‘Never mind,’ Weaver says. ‘We can talk about that later. I brought pen and paper.’ She pulls a slim notebook from her pocket. The covers are well-worn, stained leather, and the pages are yellowed on the edges. She places the book on the girl’s lap and a pen on top of it. ‘If you know how to read,’ Weaver says, ‘please, write down your name.’
The girl stares at the blank page. We wait. After a long moment, she shakes her head, slowly and painfully.
None of us is surprised. Word-skill is only taught in the House of Words, and women are not allowed there. Most women on the island are illiterate.
‘Whereabouts in the city are you from?’ Weaver tries. ‘Can you draw that for us?’
The girl’s face changes slowly like shadows on a wall. Eventually she draws an elongated lump that bears a vague resemblance to a fish.
‘The island?’ Weaver asks.
The girl nods. Her hand shakes a little, as if the pen is too heavy between her fingers. She marks a cross in the northwest corner of the lump.
‘The Ink Quarters?’ Weaver says. I have only been there a couple of times. I remember narrow streets thick with pungent smells, canals where water ran strange-coloured, and tall, vast buildings with darkened windows you could not see through. Gondolas carrying blood coral in large cages to be ground in the ink factories, and red-dye transported from the factories to the harbours in big glass bottles.
The girl nods again.
‘Are you able to tell us anything about the person who attacked you?’ Weaver asks.
The girl lifts two fingers.
‘Do you mean there were two of them?’
The girl begins to nod, but pain cuts across her face and stops the movement short.
Weaver looks like she is about to say something else, but a few red drops fall onto the page from between the girl’s lips. A narrow trickle of blood follows. Alva’s face is taut. She pushes Weaver and me to the side. The glass jar in her hand is still holding the medusa, which lies motionless, like a plucked petal.
‘Open,’ Alva orders.
I only realize now why the girl cannot talk. I only catch a brief glance at her mouth, but that is enough. Where the tongue should be, there is only a dark, marred mass of muscle, still a bleeding, open wound. I have to turn away for a moment. Alva holds a towel under the girl’s chin, fishes the medusa out from the glass jar and slides it into the girl’s mouth. Relief spreads on the girl’s face.
‘She is in a lot of pain,’ Alva says. ‘She must rest. But there is one more thing.’
She places the jar on the night table and picks up the glow-glass. She turns to look at me.
‘Are you certain you don’t know her?’
The question makes no sense. I look at the girl again, just to be certain, although I do not need to. She has closed her eyes and her breathing is turning even. Her muscles twitch slightly. She does not open her eyes.
‘Of course I’m certain,’ I say.
Weaver stares at Alva, then at me, then at Alva again.
‘Why do you ask such a thing?’ she says.
Alva steps right next to the girl. She does not react when Alva takes her hand and gently coaxes open the fingers closed in a loose fist.
‘Because of this,’ Alva says and turns the palm upwards. The light from the glow-glass falls on it. Bright marks begin to glow on the skin, the letters forming a word I recognize immediately.
Eliana.
My name.
The girl’s hand is narrow in the grip of Alva’s fingers, the angles of her bones sharp around the dent of her palm. I am aware of Alva’s and Weaver’s attention, a tense net around me. But I have done this countless times before. I turn the perception inside out, as if I am focusing my eyes on something close by and letting the background soften into a haze where all boundaries are unclear. I look at the letters as if they are mere contours and colours in a landscape, akin to cracks in the walls of houses, or the black and green algae growing in the canals.
I turn to look at Weaver, taking care not to let my face reveal a thing.
‘What does it say?’ I ask.
Weaver does not answer immediately. Her gaze perseveres in the dusk, but I do not shiver under it.
‘Has your brother not taught you anything?’ she asks.
‘He never thought it necessary,’ I respond.
Weaver is still looking at me when Alva says, ‘Eliana, someone tattooed your name on this girl’s palm in invisible ink.’
I let my face and body react as they should. They adjust to the situation. I know what Weaver reads on them: surprise, confusion, just the right amount of alarm.
‘I don’t know her,’ I say. ‘I’ve never seen her before.’
‘Eliana is not a common name,’ Weaver says.
It is true. I am the only one in the House of Webs, although there must be others on the island.
‘Maybe it’s her name,’ I suggest. ‘Have you asked?’
Alva sighs.
‘Of course I did. And no, it’s not her name. Or so she claims, at least.’
‘Quite a coincidence,’ Weaver says. She turns to Alva. ‘This is no ordinary tattoo.’
‘No,’ Alva says.
She covers the glow-glass with a towel, reaches for the window and parts the curtain slightly. The early-morning light floats into the room, settles on the girl’s skin. The letters turn invisible. Her palm looks no different than mine; only a few lines and callouses are discernible on it.
‘Interesting,’ Weaver says. ‘I have not seen one of those before.’
‘Neither have I,’ Alva says.
She lets the curtain fall back to cover the window and removes the towel from the top of the glow-glass. My gaze turns towards the letters as their outlines slowly grow visible. They run across the narrow lines on the girl’s palm, towards the fingers closed around my name, as if to keep it safe. Alva places the girl’s hand back on the blanket.
‘We must let her sleep.’ Alva’s voice is firm.
Weaver turns to face me.
‘You may return to your room,’ she says. ‘I will let the City Guard know about this as soon as the watergraph is working again.’
I bow my head slightly in acknowledgement of the order.
‘And keep me up to date about her condition,’ Weaver says to Alva.
The girl’s eyes crack open and close again. Her breathing flows calm and even. The pain seems to be gone for now, and the bleeding has stopped. Very gently Alva coaxes the girl’s mouth open, holds the towel and the glass jar against her skin and pulls the medusa out. Its lifeless weight drops into the jar, where the bright-red blood tendrils begin to spread through the water cradling its dead body.
Alva picks up the cup from the night table. We turn to go.
After the warmth of the sick bay, the morning is cold around us. Weaver stops a few footsteps ahead of me.
‘I don’t expect you in the Halls of Weaving until this afternoon,’ she says.