S. Grove: The Glass Sentence

Now she stood on the busy wharf, wiping her eyes angrily and trying hard to compose herself. Then, amidst all the shouts and the bustle, she spotted about a dozen people standing in line. With a monumental effort, she drew her thoughts away from the four hours she had lost. That must be the line for the inbound trolley , she thought. As she approached, she heard, over all the other noise, the sound of a man shouting through a megaphone. She tapped the shoulder of the woman ahead of her. “Excuse me, is this the line for the inbound trolley?”

The young woman shook her bonneted head excitedly. She was clutching a flyer, which she pushed into Sophia’s hand. “No such thing. They’ve brought creatures from the other Ages,” she said breathlessly. “We’re going in to see them while we still can!” Her laced glove pointed to a sign that stood only a few feet away.

Beside the sign stood the man who was shouting into the megaphone. He was small and sported a small, pointy beard and a tall hat that made his head look tiny. He flourished a silver-topped cane. “Wild men, monsters, creatures that defy your imagination!” he cried, his cheeks red with heat and exertion. He spoke with the accent of the western Baldlands; it made all his vowels sound bow-legged. “Discovered by the intrepid Simon Ehrlach and displayed here for the entertainment and instruction of visitors!” He pointed to a heavy velvet curtain that covered the entryway to the warehouse behind him. A woman even smaller than he was sat to his left, deftly counting money and dispensing and stamping tickets, her small forehead creased with concentration, before ushering each visitor into the curtained warehouse.

“Every man or beast in a continuous exhibition of all the fascinating variety of the Ages!” the little man continued, showering his audience with energetic bursts of spit. “Each enacting constantly the bizarre and indeed mesmerizing habits of its Age, so that the visitor will hardly believe that he stands still in time!” With the tip of his cane, he tapped a large cage that stood to his right. “The wild boy from the Baldlands, in his fierce warrior dress. And inside there are even fiercer creatures from the Baldlands. Centaurs and mermen and children with tails. See them while you still have the chance!”

Sophia stared in fascination at the cage, all other thoughts forgotten. There stood a boy who seemed only a little older than herself, dressed from head to toe in feathers. She could tell at once that he belonged to a different Age. His hair was twisted up around colored plumes that appeared to spring from his skull, and his limbs were covered with multicolored down. A skirt of trailing feathers hung at his waist, while an empty quiver dangled from his shoulder. His costume might once have been impressive, but most of the feathers were broken or crushed. To Sophia he looked like a beautiful bird, trapped in midair and dragged down to earth.

But it was not his beauty that captured her attention. It was his expression. He was imprisoned in a cage, and he was made a spectacle to everyone around him. And yet, for all that, he surveyed the crowd as if they and not he were the spectacle. A faint smile tugged at the edges of his mouth. Gazing calmly at them, he made the cage seem like a pedestal; he was serene, unshakable, magnificent. Sophia could not take her eyes off him. She had lost track of time once again, but in a way that seemed entirely new.

“I assure you, ladies and gentlemen,” the little man went on, “that you will even see battles enacted among these fierce creatures in Ehrlach’s Circus of the Ages. And after today’s decision in parliament, your days to view the wonders of the other Ages are numbered! Seize the opportunity now before it’s too late!” At this he reached with his cane through the bars of the cage and gave the boy dressed in feathers a careless jab.

The boy looked at the cane and grabbed it easily, as if picking up a stray feather. Then he pushed it back toward the circus master, disinterested, and resumed watching the crowd. As the man continued to advertise Ehrlach’s marvels, Sophia realized that the boy was looking directly at her. He raised his hands and placed them on the bars. It seemed to Sophia that he could see her thoughts and that he was about to speak to her. She knew she was blushing, but she could not look away. She could not move; she did not want to move.

“Hey, hey,” she heard someone say. The young woman ahead of her in line was shaking her shoulder. “Didn’t you want the city trolley, sweetheart? There it is—better run for it.”

Sophia tore her eyes away from the boy. Sure enough, a trolley was approaching. If she hurried she would catch it. She looked back once more at the boy, who was still watching her thoughtfully. Then she ran.

1891, June 14

And who (in time) knowes whither we may vent

The treasure of our tongue? to what strange shores

This gaine of our best glorie shal be sent,

T’inrich unknowing Nations with our stores?

What worlds in th’yet unformed Occident

May come refin’d with th’accents that are ours?

—Samuel Daniel, Musophilus, 1599

SOPHIA LIVED WITH Shadrack at 34 East Ending Street in the South End of Boston, in the solid brick house her great-grandparents had built. White shutters, an abundance of ivy, and an iron owl perched discreetly over the entryway made it similar to the other brick houses adjoining it on the quiet street. But no other house had the small oval sign, pine-green in color, that hung on the red door, announcing:

In reality, the sign had little use, because anyone who sought out Shadrack knew exactly where to find him; furthermore, they knew that the mere title “cartologer” did not begin to describe his occupation. He was as much historian, geographer, and explorer as he was cartologer. Apart from being a professor at the university, he was a private consultant to explorers and government officials. Anyone who needed expert knowledge of the history and geography of the New World found their way to Shadrack’s door.

They came to see Shadrack simply because he was the best. In a time when most of the world was uncharted and no single person knew more than a few Ages, he was the most knowledgeable. Though he was young for a master cartologer, no one could match Shadrack for breadth of knowledge and skill. He had mastered the history of every known continent, he could read the maps of every civilization known to New Occident, and, most importantly, he could draw brilliant maps himself. The great cartologer who had trained him was said to have wept with wonder when Shadrack Elli presented his first complete map of the New World. He had precision and artistic ability on his side, but any draughtsman had that; it was his bottomless knowledge that made Shadrack so extraordinary.

Having grown up surrounded by her uncle’s work, Sophia sometimes had difficulty seeing it as exceptional. She thought of mapmaking as a noble, learned, and rather messy profession. The house on East Ending Street was papered from top to bottom with maps. Maps of contemporary, ancient, or imaginary worlds covered every inch of wall space. Books and pens and compasses and rulers and more maps, lying flat or rolled up like scrolls, littered every flat surface. The parlor and the study fairly overflowed with equipment, and even the kitchen had begun to shrink from the edges inward as the countertops and cabinets became receptacles for maps. Sophia moved like a tiny island of tidiness through the house, straightening books, rolling maps, gathering pens, all in the effort to stem the cartologic tide around her. The only two relatively orderly places were her room, which had a few select maps and books, and the third-floor apartment of their housekeeper, Mrs. Clay.