We were almost at the foot of the Library Tree, after all, but some history should be kept separate. Gravestones, no two alike, littered the field in no order I could determine. The largest was a statue of a human child wearing a crown, sitting on a rock crying. On the rock was carved the name “Gwendolyn Gallia” and below that, “I Didn’t Want It To End This Way.” I curtseyed to the statue awkwardly. A grave for a human who died Anywhere was too grand for someone like me to mourn. Headstones and plaques were carved with multiple names, but I couldn’t haul or carve stone.
Still, I had a role here. An obelisk stood front and center of the Memorial, with a shelf like a lectern and a large, weathered book and pen. A chair had even been provided. The Memorial was rarely visited, but it would be clothlings who did most of the time, wouldn’t it?
I climbed up on the chair, heaved the book open, and flipped through the pages. There were many names, more than I’d expected, and many different handwritings. It still didn’t take long to get to the blank pages. In this book, we survivors recorded history personally.
I took the pen in both hands, and wrote.
The Endless Picnic
Teapot Princess
Grumpy Gus
Little Miss Snippybritches
Lieutenant Noble
Copperlocks
Threadbare
Rocking Horse
And finally…
Heartfelt
“You’re not dead,” said Sandy behind me, her quiet voice accompanied by hands sliding around my middle and lifting me up.
As gentle as she was, I confess I jumped in shock. Since I hadn’t quite been finished with “Heartfelt”, my name in the book became an illegible mass of ink, and the pen bounced up and scratched a line over Little Miss Snippybritches as well. Ink sprayed drops all over the page, but none of them covered any names.
“Here. Let me,” Sandy added, clasping me to her chest with one hand as she bent down to put the pen back in its inkwell.
I adjusted my glasses with both hands, and looked up at her nervous, sad, and… loving stare. My heart warmed, but just a little, and I didn’t think she could see it with her arms around me.
Was contradicting Sandy wrong? The idea felt uncomfortable. It made me twinge in the center of my fluff. Nevertheless, Sandy trusted me to advise her to the best of my ability. I should tell her what I really thought, no matter what!
I patted her arm and twisted my head back to look up at her. “Thanks to you I’m alive, Miss Sandy, but I do not believe I’m the same Heartfelt who was part of the Endless Picnic. She sat in one place drinking tea and staring at Lieutenant Noble and sticking her tongue out at Little Miss Snippybritches, and not listening to anything at all, really. Even given my increased intelligence, we don’t seem very much alike.”
Sandy’s eyebrows, not quite the same shade of yellow as each other, pressed together. “You can stick your tongue out?”
“Of course! I don’t need to open my mouth to do that.” I demonstrated, and Sandy giggled.
Strong human arms squeezed me a little tighter. “You still care about these people enough to give them a funeral. Tell me about them.”
Needs must. I pointed at the names, too far away to touch. “I suppose you might say Teapot Princess owned the Endless Picnic. She was the china doll. Not a real princess, of course, but as close as one can get without being a human. Kind, gracious, and her tea was always sweet and rich. I would have done anything she asked, if I remembered for thirty seconds.” In my memory, Teapot Princess was a tall figure, her white surface flecked with exquisite blue flowers, and she always glowed like the sun itself. She moved slowly and delicately, taking her full teapot out of a hatch on her front and pouring with a calm that could never be ruffled. Even when the girl’s fingers dug in and were about to rip me apart, Teapot Princess showed no sign of fear, only sadness.
“Grumpy Gus was… well, aside from a clothling, we never knew what. He would always mutter and turn away if anyone asked. He complained about everything, but he was never unkind. I think I liked him most. Or maybe it’s just because part of him is part of me, now.” I reached up under my glasses, and touched my new button eye. I’d lost my old eye once before, and while Little Miss Snippybritches laughed and Teapot Princess organized Copperlocks and Noble to search for it, Gus gave me his cup of tea and told me to drink it and relax. Those sad button eyes made me feel better, but not as much as when I found my eye at the bottom of his cup.
“Little Miss Snippybritches—” I had to stop, because Sandy made a raspy, snorting noise, then broke out in a fit of giggles. It was my job to keep this a solemn occasion, but I smiled anyway. “She had a funny name, but she was a very funny clothling! Most of her jokes were about me, and I still couldn’t help but laugh.” Frowning again, but in thought now, I added, “It’s peculiar to say, but I think we were friends, and I wasn’t smart enough to realize it.”
Sandy’s hand, the one not wrapped around me of course, stroked my cap. “That kind of sounds like Charity. She never made fun of me, but she was always joking, even when she was mad.”
What was it Snippybritches said when I’d lost my eye? Had she made a love is blind joke? She told me and Grumpy Gus to kiss when he found my eye, and kept saying it all day. As cross as I’d been then, the jokes had kept me constantly reminded of what a nice thing Gus did.
I had a sneaking suspicion Little Miss Snippybritches had been much smarter than me. Not that it would have been difficult.
“And Lieutenant Noble?” Sandy asked, nudging me out of my reminiscence.
My heart warmed against my chest, shining through Sandy’s obscuring arm. “Oh, he was very handsome, and always polite, and he marched around the picnic in a very dignified way, and…” I blinked. “That’s all I actually knew about him.” I couldn’t remember ever actually talking to him, although he’d very bravely thrown himself at my murderer’s leg. I remembered a lot of looking down at my cup with my heart glowing in embarrassment.
“Copperlocks?” Sandy asked.
I shook my head. She’d had beautiful hair, and patted it a lot. I’d sat right next to her my whole life, and that was all I remembered. Mind, it had been really extremely beautiful hair!
Sandy went back to stroking my cap, her hand pressing in harder. I went back to my eulogy. I wanted to talk about my old friends now. Even if I hadn’t been smart enough to know them, I would lay my memories to rest here, and with those memories the old Heartfelt. “Threadbare was a bundlish, and I think a very poor bundlish. She sewed my eye back on once. She ate most of our food, and she and Teapot Princess did most of the talking with our visitors. I think Threadbare must have been quite smart, because she only had to talk for a few seconds and I would get a cotton headed feeling.” What did I remember? Threadbare shaking a stick at the shriveners, and making an extra coat out of a tablecloth Teapot Princess gave her, and arguing with Flops about how much food we would take. Little Miss Snippybritches had pointed out that the cupcakes had very rich icing, and no one could possibly eat more than one.
I had come to the end of the list. Pointing at the last name above my own indecipherable smudge, I remembered, “Rocking Horse was very old. I think he and the Teapot Princess founded the Endless Tea Party together. He would tell stories sometimes, about when he could run around. He said he carried the last human girl. I believe he would have been much more use to you than me.”
Sandy wrapped both arms around me and gave me a very tight squeeze, lifting me up to press her cheek to my head as well. “That would be impossible.”
“Even with your glasses, I don’t know a tenth as much as he did,” I insisted.
Holding me up in front of her face, Sandy touched her forehead to mine. Up close, she had such a very intense expression. “You help me think, like you’re a part of me. I don’t know why anyone would do that, but it’s better than just knowing things.”
Speaking of which… “Is Brenda done collecting her book? It can’t be very long.
You just got here.”
Tucking me back under one arm, Sandy walked out of the Memorial and down the path between pools. Solemnity faded as her voice picked up excitement, albeit nervous excitement. “I wish you’d stayed. When we arrived, most of the pages were blank, but they all filled themselves in as I walked past. I can’t—I mean, why would that happen?”
I rubbed my hand over the spot where a chin would be if I were lucky enough to have such a fine, pointy chin as Sandy’s. “We would have to ask a librarian to be sure, but now that you’re here a great deal of history is finally finished. Nothing that happened between the last human and you was really done until now, was it? You’ve made history ripe. Tinkers are very proud, so Brenda wants to take the first pick of the history crop herself to where it will be read.”
I pointed, and Sandy’s face lifted to follow my extended arm. Up above us, close enough that we could see the huge books dangling from its leafy branches, loomed the immense window-speckled trunk of the Library Tree.
Chapter Eight
The library tree was quite large. How much larger was it than the trees Lumber Jack harvested for wood? Glasses made the world of numbers spring into focus, and for the first time I would not have to count them on my fingers.
That was a relief, as “four” was a number too small to be of much use.
In this case, it might have been sufficient. My guess was six times the height of Jack’s trees, but it could easily be ten.
I regarded the steps leading up to the entrance with the warm glow of a clothling who has done her mathematical duty and does not have to try to count them all.
Sliding off of Harrison, Brenda announced, “Thank you for choosing tinkers for your transportation needs. Stay tuned as we deliver a historic and historical document to the Head Librarian.”
She marched up the stairs, and Sandy, Tumbles, and I followed.
Tucked between Sandy’s elbow and her body, I noticed as soon as she began breathing heavily. Leaning over her forearm, I addressed Tumbles. “I have uncovered a secret weakness of humans. They tire easily. Could you carry the food basket? And Miss Sandy, I will walk.”
Her hand rubbed affectionately over my cap. “You’re not heavy.”
That generosity only increased my determination. It made me daring, and I pushed against Sandy’s forearm, wiggling out of her grip and hopping down to the stairs.
Unfortunately, my glasses weighed more than I expected. Fortunately, as my body tilted face-first, I rolled up to protect them, and only slid down a couple of steps before returning to my feet. With the steps barely reaching my skirt, it was quite simple to crawl back up. As I passed Sandy, I said, “Every little bit helps.”
Seconds later, she resumed her own ascent. With Tumbles dragging the food basket, we reached the top without further incident.
The enormous trunk of the Library Tree boasted similarly enormous doors, thrown wide to reveal that this entire level had been hollowed out into one grand chamber. Books lined shelves on the walls, and stairs rose up on either side to wind around the trunk to more chambers farther up, and to the little buildings sticking out of branches and upper trunk.
What a lot of books! It took my breath away.
A lectern stood in the very center, and a very tidy bundlish sat behind. His grey outer suit had been buttoned up neatly, so that only the bulge suggested he wore more underneath. The suit had very sharp, extended shoulders, and two pairs of suspenders, holding up flower print shorts over pinstripe slacks suggested importance, dignity, and other traits useful in a librarian. He had fine thick-framed glasses like mine over a thick white plastic mask with holes in it, and an extra monocle on one side.
Brenda held up Great Spells of Sandy’s Arrival in both hands. “The tinkers are proud to announce a new era, and provide posterity with the first book of that era. With our contract complete, I will enter the customary period of seclusion to think about what I have witnessed.” Her scratchy voice did sound proud.
Leaving the awed bundlish librarian holding her book, Brenda marched right back out. She paused only when Sandy touched her arm as they passed. “Will I see you again?”
Brenda’s haphazard metal face stared at her for exactly two seconds before answering, “That will be interesting to think about.”
Then she was gone.
The bundlish set the book very carefully down on his desk, and stammered, “I can’t—I lack the authority—I shall summon the Head Archivist.” Hopping off his chair, he scrambled up one of the staircases in such a panic that he climbed half the steps on all fours.
Sandy, Tumbledown, and I were left alone to examine our surroundings.
“Alone,” of course, was a relative term. Half a dozen clothlings had gathered around to watch the presentation ceremony, and now they climbed back up onto chairs around a table of shiny red-tinged wood. That color matched the interior of the tree and the bookshelves, so no doubt the lumber from hollowing out this chamber had been put to good use. Every few seconds a clothing scurried by, accompanied by a hefty marionette carrying books for her.
Delighted by this arrangement, I tapped Sandy’s knee, and then pointed at a passing pedestrian pair. “I believe each team is one librarian. Clothlings are naturally good at organization, but we’re not strong enough to carry more than a book or two at a time.”
“Correct,” stated one of the clothlings at the table. It was so old and worn that its heavy gabardine fabric had all turned a uniform brown. Fortunately, the glasses around its eyes had been sewn on with an extra layer of cloth, not dyed. Wouldn’t it be terrible to be so old that you stop being smart?
Sandy lifted me up and set me on the surface of the table, allowing me to meet the next clothling’s gaze when it spoke. “We’re in the middle of implementing an entirely new sorting system.”
Another clothling in a boxy hat waved an excited arm. “I came up with it!”
“It was a team effort,” corrected the old and worn librarian.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“I designated the Shrine of Fiction.”
Sandy’s hand settled on my head, not heavily, but stroking my cap with her fingers. “Heartfelt?”
Possibly my heart glowed a bit as I tilted my head way back to smile up at her. “Yes, Miss Sandy?”
She took two steps away, spinning around on one foot and stretching out her arms with the fingers laced together. “I feel like doing some magic.”
“Ooooooooooh,” said every clothling in the room together, including me.
I toddled after my heroine as she left the table and stepped up behind an active librarian pair. The clothling stared up at Sandy in awe, a book clutched tight to her neat black dress. She had a plastic head with bouncy black hair and huge black eyes, so she must be very smart.
Her partner hadn’t noticed us. All the marionettes in the library looked very much like this one. He was actually quite solid, but looked slim because he was so very tall, up over Sandy’s waist. Unpainted dark red wood made up his whole body. He had been carved from the very tree he served, which seemed terribly appropriate to me. If any of these marionettes stood against a bare wall, they’d blend in and disappear. Which was not to say he had no decorations. Most of his body had been engraved with little letters and numbers, like 888.18 or MyAb-Bo. Unlike his clothling companion, he had not been distracted by Sandy’s presence, and watching such a tall, strong, dedicated, well-carved marionette work set my heart to glowing faintly.
As tall as he was, he was not tall enough. Even on a step-stool, his hand groped around an upper shelf, fingers feeling blindly over the books. His partner had been standing well back so she could peer up at the titles for him, but now she was too busy staring and curtseying.
Sandy laid her graceful pink hand on his circular hat, and that finally got his attention. She gave him an encouraging smile, and asked, “What’s your name?”
“Square Bracket, your Highnessship.” It came out in a hush.
Leaning
down further, Sandy turned her smile to the clothling. “And what’s your name?”
“Propriety?” she squeaked. Myself, I thought that was a name to shout proudly from the hills.
Putting a hand on each of their shoulders, Sandy turned the marionette and clothling to face each other and instructed, “Square Bracket, pick up Propriety, and hold her up so that she can find the right book.”
In an awkward silence, he did, clasping Propriety about the waist and raising her up as high as she could. Able to see clearly from that height, she ran her hand over the books, and pulled one out. It bundled neatly with the book she’d already been carrying. Alas, they were too high up for me to see the titles. Why did those particular books need rearranging?
I’d become practically blasé about Sandy’s amazing magical powers, but this was the first time the librarians had seen them. On the far stairway, a marionette lifted up his clothling partner and held her way out to grab books that had been too far to easily reach. She passed book after book into his other hand, emptying most of the shelf as he accumulated a stack.
Square Bracket started to lower Propriety back to the floor, but Sandy gripped his shoulders and said with a slyly sweet lilt, “Now, kiss her.”
The whole room went still and quiet, except for Propriety’s trembling arms around her books. She and Square Bracket stared at each other, and slowly he raised her up until their mouths touched.
Giggles burst out everywhere, and “everywhere” included Propriety. He set her back on the floor, and she passed her books to him. Somehow, this process left them holding hands, smiling so widely that I worried about the structural stability of their heads.
Way over on the other side of the entrance hall, the marionette on the stairs gave his clothling a kiss, and she flung her arms around his neck adoringly. In a wave, the gawking audience of librarians rushed up both sets of stairs for their chance to follow Sandy’s instructions.
A Rag Doll's Guide to Here and There Page 9