It was interesting, Kira decided, that they had found a way for water to enter the building, but impractical and unsanitary, and there was no place to bury waste. She wiped the cold water from her face and hands with the cloth she found in the tiled room and decided that she would return to the stream each day to attend to her needs properly.
She dressed quickly, laced her sandals, pulled the wooden comb through her long hair, grabbed her stick, and hurried through the empty corridor to leave her new home and go for a morning walk. But before she had gone very far, a door in the corridor opened. A boy she recognized emerged and spoke to her.
"Kira the Threader," he said. "They told me you had come."
"You’re the Carver," she said. "Jamison told me you were here."
"Yes, I’m Thomas." He grinned at her. He seemed about her age, not long into two syllables, and was a good-looking boy with clear skin and bright eyes. His hair was thick and reddish-brown. A chip in one front tooth showed when he smiled.
"This is where I live," he explained. He opened the door wider so that she could see inside. His room was just like hers, though on this, the opposite side of the corridor, his window view was to the wide central square. She noticed too that his room seemed more of a lived-in place. His things were strewn around.
"This is my workroom too." He gestured, and she could see a large table with his carving tools and scraps of wood. "And there’s a storage room, for supplies." He pointed.
"Yes, mine’s the same," Kira told him. "My supply room has lots of drawers. I haven’t started work yet, but there’s a table under the windows, and the light is good there. I think that’s where I’ll do the threading.
"And there — that door? That’s your cooking water and your tub?" Kira asked him. "Do you use it? It seems such a bother, when the stream’s so nearby."
"The tenders will show you how it works," he explained.
"Tenders?"
"The one who brought your food? That’s a tender. They’ll help you however you want. And a guardian will be checking on you every day."
Good. Thomas seemed to know how things worked. It would be a help, Kira thought, because it all seemed so new, so foreign. "Have you lived here a long time?" she asked politely.
"Yes," he replied. "Since I was quite young."
"How did it happen that you came here?"
The boy frowned, thinking back. "I had just begun carving. I was a very little tyke, but somehow I had discovered that if I took a sharp tool and a piece of wood, I could make pictures.
"Everyone thought it was quite amazing." He laughed. "I guess it was."
Kira laughed a little too, but she was remembering herself, very small, finding that her fingers had a kind of magic to them when she held the colored threads, seeing her mother’s astonishment and the look on the face of the Guardian. It must have been the same, she thought, for this boy.
"Somehow the Guardians heard about my work. They came to our cott and admired it."
So similar, Kira thought.
"Then," Thomas continued, "not long after, my parents were both killed during a storm. Struck by lightning, both at once."
Kira was shocked. She had heard of trees felled by lightning. But not people. The people didn’t go out during thunderstorms. "Were you there? How did you stay safe?"
"No, I was alone at the cott. My parents were doing an errand of some sort. I remember that a messenger had been sent for them. But then some guardians came and got me and told me of their deaths. It was fortunate that they knew of me and felt that my work was of value, even though I was still small. Otherwise, I would have simply been given away. But instead, they brought me here.
"I’ve been here ever since." He gestured around the room. "For a long time I practiced, and learned. And I’ve made ornaments for many of the guardians. Now, though, I do real work. Important work." He pointed, and she could see that a long piece of wood was resting against the table, leaning in the same way that she leaned her walking stick. But this stick was intricately decorated, and from the shavings on the table she could tell that the boy had been working on it.
"They’ve given me wonderful tools," Thomas told her.
Outside, the bell rang. Kira was disconcerted. Back in the cott, the sound of the bell meant that it was time to go to work. "Should I go back to my quarters?" she asked. "I was going to walk to the stream."
Thomas shrugged. "It doesn’t matter. You can do whatever you want. There are no real rules. Only that you are required to do the work you were brought here for. They’ll check on your work every day.
"I’m going out now to visit my mother’s sister. She has a new tyke. A girl. Look! I’m taking a toy." He reached into his pocket and showed Kira an intricately carved bird. It was hollow; he held it to his mouth and made it whistle. "I made it yesterday," he explained. "It took time from my regular work, but not much. It was easy to do.
"I’ll be back for lunch," he added, "because I have work to do this afternoon. Shall I bring my lunch tray to your quarters so that we can eat together?"
Kira agreed happily.
"And look," he said, "here comes the tender who’ll pick up the morning trays. She’s very nice. You ask her — No, wait. I’ll ask her."
While Kira watched curiously, Thomas approached the tender and spoke briefly to her. She nodded.
"You follow her back to your quarters, Kira," Thomas said. "You don’t need to go to the stream. She’ll explain the bathroom to you. See you at lunch!" He put the little carved bird into his pocket, closed the door to his room, and headed down the corridor. Kira followed the tender back the way she had come.
Jamison came to her room shortly after lunch. Thomas had eaten and hurried away to his quarters to resume work. Kira had just gone into the small room lined with drawers and slid open the one containing the Singer’s robe. She had not yet unfolded it. She had never been permitted to touch it before and was in awe now and a little nervous. She was staring down at the lavishly decorated fabric, remembering her mother’s deft hands holding the bone needle, when she heard the knock on her door and then heard Jamison come in.
"Ah," he said. "The robe."
"I was thinking that I must soon begin my duties," Kira told him, "but I’m almost afraid to start. This is so new to me."
He lifted the robe from the drawer and carried it to the table by the window. There in the light the colors were even more magnificent and Kira felt even more inadequate.
"Are you comfortable here? You slept well? They brought your food? It was good?"
So many questions. Kira considered whether to tell him how restlessly she had slept and decided against it. She glanced at the bed to see if the bed coverings would reveal her tossing and noticed for the first time that someone, probably the tender who brought and took away the food, had smoothed everything so that there was no sign that the bed had been used at all.
"Yes," she told Jamison. "Thank you. And I met Thomas the Carver. He ate his lunch with me. It was nice to have someone to talk to.
"And the tender explained things I needed to know," she added. "I thought the hot water was for cooking. I never used hot water just for washing before."
He wasn’t paying attention to her embarrassed explanation about the bathroom. He was looking carefully at the robe, sliding his hand across the fabric. "Your mother made minor repairs each year. But now it must all be restored. This is your job."