In five more days, they reached their new school— a refurbished mill complex with a stretch of ramshackle roofing— where wagons of girls had already arrived. The less that is said of Gabrielle’s time at schooling, the better, though perhaps there are some things you ought to know.
All the girls slept in one long room with their flimsy beds all in a row. Gabrielle had the bed farthest from the door right beneath a window, where it was cold in the winter and damp in the summer and never entirely pleasant. She kept company with three white mice who sometimes the other girls could see, and when she slept rarely was it her own dreams that she dreamed.
Raised in a church, she already knew her numbers and her letters and even how to put them together, so she often skipped lessons, her body politely in class while her mind travelled through fields of high grass. And she would play all sorts of games with her mice friends, games of tag and chase that she had never played with the town children. Her favorite was hide-and-seek, because even though the mice were blind they could hear and feel and smell very well, so that if she breathed too heavily one might feel his whiskers stir, another might apprehend the sound of her exhale, and the third would catch the scents of breakfast on her.
Lessons rarely held her attention, but she did learn that across the sea there were contraptions called machines that did the work of men and beasts with unfeeling efficiency. She learned another King had claimed their kingdom, and that it was his fault that she was in school instead of with her candles.
She did have one dream that was all her own, and not a borrowed nightmare from the frail little girls that lay in sad beds in a long room in an unfriendly place. She dreamed she was surrounded by rows of candles all around and that she sat across from Mother Hall, who was stitching shoes of canvas and cloth while wearing a gray funeral shawl.
“Now, child,” she had said, “I’ve travelled out of this world and into the next, and it’s a right shame because I have so much left to teach you. I suppose this dream will have to do.”
In the dream, days dragged on as Gabrielle learned far more of her spiritcraft than she imagined there could ever be. She learned dances that corresponded with banishments, a runic alphabet Mother Hall had in life only hinted at, a bleak binding that tied an unwilling spirit to flesh. Things she had always taken for granted- lighting fire with a wave of her hand, leaving her body to let her mind roam free, communicating with the candlekin and the odd creatures who lived in wells and river bends – were mercilessly deconstructed and then expanded on. There were hurried lessons on reading entrails and other auguries, a rushed review of herblore followed by a flood of new properties she had to learn, and an incongruous break where Gabrielle was asked to recite childhood rhymes like “Little Mary all a-Drowned,” “The Three Ladies,” and “Acadia’s Castle.”
By then Gabrielle was bone-weary and over-aware that one could not sleep in dreams. The darkened room she had first been in had changed to a forest, then a bloody field, then a foreign market square, and finally a temperate beach, but the ring of candles around her and Mother Hall had always remained. Now only a few of the candles were lit by flickering flames and the rest had melted and twisted into alien landscapes. Gabrielle felt melted as well, slick with a second skin of sweat. Her limbs felt both empty and heavy while her head was effervescently light.
Mother Hall looked weary as well, and had set aside the shoes she was stitching. There was a moment of quiet as Mother Hall paused to gather her thoughts. In the silence, questions began to bubble out of Gabrielle: “What are the shoes for? How are you communicating with me if you’re dead? Why didn’t you teach me this before? Why are you teaching it to me now? Why did you let them take me to this awful school?” The last inquiry came out more accusatory than Gabrielle intended, but she let it stand.
“Oh, Gabrielle, there is so much I left unsaid, so much I left untaught. The world is changing and I thought you wouldn’t need… But I was wrong, now more than ever you need to know the true heritage of Candlemaidens. It’s dangerous and dark and not for the light of heart, and the last thing I ever wanted to teach you. So the last thing I teach you it shall be. You want to know how I can talk to you?”
Gabrielle gave a sharp nod, then shuddered. Then continued shivering, her tremors becoming more and more violent. Around her the few remaining flames flared blindingly, then crumpled to dim sparks.
“Tarskos,” Hall swore. “Gabrielle don’t let them wake you up. Stay asleep, you need to STA–”
Gabrielle gasped, the air sharp and insufficient. Heavy waves, no hands, were pushing her under again. Her head hit a scratchy pillow and she screamed. Or, she tried to scream, but her voice was raspy and raw and the sudden lack of air in her lungs made the world lurch.
Eventually her rapid wheezing slowed down and she fell into a fevGabrielleh waking sleep.
***
Later they would tell her it had been three days, but as she inched her way through there was no measure of time but eternity.
The sweat-damp scratchy wool in the infirmary was her constant companion, along with the black shapes that scuttled along the walls. The sun swam sickeningly in the sky, such that shadows and light were in constant riot. She could feel the mice trying to reach her, their minds reaching towards hers, but there was some immense water that faded their efforts just as it warbled the voices of those tending to her.
Cocooned, she felt at times, swaddled and swallowed by cotton and cobwebs. Or raw and blistering, harsh winds slashing gashes in drought-dried skin. Sometimes she welcomed the water that cooled and smoothed her throat, and others she would hiss and spit at the poison that stung and burned her inside-out. As oft as not, she couldn’t keep it down.
***
On the morning of the second day, she died. But the river she had to cross was so sickly silver that it turned her stomach and she fled back into life.
***
On the morning of the third day, she saw a battered girl shivering in a flimsy bed, and she spent a few fevGabrielleh hours wondering if it was Gabrielle or not-Gabrielle.
***
With the moon high in a scalding evening sky, her spirit finally made peace with her flesh. She moved her fingers first, because she was fond of them, and though her lips were too cracked to move, she smiled as her fingertips traced patterns in the stiffened sheets.
When starlight made the world soft, Gabrielle whispered. She didn’t know what to say, so she tried the well-worn words of her favorite poem and found them sweet on her lips.
Then she slept.
***
When she awoke she felt still asleep, her limbs so tiny and so weak. She looked and saw one of the teachers, a pale and sick-looking sort named Skantos, who offered her water that was just water. She sipped it slowly and carefully as she examined her crucible. The windows were tall and wide, though they looked skinny with their height. The walls were all creamy white where they weren’t wood, and the wood was a pleasing reddish brown. There was a closed chest in a corner of the room, carved with leaves and berries and small ivy flowers, and the door was likewise embellished. The whole room was both airy and earthy, a gentle balance crafted well.
Gabrielle hated it. She struggled to leave her bed, but though she had control of her limbs, the sheets were too heavy for her to lift, and Skantos stopped her anyway and told her to sleep and that there would be soup later for her to eat. It was disconcerting to be rebirthed into the world and hear first the harsh gutturals of Kaerent, but that was her life now. She laid back down, noticing as she did what a toll sitting and sipping water had taken, and looked at Sellie in the next bed, whose hair was dark with sweat and stuck to her head as she laboriously breathed. Her spirit was perfectly fine, if curled up and sleeping, so Gabrielle didn’t worry about her, just watched her chest move slowly and shakily steady. For a bit, Gabrielle pondered how weird it was that people breathed. Then she stared out the window and waited for her soup.