Page 49 of The Bedlam Stacks

‘Gives you trouble?’

‘Yes. But the doctors at home say there’s nothing much they can . . .’ I tried to check with Raphael again, but he didn’t help.

‘Oh, no, don’t be silly. Measure round above where it hurts, mark the place with your finger.’ She held out a length of red string.

‘Pardon?’

‘Do as I say. This is the biscuit of co-operation,’ she added, setting a biscuit down on the counter by my cup. I laughed and she winked. ‘Oh, Ra-cha,’ she said when I took the string. ‘Upstairs is getting a bit, you know, and I was wondering . . .’

‘I was going to ask . . .’ Raphael disappeared inside again and left me none the wiser.

She lifted her eyebrows at me. ‘Measure?’

I did and gave the string back to her with my nails pinched over the right place. She took it folded there and flicked a knot into it one-handed. She smiled.

‘Soon have you sorted out.’

‘In . . . what way, exactly?’

‘Oh, for a manacle. It helps with bones, you know?’ She held her arms out to show me the wooden bands around her wrists. They were whitewood, carved in forest patterns. ‘Grow you tall, if you wear them when you’re little, help with strain when you’re older.’

‘How does wood help?’

‘It’s a sort of magic. Anyway, come in, come and see the shop properly. Bring your coffee. I only make coffee so people will sit here and I can persuade them to buy things,’ she added, grinning. ‘It’s a lot of bother, with the goat, but it works out overall.’

‘Inti,’ Raphael’s voice said from somewhere above us. As I ducked in through the trapezium-shaped door, I passed a steep ladder that led up to a loft like the one in the church. The rungs to about head height were hung with dry laundry. Raphael had nudged things aside to make a narrow way up through the middle. ‘There are two black guinea pigs up here.’

‘I’m selling them to the doctor,’ she called ‘Give them some corn.’

‘I am not feeding them so the doctor can dismember them over an idiot with a chest cold.’

‘Oh, but—’

There was a clunk and a rush of cold air, then a firmer clunk. Inti winced. She was much taller than I’d expected her to be, nearly as tall as Raphael – everyone here was tall. ‘Did that sound to you like a man liberating two quite valuable guinea pigs onto my roof?’

I nodded.

‘The doctor pays quite a lot for them,’ she said, looking wistful. ‘Black ones have special properties, you see. But Ra-cha doesn’t approve. I suppose he’s right. It is a bit cruel,’ she concluded. ‘Come in.’

The smell of sawdust met us on the next threshold. For some reason I’d expected a toyshop, but it was more like a cabinetmaker’s; there was a section of banister along one wall, stacks of wood air-drying, planks with glass insets that looked like they were meant for another gantry. Low tables, stools – some very simple, some finely worked – door handles and bowls. There were toys too, tiny ships and spinning tops, and everything smelled of new sawdust. It was hard to see how she could have managed, but she had; the glass handles on her tools had all been shaped irregularly, to fit her good hand. As she led me through, something pattered against my ankle. It was sawdust. It floated an inch above the floor.

‘Inti – how is it doing that?’

‘It’s whitewood.’ She gave me a rough-cut chunk of timber. It felt much too light for its size. When I held it up, it was porous, full of miniature honeycomb chambers, the same as the wood at home. ‘Never put that in a fire, it—’

‘Explodes,’ I said. ‘I know.’

‘Don’t forget. All the gantries are whitewood. One match and whoomf. That’s why we have heating pipes instead of open fires indoors.’

‘Why are they whitewood, if it’s dangerous?’

‘To take all the weight of the buildings. It bears much more than kapok.’

‘It’s not even a hardwood,’ I protested. If I pressed hard I could put a clear nail mark in the grain, if it could even be called grain.

‘The forest is blessed by the markayuq. It’s one of their miracles.’

I gave up.