Entreating the Wellsmith

[Rance]

Wellsmith. That was what they called them in Jernoah, in the lands surrounding it. Artists of the skin, the blood, and the bone, who knew how to forge greater health from even the most grievous maladies. They were not workers of magics or ritual, but of bandages and salves, who studied bodies like well-read books and saw humours like the pieces of a broken story.

As the seamstress stood before the Rememdium Edificium -- a place whose name she could not pronounce except with the most liberal application of mistakes -- she realized she had not set foot in it since Cherny had set foot out of it. And yet, this time, her presence was wholly voluntary.

A hospital was not a pleasant place. Its insides were saturated by years of pain and death. The heady stink of blood and the caustic odor of feces were both etched into the wood like engravings. Skin was only ever the barrier to the horrible truth inside a body, the way it stank, the way it looked. Greasy, half-cooked, rancid-smelling meat, packed tight inside sinews and around bones.

And yet, beautiful things happened here. Good deeds. Miracles.

The seamstress, with her timid gait, her dirty dress, and her fists wrapped like knuckled stones around the canvas shoulder-strap of her satchel, stood just within the door. Some of the attendants rushed between the rooms and the tented beds. She watched it all with horror and curiosity. She considered even turning around, going back out into the winter cold, and returning to the basting stitches she had been practicing, practicing, practicing on her newest sampler.

But instead, she reached out on a whim, grabbed the sleeve of a younger woman who did not seem like she was in so much of a rush, and said, "Excuse my interruption, but, Menna Janessa -- the wellsmith -- is she here?"

"I might be able to find her," said the attendant. "If she is not with someone."

"I will wait," said the seamstress. "I can wait right here, if I must."

"And do you need care?"

"Do I -- no. No, I need only to speak to her."

"You may speak to me," the attendant said.

She raised up on the tips of her toes, skirts swaying, trying to peer around the attendant's shoulders. "I would be more comfortable speaking to Menna Janessa, if you please," said the seamstress. "I will wait. I will gladly wait."

"I should know your name to pass along, to see if she cares to have business with you at all."

The seamstress smiled, thinking about the seventy-four running stitches nagging at the back of her mind. "Gloria Wynsee," she said. "I am an acquaintance. I can return if I must."

"I will see if I can retrieve her."

And with a hard turn upon her heel, the attendant was off. While she awaited, the seamstress turned her tired eyes down to her hands, one gloved, the other bare and cracked by the cold like dry earth. Plump fingers. Filthy fingers. Fingers made for seamwork.

[Dulcie]

It had been a busy day in the Rememdium, perhaps that was the reason why Gloria saw so much hustle and bustle between the rooms. There had been an accident with a pair of ox carts and a few of the local farmers had been injured. It was days like this that Janessa found herself thinking grateful thoughts about having the Doctor's presence. He was a miracle in a number of ways, not just in the sense that he had eased the work she had endeavored at since the last Doctor had left, but also in the fact that he had saved so many lives. Tonight there would be two men who would eventually go home to their families who might have died were it not without his care.

She had just finished checking on one of the men who was now blissfully asleep after his surgery. Doctor Brennan had gone to do whatever it was that he did after such things (Janessa truly didn't know, nor did she ask. Each healer has their own way of coping with the blood and gore that the dealt with on a daily basis and she had no intentions of intruding on his), which meant that things were growing quieter and the patients were beginning to settle in. The young woman came to speak with Janessa while she was washing her hands, and hearing the name she'd nod her head. Of course she had time to see Gloria.

It wouldn't be much longer then, just long enough for the healer to finish washing up and placing her apron in the basket of linens to be washed before she'd come out of the room making her way down the hallway in Gloria's general direction.

It was moments like that where some of the Rememdium staff wondered about Janessa, for she moved like no healer that had worked there before. Rather than rushed hurried steps her were smooth and delicate, as if her feet barely touched the ground at all. From time to time she had actually startled patients accidently, her footsteps so quiet that they hadn't heard her coming. It was almost rhythmic, like the steps of a dancer, or perhaps of someone who had been well born. In either case she arrived in front of Gloria and bowed her head to her lightly.

"Miss Wynsee, when I heard your name I had worried that you had been injured, but Miss Francine informed me that you've come to have a word. Is everything alright? Nothing has happened with Greets the Sun has it?" Immediately she jumped to worry, for what other reason did anyone ever have for coming to see her? Nobody ever came to the Rememdium when everything was just going completely well in their world.

[Rance]

She did not know the difference between a doctor and a healer -- like most words in Standard, they were awfully similar in their literal translation, but almost like idioms on their very own, abstractions that were one thing and not the next, or that would be another thing, but not the first. Flexible. Interpretable. Confusing. Missing the exactness and precision of Jernoan.

Janessa might have instantly recognized the girl, for that she still donned the wellsmith's dancing-dress underneath her opened cloak. The garment was tattered by constant wear, its gilded hem a darkened brown, its skirt strewn by various old stains, its sleeves tarred with black Jerno sweat. The abuse was not intentional; it was merely her way of handling clothes, to wear them until their elbows had threadbare holes and the skirts no longer had their wild, twirling life.

When Janessa bowed, the girl did as well, but deeper. Fingers pinched the hips of her dress in a curtsey; the head and bonnet swept down low, low, almost so that her curls of hair swept the sawdust from the floor.

"There has been no injury, Menna. To my knowledge, the cha'har is well. I do not see her often, though Master Cherny," and the girl's face split underneath the bonnet with a widening smile, "he has seen her, he said, and I am sure he quite almost had a conniption because of it.

"But I am here because of other things." Her fingers worried a particularly worn part of the skirt, one that had gone thin with constant rubbing -- a nervous habit.

"I wished to follow up with you on my offer the other day. I have found seamwork to be terribly lacking, as of late. I have not been able to obtain fabrics I need for full garments, and despite the occasional hiring, I fear -- I fear my fingers going stagnant. Unused." She flexed her portly fingers in and out, the bare ones and the set of fingers in the black glove on her right hand.

"In Jernoah, we are first taught stitches in skin -- they always said work every stitch as if it is a suture that will save a noble Jerno's life -- and while I am not so good at my own wounds, others' are not so difficult, and perhaps I may volunteer. Small wounds, small hurts, something to keep me busy. If Menna Noons comes in with a gash on her shin, I can stitch her up; if Messa White comes in clutching his hacked-up thumb, I will give him one-two-three and be right done with it!"

Sharp things, she did not like -- knives, blades, swords, arrows. But needles, they did not bother her so much. A seamstress could not be bothered by needles. They were harmless things.

"This is what I would like, Menna Wellsmith. To be a good Myrkener."

And while there was something else, she dared not speak of it. Not yet.

[Dulcie]

She had forgotten about Gloria's desire to help at the Rememdium, which in truth was utterly unlike her. Normally she would have spoken to Doctor Brennan about it by now, but as it was the matter had slipped her mind in the day to day chaos that the Rememdium seemed to always be in a state of.

"I must apologize Miss Gloria." She began, a touch of a blush forming in her cheeks. She so very much hated to be impolite. "I'd forgotten all about it, and I haven't even asked the Doctor. I'm sure he'd be happy to have your help, but I have to clear those things through him of course. I'm sure he'd want to see your stitch work to make sure that it's how he would want it to be."

She paused then, her green eyes briefly drifting over the other woman's face, barely hinting at any sort of eye contact, her mannerisms always soft and demure. She noted that look on Gloria's face that indicated that there was something else the matter and she'd make a decision quickly and resolutely. "If you're looking to keep your hands busy however I have some things you might help me with. There's linens that need patches and patient gowns that need mending. If you're free for awhile I was just about to go set to managing some of that myself. My hand isn't as careful with a needle as yours, and it would certainly make my day better to have an extra hand in the matter. That is of course if you're free to do so."

She'd wait patiently then, not wanting to force an answer, or to jump on that little look of not quite rightness that she had seen. If Gloria had something to tell her she would most certainly do so.

[Rance]

"You have no reason to apologize, Wellsmith," said the girl, slipping into another slight bow that sent the hem of her skirts brushing across the floor. "Your business is not the kind that can be put aside at a day's end.

"I will show him whatever examples I must, or -- or give him the work upon a peach, as you suggested for Master Cherny, yes? I have steady hands that yearn for work." Her smudged cheeks brightened with a smile that was of modest sureness. She had been mending clothes for longer than she herself had been able to wear them. She could thread a needle with a single hand and work a coat's bottom hem in less time than it took to eat a sweetroll.

The girl swept off her palms on her skirts, which had been long-befouled by any manner of crumbs, mudstains, streaks of grass, or sweat. It was as though she had only been taught the rites of the seam in other people's garments, and never her own, and had been taught regrettably less of her own personal care. Beneath her bonnet, her black-ash hair was a tangled, waxy mass.

"I will gladly help," she said, and then turned her cheek as if to look behind her, around her, to be sure there were few others around. "I think that perhaps there are more meaningful tasks to which you can better devote your time than the gowns, yes? Show me to the garments, and I will work them. It is one thing to tailor, but another to simply mend or seam. A few simple tears or rips are of no consequence. We will have them done, as we say, aa'rku'ad ar d'aar. Quick and perfect. Yes?"

So, with her wooden shoes clicking on the floor beneath her, the seamstress would eagerly follow Janessa wherever she might go. Though the girl's eyes seemed distracted -- they occasionally tried to find their way between drape-edges or around the corners of doors to catch curious peeks at the ill and ailing -- they shined with an excitement and curiosity that could not be diminished even by the dark, sleepless crescents below them.

"It would be to lie to you," she said, with softness in her voice, "to say I came only to volunteer, Wellsmith. I thought, perhaps, it might be worth consulting you on a matter that -- that has given me concern late. Of my health. A minor concern, but one that--" a tilt of her head, a twirl of her hand in the air in demonstration, "--should not be left up only to prayers to solve."

And what might have been more remarkable was that this talkative young foreigner, who never seemed to not have words, had told no one at all of her plight. Not Master Cherny, not Catch, not the potion-maker, not even her Jerno employer. Janessa was, in fact, the very first.

"Is it common not to sleep, Janessa," she asked. "Is it right not to sleep, if you cannot bear the thought of it at all?"

[Dulcie]

The girl rambles on for a bit about the mending, and Janessa would nod her head appropriately at all the right moments. At her agreeance to come and see work on the linens with her she'd offer a warm smile and motion for her to walk with her. They'd begin down the hallway, passing rooms and patients. She would stop to offer kind words of encouragement to some, and then she'd continue their journey. The large washing house was out behind the Rememdium, close enough to bring the linens and gowns and far enough away so that the patients wouldn't be bothered by the smell of the harsh soaps.

The question was asked and Janessa seemed to consider it for a long moment before she said anything. "I think, that I would wonder first about why it is that you don't sleep. Is it because you cannot, or because you do not wish to. They are very different things. But no, mostly no it's not common not to sleep. It's important to sleep, for many different reasons." She'd pause again, briefly now that they were away from the others. "Is there something that's been troubling you that you'd like to speak about?"

[Rance]

She stood in Janessa's shadow for most of the minor interactions on their way through the Rememdium. She watched and studied how the woman interacted with her compatriots, and with the occasional patient, wondering about the art to it, the composure it took, the strength. She found her eyes constantly snapping back to Janessa's soft hands, wondering about their invisible callouses, their age despite the Wellsmith's youth.

The seamstress looked down at her own hands, too -- at the bare one, at least, and remembered--

--a trickling line of blood sliding along the lines in the middle of her palm, telling her fortune.

glour'eya, bring me it.

i can't get it off her, i can't get it off--

bring me the Named thing, you idiot, you j'uka'd.

the young seamstress had her fists on both sides of the dead woman's skirt, and even though the woman was just a corpse, a corpse, her right leg kept jittering

jittering

jittering

jittering

like it was possessed by some demon, but they needed to make sure her clothes had been relieved of her, because that was what choir-girls did after a sacrifice, they got the garments off -- so she set her heels, she yanked, and dragged the skirt off the dead woman's waist, over her thighs, her knees, her heels, until it came fluttering free, and the woman was naked, bent like a dead fish, the skull broken into--

it was the only dead body she had ever touched, long before--

They were outside, then, and into the soaphouse, where the young woman took in a breath and pressed her palm against her forehead, smearing her black sweat as if it were some kind of watercolor paint across her skin.

"It is because," she said, as the smell of ash-filtered soap-water burned in her nostrils, and she started untangling a bobbin and needle from her satchel, "it is because I choose not to, Wellsmith. I cannot stand the thought of sleep, to be very honest. Are these," she thrust her thumb at a pile of garments, "are these the ones that needed mending?"

She squatted beside a pile of gowns and long shirts that did not seem to be too soiled, as if they'd been lying in wait for someone to come along and mend their stitches. She sifted through them, her rumpled skirts brushing the floorboards, the spices of the washing-soaps making her nose run, and--

elliot, lashed to sandstone, burning in the glass sun, screaming and laughing, stupid boy, stupid boy.

cherny, like a pincushion of arrows, trying to pry them out one by one, but tearing skin and smiling in that way he always did.

catch, his head against hers, naked except for the streak of a blanket across his lap, talking about glass words, glass words, until his eyes erupted with black smoke.

"Dreams," she said, without looking back at Janessa. "I -- I close my eyes and they are there, like scars behind my eyes. Things that are not true. Things that it feels like could be true. So real that sometimes -- sometimes I feel sick when I awaken. I have not told anybody. How do you tell them," the girl asked, "that you cannot stand something as small as a nightmare? I have tried tea, and honey, and broth.

"Is there anything I can take for sleeping, Wellsmith? To sleep through them, to make them go away?"

[Dulcie]

She'd listen carefully as Gloria spoke, nodding her head when she asked about the linens that needed mending.

There were moments where she could see Gloria looking very far away andeed, and in those moments she would just watch her, waiting patiently until she began to speak again. It was one of Janessa's better qualities, her ability to wait and to read people by their expressions.

"I don't think nightmares are small at all." She'd say gently, coming to take a seat beside Gloria, opening a sewing basket that had been left there beside the things that needed to be mended. She'd thread the needle carefully, not with the experience of a seamstress, but she wasn't unfamiliar to sewing and mending. She'd pick up her own gown to work on, beginning again.

"I once knew people that believed that they had been born out of dreams. That if a dreamer had a maliceful heart that it would lead to an evil spirit being born into their body. I don't think I would ever make fun of someone for being cautious of their dreams."

She'd stitch another stitch slowly as she was listened to the things that Gloria had tried.

"It sounds like you've tried most of the natural method. Normally I'd recommend herbs in a broth, but I suppose that's something you've done already." Her hand would pause on what she had been sewing, resting the garment and both hands on her lap as she considered something else, though she didn't speak of it for the moment.

[Rance]

"Once you thread your needle," she said to Janessa as they sat together in front of the pile of linens, "wrap the end of the string around your forefinger, like so." Around a pudgy finger, a black circle of string. Then she rolled it up, up, off the end of her index finger with her thumb. "And there, it is tangled up and tied for you. Just like that, so you do not have to tie it off, you see?"

She retrieved one of her own needles -- a yellowed thing, carved from a thin sliver of bone -- out of her satchel, threaded it with confidence, and worked on an underarm tear in one of the many discarded gowns. She weaved it through the split lips of the fabric, drew it until the thread snapped to a stop, and then returned the sweep. The process was quick in her thick hands. Speedy. Thoughtless. Focused. She counted each stitch under her breath -- "Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen" -- and spoke through the welcome distraction, one of her wooden shoes tap-tapping against the floor to an unaccompanied rhythm.

"I -- I do not think I have a maliceful heart, as you say, Wellsmith. I like to think it is mostly a good heart. While it may not be as patient as yours," it was not a compliment offered with envy, but with honest respect, "and it sometimes grows heavy over my ribs, I think, yes, it is a good-enough heart.

"Twenty-six, twenty seven--

"Herbs in broth? Oh, I would not know the right herbs. I am not quite the smartest girl when it comes to such matters. Poetry, perhaps, or stitches, or how to be one of many in a choir, but mixtures, salves? Master Cherny could tell you, I am not the sharpest for measurements or chemistry."

While she watched Janessa work her own needle through one of the gowns, the girl smiled, and said, "May I," before reaching across her lap, mud-stiffened skirts rustling around her waist as she took the Wellsmith's hand and adjusted the pinch of her fingers on the needle. "The needle is a hard and inflexible thing, but you should not be -- press it lightly between threads, as if to push instead of stab, and you will find the garment does not resist you as much."

The bonnet turned, and beneath it was a gentle smile. A missing tooth. Eyes rimmed by smudgy crescents. On her cheek, a thumb-print of mud. Her eyes were observant gems.

The gown in Janessa's hands went limp.

"You are thinking of something, but it is not stitches," the seamstress said. "Have I said something wrong?"

[Dulcie]

She continued her stitch work, accepting Gloria's help with the grace and humility that she displayed in all things. Green eyes would watch carefully and her head would nod slightly in acknowledgement of the advice. She was a quick study, working the thread as the seamstress indicated, ever the picture of a patient listener as she regarded the other woman between stitches.

"No I don't suppose that you have a maliceful heart, that wasn't exactly what I meant. It's just an example of why dreams are to be taken seriously. I suppose I might have worded that a little differently. You seem to be a kind person Miss Gloria. I don't imagine that Miss Greets the Sun would have managed so well in the world were it not for you. She was blessed to have found you."

She considered what Gloria told her about the herbs. "I can get you some that you could boil tonight. The right ones might help you sleep a little better, though I'm not sure if it can make the dreams go away altogether. Or I could give you something to make you feel relaxed, in case perhaps it's fears from the day that are bringing your night terrors."

She'd watch her own hands as they stilled and heard Gloria's keen observation.

"Forgive me for saying this Miss Gloria, but I can't quite shake the feeling that there's something not quite normal about your affliction." She paused again as if she wasn't quite sure that she should say what she's thinking. "What are your thoughts on magic?"

[Rance]

There's something not quite normal about your affliction.

They sat together and mended. That was a woman’s work in Jernoah. Meanwhile, the men were known for going out to their senates, their councils, drinking barrelflower nectar, and sharpening their blades. That was what they did. Stitches, though? That was the work of a seamstress. That, and eating sand.

”Wellsmith,” the girl asked, before tugging her thread through a rather stubborn hole. “A nightmare is just there to scare you, is it not? I should not put stock in them, yes? That maybe — maybe they are an indication that I am bothered.”

The needle took an unexpected direction – weighed down, perhaps, by her unspoken thoughts – for it jabbed through the fabric and into the pad of her index finger. Not hard enough to break the skin.

”They do not foretell things,” she said, with finality. “Yes?”

Janessa praised her regarding her treatment of Greets the Sun, the once-cha’har, a being whose silence she had not sought out in some time. In that moment, she thought herself forgetful, a poor friend. She gave her needle another push through the gown she was working on, pouring those things she did not say into the thread, mashing her yellowed teeth against one another. “I suppose that I did not do so badly,” she said. “She looked so very nice in the dress you gave her. I think you have a good taste in clothes.”

The girl looked back up at the woman, her eyes half-hidden beneath her bonnet. Janessa had the kind of presence one hoped might greet them when they awakened in the mornings, a comforting friendliness that chiselled away the plaque of cold days and cold worries.

”I will try these herbs,” she said, with a quiet relief — for it might be a solution, a way to subvert the horrific moments she saw played out like living bas-relief in her mind. “I will be responsible; I will have Master Cherny help me know when it is good to take them, and when it is not. But I do not have many shillings, so — so maybe that I can mend your gowns in return, and show the Doctor I am good with skin, too?”

Yet, when the wellsmith spoke of magic, her poised palm and pincer-bent fingers paused for a moment over another seam.

”I do not know many things of magic, or ritual,” she said, and like she was of sharpened blades—

burning pain, hot, noise screaming in her ears, blood spilling like a red curtain down her skirt-front, five fingers suddenly missing and oh nameless, she cried out to one of the Sisters, oh nameless—

—she was afraid.

Fears from the day.

”I think that magic is not so bad,” she said. “Menna Raia makes her potions; Mister Catch has his fascinating gifts. No, I think that magic is not so very bad, Wellmith. Why do you ask?"

[Dulcie]

Women's work was all Janessa had ever been accustomed to. Though this was felt positively sisterly, something that she had longed for in the bleakest months of winter. It made her feel selfish to take any joy in it, for Gloria was here for help, and advice and that was a serious matter in and of itself. She'd try her hand at a few more stitches, but she made poor work of it, clearly distracted as she continued to listen to Gloria's comments.

"I'm not sure if they're just the dreams of someone bothered, or if they're something more. I've known people whose dreams have told fortunes. I lived with a woman once who could see things in bits of old bones, or stones scattered across the table. I worry that dreams might be something that could tell what is to come. The Goddess works in strange ways sometimes." Still, this didn't feel like the work of the Goddess and that left her feeling unsettled. Another slipped stitch, and this time she'd prick her finger sharply, though she only barely winced, looking at the finger that welled with blood. She'd set the needle down carefully and take her thumb and clamp it down over the tiny injury in her pale flesh.

She smiled softly at Gloria's comment on her taste in clothing. "They are articles from another life. Before I became a Wellsmith." She didn't mind adopting Gloria's term. Something about it sounded right and fitting to the sort of life that she led. "I have little use for those sorts of things anymore. It's good to see them on someone else."

She'd look at her finger then, seeing that the bleeding had stopped and she'd pick up her needle again. "I'll give you the herbs, there's no need to pay or trade for them. It's my garden to tend to and there is rarely need for the sorts of herbs that you will need. They should be boiled into a broth and drank before you go to sleep at night. They should help you rest your mind and spirit. If it's just that you are troubled they should go away."

There was another pause when Gloria asks about her question, and she'd take a deep breath.

"Because I think I could use it to find out what troubles you. I.." She paused again and frowned slightly. "I can use a bit of magic. I pray that you'll keep my secret however. The people here, they're very superstitious. I know nothing else other than a few healing spells and I could hardly harm anyone, it would not only break my vows to this place, but it would break my heart to cause harm. I do know one spell that would let me tell if what troubles your mind. I might even be able to heal it. I wouldn't even mention it if I didn't sense that there is something unnatural about what bothers you."

[Rance]

For all that the girl did not do well, seamwork was her specialty. The needle scarcely ever seemed to linger for longer than a moment in her fingers, the bone pinpoint always between fabric, or through it, or beyond it, another stitch done. Every few minutes she set aside a mended garment, drew another from the pile, examined its damage, threaded the eye, and went right back to work.

I lived with a woman once who could see things in bits of old bones, or stones scattered across the table.

She thought she could see the tumbling rocks, hear the laughter of the fallen bones. Janessa spoke of dreams as dictators of things to come, orators of new possibilities. The seamstress’ breath became short, labored, as if she had stirred from some frightful thought or a disturbing consideration.

I worry that dreams might be something that could tell what is to come.

”They work in very strange ways indeed." She was about to add to that thought with her granite tongue when she saw the tiny pinpoint of blood on the Wellsmith’s finger, and she looked away from her work. “Your fingers, Menna, with greatest respect, need calluses. You will hurt them many more times today.

”That is the sign of fine work,” she said, giving a little pat to Janessa’s knee. “Soldiers, they bleed for the State; seamstresses bleed for the cloth; wellsmiths, they keep all of the blood inside, so it –- it should be reasonable to shed a bit now and then, yes?”

The smile that accompanied the words was not meant to be macabre, was not offered with any darkness. It was eager, honest, and proud to share that pinch of knowledge, a modification of an old adage, a thing drilled into her mind like so many other minute dispensations of culture.

The instructions for the herbs were clear, as Janessa’s words always were. The younger girl appreciated the wellsmith’s specificity. And her intent was to ask about the herbs, ask about these articles from a life no longer lived –- she wore one of those elements of Janessa’s past herself, though it had been already quite damaged from her daily endeavors –- but instead, words wandered toward the final matter: a secret, and one that lilted the Wellsmith’s voice in such a way that the girl beside her could no longer focus on stern back-stitches or strong curl-swoops.

She pressed her knee-side against Janessa’s, a timid show of closeness, a comfort offered as she whispered: “You may ask Mister Catch –- I am a very good secret-keeper. I will tell no one.

”I cannot ask you to do what may put your living at risk,” she said, watching the wellsmith, giving the woman the confidence of her eyes, their solidness, their station. For if the seamstress was anything, she was full of conviction, brimming over with talk of the right and wrong of things. Whether it was as Elliot said, that because she was Jerno she thought herself naturally deserving of less, or because she considered herself a fast friend, thoughts of Janessa’s comfort were first.

”I do not think you would do harm to a body, Wellsmith. Let me try the goodness of these boiled herbs, first. Yes? If I am simply bothered, or tense with worries, then it would be a foolish thing to waste your secrets on such a small thing that they can alleviate.

”If the herbs do not work,” Gloria Wynsee said, “then I would put my faith in these special talents of yours. But not while we are here –- not where you do your good work.

”Some secrets are meant to be kept in secret places.”

[Dulcie]

She looked at her fingers at the mention of her needing callouses and she'd smile softly. "There was once a time when I would have been told the opposite. Days where how one looked were much more important than the skills that one had to offer to others. But perhaps, with times changed as they are there is a time to let vanity go?" She smiled then, a kindly smile and she'd carefully set aside the gown she had finished, though she didn't reach to pick up another.

"I find the tales of your people to be quite fascinating Miss Gloria, I think perhaps I might have found some comfort in the ways of your people. It sounds as if everyone has a place and a purpose. Something that took me quite awhile to discover here."

Gloria mentioned putting her work at risk, and immediately Janessa began to shake her head, as if to argue that it wouldn't, but she had the good sense to hear the other woman's discussion through.

"Oh yes, of course that makes sense. Yes we'll try the herbs first. We can go get them now if you'd like, I know exactly what it is that you need." She paused, looking at her then, nodding gratefully for the assurances that her secret would be kept.

"I'm glad that you'll keep my secret. It's not that I worry it would harm my work, but I would hate for the people here to be wary of my hand, and I'd never wish to make any of them uncomfortable. I do all of my work naturally, but sometimes I wonder if I could be more help if I tried to use my other talents." She liked the way Gloria had worded that. Special talents.

"And your right, special secrets do need special places."

[Rance]

Everyone has a place and a purpose.

"Everyone has a place and a purpose," she said, repeating the words as a matter of fact, taking yet another gown into her arms. She pressed together the lips of a torn seam, used the edge of her needle to pop out the old threads, and began to stitch again, a simple sweeping motion that met edge to edge. "But if -- if it took you some time to discover it here, that would suggest, Wellsmith, that you are not from here." She paused in her mending to say, "Or are you? I am fascinated by origins, because where we are from, it is who we are. You see?"

Then, the girl in the dirty-hemmed skirts stood to her feet, shook out the gown she was working on, and placed it into a folded pile beside the others.

"The nature of fortune in this matter is that you are my only associate here." No, that was not the right way to announce her loyalty. She paused in her sentence, and then resumed it with a motion of her hands. "What I mean is that even if I shouted your secret from a parapet, no one would listen to a Jerno girl -- but that is an irony, because a Jerno does not often tell lies, and a Jerno also does not share secrets."

Unless, of course, the hierarchy of loyalty outweighed the value of the secret -- but she did not anticipate the Marshall or Governor Burnie asking about the special talents of a one Wellsmith Janessa.

She had not dreamed of such a thing. Yet.

"Regardless of how your help is rendered," the girl said, reaching down with one of her palms to offer the wellsmith assistance in standing, "it has no doubt saved many lives. If I were ever harmed, I would trust your hands." The seamstress smiled. Her extended fingers were rough and leathery, the bronze skin stained by charcoal, ink, and dirt.

"To the herbs, then. And as for these gowns, I will give you several hours a week, and I also know the most wonderful bandage weave I will have to show you. It is the least I can do for your kindness," she said. "For the good work done in this place.

"A place," the teenaged girl added, reaching for the door to the soaphouse, already welcoming the coolness of night so it could bite away the sting in her nostrils from the harsh, woody chemicals, "and a purpose. No?"