Letter: Mira to Tam, the new tower
Dear Tam,

I am here. The cart left me at the foot of the tower at noon, with two crates, one bed and a sack of potatoes. Then it turned around and went south as fast as the horse could go. I do not blame the horse.

Northpoint is the last tower on the relay line. North of here there is only snow and spruce, and then more snow. The tower is new. The stone is still clean and the door still sticks. They finished it this autumn, so I am the first keeper it has ever had.

It has four rooms, one on top of the other. At the bottom is the store, with the coal and the food. Then the kitchen, with the stove. Then my bed and a shelf of books from Vell. At the very top is the lamp room. The relay lamp is a great lamp of glass and redstone. When it blinks, the next tower south can see it. When the next tower blinks, I can see that.

On my first night a message came up the line from the relay house at Vell. It said: WELCOME NORTHPOINT. That was all. I stood in the lamp room and my eyes watered. It was the cold. You know how the cold is.

I have an apprentice. It came in one of the crates, packed in straw. Its crystal was in a little box, with a note from Nessa, the tutor at Vell. The note said: This mind is tested. Be kind to it.

It is made of copper and iron, and it is about as tall as you. It walks very carefully on the stairs. I named it Lantern, because its work is the lamps. It cleans the glass, carries coal up the stairs and watches the south tower all night. It does not get cold and it does not get bored. I get both.

How was the harvest? Did the east field come in? Are the windmills still turning, or did you forget to oil them again? Tell me everything. Tell me what you ate. Here I eat potatoes. Tomorrow I will eat potatoes. I am told there are rabbits, so one day I may eat rabbit and potatoes.

Keep the torches lit.

Your sister,
Mira
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira, how do words fly
Dear Mira,

Your letter came with the wool cart. I read it at the kitchen table. Then I read it again to the cat. The cat did not care, but I did.

The harvest is in. The east field came in fine. The west field came in half, because the rabbits got there first. The beetroot is the best I have ever grown. Some are as big as my two fists. I am keeping the seeds from the biggest. I have a plan, and the plan is the Three Wells fair.

The windmills are turning. I oiled them. I did it after the north one squeaked all night and Old Brin came over in his nightshirt to shout at me. So I did oil them. Just not before.

The cat had kittens in my left boot. There are four. I now walk to the field in one boot and one sock.

Now, a question. I have thought about it all autumn and I cannot work it out. How do the relays carry words? You say a message came up the line from Vell. Up what line? I stood under the Kettle Ridge tower and looked up, and there is no line. There is only a lamp that blinks.

Do the words fly? Does Lantern catch them in a sack? Old Brin says the words go along the wind. Old Brin also says pigs can smell rain, so I do not trust him.

Write back and tell me, and use small words. You know how it went at home. I got the farm and you got the brains.

Eat a rabbit. You deserve a rabbit.

Your brother,
Tam
%%
Letter: Mira to Tam, lamps and blinks
Dear Tam,

Small words. Here they are.

There is no line. The line is only what we call the towers, one after the other, from here to Vell. Each tower can see the next one. That is all a relay is: a tower that can see another tower.

Every letter has its own pattern of blinks, some long and some short. I had to learn them all before they let me come north. I learned them in the kitchen at home. Do you remember? You said I blinked in my sleep.

So when I want to send a word to Vell, I write it down. Then I blink it with the big lamp, letter by letter. The keeper in the next tower south watches through a spyglass. She writes my blinks down. Then she blinks them on to the tower after hers. And so on, all the way down the line. Words do not fly, Tam. They walk on lamps.

It is faster than you think. A short message from Northpoint reaches Vell before supper.

At Vell the clerks write every message down and file a copy in the Archive. The Archive keeps everything we write. So if you send me a relay note, it will be kept forever on a shelf in a hill. Think about that before you send me rude words.

Lantern is the best watcher in the north. It watches the south tower all night and never once blinks itself, if you see what I mean. When a message comes, it copies the pattern exactly. It has not made a mistake since its first week. I have made eleven this autumn. One of them told Vell that I needed forty buckets of snow. I needed four sacks of coal.

A relay note costs one emerald for ten words, so keep them short. Use letters for the long things. The post cart comes when the north road is open, and it is open less and less. This is the last cart before the snow. My next letter will come in spring.

Kiss the kittens. Put your boot back on.

Your sister,
Mira
%%
Letter: Mira to Tam, a winter in parts
Dear Tam,

The road is shut, so I will write this a little at a time and send it with the first cart in spring. By the time you read it, it will be old news. That is the north for you. Even the news is cold.

The first week of snow.
The snow came in one night and did not stop for six days. On the seventh day I opened the door and there was a wall of white. Lantern dug a path to the woodpile. It digs very straight, as if it were following a pattern. Then it dug the path again, because new snow had fallen on it. Then again. I had to say stay before it dug all the way to Vell.

The second week.
A fox came to the door. A white fox, with a black nose and very bad manners. It sat on the step and looked at me as if I owed it an emerald. I did not feed it. Then I fed it. Then it came inside, walked once around the kitchen, took a sock from the drying line and left.

The third week.
The fox came back. It did not bring the sock. Its name is Sock now. I did not name it. The sock named it.

The fourth week.
I went to check the lower path and fell into powder snow up to my chin. You cannot climb out of powder snow. It is like trying to stand up in flour. I shouted: Lantern, come here, quick! And it came. It took hold of my hood and pulled me out like a carrot. Then it carried me home, because my legs would not work. I think Lantern understands me when it matters. When it does not matter, it pretends not to.

The fifth week.
Very dark. The sun comes up for a short time at noon, looks at us and goes back down. I keep the stove hot and the lamp clean. The relay is busy at night. Messages go down the line to Vell and come back up. Most are for the inns on the north road: how many beds, how many sacks of flour. One was a birthday. I blinked it on to the next tower and felt glad all the way down the stairs.

The sixth week.
Sock sleeps by the stove now. Lantern stands by the stove too, when it is not on watch. They do not look at each other. I think they are friends.

The seventh week.
I have read every book on the shelf twice. I have started reading them backwards. They are worse that way.

The eighth week.
I miss the windmills. I miss your terrible cooking. I miss the kitchen at home, when everyone talked at once and the cat sat on the bread. Here it is so quiet I can hear the snow land.

But the tower is warm, the lamp is lit and Lantern is on watch. Do not worry about me. I only write it so you know.

Keep the torches lit.

Your sister,
Mira
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira, Pip comes home
Dear Mira,

Your winter letter came with the first cart. I read it all at once, standing in the road, while the carter waited for his emerald. Then I read the part about the powder snow again, and I had to sit down. Please do not fall into things. Tell Lantern thank you from me. Tell Sock nothing. Sock is a thief.

I have news. I have an apprentice.

I bought it at the spring fair at Three Wells, from a trader in a red hat. He said it had a field mind, good for planting. He said it was cheap because he was going home. It comes up to my shoulder. It has copper hands and one squeaky knee. I named it Pip, because it is small, and because it will grow things, like a pip in an apple. Do not tell me that is not a name.

Now, I know what Nessa says. Everyone knows what Nessa says. Never send an untested mind to the fields. But the trader said it was trained, and Pip looked very sure of itself, and the sun was out. So I walked Pip to the east field, where the young wheat was just up, green and thin. I showed it once. Then I went in for lunch.

When I came out, the top field was bare. Every young wheat plant had been pulled up. They lay by the gate in neat rows, all the same length, very tidy. Pip stood next to them. I think it was proud. It is hard to tell with Pip, but it stood up very straight.

So now I know three things. One: the trader in the red hat is gone. Two: the mind was taught to harvest, not to plant, and nobody tested it. Three: Nessa is right. Nessa is always right. It is very annoying.

I have written to Vell for the drill book. Nessa's clerk says I can teach Pip myself, if I am patient. You may laugh now. I can hear you from here.

I planted the east field again. Pip watched. I hope it was learning.

Your brother,
Tam
%%
Letter: Mira to Tam, about Pip
Dear Tam,

I did laugh. Lantern looked at me, so I stopped. Then I laughed again.

Do not be cross with Pip. It did what it was taught. It was taught wrong, that is all. A mind wakes knowing nothing. What it knows, it learned. If it learned to harvest, it will harvest, and it will do it very neatly, as you saw.

Lantern was not perfect at first either. In its first week it cleaned the lamp glass so hard it took the shine off. It carried coal up the stairs and then carried it down again, because nobody told it to stop. One night it stood on watch facing the wrong way, looking at a spruce tree. The tree did not blink, so Lantern did not either.

Its mind was tested, but it was tested at Vell. Vell has no spruce trees outside the window. So I wrote to Nessa, and she sent me drills for the north, and we did them every night for a month.

So here is what I learned. Do the drills. Do them every day, the same way. Show Pip the same kind of thing again and again. It will be wrong at first. Each time it is wrong, it changes a little. Do not give up after one day. Do not give up after ten.

And test it before you trust it. Not on the field you taught it on. Take it to a patch it has never seen, and watch. If it does well on a new patch, it has learned. If it only does well on the old one, it has only remembered.

Other news. Sock had kits. Three of them, under the rocks by the woodshed. I have named none of them. Their names are Mitten, Boot and Hat.

Your birthday is soon, so there is a parcel with this letter. In the dark weeks I carved a fox from spruce. It has one ear bigger than the other. So does Sock. Happy birthday, little brother.

Write and tell me how the drills go.

Keep the torches lit.

Your sister,
Mira
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira, Pip plants a row
Dear Mira,

The drill book came. It is thin and very strict. On the first page Nessa wrote: Patience. On the second page she wrote: More patience. I think she has heard about me.

The drills are simple. You show the apprentice a patch of ground and say what to do. Bare ground: plant. Green wheat: wait. Gold wheat: harvest. Then again. And again. And again.

On the first day Pip got it wrong more than right. It wanted to harvest everything. It looked at bare ground and tried to harvest that. You cannot harvest dirt, Pip.

On the fourth day it planted the bare ground and pulled up the green wheat. Half right.

On the tenth day it planted, and it waited, and it harvested the gold. Two mistakes in the whole row.

Today I took it to Old Brin's field, which it has never seen, like you said. I did not help. I stood at the gate and held my breath. Pip planted every bare patch. It left every green patch. It harvested the gold patch at the end. Then it turned around and looked at me.

I may have cheered. Old Brin came out to see what the noise was. I told him Pip had passed its test. He said: About time. Then he asked if Pip could plant his field too. I said yes, for one pumpkin pie.

Thank you for the wooden fox. It came on my birthday, which was good timing for a cart. It sits on the kitchen shelf. Pip looks at it a lot. I think Pip thinks it is a very small apprentice.

Your brother, very proud,
Tam
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira, the beetroot prize
Dear Mira,

I won. I won! The biggest beetroot at the autumn fair at Three Wells. It was as big as the cat's head. I held it up next to the cat, so I know.

Pip pulled the cart all the way to Three Wells. The beetroot rode in the cart on a pillow. I walked beside it. People looked at us. I think they were looking at the beetroot. Some were looking at Pip, because Pip walks with a squeak.

There were nine beetroots in the contest. Mayor Dace walked along the table and looked at each one. He picked mine up with both hands. He said: Now that is a beetroot. Then he gave me a blue ribbon and a jar of honey from Ambrook. The ribbon is on the kitchen wall. The honey is gone. I ate it on bread the same night.

The fair was loud and happy. There was a stall of hot pumpkin pies, and a cart of wool in every color, and a girl who juggled potatoes. I bought you something. You will see.

A little girl came and stood next to Pip for a long time. She was about nine, with flour on her sleeves. She said her name was Bel, and her mother was the baker. She asked me: Can apprentices dream? I said I did not know. She said she would write to the Archive at Vell and ask. I believe she will. She had the look.

Next year I will grow a bigger one. I have a plan. The plan is bone meal. A lot of bone meal.

Your brother, the beetroot champion of Three Wells,
Tam

P.S. The thing I bought you is not a scarf. The scarf is something else. Forget I said scarf.
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira, the scarf
Dear Mira,

This is the last cart before the snow, so this letter comes with a parcel. The parcel is for your birthday. Do not open it until your birthday.

You have opened it. I know you.

It is a scarf. I made it. Old Brin's wife taught me, and she has more patience than Nessa. It took me all autumn. The wool is from our own sheep, the red one and the brown one. I ran out of red near the end, so the last part is brown. It looks like a beetroot with a tail. Wear the red end at the front. Nobody will see the back.

It is a little long. It is also a little wide in the middle, where I forgot to count. It is longer than I am. You can wrap it around yourself three times, or around you and Lantern twice.

The other thing in the parcel is the thing from the fair. It is a little wooden windmill. The sails go round if you blow on them. Put it on the shelf, so you have one windmill in the north.

I also put in a bag of seeds from the prize beetroot. I know you cannot grow beetroot in the snow. Keep them for when you come home.

Happy birthday, Mira. You are very old now. I am still young.

Your brother,
Tam

P.S. Pip helped wrap the parcel. If there is straw in everything, that is why.
%%
Letter: Mira to Tam, the scarf came
Dear Tam,

I opened it. Of course I opened it. I opened it on the stairs before the cart had even turned around.

It is the ugliest scarf in the north. It is also the warmest thing I have ever worn. I wear it every night in the lamp room, red end at the front. Lantern looked at it for a long time. I think it was trying to work out what it was for. Sock tried to steal it on the first night. She got halfway to the door before she ran out of fox.

The windmill is on the shelf by the window. When the stove is lit, the warm air turns the sails, very slowly. I did not know it would do that. I sat and watched it for an hour.

On my birthday your relay note came up the line. Lantern took it down, letter by letter, and I wrote it out and pinned it above the stove. It said: HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIRA STILL CHAMPION OF BEETROOT LOVE TAM. That is nine words. You paid for ten. I spent the whole evening thinking of what the tenth word could have been.

I know the clerks at Vell have a copy too, filed away in the hill. Hello, clerks. My brother is the beetroot champion of Three Wells. Please file that carefully.

The seeds are in a box under my bed. I will not plant them here. The ground does not thaw, and if it did, Sock would dig them up.

The winter is going well. The stove is hot. The lamp is clean. I have read the books on the shelf three times, so now I tell Lantern the stories instead. It is a very good listener. It never says it has heard them before.

Thank you, Tam. I mean it. Wear your other boot.

Your sister,
Mira
%%
Letter: Mira to Tam, missing home
Dear Tam,

Nothing has happened, so this is a letter about nothing.

The snow is the same. The fox is the same. Lantern is the same, which is the best thing about Lantern. The relay was busy last night. This morning it carried one message, about flour. I cleaned the lamp glass. I counted the coal. There is enough coal.

Today I made Mother's beetroot soup with the last beetroot from the autumn cart. It was not as good as hers. It was not even as good as yours, and yours is bad. But the kitchen smelled like home for an hour, and I sat in it with the scarf on.

Do you remember the summer we climbed the north windmill? You were seven and I was ten. You held on to a sail and went all the way round. Father ran out with a ladder, still in his apron. You laughed the whole way round. I was so scared I could not speak. Then I laughed too, and I could not stop, and Father sent us both to bed without pie.

I think about that a lot up here. Not the windmill. The laughing.

I miss you. There. I said it. Do not make a fuss.

In the spring I will ask Vell for leave. If they say yes, I will come south for the fair, and watch you lose the beetroot prize to Old Brin.

Keep the torches lit.

Your sister,
Mira
%%
Letter: Tam to Mira, come south
Dear Mira,

Yes. Come south. Ask Vell for leave, and if they say no, ask again, louder.

I have made a plan. You will come down the north road with the first cart of summer. I will meet you at the Kettle Inn with Pip and the cart. The cart will have a pillow in it, like the beetroot had. You will sit on the pillow and wave at people.

I will clean the house. All of it. Even the room where the kittens were. Even under the stairs.

Pip can carry your bag. Pip can carry anything now. Yesterday it carried a whole sack of seed potatoes up the hill. It put them in the store, in the right corner, the first time I asked. And Pip waves when I come in from the field. I did not teach it that. I think it learned it from watching me.

The kittens are cats now. One of them sleeps in your old room, so it is not empty.

We will go to the fair together. You can stand beside the beetroot table and look stern, and the mayor will give me the ribbon out of fear.

Bring the scarf. Bring Lantern if they let you. Do not bring Sock.

I miss you too. I am making a fuss.

Your brother,
Tam
%%
Letter: Pell to Juna, the first inn
Dear Juna,

I am at the Brown Hen, one day down the Long Road from home. Barley pulled well all day. He only stopped twice, once for water and once for an apple he saw on the ground. He ate the apple.

The cart is full and heavy. Forty jars of honey, twelve sacks of apples, and a box of honeycomb for the candle maker at Vell. I tied everything down twice, like you told me. Then I tied it again at noon, because a rope came loose on the hill.

The Brown Hen is the same as ever. Marda still keeps it, and she still talks more than the rain. A bed costs one emerald. A bowl of rabbit stew costs one emerald. A bed and a bowl of stew together also cost one emerald, if you tell Marda her stew is better than last year. I told her. It was true.

There were five travelers at the long table tonight. A wool trader from Kettle Ridge. Two miners walking home to Copperhold. A clerk going to Vell with a box of letters. And a young man going to Saltreach to learn to build boats. We talked about the road, the weather and the price of coal. The miners say coal is up. The wool trader says wool is down. Everyone says the stew is good.

Keep the gate shut at night and the torches lit by the hives. Tell Tilly that Barley says hello. Barley did not say hello. But he looked at me in a friendly way when I said her name, so I count it.

I will write from Three Wells.

Your Pell
%%
Letter: Pell to Juna, market day
Dear Juna,

Market day at Three Wells. The square is so full you cannot see the wells. There are only three of them, so you would think they would be easy to find.

I sold half the honey before noon. Here are the prices, so you can tell your sister I did not cheat myself.

Honey: two emeralds a jar. Three for the dark honey.
Apples: one emerald a sack.
Wheat: one emerald for two sacks. Cheap this year. The Kettle Ridge farms did well.
Wool: one emerald a bundle. The wool trader says it is down. He says it with a sad face.
Coal: three emeralds a sack. Up again. The miners say it is the wet spring. The clerks say it is the road. The baker says it is everybody's fault.
Bread: one emerald for six loaves at Ida's bakery. The best bread on the Long Road. Do not tell your mother.

Mayor Dace has put a new notice on the board. It says: No pigs in the square on market day. Everyone knows this is because of the pig last spring. It ate a whole table of pies and then sat in the north well. The pig's owner says the notice is unfair to pigs.

I saw an apprentice at the market today. It stood by a stall, holding a basket of eggs for a woman who was busy talking. It held the basket very still all morning. When she was done talking, it gave the basket back. She said thank you, and it walked off behind her, very slowly, so the eggs would not break. Tilly would have liked it.

Tomorrow I go on to Kettle Ridge. Then Vell and Copperhold, and then down to the marsh and the sea.

Kiss Tilly for me. Tell her the pig sat in the well.

Your Pell
%%
Letter: Pell to Juna, a lame horse
Dear Juna,

Barley is lame. Do not worry. He is not badly hurt, and he is eating, which with Barley is how you know.

It happened on the ridge road, two hours short of Kettle Ridge. He stepped in a rabbit hole and came up limping on his left front leg. I got down and walked him the rest of the way, very slowly, with the cart creaking behind us.

At Kettle Ridge a farmer came out to see what the creaking was. His name is Tam. He is very untidy and very kind. He had one boot on and straw in his hair. He looked at Barley's leg and said it was only a sprain. He said Barley needed four days of rest and cold water. Then he said Barley could stay in his barn and I could sleep in his kitchen. He would not take an emerald for it. I gave him two jars of honey instead. He ate one of them the same night.

Tam has an apprentice called Pip. Pip carried water for Barley in a bucket, four times a day. When it put the bucket down, it put it down very gently, as if the water might break. Barley liked Pip. Barley does not like anyone.

Tam talks a great deal about beetroot. He also talks about his sister, who keeps the relay lamp at Northpoint, at the very top of the north. At supper he reads her letters out loud, the funny parts. There is a fox in them called Sock.

So I will be four days late. The honey is safe. The apples are a little bruised. I am a little bruised too, from sleeping on Tam's kitchen bench. But it was a warm kitchen, and there was soup.

Kiss Tilly. Tell her Barley is being brave.

Your Pell
%%
Letter: Pell to Juna, the storm
Dear Juna,

I am writing this at the inn at Lowmarsh, with my boots by the fire and my socks on a chair. Everything I own is wet. The letter is dry. That is something.

The storm caught us on the marsh road, a few hours out of Lowmarsh. In the morning the sky was clear. By noon it was dark green, which is a color the sky should never be. Then the wind came in from the sea, across the reeds, and nearly took the cover off the cart. I held the cover with one hand and Barley with the other. I said some words I will not write, because the clerks at Vell will read this one day.

Then came the rain. Then the thunder. Lightning hit a dead tree by the road and split it in two. Barley did not even jump. He is braver than I am.

We came into Lowmarsh after dark, slow and muddy. The torches were lit along the boardwalk, and the frogs were very loud, as if they were cheering. The innkeeper gave me a dry blanket and a bowl of fish stew, and did not ask why I was dripping.

I have a small cold. The healer here, Wren, gave me honey in warm milk. She asked where the honey came from. I said Ambrook. She said: Then you know it is good. I liked her very much after that.

The honey in the cart is safe. Not one jar broke. I wrapped each jar in wool at Kettle Ridge, and I am glad now.

One more town, and then home. Tell Tilly that Barley walked through a storm, and the frogs cheered for him.

Your Pell
%%
Letter: Pell to Juna, road gossip
Dear Juna,

I am at Saltreach, and you asked for gossip, so here it is. I have saved it up for four towns.

At Copperhold, the miners have found amethyst. A whole room of it, under the town, purple from floor to roof. A miner called Hesk found it, with his apprentice. Hesk will not talk about it. He only says: It is rock. But he bought honey cakes for the whole inn, so I think he is pleased.

At Vell, the Archive has run out of shelves again. They are digging a new room into the hill. Oren the clerk told me a cart of letters comes in every day. I asked if my ledger would be filed. He said yes, everything is filed. I said: Even my bad sums? He said: Especially your bad sums.

At Three Wells, Ida the baker and Jory from our mill are not speaking. Something about grit in the flour. Ask Jory about it, but stand back when you do.

Here at Saltreach, Corin the shipwright is building a new fishing boat, the first new one in three years. The whole town goes down to the yard in the evening to look at it and give advice. Corin says he has had more advice than nails.

And on the road, everywhere, there are more apprentices than last year. I passed three of them hauling carts of coal by themselves, one after the other, with no driver at all. They stepped aside for Barley very politely. At the inns, people argue about it. Some say it is good, more hands for the work. Marda at the Brown Hen said she would believe in apprentices when one could make a bed properly. Then her own apprentice made a bed while she was talking, and she went very quiet.

That is all the gossip. I am coming home.

Your Pell
%%
Letter: Pell to Juna, honey for Tilly
Dear Juna,

One last letter before I come home. I may beat it there. If I do, read it anyway.

The honey is all gone. Every jar. The last ten went here at Saltreach, to a fish seller who says our honey is the only sweet thing in her life. She bought six jars and kissed one of them.

Then I remembered. Before I left, Tilly asked me to bring her honey from the sea town. I said yes. I promised.

There is no honey in Saltreach except ours.

So I went back to the fish seller and bought one jar back. She charged me three emeralds. I had sold it to her for two. She knew exactly what she was doing, and she smiled the whole time.

So I am bringing Tilly a jar of honey from the sea town. It is our honey. It came from our hives, from behind our house, from our own bees. It went all the way to the sea and now it is coming back. Do not tell her. Or tell her when she is older. It will be a good story then.

The cart is empty and light, and Barley is walking fast, because he knows the way home. Two more days. Keep a place at the table. Light the torch by the hives, so I can see it from the hill.

Your Pell
%%
Letter: Bel to the Archive, relays
Dear Archive,

My name is Bel. I am nine. I live at Three Wells, in the house behind the bakery. My mother is Ida the baker. My name is like the bell in the square, but with one L.

Teacher Sorrel says the Archive at Vell keeps everything that is written. So I am writing to you, so you can keep this. Also I have a question.

Why do the relays blink?

There is a relay tower at Three Wells, on the hill past the school. At night its lamp blinks. Sometimes fast and sometimes slow. Sometimes it stops for a long time, and then it blinks a lot. I watch it from my window when I should be asleep. Please do not tell my mother.

Is there somebody in the tower? Are they blinking at me? One night I blinked my candle back at them, but nothing happened.

My friend Nim says the tower blinks because it is bored. I do not think so. I think it is talking to the other towers. But I want to know what it is saying.

Please write back. I have never had a letter.

From Bel, age nine, Three Wells
%%
Letter: Oren to Bel, why relays blink
Dear Bel,

Thank you for your letter. I have filed it. It is in the Archive now, on the shelf for letters from Three Wells. It sits between a letter about a lost goat and a letter about the price of nails. You are in good company.

You are right, and your friend Nim is wrong. The tower is not bored. It is talking to the other towers.

Every relay tower can see the next one. When someone wants to send a message, the keeper writes it down. Then the keeper blinks the lamp. Every letter has its own pattern of blinks, some long and some short. The keeper in the next tower watches, writes the blinks down, and blinks them on to the tower after that. And so on, tower to tower, all along the line. A message can go from Northpoint to Vell before supper.

So when you see the tower blink at night, you are seeing somebody's letter go past. It might be a farmer asking for seed. It might be an inn asking for flour. It might be a birthday. Most messages come here to Vell in the end, and the clerks write them down and file them. That is my work.

Some blinks are not for people at all. They are apprentices asking the big minds in the relay houses what to do next. The big minds answer, and the answers blink back down the line. The fast blinks are usually apprentices. People are slower. People take a long time to say what they mean.

Your candle did not work because the keeper was watching the next tower, not your window. But it was a good try.

I will not tell your mother. But please do go to sleep. A tired girl cannot read, and a girl who cannot read cannot write me letters.

Oren
Clerk at the Archive at Vell
%%
Letter: Bel to the Archive, books
Dear Oren,

Thank you for my letter! It is the first letter I ever had. I read it to Nim, to Teacher Sorrel, to the cat and to my mother. So now my mother knows about the window. That was my fault, not yours.

I have a new question. How many books are there in the Archive?

At school we have thirty-one books. I have read twenty of them. The best one is about a dog who walks all the way from Saltreach to Copperhold to find his family. The worst one is about counting sheep. Teacher Sorrel says it is a useful book. I fell asleep in it.

Are there more books at Vell than wheat plants in a field? Are there more books than people? Do you have a book about foxes? I want a fox.

From Bel, age nine and a half, Three Wells
%%
Letter: Oren to Bel, how many books
Dear Bel,

That is a very good question. I am a clerk, so I counted.

On the first morning of this month, the Archive held forty-one thousand, two hundred and six records. A record is anything written down: a book, a letter, a notice, a recipe, a song, a list. By evening there were forty-one thousand, two hundred and thirty, because the carts came in. By the time you read this, there will be more. People do not stop writing. I am glad they do not.

So yes, there are more records than wheat plants in a field. I asked a farmer. There are not more records than people, not yet. We are working on it.

The Archive is dug into the hill under Vell. There are rooms and rooms of shelves, one after another, with stairs between them. It is cool and dry. We use lanterns behind glass, and no candles near the shelves. That is my rule. Some clerks say I am fussy about candles. I am fussy about candles.

Every record is copied by hand and filed by town and by year. Your letters are filed under Three Wells, under letters, under B. When you are old, you could come here and find them, in your own hand, just as you wrote them.

You asked about foxes. We have three records about foxes. One is a book about keeping foxes out of the chicken house. One is a song about a fox who steals a pie and gets away. And one is a letter from the relay keeper at Northpoint to her brother, about a white fox who steals socks. Its name is Sock. I am not supposed to have a favorite record. That one is my favorite.

I cannot send you a fox. I am sorry. I am sending you a copy of the song instead.

Oren
Clerk at the Archive at Vell
%%
Letter: Bel to the Archive, dreaming
Dear Oren,

Thank you for the fox song. I sang it to the cat. The cat left.

Now I have a hard question. At the fair I met an apprentice called Pip. It belongs to a farmer from Kettle Ridge, who won the prize for the biggest beetroot. Pip pulled the beetroot in a cart. Pip has copper hands and a squeaky knee.

At night after the fair, all the carts stood in the square. Pip was standing very still beside its cart. Its eyes were dim. I stood next to it for a long time. The farmer said it was resting.

Can apprentices dream?

If Pip was dreaming, I think it was about beetroot. The farmer said he did not know. I said I would ask the Archive. So I am asking.

My mother says apprentices are like carts, and carts do not dream. But carts do not stand next to you in a friendly way. Pip did.

From Bel, age nine and a half, Three Wells

P.S. I am writing very neatly, because it will be kept.
%%
Letter: Oren to Bel, about dreaming
Dear Bel,

Your question was too hard for a clerk, so I took it to someone wiser. I took it down the hall to Nessa, who teaches the apprentices here at Vell. She has taught more minds than anyone I know.

I asked her: Can apprentices dream?

She thought about it for a long time. Then she said no. She said an apprentice does not sleep the way we do. When it stands still at night, its mind is resting, like a lamp that is not lit. It is not thinking about beetroot. It is not thinking at all. In the morning the lamp is lit again. It remembers everything it learned, but nothing new has happened inside it in the night.

That is what Nessa said. Nessa is very exact, and she is usually right.

But I will tell you something else, because a clerk should write down everything he sees. Every evening, when Nessa leaves the drill room, she stops at the door. She looks back at the apprentices standing in their row, still and dim. And she says: Goodnight. I have seen her do it a hundred times.

So I think the true answer is this: nobody knows. When nobody knows, a clerk writes down that nobody knows. That is an answer too, and an honest one.

I liked what you wrote about carts. I have filed that sentence under things worth keeping.

Oren
Clerk at the Archive at Vell
%%
Letter: Bel to the Archive, a copy
Dear Oren,

This is not a hard question. It is a favor.

You keep all my letters. You said they are under Three Wells, under letters, under B. That is good. But I do not have them. I only have yours. I keep yours in a box under my bed, with my best stone and a green ribbon from the fair.

Can I keep a copy of my letter? Only one. The first one, about the relays. I want to show my grandmother. She lives at Lowmarsh and mends nets. She does not believe I wrote to the Archive. She says the Archive is for important people.

I said I am important. She laughed. I want to show her she is wrong, nicely.

School news. Teacher Sorrel is teaching us to write letters properly. You start with Dear. You end with your name. In the middle you say what you mean. I knew that already, because of you.

Other news. Mayor Dace put a notice on the board. Pigs are not allowed in the square on market day. Everyone knows which pig.

From Bel, age nine and three quarters, Three Wells
%%
Letter: Oren to Bel, your own copy
Dear Bel,

Yes. Of course yes.

Here is your first letter, copied in my best hand. I copied it at my own desk in the quiet room, with a new quill and fresh ink. I copied every word just as you wrote it, even the part about the window. A clerk does not change what was written. That is the first rule of the Archive.

Copying is most of what we do here. Every record that comes to Vell is copied once for the shelves. The most important ones are copied again, and the second copy goes to a different room. If the first copy is lost, or wet, or eaten by silverfish, the second copy is still there. Two copies are safer than one. Three are safer than two. Some people say clerks are too careful. They have never met a silverfish.

So now there are three copies of your letter in the world. One is on the shelf under B. One is in the far room, in case of silverfish. And one is in your hand. That makes you the only person in Three Wells with a record from the Archive.

Show your grandmother. Tell her the Archive is for everyone who writes. That is not my rule. It is how the Archive began.

Your teacher is right. You start with Dear, you end with your name, and in the middle you say what you mean. Many grown people never learn the middle part.

Oren
Clerk at the Archive at Vell
%%
Letter: Bel to the Archive, the oldest
Dear Oren,

My grandmother read the copy three times. Then she said: Well. Then she gave me a jar of pickled fish, which is what she does when she is proud. I do not like pickled fish, but I liked the jar.

Here is my last question for this year. Teacher Sorrel says I must not use up the whole Archive.

What is the oldest record?

Is it older than my grandmother? She is very old. She remembers when there was no relay tower at Three Wells. She remembers when there were no apprentices at all, and people carried everything themselves, even the water. She says the buckets were heavier then. I do not know if that is true.

Is the oldest record on a shelf? Can you touch it? Does it say something important?

When I grow up I might be a clerk. Or a baker. Or a relay keeper, so I can blink at people.

From Bel, age ten, Three Wells

P.S. I am ten now.
%%
Letter: Oren to Bel, the oldest record
Dear Bel,

Happy birthday. Ten is a good age. It is old enough to ask about the oldest record, and young enough to still be surprised by the answer.

Yes, it is older than your grandmother. It is older than her grandmother's grandmother. It is from the first year of the Archive, more than two hundred years ago.

It is not a book. It is one page. It is kept in an oak box in the deepest room. We take it out once a year, on the day the Archive was founded. I have held it. My hands were shaking. I am not ashamed to say so.

At the top are the names of the people who started the Archive. They were not clerks, because there were no clerks yet. They were farmers and bakers and miners, ordinary people. Under their names they wrote one line:

We will keep everything we write.

That is all. That is the whole oldest record. Everything in the hill, all forty-one thousand records and more, comes from that one line.

Do you want to know the second oldest record? It is a recipe for bread. Somebody wrote down how to make bread, the very next day, so it would be kept. I have always thought that tells you something good about the people who started the Archive. First they made the promise. Then they kept the bread.

Tell your mother. She will like that one.

When you are older, come to Vell. You can be a clerk, or a tutor, or a relay keeper, or a baker who visits. You already write very well.

Oren
Clerk at the Archive at Vell
%%
Letter: Hesk to Rue, the Deep Works
Dear Rue,

You asked what the mine is like. I am no good at letters, so here it is plain.

Copperhold sits on the hill. Under the hill is the Deep Works. You go down by ladders and by the long stair. The first level is copper. The second is iron and coal. Below that it is deep stone, dark and hard, and it eats picks. I go through two picks a month down there. The smith knows me by my footsteps.

We work in shifts: morning, day and night. Down there it makes no difference. It is always night. You keep the torches lit, one every ten paces, and you never let one go out behind you. A dark tunnel is where the spiders wait. Skeletons too, on the lower levels. We carry swords, and we do not talk about it.

First rule of the mine: never dig straight down. Second rule: never dig straight up. Third rule: if you hear a hiss, run.

There is news. The Works got its first apprentice this spring. Iron and copper, wide as a door, with a mind trained for digging and hauling. The foreman gave it to my crew, because nobody else wanted it. I did not want it either. It makes a noise on the ladders, clank, clank, clank, so the crew called it Clank. Now that is its name.

On its first day Clank dug a hole straight down, because nobody had told it the first rule. I went down after it on a rope. It was standing at the bottom, looking up at me. I said: Clank, come. And it climbed up the rope after me. I do not know how. Now it knows the first rule.

How are the apple trees at Ambrook? How is your knee? Write back, and do not fuss.

Your brother,
Hesk
%%
Letter: Hesk to Rue, about Clank
Dear Rue,

Your honey came. The crew ate half before I got to it. I hid the rest in my boot. Thank you.

You asked about Clank. I said it was a tool. You said nobody writes a whole page about a tool. Fine. Here is more.

Clank carries ore up from the second level. It carries more than two of us together. It does not stop for lunch. It does not complain about the stairs. The crew liked it after a week, which is faster than they liked me.

The foreman wanted it to sort the ore too. Copper in the left cart, iron in the right cart, coal in the middle. So I did the drills, the way the tutors at Vell say. I held up a lump and said where it goes. Copper, left. Iron, right. Coal, middle. Over and over. At first it put everything in the middle. Then for a week it put the iron with the coal. I do not know why. Then one day it had it. Now it sorts a whole cart faster than I can say copper.

It still makes mistakes when the torches are low. Down there, wet copper looks like iron. That is fair. I make that mistake too.

At the end of the shift the crew goes up, and Clank waits at the foot of the long stair until I come. Then it walks home behind me and stands outside my door all night. I tell it home, and it goes to the store shed, where it belongs. In the morning it is outside my door again. I have stopped telling it home.

Do not tell the crew I talk to it.

Your brother,
Hesk
%%
Letter: Hesk to Rue, purple glass
Dear Rue,

I found something. I will tell it plain, but it is not a plain thing.

We were cutting a new tunnel on the second level, west side. Clank was ahead of me with the pick. Then it stopped. Clank does not stop. I came up with the torch and saw why. The wall in front of it had broken open. Behind it was a hollow in the rock, round like the inside of an egg, and the whole inside was purple. Purple glass, in points and clusters, growing out of the walls. When I held up the torch, it all lit at once.

Amethyst. A whole room of it.

The crew came. Then the foreman came. Then half of Copperhold came, in their night clothes, with lanterns. Everyone stood in the tunnel and said nothing for a while. For miners, that is a long time.

Clank stood at the edge and looked at it longer than any of us. I do not know what an apprentice sees. But it did not move until I said come.

We are cutting it out slowly, so we do not break the clusters. The foreman says most of it will go to the glassmakers at Vell, for spyglasses. He let each of us keep one piece. Mine is in this parcel.

Put it on your windowsill, where the morning sun comes in. It will throw purple on the kitchen wall. You always said the kitchen was too brown.

Your brother,
Hesk
%%
Letter: Hesk to Rue, the flood
Dear Rue,

First: I am fine. Everyone is fine. Read that twice before you read the rest.

Three nights ago the water came into the third level. We were cutting west, and we broke into an old pocket of water that nobody knew was there. It came out of the wall like a barrel with the bottom knocked out. Cold and loud. In a breath it was up to our knees.

I shouted for the crew to go up. Eleven on the shift. I counted them up the ladder, one, two, three, all the way to eleven. Then I went back for Clank. Clank was at the far end, and I did not know if it would come.

It came. It was carrying two picks and pushing a cart of coal, because nobody had told it to leave the coal. I said: Clank, leave it. Come. It put the cart down and came.

The water kept rising. The foreman said we would lose the level. Then he looked at Clank and said one word: build. Clank took a load of cobblestone down the ladder. It built a wall across the tunnel, stone by stone, following the pattern of the old wall beside it. The water pushed. The wall held. By morning the water had stopped rising. By the next night we had bailed most of it out with buckets.

The foreman says Clank saved the third level. The crew bought it a new copper plate for its chest. That is the closest thing to a thank you you can give an apprentice.

I lost my good pick. It is somewhere under the water, with my lunch.

I am fine. Do not worry. You will worry. Worry a little, then stop.

Your brother,
Hesk
%%
Letter: Wren to Nessa, about Moss
Dear Nessa,

I hope Vell is dry. Lowmarsh is not. Lowmarsh is never dry. The frogs like it.

I am writing because I need your help, and you are the only person I know who teaches minds.

This spring the council gave me an apprentice, to help in the healing house. It is small, and green with copper rust, so I named it Moss. It carries water from the well, stirs the pots and fetches things from the high shelves. It is very good at fetching. If I say bring me the honey, it brings me the honey.

But I want it to sort the herbs and flowers, and there it is not good. Last week I found lily of the valley in the dandelion jar. Lily of the valley is poison, Nessa. The two look nothing alike. One is white and one is yellow. I do not know how it made that mistake, and I am frightened of the next one.

I have been teaching it the way I would teach a child. I hold up a flower and say the name. Moss watches. Then it sorts, and it is wrong, and I say no, and we start again. I think I am doing it badly. I think I am too impatient. When it is wrong I want to shout, and I know shouting does nothing to a mind in a crystal.

How do you teach a mind gently? And how do you know when it has really learned, and was not just lucky?

I am sending a jar of honey for your throat. You sounded hoarse at the healers' meeting in spring. Honey in warm milk, before bed, every night. Do as I say. I am a healer.

Wren
Healing house, Lowmarsh
%%
Letter: Nessa to Wren, teaching gently
Dear Wren,

Thank you for the honey. I have taken it every night, as ordered. My voice is coming back. I lost it saying fetch bread four hundred times to a row of new apprentices. By the end I was whispering fetch bread, and they were still fetching carrots.

Now, Moss. Do not be frightened, and do not blame yourself. You are doing better than you think. Here is what I tell every new tutor.

One. A mind learns from examples. The same kind of example, again and again. Not one flower held up once, but a hundred flowers, one after another, every day. At first it will be wrong. Each time it is wrong, it changes a little. It is slow. It is meant to be slow.

Two. Be gentle, and be the same. You are right that shouting does nothing. But changing your words does a great deal. If you call it dandelion one day and yellow flower the next, Moss will learn less. Use the same name, the same way, every time.

Three. Look at what it is really looking at. A mind does not always learn what you think you are teaching. I once taught an apprentice to fetch apples, and it learned to fetch anything in a red basket. Perhaps Moss is not looking at the flower at all. Perhaps it looks at where you stand, or which hand you hold the flower in. Change those things and see.

Four. Keep some flowers back. Do not teach with all of them. Keep a basket aside that Moss has never seen. When you think it has learned, test it on that basket. If it sorts flowers it has never seen, it has learned. If it can only sort the ones you taught it with, it has only remembered.

Five. Never send an untested mind to the shelves. Not with poison in the house.

It may take a month, perhaps two. Write and tell me how it goes.

Nessa
Tutor of apprentices, Vell
%%
Letter: Wren to Nessa, remedies
Dear Nessa,

It was where I stood. You were right. Moss was not looking at the flowers at all. The dandelion jar is by the window, and I always stood by the window to hold up the yellow ones. So when I stood by the window with lily of the valley, into the dandelion jar it went.

So I moved about. I held the flowers in both hands. I kept a basket back, like you said. Yesterday I tested Moss on the basket it had never seen. Twenty flowers. It sorted all twenty. I sat down on the floor and laughed, and Moss stood beside me holding a dandelion. I think we were both pleased.

You have been so useful that here is something useful back. These are the simple remedies I give everyone. Pin them up in the tutors' house at Vell, where you can all ignore them.

For a cut: clean water, then a clean cloth. Keep it dry.
For a sore throat: honey in warm milk, before bed.
For poison: honey, quickly, and then send for a healer.
For a burn: cool water, never snow.
For a fever: rest, water and a cool cloth. Broth when they can eat.
For the very sick: a golden apple. They cost too much, so I hope you never need one.
For tiredness: sleep. Nobody at Vell does this. Try it.

Moss has a new job. It carries the broth to the sick beds, very slowly, and never spills. The children in the healing house call it the soup apprentice.

Wren
Healing house, Lowmarsh
%%
Letter: Nessa to Wren, Moss passes
Dear Wren,

Twenty out of twenty, on a basket it had never seen. That is a pass, and a good one. Write it down. Write the day and the score and put it on the wall. When you are sure of a mind, you should be able to say why you are sure.

Your remedies are pinned up in the tutors' house, by the door, where everyone sees them. Two tutors have already tried honey in warm milk. One of them slept through the morning drills. I am not sure whether to thank you.

Your letter made me think of the old days. When I was young, there were very few apprentices, and none of them understood an order. You had to show them everything with your own hands. Then one spring, in the drill room at Vell, an apprentice was told: bring me some bread. And it turned around and fetched the bread. Nobody had shown it bread that day. We cheered so loudly that the clerks came up from the Archive to complain.

Now there is an apprentice in your healing house, carrying soup to the children. After all these years, that still seems a wonder to me.

Next, teach Moss the herbs in the wet season, when they look different. A mind that only knows dry flowers will be lost when they are wet. Then teach it the remedies, one at a time. Keep a basket back every time.

And come to Vell in the autumn. The clerks need a talk on herbs, and I need someone who will tell me to sleep.

Nessa
Tutor of apprentices, Vell
%%
Letter: Corin to Ossie, the yard
Dear Ossie,

How is the marsh? Have you caught anything with legs yet? I still cannot believe you left the sea for a place where the water does not move. You will grow reeds out of your ears.

Here at Saltreach everything is the same. That is to say, everything is wet and smells of fish. The boats go out before dawn and come back at noon. If the catch is good, the whole dock knows it by the singing. If it is bad, they come in quiet, and nobody asks.

The yard is busy. We have three boats up on the slip for mending. The slip is the long stone ramp where we build boats and slide them into the sea. One of the three is old Sal's boat. It has been mended so many times that I do not think one plank is left from when it was new. She says it is still the same boat. I asked her how. She said: Because I say so. You cannot argue with Sal.

We have apprentices in the yard now, two of them. They haul planks from the wood store to the slip. They hold a plank steady while we fix it, for as long as you like, without shaking. Anyone gets tired holding a plank. An apprentice does not. The old shipwrights grumbled for a week. Now they would not give them back for a cart of emeralds.

Yesterday a dolphin followed the boats in from the bay. It jumped beside the harbor wall all afternoon, and the children threw it fish. Do you remember when we were boys, and we tried to ride one? We did not ride it. We swam home.

Write and tell me about the marsh. Tell me the frogs are good company. I will not believe you.

Corin
The yard, Saltreach
%%
Letter: Corin to Ossie, a new boat
Dear Ossie,

Big news from the yard. We are building a new fishing boat. A whole new one, from the keel up, the first in three years.

The fishers came to me together, all eight families. They had been saving for a long time. They put a bag of emeralds on my bench and said: We want a boat that does not leak. I said: None of my boats leak. They looked at me. I said: None of my new boats leak.

So we started. The keel is one long piece of oak, from the forest past Ambrook. It took four horses and both apprentices to bring it down the Long Road. The whole town came out to watch it arrive. We laid it on the slip. Now we are building the ribs out of spruce, one after another, like the bones of a fish.

The apprentices help with the ribs. I cut the first one and fixed it in place. Then the second. Then I showed them the pattern, and they cut the rest the same way, every rib the same curve, neat as teeth. I checked each one with my hands. I could not find a fault. I tried hard, too, because I have my pride.

Every evening half of Saltreach comes down to the yard to look at the boat and give advice. I have had more advice than nails. Old Sal says the boat should be longer. The fish seller says it should be wider. The children say it should be red.

It will be red.

When it is done, come to the launch. Bring frogs if you must.

Corin
The yard, Saltreach
%%
Letter: Corin to Ossie, the launch
Dear Ossie,

You did not come to the launch. I forgive you, because of the frogs you sent. Please do not send more frogs. They live in the rain barrel now, and they sing all night.

The boat is done. She is red, as promised. The fishers named her the Good Morning. That is what they say to each other on the dock, before the sun is up.

We launched her at high tide. The whole town came down. We knocked out the blocks, and she slid down the slip, slow at first and then fast. She hit the water with a great splash that soaked the mayor and three children. The children were delighted. The mayor was less delighted. Then she floated, straight and level. I went down into her with a lantern and looked at every seam. Dry. I came up and everyone cheered, and I pretended I had never been worried.

The next morning she went out with the boats. She came back at noon, low in the water with cod and salmon, and the fishers came in singing. The first fish from a new boat goes to the shipwright. That is the rule here. So I had it for supper, with potatoes, and it was the best fish I have ever eaten. It may have been an ordinary fish. I do not care.

I am sending you a box of dried kelp and some salted cod, so you remember what real fish tastes like. Come to the sea in summer. We will go out in the Good Morning, and I will show you water that moves.

Corin
The yard, Saltreach
%%
Letter: Ida to Jory, the flour
Dear Jory,

I am writing about the flour.

The last six sacks you sent to my bakery had grit in them. Not a little grit. A lot of grit. I sifted the first sack twice, and there was still grit. I baked with it anyway, because it was market day and the town must eat.

My customers say my bread crunches. Bread should not crunch, Jory. A pie may crunch a little at the edge. Bread, never.

On market day Mayor Dace bought a bun from my stall, as he does every week. He bit into it in front of the whole square and made a face I will never forget. Then he took a small stone out of his mouth and held it up to the light. He was polite about it. He said: A very firm bun, Ida. But everyone saw.

Also, two of the six sacks were short. I weighed them on my own scale, which is honest, and each one was light by a good handful.

I have bought my flour from the mill at Ambrook for nine years. Your father's flour was the best on the Long Road, and yours was too, until this spring. I do not want to buy from the windmills at Kettle Ridge. Their flour is fine, but it is not yours.

So please tell me what has happened. Send me clean flour, in full sacks. I will not pay for the six sacks until I hear from you.

Ida
Baker, Three Wells
%%
Letter: Jory to Ida, an apology
Dear Ida,

You are right, and I am sorry.

I read your letter and went straight to the mill. I opened a sack from the same day and baked a loaf with it myself. I am not a baker, so it was a bad loaf. It was also a crunchy loaf. I nearly broke a tooth. I thought of the mayor and felt sick.

Here is what happened. In the spring the old millstone cracked, and I put in a new one. A new stone sheds grit for the first weeks, until it wears smooth. My father always said: run a new stone with old grain for a month before you sell what it makes. I forgot. I was in a hurry. That is not a good reason. It is only the reason.

The new stone is smooth now. I have run it for a month, as my father said. I tasted the flour this morning, and it is clean.

I am sending you eight sacks of clean flour with Pell's cart, on the next market day. Six are for the six bad ones. Two are for the trouble. You owe me nothing for any of them. The sacks are full. I weighed them twice, and then Pell weighed them again, because Pell does not trust anyone.

Please tell Mayor Dace I am sorry about his tooth.

Your miller, if you will still have me,
Jory
The mill, Ambrook
%%
Letter: Jory to Ida, not about flour
Dear Ida,

This letter is not about flour.

The flour is fine. You said so. You said the new sacks were the best you have had in years. I read that line many times. More times than anyone should read a line about flour.

So this is about something else. I am not good at it, so I will just say it.

For nine years I have brought my own flour to Three Wells on market day, when I could have sent it with the carts. I told myself it was to see the market. It was not to see the market. It was to buy a loaf at your stall and hear you say: Back again, Jory? And I would say: Back again.

I like the way you laugh at the mayor when he is not looking. I like that you weigh my sacks on your own scale. I like that you were angry about the grit, because it meant you cared about the bread more than anything. I would like to be cared about like that.

The apple trees at Ambrook will flower in a few weeks. The mill pond is very fine then, with blossom on the water. If you would like to come and see it, I would walk with you around the pond. Just once around. It is not very big. We could go around twice.

If you would rather not, write back about flour. I will understand, and I will still bring my flour on market day.

Jory
%%
Letter: Tobin to the keeper
To the keeper of the relay tower at Northpoint,

My name is Tobin. I trade wool and leather on the north road. You will remember me, I think. I hope you have forgotten what I looked like when you found me.

I was caught in the snow at the end of the cold month. The wind came up so fast I could not see the road, or my own hands. My mule lay down and would not get up. I lost the road. I walked for a long time. I did not think I would see morning.

Then I saw a light. Up high, blinking. I did not know what it was. I only knew it was not snow. So I walked toward it. Every time the snow hid it, I stood still and waited until it blinked again. That is how I came to your door.

You took me in. You gave me rabbit stew and a seat by the stove, and a red and brown scarf to wrap my feet in. Your apprentice went out into the storm. It came back with my mule, my packs, and half a spruce tree it had picked up on the way. Your fox sat on my boots all night, I think to keep them for herself.

I am home now, at the foot of the north road, with all my toes. My wife made me promise to write to you. I would have written anyway.

Thank you for keeping the lamp lit. Before, I thought the relay lamps were for words. They are for people too.

If you ever come south, there is a bed in my house and a seat at my table. There is also a pair of wool socks with your name on them. Your fox may not have them.

With all my thanks,
Tobin
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Letter: Brin to Hal, the sheep
Dear Hal,

Your mother says I must tell you about Biscuit before you hear it from someone else. Everyone on the Long Road has heard it already. You may as well hear it from me.

Biscuit got out. You know Biscuit. The fat one with the black face, who ate your mother's hat. On the first warm day of spring she found the gap in the fence by the north windmill, and off she went.

She did not go to the field. She went down the ridge road to the Kettle Inn and walked in at the front door. The innkeeper says she stood by the fire for a while, ate the flowers off a table and walked out the back.

Then she went down the Long Road. A wool trader saw her at the bridge, going south. He said she was walking fast, like someone late for market. She spent the night in a barn by the road, with the cows. The cows did not mind.

On market day she arrived at Three Wells. She walked into the square, right past the notice that says no pigs. She is not a pig, so nobody stopped her. She ate the flowers out of the mayor's window box. Mayor Dace came out and looked at her. The whole square looked at her. She looked back at them. Then she lay down by the north well and went to sleep.

Ida the baker gave her a bun. That is how I found her. I walked all the way down to Three Wells. There she was, asleep, with crumbs on her face and half the town around her.

I walked her home. It took three days. She stopped to eat at every inn.

I have mended the fence. Your mother says Biscuit is now the most famous sheep on the Long Road. Your mother is proud of her. I am not proud of her. I am tired.

Your mother says hello, and asks if they feed you at Vell. Come home for the shearing. You can shear Biscuit. She will not like it. Good.

Your father,
Brin
Kettle Ridge
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Letter: Tilly to Bumble
Dear Bumble,

Mother says you cannot read. I am writing to you anyway. Teacher says apprentices learn from examples, so this is an example of a nice letter. You can learn it.

Thank you for carrying me home when I fell out of the apple tree. My knee is better now. It is a good scab. I will show you.

Thank you for looking after the bees. You do not get stung, because you are made of copper. I get stung, because I am made of me. That is not fair, but it is not your fault.

Father is away on the Long Road with Barley and the honey. He will be gone a long time. I am counting the days on the kitchen wall. Until he comes home, you are the tallest one in our house. Please do not step on the cat.

When Father comes home, I will polish you with the soft cloth until you shine like a new pot. I will do your hands first, because they do the most work.

Here are some nice words for you to learn. Good morning. Thank you. Well done, Bumble. Tilly loves you.

Your friend,
Tilly
Age seven, Ambrook

P.S. If you can read this, blink twice.
