The orphanage that Wren called home was unlike anything that surrounded it. In stark contrast to its neighbours it was a squat, single storey structure, constructed from hundreds of bones, driftwood, and chitin plates. It was an old building, ancient by Voyeur standards, originally built as a church to the dead gods. The people eventually realised that no amount of praying would bring them back, but a primal fear and sense of sacredness kept the structure untouched long after it had been abandoned.
When Wren’s mother had arrived in the city with nothing but the clothes on her back and a crying child barely old enough to walk, she had stumbled on the church and found it to be a safe place to hide away. Slowly Rosabella had renovated the rejected building into a sanctuary for other rejected souls. In the fifteen years Wren had lived there she had watched it grow into the largest orphanage in the city. She had no memory of a home before moving here, but then she had only been two years old when her mother had claimed the place.
Those who passed by gave the building a wide berth. A carefully curated aura of fear shrouded the place, most of which emanated from Rosabella herself. Rosabella was a gentle, nurturing soul, but it was a dangerous and hard world, especially for young women. For many girls, a life of prostitution was the best they could hope for. At least they got paid for that. For others, life was far worse. So Rosabella had always taught Wren that the best answer for unwinnable violence was fear.
It had been Rosabella who first suggested that Doc Tabbot collect mushroom spores from Wren’s samples to create defensive powders, but even before that she had encouraged rumours of her supernatural abilities. The white hair had very much helped to sell the idea. Few dared to approach the orphanage or accost those that called it home. This was doubly true for Wren herself who now seemed to share the supernatural reputation. It helped to protect her, but it also isolated her and alienated those who she once had hoped to be close with.
A dozen children rushed out to greet Wren as she neared the door. They ranged in age from three to twelve, though the orphanage itself cared for the elderly and the crippled too. Rosabella called them her foundlings. Each had been defined by that which they lost, but together they had found a home. Their laughter and high-pitched voices lifted Wren’s spirits. It reminded her that there was always hope and positivity in the world. She handed out a few of the edible mushrooms she had kept and left the children chewing happily on the morsels.
Inside was a riot of colour. As part of Wren’s work she sometimes created colourful paste that the children used as a thick paint to draw pictures across the walls. It was pure chaos, but it was home. Some of the pictures were from children who had left years ago, but their memories remained. There were no internal walls. Instead a series of thin curtains and hides hung from the rafters to mark separate rooms. They were open during the day, leaving the orphanage open planned, then drawn in the evening for a little warmth and privacy.
As much as Wren wanted to see her mother, she knew she needed to wait. There was still work to do before she could think about having any time for herself. The eastern wing of the orphanage was her workshop. The curtained off area had a pungent odour and was cluttered with stacks of rectangular frames made from bone, baskets of fungi, cloth rags, and clay pans that were the source of the sharp smell. Wren emptied the remaining contents of her sack onto the floor then settled into the small open space kept clear of clutter.
An orange cat emerged from a pile of rags and yawned dramatically as it sauntered across the room.
“You still haven’t died then?” the cat asked. She sounded disappointed.
“Hello to you as well, Amber.”
“Well, at least you haven’t brought that silly bird with you today. I don’t suppose that he at least died?”
“No, Krow is still alive too.”
Amber looked even more disappointed. “Oh well. There’s always tomorrow. I take it that since you’re in here then it will still be a little while until the mistress wakes?”
“That’s right. Tomorrow morning I expect. Will you use that time to catch any of the bugs I hear scuttling around?”
“Tempting, but I think I’ll just lay here and watch you work. I find watching others toil much more satisfying. I’m sure you understand.”
Wren had expected as much. She pushed the cat from her mind and turned her attention to her work. The mushrooms that littered the floor were all dry, corky polypores that crumbled and broke apart when squeezed. These types needed to be soaked first so she pulled a clay basin beside her and placed the samples within before reaching for the closest of the odious pans.
Water, like most resources, was very valuable. There were no rivers or sources of freshwater. The people of Voyeur had to rely on collected rainwater mostly. While the city stood beside the Abyssal Ocean, the waters there were tainted, not to mention dangerous. The sea water was used but it needed careful filtering first. This meant that what water the orphanage had access to was needed for drinking and washing.
Inside the pan was a golden liquid that gave off a rank smell. Urine. It was an abundant resource that served Wren’s purpose well. She poured the pan’s contents over the mushrooms then added the contents of a second pan. The washerwomen had given her the idea. They used urine to help clean clothes and bleach fabric. Apparently humans had been using it for thousands of years, long before the gods, and the smell was a small price to pay for the results.
She left today’s samples to soak and retrieved a similar basin she had set up the week before. The mushrooms within were soft and spongy now and their colour was a shade lighter than they had been. She cut them up into small chunks using her knife and placed them into a large clay mortar before sprinkling in some of the bone dust she had bought. Using a pestle she ground up the mushrooms, adding a little more urine to turn it into a thin paste, and added a dose of the lavender to help combat the smell.
Next she grabbed two of the bone frames. One, called a mould, had a fine web mesh stretched across one side while the other, a deckle, didn’t. She placed the mould onto a clay tray with the mesh at the top then placed the deckle above it so that the mesh was sandwiched between both frames. From here she poured the pale slurry gently across the mesh until it was evenly coated in mushroom pulp. The excess liquid drained through the mesh, slowly filling the tray beneath.
Wren repeated this process across several moulds and deckles until all of the mushroom puree had been used. Returning to the first deckle, she lifted the top section and put it to the side while she grabbed a cloth from a nearby bundle. Now that the liquid had drained, the remaining mushroom pulp had settled into a firm rectangular sheet. She placed the cloth over the pulp and gently patted it down to draw out any extra moisture.
Carefully, but with a practised ease, she tipped the pulp sheet onto the cloth then covered the other side with a cloth too. From here she moved to the side of the room where a series of clay slabs lined the wall. She placed the bundled sheet onto one then lifted another to sit atop it. The weight helped to squeeze out remaining moisture and flatten any lumps and bumps.
When each sheet was locked into place she crossed the room to an identical set of stacked slabs. Wren lifted each upper slab and removed the cloth until she held several bundles in her arms. She peeled free the cloth and threw them into a pile. Now only ten cream coloured sheets of paper remained. Wren neatly stacked them together and slid them into a leather folder that already contained several other pages.
Paper was a valuable commodity. Yes, it was time consuming to produce and came in limited supply so was financially lucrative, but it also helped the world continue to grow. Wren had seen first hand the power of paper. It allowed ideas to outlive the brains that thought them up, and allowed them to spread across society without distortion or error.
Be it diagrams for new buildings or mechanisms, ingredients for salves, or even stories and songs that lifted weary hearts, paper unlocked a creativity within the human soul that kept them growing and evolving. Wren was proud to be a part of that endeavour, even if she couldn’t create a meaningful idea of her own.
If she sold it all then she wouldn’t have to work so hard, but there was a beauty in the joy that such a simple thing brought to the children. Her mother had taught her to fold paper into the shape of a bird as a little girl. The whole process for making paper was something that Wren’s father, Fred, had shown Rosabella when they first met. Exchanging secret messages by flying paper birds through Rosabella’s window was one of the memories her mother most loved to tell. Now Wren would regularly make birds for the children to play with.
With her work temporarily completed, Wren had one more job before she could hopefully sleep. She tidied her equipment then took a sheaf of paper and left the room. She made straight for the door but slowed as an elderly woman rose from a crooked chair and approached her.
“Leaving again, child? You’ll end up like your mother if you don’t learn to rest.”
The woman was called Granny Vorshe by the children. Her leathery skin was cracked by wrinkles and her white hair was thinning. She looked too old to do much of anything yet it was her who took care of most of the children’s day to day care.
“This is the last job today, I promise. A quick delivery to the supply camp then I’ll be right back.”
“Your mother has big shoes to fill, girl. Don’t think you need to live in them.”
“I know, Granny Vorshe. Please don’t worry.”
Wren offered the older woman a smile as she pulled away towards the exit. She maintained it until she was through the door and past the children who were playing just outside. Only then did she let it slip away like water through grasping fingers. Wren sighed, suddenly all too aware of how tired she felt. She paused for a moment and took a deep breath in.
She thought about Granny’s words as she forced her legs to move again. It wasn’t that Rosabella’s shoes were too big to fill. Wren kept the orphanage running just as well as her mother had. It was more that her mother had heavy shoes to fill. She felt the weight of the responsibility, the constant expectations, and the unending list of jobs that needed to be managed. Wren was feeling worn down by it all, and she had only been treading water in the few years since her mother’s health had declined. Rosabella had built and managed it all for over a decade.
The streets were no less crowded with the coming of the evening. Even in the dead of night there was a bustle of activity. It never stopped. She pushed her way through the crowds back towards the Feeder Peaks. They were the heart of the city and drew the crowds into their spiral like pooling blood.
Wren approached a checkpoint and joined the line of men and women waiting to descend into the gullet of the god. There were several children there too. Their smaller bodies made accessing certain passageways all the easier. There was something for everyone within the god, if they could survive the journey.
Most were joining the work crews to harvest materials like bone and sinew from the secured zones, but the more adventurous would venture further into the uncharted depths in search of unfathomable treasures. The dangers were near suicidal, but the potential rewards were grand indeed.
Wren shuffled along with the crowd onto a large platform rigged with pulleys and ropes. When it was full the platform lurched into motion, lowering down into the gloom of the maw. A wave of sickness bubbled through her stomach as the god swallowed them down beyond the reach of the fading daylight. She forced the sickness down but judging by the retching sounds around her, not everyone was as experienced at fighting the sensation.
They descended for long minutes that felt like hours until the platform lurched to a stop beside a long building lit with dozens of blazing torches. A foreman stood nearby directing the new arrivals. It was a wide open space filled with workshops, cranes, and massive piles of raw material. It was functionally an independent town that processed the god parts so they could be transported up into the main city.
Wren made her way straight to the administrative office beside the platform. A harried looking man with translucent hair and a pronounced twitch in his left eye greeted her.
“Excellent! Be a dear and take our completed volumes back up with you. Paper gets restless down here, especially in large quantities. The logbooks are essential but they’re untrustworthy. Why, one tried to bite my toe off only last week. It’s still bruised even now.”
Wren didn’t question the man. Strange things happened inside the god all the time. She merely nodded and picked up the pile of bound books that the man indicated. He gave her instructions on where to deliver them to then transferred her the agreed sparks. Her soulcell was looking impressive but she knew it would mostly be gone by the end of the week.
When she returned to the top of the maw it was nighttime. Even time moved strangely down there. Tiredness clung to her now, suffocating her. She fought it down and adopted her seemingly carefree stroll through the city streets. She couldn’t afford to look tired. Anything that painted her as a target more than simply existing as a young woman had to be avoided. Spores caused too much collateral damage in a crowd. Not that she would let that stop her from defending herself.
Nobody attacked her. She made it back to the orphanage safely, only letting her mask of calm awareness fall when she closed the curtain around her small rectangle of living space in the corner of the church. She didn’t have the energy to relax. No sooner had she swapped into the airy shift than she collapsed onto the patchwork quilt she called a bed where sweet dreams of childhood swept over her.
Matthew Roys 