“We’ll come up with something.” His face was gentle, but his expression stern. “Where are you staying?”
“The inn at—” In her sudden elation, she’d forgotten. Her eyes strayed to the bottles.
He read her mind. “I’ll cover that, too. I work at the Creek Side Inn; I can get you a room, if you’d like.”
“That would be wonderful. Thank you so much, Master—?”
“Leiwood.”
“Melanie Dupont. I’ll get my mother and we’ll be right over. I can’t, I mean…” She was so happy she couldn’t get her tongue to behave properly. “It’s just, I didn’t think—” She shuffled her feet, wanting to be off as quickly as she could.
“Go. I’ll see you this evening.”
Giddy with excitement and gratitude, she skipped away. Before she could cue the bell’s tinkling once more, Master Leiwood caught her by the shoulder. “Be careful,” he said darkly. “Keep your guard up.”
She nodded absently, her hand already on the door.
As she left, Melanie caught the beginning of a new conversation between Leiwood and the clerk. She paused outside the door to listen.
“You didn’t explain it,” Leiwood said.
“It’s a healer’s mask; she’ll be fine.”
“Not like me?”
“Not like you.”
The conversation ended, and she hurried on. Melanie was too happy to wonder what they’d meant.
Mother. Mother, look.” Melanie turned her mother’s pale face toward the mask. “Isn’t it beautiful?” The focal point was a tree frog—the full frog, climbing up a vine, looking over its shoulder—and around it were leaves, branches, and a couple of small exotic birds. The frog’s eyes had been cut out for the wearer.
Melanie wanted to put it on this instant, to learn Master Belladino’s healing techniques as soon as possible.
But she forced herself to wait, just until they moved to the Creek Side Inn.
Using the board they’d brought, Melanie was able to leverage her mother out of bed and partially onto her feet. She buckled her into a harness, then looped the straps—like those on a traveler’s pack—over her own shoulders.
Limply, her mother hugged her from behind. “Good girl. My good girl,” she breathed.
Melanie slowly took her mother’s full weight onto her back. “You feel lighter today,” she said, worried.
“Easier for you to carry, that way,” her mother said. “Soon you won’t have to worry about me anymore. You’ll be able to live your own life, as a young woman should.”
Yes, Melanie thought, but not for the reason you think. “You’ll feel better soon,” she said.
Her mother sighed. “Yes, I’m sure I will.”
Melanie gathered up the rest of their meager belongings, then hobbled out of the room.
Is this acceptable, Mistress Dupont?” Master Leiwood asked, but not of Melanie. He was addressing her mother.
No one had spoken directly to her mother in a long time. They always acted as if she couldn’t hear, or as though she weren’t there at all.
“Fine,” Dawn-Lyn Dupont whispered, snuggling into the covers. “It’s a lovely room.”
The tables and wardrobe were polished mahogany. Fine sheets—so fresh that Melanie wondered if they’d ever been slept in before—covered the feather bed. These were posh lodgings.
Master Leiwood nodded and came away from the bedside. “For her?” he asked Melanie, nodding to the mask which sat on the windowsill, propped against the pane.
“Yes. She has the muscle illness. The one that makes everything quit moving. Even the heart, in the end.” She dropped down onto a chaise, and looked out the window to the bustling afternoon street below. “I asked every healer I could find to have a look at her. In the end they kept telling me, ‘You need August Belladino.’ When I learned he was dead, I was sure he must have a mask—a real one, an enchanted one. An expert craftsman wouldn’t let his knowledge disappear when he died.”
“Some experts can’t afford to enchant their masks,” he said, “and some would rather cash in their time, live it out.”
“Yes. But luckily, Master Belladino could…and didn’t.”
He sat down beside her, keeping a respectful distance.
“You own the inn, don’t you?” she asked suddenly.
“I do,” he said.
They were quiet for awhile. Eventually Dawn-Lyn’s breathing evened out. Melanie could tell she was asleep.
“Would you like to go to the lounge?” Master Leiwood asked. “Let your mother rest?”
She nodded and followed him out and down the stairs.
They sat at a small table, bent over full mugs of beer that neither touched. “You sounded concerned when I left the shop,” Melanie said.
He laughed in a caustic sort of way. “I had a bad experience with a mask.” He nodded toward the bar. “It’s on the wall there. Would you like to see it?”
She wasn’t sure she would, but he got up and she trailed behind. Several masks decorated the room, but the one he indicated was different from the rest. It looked like a crow, with a long black beak and shining metal feathers—and it was hewn in half.
“My father’s,” he said. “We had an…unhealthy relationship. When he died I thought I’d be able to understand him better if I bought his mask and wore it for a little while. Turns out that wasn’t a good idea.”
Twisting a fold in her skirt, she waited for him to explain. He didn’t look as if he wanted to—more like he had to. “My father was a bad man. And for the short time that I wore his mask, so was I. Thankfully, I don’t remember much of what happened, and no one got hurt. Once the mask came off, I was me, and the memories of being in his mind drifted away.
“That’s why I hang around the shop. I try to warn people. It’s not just knowledge that gets transferred, it’s personality, too. Maybe even more than that…” He put his hand over his mouth, as if he were about to be sick. “Just be careful. Stay yourself and stay strong. I don’t know much about Master Belladino, but they say he was a genius. And sometimes geniuses have a funny way of looking at the world, be it good or bad.”
Melanie patted his hand. “Thank you. For warning me, for everything. I better get back; mother will be hungry when she wakes.”
“Sure. If you need anything, my room’s at the top of the stairs.”
The sun and her mother had both gone down for the night when Melanie decided that it was time. She lit a candle, then pulled out her inkpot, a pen, and a roll of parchment.
With slight trepidation roiling in her gut, she turned the mask over, laying it carving side down on the table. It was padded inside, with a silk lining—very inviting. She slowly slipped it over her face, letting it settle against her features. Then she tied the black ribbons under her hair and waited for the magic to take hold.
The quill was in her hand before she recognized what she was doing. Words, processes, formulas—an ocean’s worth of information came flooding through. It felt as if it bypassed her brain and splattered straight onto the paper. She saw the words appear, and they turned in on themselves, again and again. Soon she had a collection of giant, worthless inkblots.
With her left hand she grabbed her writing wrist and wrenched it away from the page. She drew several deep breaths, steadying herself. Her heart seemed to be running a desperate race, and her fingers and toes twitched with barely subdued energy. Everything was trying to escape the mask at once. Too much information was being channeled through her. She had to figure out how to control the deluge.
One word at a time. She told herself. Concentrate. Focus on the muscle illness. What needs to be done?
Her writing hand tried to get away, but she reeled it in. Only letting one word seep out at a time, she continued. Her mind began filtering more and more. She caught wisps of ideas, portions of equati
ons. A list of ingredients sprang from amongst the rest, and she patiently wrote it down.
Why had her local healer told her it would take days? All of the information was here, now. It took only moments to fall out of the mask.
But getting a tight grasp on the process was taking longer.
Yes, I remember. She recalled everything the ailment required to be canceled. For the first time she realized that medicine and potion-making were all mathematical, with the illness on one side and the cure on the other. Both sides of the equation had to balance, to cancel each other out. The ending answer always needed to be zero.
To cancel the muscle illness…
She made notes next to each ingredient. It was slow going, writing and making her calculations. The characters came out at an agonizing pace, but if she didn’t hold back, the words would be illegible.
The muscle illness didn’t behave the same in each person, so the makeup of the medicine was always slightly different. She had to recall all the specifics she could about her mother’s sickness. Retrieving the memories was difficult—Master Belladino, with his overwhelming mental faculties, didn’t want to share her consciousness.
Melanie worked through the morning, only stopping when her mother asked for food. She went to the kitchen to order her a meal and some water and bread to last out the day. The boy who wrote down her request deftly ignored the mask.
That was the only time she left the room. Leiwood came to the door once to be sure she was alright. She shooed him away without leaving her chair, assuring him they were fine.
Night had come again by the time she finished. Next she would need to visit the apothecary. But the stars were bright through the window, and all lamps in the hall had been extinguished. The inn had settled down for the evening.
But she needed to start mixing the medicine as soon as possible. Her mother had been sick long enough. Making up her mind, she decided to go to Master Leiwood’s room and ask him to escort her now.
Reaching up, she pulled the ribbons loose, and the mask slid away. Not wanting to waste any time, she gathered her cloak and the annotated list, then scurried out the door.
Halfway to his room she stopped and pulled out the list. The items were familiar, but the notes were gibberish. It was as if someone else had written them, and in code. What did that mean? Had she only imagined that she knew how to cure her mother? No, she’d had the information, but now it slipped out of her like water through a sieve. In the next moment even some of the ingredients became foreign.
She needed the mask. Without it she was helpless.
When Leiwood answered the door, he looked as though he’d seen a specter. He quickly shook his surprise, but she’d caught it. Melanie hadn’t considered what she looked like with a frog where her face should be. “We must go to the apothecary,” she said, demanding. That wasn’t like her: impatient. But this was her mother’s life on the line. She didn’t need to waste time on courtesies.
He stepped aside and motioned for her to come in. A small fire crackled in the hearth behind him, and the room smelled spicy. “You country people keep strange hours.”
It was a joke, but she didn’t find it funny. “I need these things.” The list appeared, and she held it firmly before his eyes. “Quickly—we must have balance.”
Nodding absently to himself, he took up his night jacket. “You’re lucky the apothecary owner’s a friend of mine. He might open for us.”
She brushed past him into the hallway, with her posture tight and tall. She could feel it—a stiffness she didn’t usually carry.
A cheery whistle on his lips, Leiwood locked his door. Then he held out his arm for her to take. She refused, and realized something.
“You’re Victor’s boy.”
The lively flush faded from his cheeks. “I am.”
“How’s he doing?”
Leiwood turned his eyes away, focusing on his brass key-ring instead. “He’s dead. I told you. Been gone four years.”
She started down the stairs. The information seemed simultaneously new and old. Had she heard of Victor’s death before? “He was a bit odd, wasn’t he? A little…off kilter?” Unbalanced.
Work, she remembered. I was studying…something… And Victor— Refocusing, she shook the feeling. No, I never knew Leiwood’s father. She let the conversation fade, and they headed out of the inn and down the street.
In the poorer quarter where she and her mother had previously stayed, the streets had hummed all night. Melanie had thought the constant ebb and flow of the city was a dance that never ended, but this district was quiet. All of the respectable people had gone home to bed.
They passed a few vendors, a heap of sleeping vagabonds, and one woman dressed similarly to Melanie—but with paint on her face—who asked Leiwood if he wanted to “trade up.”
“You like ’em masked?” she shouted when he didn’t answer.
They turned a corner and Melanie had the sense to look indignant.
“What, they don’t have ‘nightingales’ where you come from?” he asked.
“None who would be so rude to a pair of gentlemen.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
The apothecary was a strangely shaped building, with a hexagonal domed ceiling made entirely of blue glass. It gave the place a peculiar watery glow when Leiwood lit the oil lamps.
The apothecary owner had not liked being awakened. Despite that, he’d given Leiwood the key and told him to return it with payment in the morning. Melanie was grateful they hadn’t had to wait for the man to change out of his dressing gown so that he could accompany them.
Now, in the thick of pots, tubes, and vials of components, Melanie hurriedly read off the ingredients. Directing Leiwood to one end of the shop, she took the other.
“Slow down,” he said, taking her hand. “You act like there’s no time. She’s bad off, but I think she’ll keep until morning.” Leiwood grinned at her, trying to coax a smile back.
“But, balance—” She felt awkward. Things weren’t in their place. The world wouldn’t be right until her mother was cured. “My time’s not my own until she’s better.”
“Real time, or bottled time?”
“Both.” She saw a mineral she needed—a clump of yellow sulfur—and snatched it off the shelf.
“What will you do? When you don’t have to spend the whole day watching over her?” Leiwood abruptly let Melanie’s hand go, as though aware of how intimate the gesture seemed in the dim light.
She sighed and stared at the list for a moment. He was prying, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to be opened. “I don’t know. She’s been ill since I can remember. My father was much older than her—I had to take care of them both for awhile. To be honest I never really thought there would be a day when she wouldn’t need me.” She looked up. “You’re right. What will I do?”
“At least you’ll have time to think about it. Time to discover how to spend your time.”
They gathered a few more items in silence. A locked glass case held a large specialized syringe with intricate designs covering its barrel—a tool essential to the cure. Melanie worked at the lock for several minutes before giving in to frustration and smashing the case with a weight from the balance scale.
“What was that?” Leiwood called.
“Nothing. I broke a box. I’ll replace it.” She waved away his concern.
“Be careful, please.”
“Sure, sure.”
More silence. She glanced in his direction every now and again and found him watching her. It gave her strange, contradictory feelings in the pit of her stomach.
“I remember having my time bottled,” he said suddenly.
“You can’t,” she laughed. He must think me in a dull mood, telling me a joke. Time was taken only from newborns.
“I do. I had it done late,
because my father was trying to cheat the Tax Man. He never declared my birth.”
She stopped her searching, and closed the cabinet she’d been investigating. “What was it like?”
“Painful. But I felt lightheaded after, kind of euphoric. They took extra, as interest.”
“That’s not fair. It’s your father who should have paid.”
“You can’t take time from adults—not without killing them. But it made me realize something—about life. It’s why I’ve worked so hard.
“I didn’t inherit the inn from my parents. I earned it all myself. Real time is far more valuable than bottled time. It has a better exchange rate. I decided I wanted to spend mine as productively as possible, get the biggest payout I could. That way, when I’m close to dying, I won’t feel the need to cash in. Because I won’t have any regrets. I think only people who waste their lives scrape for those extra minutes.”
“It’s kind of unfair,” Melanie said, thinking about her mother, “that the time can only be tacked on at the end, not in the middle.”
“And who spends those last cashed minutes well? People who die young never think to cash out. Only the old do it. They’re all invalid and incontinent when they get them. Those aren’t extra minutes I want—extra minutes being incapable.” He came over to her with a sack filled with half the list. “And you know what? If people stopped cashing in, I don’t think we’d have to harvest anymore. Babies would get to keep their time, as they should.”
“Sounds ideal,” she said.
He shrugged. “It’s the way things were meant to be.”
An hour later they returned to the inn with sacks of minerals, chemicals, and dried herbs. As they walked, Leiwood seemed to drag his feet, which she found galling. Her impatience was restored post-haste.
Was he trying to exasperate her? Did he not see how important it was to restore the equilibrium? The asymmetry fed on her nerves, tore at her muscles, weighed heavy in her chest. There was a struggle going on in every fiber of her body, demanding she cure the problem.
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