A Proper Education: Chapter Thirteen

Credence and Penny were fed a small breakfast before a domestic helped them out of bed.

Their legs were wobbly beneath them and needed a few moments to adjust, but the domestic was patient as she watched them stumble like clumsy fawns. When they were comfortable on their feet the domestic handed them their clothing, washed and folded, and pointed to the door at the end of the room.

Credence's bandages had been changed while she slept, same as they had been the previous nights, and she knew better than to touch or remove them. The sharp, stabbing pain from before was nearly gone, overtaken by a dull throbbing that amplified if she moved her arm too quickly or too much. She wondered if she would be expected to change the bandages herself now, but did not find the answer from the stone-faced domestic. Not wanting to risk the ire of the old woman by asking, she assumed that if anything was expected of her she would be told in time.

The girls dressed under the careful eye of the domestic, and without a farewell the old woman shooed them out of the infirmary and into the hallway, and closed the door behind them.

Credence wanted to share with Penny what she had heard in the night, but she knew Penny would neither welcome nor believe it, so she remained silent as they walked to their first class, with several domestics pointing their direction on the way from the infirmary. Credence tried to forget the conversation, assuming it was another innocent thing made sinister by her imagination.

After so much isolation, the faces of other students was a blessing.

No one said a word as the girls took their seats, but there were several knowing smiles given to them, and Credence was content that even if Penny didn't like her, there were a few students who did. When the Headmaster came into the class he greeted the two girls personally.

"Good morning Penny. Good morning Credence."

"Good morning, Headmaster," the girls replied in unison.

"We're happy to have you back."

"I'm very happy to be back, Headmaster," Penny said and Credence nodded to signal her likewise joy.

"You've returned on a very exciting day," the Headmaster said as he turned to address the entire class, "for tomorrow begins your work detail."

There were a handful of excited gasps from the room, but most remained silently confused.

"I see some of you have already heard about it," the Headmaster noted, "but for the rest, I'll explain: You, and the classes above you, will be leaving the school for seven days."

He paused to allow a moment of shock and delight.

"For those seven days you will live under the care of an assigned family. While you are with them you will learn all you can about their way of life. It will be a unique and exciting experience for all of you, for none of you will visit the same home. One may go to a woodcutter's, while another may live with a fisher, and so on."

Lily raised her hand.

"I don't mean to be rude, Headmaster, but—why?"

"A reasonable question. Why do I send you away to learn about a trade? Can anyone answer that?"

Gregory slowly raised his hand and the Headmaster nodded at him.

"Because...it's useful?"

"Why would it be useful for an angel to learn such things?"

"Because...because not all of us are going to be angels," Gregory realized out loud. "So we should learn a trade?"

"A very good answer," the Headmaster said. "Some of you will become angels, but not everyone can possess the necessary beauty or grace that affords such a life."

"But what if we want to be angels," another student asked.

"Yeah," added another. "I want to live in a keeper's house!"

"That is not your decision to make. Some of you will have to find your place elsewhere. No keeper may want you, for one reason or another. You could prove lucky, and a noble might buy you to sing and dance—or you may even get swept into a troupe of actors and perform in play-shows. But you cannot place all your hope in one thing alone. If you have a trade, or at least a bit of knowledge in one, you have a much better chance of finding a life outside of school. You must be productive, for we all know what happens to idle, tradeless wanderers, don't we?" He paused for effect. "Almost all of them eventually earn a black stripe."

The room tensed. Everyone knew to avoid a black stripe, for everyone knew what fate lay in the marking of one.

A girl raised her hand. "My parents are tanners, Headmaster. Will I visit them for the week?"

The Headmaster shook his head.

"I'm sorry, but all students must live with a new family. It's good that you may have some knowledge in tannery, but we want you to get the full benefit, don't we? Your real family may waste time doting on you instead of teaching you a trade. And once you complete school, it most likely won't be your old family you are returned to, but a new one with the keeper or laborer who buys you. For that reason, we will not be sending anyone to their original homes. "

The girl's face fell but she made no argument. Credence pitied her. There was no doubt that those who had a family were missing them dearly, and it seemed a little mean to deny them the chance to rejoin them, if only for a few days.

A long lecture followed about the necessity of obedience during the student's stay in the towns. The Headmaster took work detail very seriously, explaining it was a long-standing tradition of the school. It was expected by the cooperating families that their charges arrived ready to learn and work.

Of course, to the students, it was first and foremost a wonderful diversion.

For the rest of the day the class hummed with excitement. They would be away from school! They would come back with new stories to share, and the thought of living with a family was enough to stir them into joyful anticipation.

It gave Credence a pang of longing for her childhood home—but a quick look at her bandaged arm was enough to change her mind.

A new family is exactly what I need, she thought.

As the day progressed, Credence eased back into the familiar routine of school.

Penny, however, struggled.

When they moved into the room for their stretching and poses, Penny, who had been one of the better students in this art, stumbled several times. She could no longer hold herself in a stance for longer than a few seconds before gracelessly falling to the floor, much to the shock and embarrassment of her peers.

Penny grumbled about an aching stomach and sore muscles, and Credence assumed that all of the bedrest must have stiffened her body. There came a point when Penny resigned to sitting on the floor with her hands on her knees and her gaze fixed on a wall, and the only movement that came from her was a sporadic blink of her eyes.

Credence tried to comfort her, hoping their shared time in the infirmary might have eased Penny's hatred, but Penny would not talk to Credence or anyone else. She became completely withdrawn, not once joining in the exciting discussion over work detail, and arrived at dinner looking agitated. She didn't sit with the others as usual, but took a seat at the most empty table she could find, and didn't once raise her eyes from her food.

Credence kept watch over the girl.

Penny poked at her food, looking disgusted by the meal. She took two bites before laying her utensils on the table and pushing the bowl away.

"Credence. Hey! Credence!"

Her attention was pulled away by Gregory's nagging.

"What?"

"I said 'What's the infirmary like'?"

"Oh. It was...endlessly boring."

Gregory snorted. "Maybe for wild woodfolk like you. I heard the walls are splashed with blood."

It was Credence's turn to snort.

"It looks like our sleeping quarters, but empty."

The truth disappointed Gregory. "There was no screaming?"

"There was nobody there to scream. It was just me and Penny."

A thought struck her.

"Have you seen Adam? He wasn't in the infirmary, so he must have returned to school. Did he look well?"

Everyone at the table looked at her curiously.

"Last we saw of Adam was in the hallway," Lily said.

Credence gawked at them. "But...he wasn't in the infirmary. Where is he?"

"Who cares?" Gregory said petulantly.

"You know everything that happens around here," Credence praised Gregory, hoping to puff his ego in exchange for information. "Has anyone seen him?"

"Maybe," the boy said smugly, still focused on Credence's compliment, "I might have heard some of his classmates talking."

"What did they say?" Lily asked.

"One of them said he'd heard that Adam was sold to a house. A keeper came to the school and took notice of him and bought him on the spot."

"That doesn't make sense," Lily scoffed. "Everyone goes to the Auction."

"Not that one," Gregory said, pointing to Credence. "She's been bought, hasn't she?"

"She's special," Lily said, though her tone did not imply anything good.

"She's not so special," Gregory huffed back.

"I still have to go to the Auction," Credence told them. "Mistress Cinder said so."

Gregory shrugged and turned back to his food.

"Aren't any of you concerned for Adam?" Credence asked.

"Why should I be," Gregory snapped, and even Lily raised an eyebrow at the question.

"Because he's a student like you, and he's missing," Credence said. "Isn't that...odd?"

"Maybe his sickness was more dangerous than the Headmaster thought," Gregory said, "and he was given to an apothecary."

"No one goes to an apothecary unless they're being cut into," Lily said. "You don't know anything at all, except how to tell fairy stories."

Gregory launched into a vicious attack on Lily's character, and soon the two were engaged in an argument that was more cursing than common sense. Credence turned from them, uninterested in anything they had to say to each other, and set her focus back to Penny.

Her seat was empty, and the only hint that Penny had been present was the barely touched food left on the table.

When Penny was not present for bathing, Credence took it upon herself to search for her. She slipped out of her sleeping quarters during free time, tiptoeing as quietly as she could through the hall. Penny might hate her, but Credence knew she would have no sleep until she was certain the girl was all right.

Penny was found easily enough, in the second place Credence looked: The washing room.

She was in a washtub filled to the brim with water, naked and sitting as still as a blade of grass. Her back was turned towards the entrance and she didn't notice Credence's arrival.

Since dinner, her appearance had completely changed. Her skin had an almost gangrenous hue, and her hair was considerably oily, as if it hadn't been washed in weeks.

Penny cupped water in her hand and poured it over her shoulder. She hissed and shuddered when the water touched her. She repeated the motion several times, whimpering each time water hit her skin.

When she turned slightly to pour water over her back, Credence saw what pained her:

A branch, little longer than a finger, growing from Penny's skin.

Credence didn't recognize what it was at first, not until Penny stood and turned around fully to grab a cloth to dry herself.

Their eyes met, and Credence saw clearly the spike of wood bursting from the poor girl, and the angry, puckered skin around it that was cracked and bleeding.

Penny's eyes, sunken under deep, dark circles, widened in horror, and she opened her mouth to say something—

Credence did not wait to hear it.

She turned and ran, making her way to the only place she felt safe.

The Headmaster's room.