Emma Sterling's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Emma Sterling read the academy's supply list three times, hoping the numbers would shrink. They didn't. A pressed gray uniform, two aprons, leather shoes, a sewing kit, and starched caps. The total cost more than her mother earned in two months. Emma wanted one thing above all else: to graduate top of her class and serve at the royal palace. But the academy judged girls from the first hour. Arrive in patched clothes, and the daughters of merchants would never let her forget it. "I can sell the good candlesticks," her mother said that night. Catherine Hartwell still wore her blue service coat, the brass buttons dulled from years of work in the local kingdom's houses. She had raised Emma alone and never once complained. That was why Emma could not let her sell a thing. "No," Emma said. "I'll earn it myself. Term doesn't start for two weeks." Her mother touched her cheek. "Then earn it well. Don't come home ashamed of honest work." The next morning Emma walked to the seamstress guild boarding house. Warm light spilled from every window. Quilts hung along the wooden siding, and spools of thread lined the porch steps. Inside, women bent over cloth, needles flashing. The head seamstress looked Emma up and down. "We don't hire children," she said. "I stitch straight," Emma answered. She pulled a folded handkerchief from her pocket and set it on the table. Tiny even stitches ringed the edge. "My mother taught me. Give me one day. If my work is poor, I leave and you owe me nothing." The woman studied the handkerchief. Then she pushed a basket of torn aprons across the table. Emma worked twelve days. She hemmed sheets, patched sleeves, and pricked her fingers raw. She swept the workroom and carried water. The other seamstresses stopped calling her "the girl" and started calling her by name. On the last afternoon, the head seamstress counted coins into Emma's palm. "Enough for your uniform," she said. "You've a fast hand. Come back if the academy spits you out." Emma ran the whole way home. She bought the gray uniform, the aprons, the shoes. She stood before her mother in the finished set, cap pinned straight. Catherine Hartwell's eyes shone. "You'll walk in like you belong." But when Emma folded the last apron, a stiff paper slipped from the shop's wrapping. She read it twice. It was a notice from the academy, updated that week. Students were now required to bring a formal presentation gown for the opening ceremony, where families of rank watched the new girls line up. The gown cost twice what her whole uniform had. Emma held the notice tight. She had money for none of it left, and the ceremony was in three days.