Crewel (6 page)

‘Not much of a chance that will be an issue here.’ I laugh at her annoyed look.

‘Are you kidding me?’ she says, rolling her eyes. ‘Have you seen him?’

She points to the door, and I look over to see Erik waiting to usher us to our next session. Enora is nowhere in sight, but I guess most of the Spinsters are working.

‘Him?’ I ask nonchalantly.

‘Come on, he’s gorgeous,’ she gushes. ‘If half the officers look half as good as him, they’ll need to show me that stupid purity-standards vlip every day.’

I have to admit she’s right. Today his wild blond hair is smoothed back and it neatly brushes the shoulders of his dark pinstriped suit. I wonder if it was his skills or his looks that got him the job assisting Maela. But Pryana’s blatant attention is a bit much. I can’t help but notice now the reactions of the girls in the room to his entrance. Several glance over shyly, others sit up and thrust their chests forward, but every girl is aware of him. I suppose it’s not so surprising given segregation. Someone like Erik, or any of the many officers, is the first contact most of us have had with boys close to our own age. I don’t want to shrink down like some of other Eligibles, as though I’m embarrassed by my femininity. But maybe that explains my sharp tongue when I’m around men, or the way the strange boy made my heart race as he led me from the cells.

‘Yeah, he’s cute,’ I say, trying to be friendly. ‘His hair is awfully long though. I’m surprised they let him wear it that way.’

‘I guess they’re not going to have any problems with you and purity standards,’ Pryana teases. ‘Besides, I hear long hair is common in coastal villages like Saxun. Oh, it’s time to go!’

Most of the girls are already in the hallway, and Erik takes the lead, while several other officers trail behind us.

‘Ladies, today I’ll be leading you on a tour of the compound. As you may know, I assist Maela, the Spinster in charge of training, but her duties require her on the loom today. We’ll be visiting the studios and departments housed in the Western Coventry,’ Erik says loudly, so the whole group can hear. ‘Rest assured that I’ve been well trained to guide you.’

‘Drat,’ Pryana mutters. ‘No looms, but at least we get to follow him around today.’

Instead of agreeing with her, I grab her arm and drag her to the front of the group. I’m not missing a minute of this tour. Erik raises one eyebrow as I push to the front, but he doesn’t say anything.

‘Girl,’ Pryana whispers, ‘he’s looking at you.’

‘Yeah, because I knocked over half the group to get up here,’ I whisper back.

‘About that – I like your style.’

I give her an appreciative grin, and then turn my attention back to Erik, who has continued his spiel. At the end of the hallway, three corridors split off, and he leads us into the leftmost hallway.

‘Most of you will be working in entry-level positions,’ he says as he opens a door into a large room. Inside, rows of small looms form perfect lines and each is occupied by a Spinster busily working with her piece of Arras. On the far wall, a couple of square windows allow light to stream through, but the packed atmosphere of the studio is claustrophobic.

‘You’d think they could give us more light,’ Pryana says.

‘Especially since those aren’t real windows,’ I mutter back. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Erik frown.

‘Not real windows?’ Pryana repeats.

Between her surprise and Erik’s annoyed look, I realise I’m not supposed to know that the walls and windows of the compound are programmed screens. Wild creatures are happy enough if they don’t know they’re being kept in a cage.

‘Yeah, the windows in my room are huge,’ I lie. ‘They could put bigger windows in the studios.’

Pryana relaxes, happy to believe my explanation, but Erik tilts his head and stares me down before he motions for the group to move on.

‘At the entry level, you will handle rationing – weaving food from the farm cities into cities across Arras. You may also watch for loose threads or any other signs of decay,’ he tells us as we pass room after room like the first one. There must be hundreds of Spinsters focused on these simple tasks.

‘From there,’ he continues, leading us into a new passage, ‘you may progress to studios that focus on weather, ensuring the right amount of precipitation falls throughout each sector. In others, you may perform standard removals and alterations like rebounds.’

The weather studios are roomier and only a dozen or so girls work in each. The looms they occupy are larger, and none of them seem to notice the new girls watching them. Or maybe they don’t care.

‘I think I’d rather work here,’ Pryana says to me.

I have to agree with her. I’m not sure I could handle the stuffiness of the earlier rooms, or the menial tasks expected of entry-level Spinsters.

‘The most gifted Spinsters will work in the next wing, though,’ Erik calls to the crowd.

We follow him out of the passage and into a circular room. The heavy door to these studios is guarded and requires security clearance.

‘Unfortunately, the work done in these studios is so sensitive that we can’t risk interrupting the Spinsters working there,’ he says.

The girls around me groan and hiss, but he raises a hand to indicate he wants to finish his lecture.

‘I understand that it’s disappointing, but it’s also necessary. The upper studios house the Emergency Department, which ensures no accidents occur in the Western Sector. They also house our Western Department of Origins. The Spinsters there oversee the delivery of babies into Arras.’

‘Say what?’ Pryana asks loudly, and a few girls around us chuckle. ‘There’s babies up there?’

Erik shakes his head, but I spy a smile tugging at his lips.

‘No,’ he reassures her. ‘The process of bringing new life into Arras is very precise. Once a pregnancy has been approved through local Guild clinics, the department of origins in that sector works in tandem with the local doctors and hospitals to bring the new life into Arras smoothly. To accomplish this, Spinsters schedule births, so the new thread can be woven in as the baby is delivered by the doctor and surgical team. It’s a routine procedure here at the Coventry, but it requires a delicate touch.’

‘I want to deliver babies,’ a short girl with light brown hair says. ‘Wouldn’t that be so nice?’

I nod my head automatically, but my mind is on my mother and the scar that marred her perfect figure, right across her belly. My parents made sure I knew how babies were made, insisting it was unfair to expect me to meet purity standards without knowing what I had to stay away from, but they never explained how babies actually came into the world. Now I understood why it was impossible for her to have another child without permission. And all those years I had pleaded with her to have a baby and talked back when she said it was impossible. Why couldn’t she have opened up more to me about the expectations and rules? Maybe then I would have known to run from retrieval instead of waiting in my chair for them to come.

‘What else is up there?’ Pryana asks Erik, edging a little too close to him.

I watch as she ventures from the safety of our group. She’s so at ease, clearly secure in her tight dress suit that shows off her long, amber legs. I can’t help marvelling at the way confidence rolls off her, and if I’m being honest, I’m a bit jealous, too. Erik barely notices her, though, which means he’s either very good at his job or my suspicion that he’s more than Maela’s personal assistant is correct.

‘Everything else is classified information,’ he says, stepping away from Pryana and beckoning to the group to show that it’s time to go.

‘Maybe he doesn’t like girls,’ Pryana mutters as she drifts back over to me.

‘He’s trained to keep us at a distance,’ I say. ‘I doubt he’d last long here if all the new Spinsters couldn’t keep their purity standards around him.’

‘You’re probably right,’ she says with a sigh. ‘I can keep looking at him though.’

We continue on our tour, and I struggle between wanting to ask Pryana about everything I missed and trying to play it cool. Thankfully, she seems eager to fill me in on all the gossip.

‘We had ten retrievals in Cypress,’ she says as we walk with the group. ‘I think it broke some kind of record.’

I hear pride in her voice.

‘And they found you all at testing?’ I ask, wondering if girls from Romen are particularly untalented.

‘Of course,’ Pryana says. ‘They’re up there mostly.’

She points to the girls who had trailed at the back of the original group and now led it. They have the same shiny black hair and tawny skin as she does.

‘Were you friends with any of them?’ I ask.

Pryana shakes her head in disgust.

‘No, girls in that town only care about getting their courtship appointments. Northern cities are like that. I hear they’re more ambitious in the east.’

I wonder for a moment what they say about us westerners, but I don’t ask. I’m more interested in why Pryana wants to be here. ‘What about you?’ I ask. ‘What about your family? Were they happy you were called?’

‘Sure,’ she says, looking at me like I’m crazy. ‘My mom’s a maid. She always dreamed I’d move up, and my kid sister can’t wait to get called in a few years.’

My heart aches at the thought of Pryana possibly getting to see her sister in a few years. After my parents’ struggle, the Guild will probably ensure that Amie never winds up here, even if she is called. And I’m more than a little jealous of how easily Pryana is adjusting to her new life.

To my surprise, when we reach the entrance to this wing of the compound, we’re stopped. Erik whispers with another guard and disappears into the next room. Instead of leading us forward, the guard motions that we should wait here. A few moments later, more guards appear, and my stomach twists. We’re asked to return to the hallway, and then we’re herded to a long, winding staircase. We climb up the towers like the tragic princesses in the family storybooks secreted away in my parents’ cubby-holes.

The staircase opens into a grand stone room with oddly shaped windows speckling the walls, too small to fit through but easy to see out of – the kind of room you hide a girl away in. Everywhere there are large, steel looms like the ones from the vlip, but these are cold and slick and empty. Each connects to the others through a series of gears and wheels. Tubes run along the walls, curving and wrapping around the great steel beasts. Evenly spaced around the room are short padded stools. I wonder if they’ve dismissed the Spinsters who work here so we can use the machines.

The other girls point and whisper, with wide eyes, and I feel left out again.

Maela, looking as stunning as she did in the room of mirrors, sweeps into the room followed by Erik and another bodyguard. The other guard’s hair is cropped close to his scalp, but both men are perfectly angular, striking, and clearly dangerous. Maela towers in front of us, her crimson dress a splash of blood against the dark backdrop of the men. I know she wants to intimidate us, but I straighten up and raise my jaw ever so slightly to show it’s not working.

‘Good afternoon,’ she trills, flourishing her arms. ‘Today we begin your journey to becoming Spinsters, and you will have your first test. It will measure your natural ability to read the weave and your control over your ability. It will also provide immeasurable benefit to the cities you see before you now.’

Several girls applaud this announcement, but I stare straight ahead.

‘We have an unexpected treat for you. Normally you wouldn’t have access to a real loom until your talent has been confirmed and honed, but we have occasion to do a little pre-emptive pruning this year. I know how excited you are to have this opportunity.’ Her eyes flick over to me as she speaks. ‘But as the orientation vlip told you, not all of you will become Spinsters.’

The group around me shifts and fidgets. The buzz of delight that filled the group an hour ago has faded into quiet panic.

‘Rest assured that when you were invited—’

I laugh before I can stop myself.

‘Adelice, is something humorous?’ Maela asks sharply, and every head swivels around to stare at me.

‘You reminded me of something that happened earlier.’ I smile, forcing myself to meet her gaze. ‘But please
continue
.’

If looks could kill.

‘As I was saying . . .’ Maela only misses a beat, but I’m sure I’ve drawn unnecessary attention to myself. ‘You will all remain here in service to the Coventry. Many of those dismissed from Spinning or Crewel work are quite happy working in our mill or in various other necessary positions.’

As maids and servants.

‘There will always be a place for you here.’ Maela gives a precise sort of smile.

Many of the girls look pacified, although a few seem to be considering what they’ve just been told.

‘One of the most important aspects of Spinning is the removal of weak strands. Each person, object, and place within Arras has its own thread – or in the case of a place, a woven section. We maintain Arras by redistributing, adding, and removing these strands and sections of the whole. If one thread is weak, it jeopardises the others around it. The weave is pliable, allowing for some flexibility within the cities, and for our work, of course. But put simply, some threads are more resilient than others. We must be careful to repair and replace when necessary, but we must also remove at times.’

She is speaking directly to me now. ‘If too many strands are weak, it compromises large sections, and as you can imagine, this puts everyone at risk.’ She breaks eye contact with me to seek affirmation from her silent audience.

The other Eligibles nod earnestly. I don’t. Next to me Pryana bumps my arm as though she’s urging me to join in and agree.

No one asks any questions. They bob their heads in synchronised conformity as though
why
we are being asked to do these things is trivial. All that matters is doing what the Guild asks us, because they say it’s important. Doesn’t the gradual ebbing of the time bands spark curiosity? Don’t they want to know how the machines help us work? I’m not in a position, as Maela’s least favourite student, to ask these questions, and no one else seems to care.