Science, Eternal Life, and a Traveling Circus |1|

Chapter Two

Alyn shot up the stairwells, grinning with excitement. The offensive odor of the living corpse hardly bothered her now that it marked something so interesting, so new, and so utterly bizarre.

Her hand ran over the thin wall, running over the flaking paint and chipped wallpaper that poorly concealed holed and moth-bitten plaster and crumbling brick. The boards of the stairs were mismatched, repaired by students and teachers constantly since the school's opening. Some were the original wood, some were artificial wood or synthetic vinyl, and others were sheets of metal. It created a cacophony of sounds that chased her with each step, up and up and up. There was a pattern on the wallpaper, but there was so little left of it that it made little sense, and by the third level, it was mostly chewed away to expose the plaster beneath. The tunnel homes of long-dead insects wounded the thin walls like bullet holes.

There was noise at this level, and as Alyn stepped into the hall, she saw multiple heads poked from the six doorways along the corridor, noses pinched against the stink, and voices raised in complaint.

"What's that smell?"

"What's the hermit up to?"

The girl followed their glares to a hole in the ceiling, from which a steep, narrow steel staircase unfolded, and she tumbled towards it. They led her to a landing, which stopped at a wall. A platform spread from left to right. She clambered onto the landing.

The ceiling of the cramped space was slanted so that if she stood by the wall where the staircase ended, she had to hunch. If she walked away from it, about a meter, there was a partition wall with an open door.

"You'll cough up anything I care to give you, idiot," came a harsh, unkind drawl from behind the wall. Alyn peeked through the doorway, into a cozy blacksmithing classroom. Octienne's friend prowled the floor. "You are extremely malnourished. Recovery won't be immediate. Drink the damn water, and don't ask for more than what I give you."

Abraham limply sprawled in a wooden chair, clutching a tin mug. He meekly obeyed the giant and hiccuped quietly after a few swallows.

Alyn crept into the attic room. The boards creaked under her weight.

The whiskered bear of a man turned his head, brown eyes narrowed. Loose strands of hair shadowed his eyes, making the dark circles beneath appear darker. His lips twitched downwards, his whiskers shifted.

The young journeyman extended her hand and bounded towards him, all cheer. He was supposed to be delighted to meet her.

He regarded her blandly; cold brown eyes glancing over her, lip curled. His hair was graying, carrying scattered traces of dark brown and tawny color. Thick black rubber boots protected his shins, scuffed with burns and ashes from his trade. A hole, burned straight through the right, revealed his big toe in its thick stocking.

His whiskers quivered in a scowl and his cold gaze moved from her extended hand. He ignored the gesture to look over the rest of her, quickly. "An orphan," he muttered.

Alyn took a step back to take him without craning her neck. Perhaps the oversized clothing added to her impression of his size—or perhaps it was merely the comparison to her own malnourished frame and inferior standing of four-feet and nine inches (and a centimeter). His patched, fraying, and faded trench coat covered his palms when his arms were straight. When bent, the sleeves slid just to the heels of his hands, where he wore threadbare fingerless gloves in stained black. His bracers, straps faded to a blotched brown and pushed out by a pot belly, attached to grayed slacks that were carelessly stuffed into his boots.

"I'm Alyn," introduced Alyn. A sheepish smile unmasked the gap between her two front teeth. She withdrew her rejected hand and buried it in her well-worn bomber jacket pocket. Delighted, indeed.