Elphie imagines the Ski’ioti will lie low for a while, abandoning her—because they’ve gotten from her all she has to give. Which isn’t much. She wouldn’t really blame them. She would do the same. It is Animal behavior, perhaps—and isn’t she an Animal too, of a sort? Conservation of resources. She will have the same attitude toward party chatter not only in Shiz, but also later in the Emerald City, and everywhere else, all her life. Waste of time.
Elphie watches them until they are lost in the underbrush. She gets up and heads downslope to Lei Leila’ani’s, eager that her having slipped away from home should go unnoticed. She is protecting herself and—she consoles herself later—protecting the Ski’ioti. She hasn’t learned the concept of consorting with the enemy, but her instincts say: Beware. On their behalf if not on your own, beware.
When Elphie arrives back at the family’s rooms in Lei’s sprawling tree home, Nanny is pulling out of the trunks those lengths of shawl and fancy gown saved as a souvenir of poor Melena. Now she’s holding them to the window, inspecting the seams. Here’s the charity ball gown, blue and mauve whorls, still bright and fresh after spending its retirement in a closed casket.
“I don’t know if I want to let this go, these scraps of my precious poppet. Whom I raised from swaddles. I’ll have nothing of her left if I give these to you to bargain with that clothier, Elphie.”
“Um, you have me, and Nessa, and Shell,” Elphie points out. “We can be your souvenirs of Mama.”
“Somehow it’s not the same thing. Souvenirs remind one quietly of blessed happiness in the past. They aren’t expected to talk back. While you rarely shut up.”
Elphie shrugs. So what.
“And this was the item worn by your mother the night she eloped. I was saving it for you to get married in.”
“No harm done, then, because I’m not getting married.”
“That’s what every girl says when she’s your age. Anyway, little use crying over the past. If Melena’s old trousseau can buy us escape from mudland province, so be it. Maybe that’s why I hauled them about all these years, because I sensed these fancy clothes would come in use.” She begins to fold them up, like a sacred shroud, and Elphie grabs the top one.
“That old merchant, he’ll like this. I can barter for information about Turtle Heart. What else have you found?”
“Don’t give away the store, save something for emergencies,” counsels Nanny. Then, slipping through the laces of a rolled-up stomacher, a small bottle of a viscous green fluid. “I just remembered, Melena gave that to me for my service to the family,” gabbles Nanny, but Elphie snatches at it first.
“It’s a cologne?” she asks.
Nanny slits her eyes and regards Elphie. “It’s a sort of bromide. When you’re feeling punkish. Your mother sipped it sparingly, gingerly. That’s not yours to take, Elphie.”
“Nor yours, either.” And Elphie has her there.
Nanny sighs as Elphie pockets the bottle. “If we could finally finish up this thankless hunt for atonement, we might remove ourselves to drier climes. Maybe your prime problem is mildew—I don’t know. Well, do your best trying to hawk this outdated glory for information. Your father won’t notice that a gown is missing. He pays no attention to things of this world. Do us a favor and drive home a bargain, Elphie.”
Elphie goes off to the merchant’s shop in the tree boughs. The suspicious old geezer is wrapping up some merchandise in a loose sleeve of plaited reeds while a handsome, bored young man waits outside on the deck, dragging on a perguenay cigarette. Not all that much older than Elphie. Or maybe he is, who can tell with the males of the species. “Oh, so it’s not just gossip, the fact of you,” drawls the client, regarding Elphie. “An articulate asparagus fern.”
“I’m here to talk to the boss,” replies Elphie, thinking, Well, whatever happens, I’m not marrying you—you’d only make fun of me, and you’ve just proven it. She waits until the sale is completed and the client has sauntered off, and then she says to the merchant, “I have a trade to propose.” She bashes the squared mound of fabric onto the mahogany counter and lays out her terms. There is a more like this at home, in equally good state.
“Figured silk,” says the merchant, his fingers assessing the fine napery of the material. “Unfashionable. Probably worthless. Still, I can take it off your hands, I guess. As for your search, it could take some doing. I can try, but I can’t promise to find you the Turtle Heart you want. This Chelo’ona.”
“Um, he’s dead, you’re not going to find him. I’ve told you this before. It’s his people we’re hunting down. In exchange for this cloth.”
“If the other items you mentioned are in as good repair, they might make a fair exchange for my efforts. But the contract would be binding even if any leads I uncover turn out to be dead ends. In other words, no backsies.”
“I’ll return with another dress later today or tomorrow. So we’re square then?”
He pauses and tilts his finger against his pursed lips, considering. She can nearly hear the sound of his thinking. “Not quite. There’s the matter of the broken window.”
“I had nothing to do with that!”
“Look. I saw your bearded guardian waiting for you down there. I watched you hurry away with him. One of you has to make good on that damage. That’s how we do it in Ovvels. You come work for me for a few weeks. Be my shop assistant. I haven’t had any staff this year and I’m only getting older. You can pay off the cost of a new window by helping out through the holiday. It’s about to be the busy season.” He shrugs one shoulder toward the window opening. He has covered it with a cloth of palest aubergine, dried vegetable pearls sewn randomly upon it, snails in a mulberry tree. The light shows that the frame isn’t the easy rectangle of most window openings, but a skewed oval of sorts, a large eye-opening tilted upward on one section. A few panels of clear glass fit in the corners of the box frame, to make it come out right. Only the central glass, the eye itself, has been shattered.
“I’ll have to ask my father about working. He probably won’t let me.”
“It’s a double-bind deal. I won’t take the cloth, and I won’t do your research about some Turtle Heart character, if you don’t also agree to help me out a while. Staff is hard to come by, and I’m getting on.”
“I know nothing about cloth and, um, I have no interest in learning.”
“I don’t remember that I asked you what you were interested in learning. Or if you even have the talent to learn. You clearly know nothing about fashion! Now take away your bribe and come back with an answer. I’ll have the sheriff collect you if you shirk me. I know your family is staying at Old Widow Leila’ani’s place. See, I do know how to find things out, there’s the proof of it! I’ll expect you tomorrow morning after breakfast, with another sample of fabric, and we’ll seal the deal. Clause one: In exchange for cloth, I’ll try to hunt down information on your Turtle Heart. Clause two: In exchange for the price of replacing my window, you start tomorrow. You’ll be done at the hour of the noon meal. I’m not taking on the cost of feeding you lunch, so don’t hang around hoping.”
“If I agree,” says Elphie, “it’s under the condition that I’m doing it to help my father find Turtle Heart’s kin. It’s not an admission of guilt about your stupid broken window. My father is a man of faith. He wouldn’t break an eggshell if he could avoid it.”
“I’ll agree to pretend I don’t blame him for it. How’s that?”
“I don’t even know your name,” she says.
“Do we need to go that far? If you think so, do your own research on that. I’m not setting up to become your surprise kindly old patron. Get out of here.”