  The ferry came to a halt when we reached the island’s cast iron and wood harbor.

  “Let’s go before the commoners get here and swarm us,” Idris said. The docks were clamoring with students and seagulls alike.

  “Well, you’re adapting quickly, aren’t you?”

  “It’s not hard when you have a good teacher.” He winked.

  We skirted through the distracted crowds before linking to a winding cable stone path. It was ambushed by thick foliage on either side. Squirrels leapt out from their cover with their hands held out, begging for food. By the look of them, the students didn’t let them go hungry. But they weren’t the only ones looking for a handout. Chipmunks and guinea pigs scurried around, propositioning us with tiny squeaks.

  When we finally happened upon the university, I didn’t even notice it. Idris had to point out to me.

  It was a single red brick building, three stories tall with columns that were literally white oak trees. Their mossy branches were alive with the sounds of multigenerational bird families. A large circular window hung over the ornate double doors. Flowers had been set into the glass, and oddly enough, it appeared as though they were still alive.

  “Beautiful, no?” Idris asked as we climbed the brick several steps that led to the main entrance.

  “Incredible,” I breathed. The heavy wood doors parted with a groan, allowing us passage.

  We spilled into a busy haze of bodies and chatter. Students and staff flitted across the foyer, moving from one end to another and hiking up multiple staircases with a hurried pace. At the far end of the grand room stood a wide black metal door—an antique elevator door to be precise. Its cast iron branches swirled and twisted into an ornate design that resemble vines.

  “We need to check in, get dorm assignments, and pick up a map,” Idris said, leading me to the elevator door.

  “Which floor are the administrative offices on?”

  He shook his head with a slight chuckle. “The elevator.”

  “What?” I asked just as the metal vine door slid open with a crash.

  Before me poured a large octagonal elevator car but instead of walls, service counters formed six sides with the two cast iron doors acting as the leftover two sides. In the center stood two cushioned benches full of waiting students as lines of bodies wound around the elevator car.

  Idris pointed to one counter the was rather sparse in comparison to the others. “That’s for eerstejaars.”

  “For what?”

  “First years,” he answered. “They use a bit of dutch around here. It’s a holdover from when the land was Nieuw Nederland. Lilledoorn is defiant to New England and the British still to this day.” He readjusted his backpack on his shoulder and glanced at the returning students line. “Well, good luck, Lady Ebenmore. I hope you are very weak and unable to preform the most basic of pulls.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Young. I hope you break a few fingers and injure your wrists.” I smiled sweetly. “May the best hand win.”

  “May the best hand win,” he replied as he left my side.

  I watched him walk away, feeling a pinch of sorrow. If we had been given any other roles in life but these two, we could have been something—best friends or… I shook my head. My imagination was sweeping me off my feet once again. He hadn’t given me any indication that he saw me as anything other than an adversarial acquaintance. It was my own lust pushing and promising the existence of romantic chemistry.

  Heat bloomed in my cheeks as I watched him from across the elevator car. His broad shoulders, trimmed waist, and round backside would keep me up at night. He glanced over his shoulder, catching me lost in his body. A mischievous, knowing grin split his lips.

  “Excuse me, miss!” A loud voice shattered my thoughts.

  My head yanked around to an exasperated woman, manning the first year counter. “Sorry,” I mumbled. The car was watching me.

  “Name?” She snapped.

  “Zuri Ebenmore.”

  “Highborns.” I heard her curse beneath her breath. “Welcome to Blacksaw University, Lady Ebenmore. You will be in cluster ursus, chamber arctos middendorffi. Here is your map. Don’t lose it. We rearrange the wings every semester, so make sure to pick up a new map when the spring semester begins. I hope you enjoy your time here.”

  “Umm… what’s a cluster?”

  “Next!” She yelled over the top of my head.

  I stepped aside, staring at the booklet of a map in my hands. It was confusing to say the least. They couldn’t fit the entire school’s layout on the page, and I wasn’t even sure if the school fit in the building. There were far more rooms and wings and floors than I had seen from the outside. Some of the doors even had page numbers attached to them which unfolded a new wing with its own set of hallways, rooms, and doors. Based on the number of pages in the mp, I assumed there were at least thirty-five or forty wings, but I couldn’t be sure since they weren’t all the same size.

  My eyes scoured the pages looking for cluster ursus, chamber arctos middendorffi. Obviously it as some place I was supposed to go. I heard the student that had been in line behind me assigned to another odd sounding cluster and chamber. My nose sank into the map, attempting to locate other clusters. But I couldn’t even find those, let alone my own.

  “Excuse me, I don’t mean to be rude, but I couldn’t help but hear you’re in cluster ursus, chamber arctos middendorffi.” A pale girl with large brown eyes and thick brown hair pinned in a retro style blinked at me. “I am, too. I’m having trouble locating it.” Light freckles dotted her face.

  “I have no idea where it is, let alone the other clusters.”

  “Oh, that’s because they only give us maps with our own clusters.”

  “Umm…” I swallowed hard. “What is a cluster exactly?”

  She regarded me curiously for a second before
answering. “Dorms. Well, Blacksaw’s dorm system. Every cluster contains six chambers that are all connected by a single common room. It’s like a honeycomb.”

  “Is it me or is this place super into nature and what not?”

  She shot me a weird look. I had said the wrong thing once again. “What did you say your name was, again?”

  “Zuri Ebenmore.” I kicked at the ground, trying to stamp out the embarrassment that was siphoning out from my gut.

  “Ebenmore?” She said in a rush. “I didn’t even know you… when were you… what?”

  “I was raised by my mom with the undermen,” I explained.

  “Oh.” She nodded. “Oh!” She plopped down on one of the benches. “That’s… wow! I’m so sorry I just approached you like that and started talking to you. I shouldn’t have and that incredibly inappropriate and presumptuous of me.”

  “There is no need to apologize.” I offered her a smile. “What’s you name, roomie?”

  She grinned. “Ross Monaghan.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Ross.” I held out my map in front of me as the elevator rode up and down, dinging out floors along its way. “Let’s find this thing.”

  Together, we scoured the pages and five minutes later Ross had located our cluster on the second floor in the Ursidae Wing. We exited the elevator and followed emerald runners that had clovers pressed in the fibers. Tree branches grew across the walls, embedded in the wood, and goldfish swam in the tall windows. Just as we turned a corner, an orange cat darted out and brushed against my leg.

  I crouched down, giving him a few seconds of love. “How is anyone this possible? Tress for columns, branches in walls, and fish in glass.”

  “It’s Blacksaw.” She said it as though that should be explanation enough.

  I frowned, shaking my head. “That means nothing to me.” My hands rubbed against each other, brushing off the orange hair.

  “Decades ago it was blackhand exclusive. Given blackhands only pull essences from organic sources, we have a traditional bond and likeness for carbon-based life. The founders wanted to integrate that into the school and”—Her arms opened wide—“this is what we get.”

  “How do you know so much?”

  “How do you not know more, Lady Ebenmore?”

  “I was raised in North Carolina by a flup,” I said as my neck craned this way and that, attempting to take in all of the school’s wild corners.

  “What part? My family vacationed in Wilmington a few times.”

  “East. About two hours from the coast. I’ve been to Wilmington a few times. It’s a quaint little beach town. I didn’t even know hands left their quarantined cities.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth worry punch my gut. Perhaps it was unwise to be telling people where I had grown up. I had no way of knowing who was friendly with the sightless sons, and my mom still lived over there.

  “I’m from upstate New York, raised amongst the undermen as well.” We shared a smile. “I think that’s it over there.” Her outstretched finger directed my attention to a door tucked away in the corner of a room littered with thick wood tables and chairs.

  On one wall was a tapestry of a great bear fighting a band of ancient warriors. Their axes were raised high, but the bear stood more than double their heights and its claws were woven to be just as long as their blades. Along another wall was a series of windows that overlooked a tropical forest courtyard. A red macaw flaw past in a blur of red feathers.

  We came to a halt before a large arched door. Its face was covered in some unusual pattern that revealed itself to be thousands of tiny, ugly creatures.

  I reached out for the knob and yanked my hand back. Red bloomed from the tip of my finger. “What the fuck? I think something stung me.”

  “Password.” A little nasty voice shouted out to us. He stood on the door knob, no taller than three inches, and wiped my blood from his lips. His long nose arched out to a point, and his bald head shined in the dim light. A pair of iridescent wings shimmered as the gently fluttered.

  Ross giggled. “You didn’t get stung. You got bit.” She cupped a hand to her mouth in an attempt to hold back her amusement. “He’s a password pixie.

  “Password,” the pixie smeared at us.

  “Septa,” Ross said.

  The pixie scoffed and flew away from the handles, granting us access. Ross yanked on the handle and a slender spiral staircase appeared before us. The path was dark but we followed it down anyways.

  It dropped us in the middle of simple hexagonal common room. The small hearth was lit and several blackhand girls piled on the couches and chair, chatting around the fire. Ross and I waved to them and they returned our greeting.

  We went around to each door reading their titles: Alluropoda Melanoleuca, Helarctos Malayanus, Ursus Maritimus… until finally we spotted our own.

  “Arctos Middendorffi,” Ross read aloud before we opened the door and stepped into our chamber.

  The hexagonal room was large with five poster beds each occupying a wall of its own. In the center ross a giant bonsai tree with yellow butterflies flapping around its bushy limbs. I counted five of varying sizes. They stopped and rested on the parts that were hit hardest by the sunlight that poured through a glass cutout in the ceiling.

  “Are we assigned beds?” I asked.

  “No, we just pick one,” a voice said on the other side of the thick bonsai trunk. She stepped around, revealing a freckled face with strawberry blonde hair. “I’m Amber Morin.” She held out her hand as she closed the distance between us. Her fingers were wrapped in rings of black.

  I shook her hand. “Zuri Ebenmore.”

  “Ross Monaghan.” Ross extended her own hand, but Amber didn’t even glance her way.

  “Ebenmore like the aristocratic family Ebenmore?” She asked.

  I nodded. “It appears so.”

  “I thought they put the noblesse in their own rooms?” Another girl asked from the door. I hadn’t even heard her enter.

  She stood tall at nearly six feet with long black hair that was chopped straight at her waist. She blushed under the weight of the room’s attention, illuminating her warm toned cheeks.

  “I did, too,” Amber said absentmindedly. “What’s your name?”

  “Kayla Nguyen.” She took a few steps in, dragging three duffel bags behind her.

  We spent the next several minutes exchanging greetings and names and selecting beds. Ross and I opted for two beds beside each other, while Amber and Kayla did the same with the fifth bed splitting us. Amber insisted on way wanting inside for out last roommate but when the day turned to dusk and she still hadn’t arrived, I began to believe we weren’t getting a fifth roommate.

  Eventually, she stumbled through the door. Her square spectacles hung crooked on her nose as she peered at all of us. Her right eyes was dark purple, and her clothes tightly clung to her.

  “Sorry, I’m late. I got really lost.” She threw her backpack on the final bed and kicked her shoes off. “The name’s Spacey Evans.”

  We spent some time getting to know each other before making our way into the common room that was already alive and boisterous with other first year blackhand girls. Someone had snuck in alcohol and several girls were tipsy.

  When it made it around the room that a highborn was in their midst, I was pulled away from Ross’s side and thrown into the middle of the whirlwind party. Several tried to offer me a drink but I only agreed to a cup if I could share it with Ross.

  The pair of us drank to bright and happy first year together. I hoped against hope that our wish would come true, but something in the back of my mind told me this year would be anything but.

  I was still snuffed after all.

  Chapter Thirteen

  While the rest of the cluster congregated in the common for breakfast before classes, Ross and huddled upon our beds and traced out our paths on the map. For all eerstejaars students at Blacksaw, there were six assigned courses. Ross and I hoped to have the majority of re
qs together but only shared two.

  My first class of the year was History, located in the Dead Viel Wing. I had underestimated how long it would take me to wind my way through the Cichlid Wing and stumbled into class five minutes late. The room was nearly full with only one seat still available in the front.

  “That’s her!” I heard another gasp above the classroom chatter.

  I hurried to the vacant seat and slipped in, keeping my gaze pasted to the front wall. My eyes followed the skeletal branches embedded in the walls in order to avoid any eye contact with the other students. It was incredibly uncomfortable being gaped and gawked at.

  “Bonjou!” A sing-song voice carried across the room as a woman with a bright scarlet head wrap. “Seats and silence please.” She placed a beat-up leather bag on the teacher’s desk, cracking it open. “Non mwen se Celestine Middlemiss. By law, I am not allowed the title professor; therefore, we shall make good use of my native language, Creole, and use pwofese.”

  “Leech,” someone whispered behind me.

  Pwofese Middlemiss must have heard it as well because her attention snapped to the person. “It is no secret on these grounds that I am neither a white or blackhand but rather an absomancer. If anyone in here has a problem with that—there’s the door. I will not permit the use of derogatory terms in this classroom.”

  Several students promptly packed their belongings and strutted out of the classroom with their heads held high. Two were whitehands, and one was a blackhand that glared at Middlemiss on the way out.

  “Excellent.” Pwofese Middlemiss clapped her hands together. “Now that the biggest bigots are out of the class, let us begin.” Her hand reached into her bag and withdrew a stack of bright green paper. “This is your syllabus. As you will see, this isn’t your typical History class. We will not only be discussing the past but participating in it as well, pulling and pushing the same essences that our earliest ancestors did before us and learning how the first hands shaped the very pushes we use today.”

  My History class wasn’t the only one that veered from the traditional subject matter. Ancient Philology—which I had wrongly assumed to be the study of the structure, historical development, and relationships of ancient languages—focused on a dead language that comprised the incantations of all of our pushes. Instead of words, the extinct vernacular relied on syllables that featured vowels not present in English and awkward consonant clusters that would tongue-tie any modern speaker.