Gemma Silvestre's Arc

Chapter 5 of 7

Edna's carts rolled right up to the floating house and stopped. She set her folding table across the open doorway. Her ledger lay flat on top. Behind her, carts packed with crates and chairs blocked every path to the balcony steps. Seven students stood on the grass with their tools, and not one could reach a workbench. Gemma stepped down from the doorway. The Mirrorstone warmed against her chest. She kept her breath slow. "You stand under a house you cannot pay for," Edna said. Her smile stayed flat. She tapped the ledger. "Your name is still here. Sign, or my carts stay until the debt eats this place too." Gemma looked at the wall of carts. She could not shove them. She could not outshout them. She thought of the stone on her chest, and what it did best. "My students came to learn," she said. "Let them. Watch what the stone teaches. Then decide if it is worth your ledger." A panda in a lab coat pushed through the students. Dr. May Goldstein had cleaned the poison off this very stone. Gold bangles clinked on her wrist. She carried a wax paper bundle and set it on Edna's table. A hot berry tart steamed inside, cranberries and blackberries glossy on top. "Eat," May said. "You argue better fed." She looked at Edna a beat longer. "Also, I know poison. I check what people sell." Edna's hand paused over the ledger. Gemma lifted the Mirrorstone free of her dress and held it toward Edna. The face inside the glass sharpened. It did not copy Edna's flat smile. It showed worry, and tired eyes, and something close to fear. Edna stared at her own hidden face. Her hand shook. A pink cart rolled up behind the convoy then, striped like a little train, hung with cotton candy and candy apples. The driver had seen the crowd and come for business. Children ran to it. A glowing moth drifted off the house's red tiles, wings gold and green, and circled Edna's table. The students laughed. The grass filled with noise and sweet smoke and light. The fear on the Mirrorstone's face did not match any of it. "You cannot summon ghosts here," Gemma said. "Too many happy hearts. The stone shows it. You have nothing left to frighten them with." Edna shut her ledger. She looked small behind her table. "Move the carts," she told her drivers. Wheels creaked. One by one the carts pulled back, and the path to the balcony cleared. But Edna tucked the ledger under her arm and did not cross out Gemma's name. "I will find what the stone is worth," she said, climbing onto the lead cart. "And I will come back with a buyer, not a threat." The convoy rolled off. Gemma's students climbed the steps at last and found their benches. The school was open. But Edna now meant to sell the Mirrorstone out from under her.