23.7
It wasn’t that Val had wanted to stay on the first floor of the tower; he just hadn’t understood what was happening until Cassidy was halfway up the stairs with the princes and it was too late to protest. He still only had the most basic grasp on what Cassidy and the schoolchildren had been arguing about, but he knew he’d been volunteered to stay behind. Which was fine by Val–he still hadn’t gotten to rest since yesterday. Let John do all of the stair climbing and interacting with whatever a “floor master” was.
Dismayingly, there was nowhere to sit down or rest on the first floor landing. It was more of a lobby area, with the staircase that led up to the second floor landing and a hallway that led deeper into the tower. There was probably a kitchen somewhere back there, and a dining hall where the children could eat meals together. Bedrooms, too, unless each floor had its own set of dormitories. It all vaguely reminded Val of the convent, if the convent had been stacked into a vertical space rather than spread out over acres of land.
Several of the schoolchildren were still gathered at the second floor railing, blinking owlishly down at Val. Val understood–any excuse to abandon their studies was a good one, and strangers showing up to the tower was particularly interesting. He was beginning to get the idea that these children were cloistered like the novitiates in New Orleans were, but didn’t have the vocabulary to confirm it.
“I guess none of you speak English,” he said aloud, on the off-chance that any of the children did. He doubted it. None of them had spoken up to help translate since Val, John, and the princes had walked through the door.
The schoolchildren talked amongst themselves for a moment.
“Redstu yidish?” one of them returned.
Val sensed that his own question was being turned back on him. He understood a few words in Yiddish that he’d gleaned from Johannes, but nothing that felt especially useful right now. He shook his head.
“Daytsh?” The same voice asked.
Val shook his head again. He was beginning to understand Cassidy’s frustration with the fact that neither he nor John could speak any of the local languages.
The schoolchildren were murmuring amongst themselves, still. Some broke off from the group at the railing and disappeared beyond the bookshelves, apparently eager to get back to their studies. Or bored with the stranger who only spoke English. Maybe both, in some cases.
Val sat on a step at the bottom of the staircase, legs splayed out in front of him. He’d seen the commotion when John had tried to ascend to the second floor with Cassidy; he had no desire to cause another stir, or make the children think he intended to challenge the floor master. Instead, he tipped his head back and stared towards the ceiling, wondering to himself exactly how many floors the princes were going to have to walk up before they were allowed to plead their case for staying here. Hopefully Cassidy was breezing through the tests. They’d seemed to know what they were doing, in any case.
The lights in the tower were dim, mostly flickering oil lamps mounted to the walls. Still, Val closed his eyes against them and, without really meaning to, fell asleep.
*
Something nudged him in the ribs. Children were tittering and laughing very close to his ears. Val groaned–he was unsurprised to find his throat dry and scratchy from snoring–and opened his eyes.
There was a girl standing across from him. Older than the other children he’d seen so far; maybe sixteen or seventeen. She was dressed in an oversized sweater and dark pants, eating an apple, and regarding Val through half-lidded eyes as a stream of younger children flowed around and past him on the steps. Val stared back at her, still not entirely awake.
“Gutn morgn,” the girl said, deadpan. Val could guess what it meant, and felt horror begin to creep over him.
“Did I sleep here all night?” he asked. Then his memory caught up to him–she probably couldn’t understand what he’d asked. “Uh. Wait–”
The girl flapped a hand at him before he could say more. “No Yiddish. I know. You’ve been asleep for an hour, maybe.”
“You speak English?” Val asked.
“Best in my class,” the girl said. Her short hair was flat on one side and sticking straight up on the other, like she’d also been asleep and hadn’t had time to fix it. “The first-years wanted me to tell you that you’re in the way. And that it’s dinnertime.”
The children stampeding around him on the stairs suddenly made sense. They had mostly filed out by now, and Val took advantage of the regained personal space to slowly rise to his feet, using the bannister for balance. He winced as something in his spine popped, stomach arms wriggling against their hidden sheathe inside his shirt as pain radiated up his lower back. Evidently, he was getting too old to fall asleep sitting up.
“I’m not hungry,” he said. He probably needed to eat something, but he wouldn’t have felt right doing it without John and the princes.
“Yes, you are,” the girl said, and threw an apple at him. Val fumbled it, still somewhat bleary, but still managed to catch it before it hit the ground.
“Okay,” he said. He knew better than to argue with a teenage girl. “Thank you. For the apple.”
She flapped her hand at him again. “I’m Alte. You are?”
“Valerie.” Val took a bite of the apple, and swallowed. It was good. “Val is fine.”
Alte mirrored Val, taking another bite of her own apple, then asked, “Where are you from?”
“New Orleans,” he said. “That’s in America. I grew up in a convent.”
Alte nodded sagely. “Goyische.”
“I know that one,” Val said. He’d heard the Madsen and Graves brothers sling the term around; the context was more obvious in hindsight. Alte raised her eyebrows at him in a silent invitation to continue, so he did. “My–someone I traveled with spoke Yiddish. With his family. He didn’t teach me any, but I picked up a few things like that.”
Another nod from Alte. She was leaning sideways against the wall and staring at him again, sizing him up.
“What happened to your neck?” she asked.
Val’s fingers flew to the bandage in spite of himself. It was peeling; he checked to make sure all the younger kids had gone before he unstuck the bandage the rest of the way to show Alte the healing bite wound. She made a face.
“Someone bit you?”
“On the boat, after we left America,” Val said. He really didn’t feel like explaining the Demeter twice in one day.
Luckily, Alte didn’t seem to care for much more explanation than that. She turned on her heel and gestured for Val to come along with her, only pausing long enough to make sure he’d actually begun to walk before she started off down one of the first floor hallways. She was fast, but Val had the advantage of much longer legs, and kept pace with her easily.
“You’ll come up with me,” she said. “To the tenth years’ floor. We have bandages, and better places to sleep than the stairs. And the first years will leave you alone.”
“I thought you had to take tests to get up and down the floors,” Val said. He still wasn’t entirely clear on that part.
Alte gave him a bemused look. “That’s why I’m sneaking you up the back staircase. You thought we only had one set of stairs?”
Val shrugged back at her. He hadn’t given much thought to the layout of the tower, but a second staircase did make sense now that she mentioned it. With this many students in one place, you’d probably need more than one way to get up and down the tower.
“But you’ll probably have to answer questions anyway,” she added. “Everyone’s still studying. They’re going to use you to practice English and philosophy.”
“I was a priest,” he said flatly. “I’m used to it.”
“Was?” Alte asked, glancing sideways at him. Now it was Val’s turn to flap a hand dismissively at her, as they turned the corner and found themselves at the foot of a stone staircase that spiraled up and out of sight onto higher floors.
“Ask me when we get to the top,” he said, then amended, “if I make it there.”
He hadn’t thought until just now about how much climbing ten floors’ worth of stairs was. It would be a miracle if he made it to five without collapsing.
Alte broke into a grin. “You’ll be fine.”
Val sighed. “Well, no reward without pain.”
“What a Catholic thing to say,” Alte replied, in what Val was beginning to understand as her usual wry manner, and started up the stairs.
Val started to protest, thought better of it, and began his ascent behind her.
23.6 || 23.8
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