She arrived on Dyer Avenue well before sunwake. The Crawl Moon sunk like a bloated coin toward the relief of one horizon while on the opposite the Glass Sun was retribution; it would dare, with its first blade-like rays, to slice away the fog of night and give chase to its celestial twin with arrogant zeal. But by then, the girl -- she had washed the day before with considerable effort, so much so that the crook of her arm ached -- was already inside the building Channtelas Atrahasis claimed as her own. A working fellow with a boil on his nose had begrudgingly let her in.
("It's early," he had said; "I'm only now throwing down canvas for the stripping of the old rafter wax," he had said; "It must be done before the others arrive, because these high-brow puffer-fish they call ladies might up and die should I drop a lump in their hair," he had said;
"Help me set the catch-cloth, girl, and I will let you in to await the owner," he had said. And he had said, he had said more, but there were other matters that awaited her attention.)
She traced her fingers along the bulging bolts of extravagant cloth, testing the tension of expensive fabrics and their willingness to hold shape. She found bobbins of threads, some of which she dared test by plucking a withdrawn string against a browned eyetooth. And in this odd little shop, in its odd little place, with all its odd little fabrics--
--the Jerno girl with skin the color of wet sand, who was a sea apart from the last seamhouse she had ever set foot in, was pleasantly transported. For the moments until Channtelas Atrahasis would arrive, she remembered how much she loved to sew, and the three steely needles in her mismatched cuff gleamed against the morning lantern-light. Under her breath, she sang a song--
"Ed do t'lzha ed do d'toldoch od ekkil, ekkil, ekkil mit hil.
Ed do q'lzha ent-ent do pardak od ko'el, ko'el, ko'el mit hil.
Ha'dloc, ha'dloc, hil j'er ool! Hil j'er ool!"
Ed do q'lzha ent-ent do pardak od ko'el, ko'el, ko'el mit hil.
Ha'dloc, ha'dloc, hil j'er ool! Hil j'er ool!"
--and thought she'd never seen so much fabric in her life.