The Midsummers' Festival

Where to begin? So many things have been happening!!!

I am glad, for Eleanor is in fine form tonight. The sun is setting outside her window, and her hands feel nimble and ready to tell my story. Thank you, Eleanor, my Hands, my friend.

I will start where I left off.

As I went to the Labyrinth to find my father, the day after my last dream of this place, I saw Ennis coming up the stairs from the rooms below. I stood back in the shadows of the colonnade and watched him emerge. He was dusting something off his trousers and he looked - not happy, but - less grim than he has since the fire. His sleeves were rolled away up his arms and I could hardly see the scars there; and as he rolled his sleeves down a small thing fell out and rolled away. He did not appear to notice, so when he had gone I went quickly over and picked it up.

At first I could hardly see what it was. Then I saw: a tiny spring, no larger than my little fingernail in all, worked in the finest brass. I was staring at it in wonder, trying to fathom how it came to be rolled in his sleeve, when I heard a small sound, like a footfall. It was Ennis, come back for the thing, I suppose. I could feel my face go very red as I held it out to him, and he stared at me a moment without expression before taking it, putting his finger to his lips as if to silence me, and then turning away. I simply stood there among the stone columns and watched him go, wishing that I could fall through the floor.

When I came to the top of the stairs I bent to see what he had been brushing away, and what I found was many small crumbs of brass, tiny shavings. such as those the blade of a gear-turnier's tool makes, carving the teeth into small brass gears.

I think Ennis is Creating again!!!!

The next day, I was out in the courtyard as usual after lunch and my noontime chores, trying to understand how to adjust the balance of my machines. I had taken the covering off one the feet and was examining it, trying to see why the tiny hooks had not grasped at the crucial moment, when my mother called me into the kitchen. There was a package for me, she said.

On the table was a strange package, a small wooden box tied all round with string, and an envelope hanging off it. I tore the envelope open and found it was from Master Ravenor! The note said, "Please examine these feet. Perhaps it will help you to find your way with your own Creation."

Inside the box, when I nervously opened it, was a jar with what looked like a small lizard floating suspended inside. The thing looked terrible, pale and strange; but the flesh was as soft-looking and pliable as in life. I looked at its feet, and saw only wide, squashed-looking toes with pleated bottoms, and wondered what he wanted me to see. I could not fathom it; but then my father came into the kitchen, looking for something, and exclaimed over the jar and the package, reading the note and giving me the rather odd look he has been turning my way recently. He told me it is a gycko, a creature that can walk up walls and across ceilings. He was greatly astonished that Master Ravenor should send me one of his prized jars, and went away upstairs muttering.

Armed with this information I went to my father's study and found his Lense Vial, and removing the thing from its bath trained the armature on its feet. Much to my astonishment, I found the feet looked much the same, no matter how closely I looked: the pleats were pleated into smaller pleats, moving crosswise; and these pleats were in turn pleated crosswise again, and so on for as deep as the Vial could look. It looked, at the smallest levels, as though there might be tiny, miniscule hairs, though I could hardly see them through the glass.

That night I couldn't sleep, thinking of ways to make feet like that for my machine. I lay for hours, trying fruitlessly to imagine it. Finally, exhausted, I fell into dreams of Master Ravenor sitting on the bed, pleating my linens, trying to show me something that I could not see.

The next morning, I moved stupidly through my chores, dropping hot water on the cobbles of the front court, which led my mother to scold me for the noise from the high window of her work-space. Giving up, I went and had a cup of tea in the side portico, drawing and drawing different ways to make Gycko feet but getting nowhere. I spied Ennis coming along the outer wall - just his head bobbing past as it does with tall people - and nearly turned away, my scalp tingling with embarrassment.

But I thought, suddenly: what if I should approach him directly? Speak to him of the help I needed? Since that day I saw him coming up the stairs, I had been shy of him, but not so feared of his fierceness. Watching him go by, it was such a joy to think of him making machines again, I forgot my own feelings and called out to him.

His head, above the wall, swiveled to see me, then came on around the corner, the rest of him appearing by degrees and approaching me cautiously. When I told him I needed help, I saw his eyebrows go up.

"Help from me? I will certainly offer any aid I am able," he said formally. I had to suppress a feeling of irritation. I explained what I was trying to do, and showed him one of my machines, which made him nod against his will.

"I've been watching you work with these," he said much less formally, with an unexpected candor that took me aback.

I told him about the Gycko and he sked ould tak ook at ar