S. Grove: The Glass Sentence

Mrs. Sissal Clay had arrived years earlier, when Sophia was only eight, and after a long consultation with Shadrack had simply moved in to the uninhabited third floor. Shadrack had always frowned upon the custom of keeping servants, believing such arrangements perpetuated a system in which the children of the servant class withdrew early from their schooling. Even when he was entrusted with the care of his three-year-old niece, he refused to hire a nanny, relying instead upon the paid assistance of his graduate students—who, he reasoned, were not abandoning their education to perform domestic duties.

Immense love is almost always enough to sustain a child. But it does not always provide the logistical and practical necessities, including a steady supply of clean clothes and an understanding that toddlers can become bored with certain aspects of adult life, such as two-hour university lectures on the glaciation of the Eerie Sea.

Shadrack’s well-meaning but mostly unsuitable assistants had no more command of these necessities than he did, and they were fleeting presences in Sophia’s life: brilliant, inventive, memorable, and usually rather incompetent as caretakers. One had built her a magnificent boat out of lacquered paper that she sailed on the Charles River to the everlasting envy of all the neighborhood children. Another had attempted to teach her Latin and had mostly succeeded, so that she could converse quite fluently in that tongue about farmers, sheep, and aqueducts by the time she was seven. All in all they were very lovable, but few understood the usefulness of mealtimes and bedtimes. Sophia had learned early on to see them as friendly companions rather than reliable guardians, and she did what any reasonable person would do: she learned to take care of herself.

Then Mrs. Clay arrived. For reasons he did not explain, Shadrack broke his own rule. Mrs. Clay became the housekeeper at 34 East Ending Street. Had Mrs. Clay been a different sort of woman, Sophia’s life might have changed dramatically at this point. Mrs. Clay was a widow, and she had been the housekeeper at the academy of cartology where Shadrack had studied for two years in Nochtland, the Baldlands’ capital. The house might have flourished under her guiding hand, so that Shadrack’s high-spirited chaos and unbounded affection would have found some complementary order and good sense. But Sophia soon realized, young as she was, that their housekeeper needed more taking care of than she herself did.

A moody, silent woman with sad eyes and a wide face, Mrs. Clay moved through the rooms of 34 East Ending as she did through the streets of Boston: quietly, almost fearfully, as if the only thing she was looking for was a proper place to hide. She was one part melancholy kindness, two parts mysterious unease; Sophia both liked her and felt that she did not really know her. Over time, Sophia simply accepted Mrs. Clay’s presence and went on relying more and more on herself, becoming the independent and peculiarly practical person that she was.

— 15-Hour 19—

WHEN SOPHIA FINALLY returned home, she found a red-eyed Mrs. Clay and a harried-looking Shadrack at the kitchen table. They both rose to their feet the moment Sophia walked in. Shadrack rushed to embrace her. “Sophia! Finally!”

It was such a comfort to find herself back home, crushed up against the familiar scrape of Shadrack’s chin and the familiar smell of Shadrack’s pine soap, that she held on tightly for a while before speaking. “I’m sorry,” she finally whispered, pulling away. “I lost track of time.”

Mrs. Clay placed her hand on Sophia’s shoulder, murmuring a fervent thanks to the Fates, and Shadrack shook his head with an affectionate smile that still bore traces of his concern. He tucked her hair behind her ears and held her face in his hands. “I was just about to go back to the State House—for the third time—to look for you,” he said. “I thought you were going to wait for me on the balcony.”

“I did, but I didn’t know how long to wait, and then they started shouting about a fire . . .”

“I know,” Shadrack said grimly.

“When I finally got away I took the wrong trolley. And then I lost track of time. I ended up at the wharf,” she concluded with embarrassment.

“It’s all right,” Shadrack said, taking her hand and pulling her over to the kitchen table. “I was worried, but it’s all right. I know the fault is not yours.” He let out a deep sigh as he sat down.

“What happened to you?” Sophia asked.

“I made my way over to the balcony stairs with Miles, and then he started a fistfight with some hothead in a bow tie. By the time I separated them, the balconies were empty.” Shadrack shook his head. “What a day. Mrs. Clay has of course heard the news—the whole of Boston has by now, I’m sure.”

“But at least you are home safely, Sophia.” Mrs. Clay said. She spoke with the clipped accent of the southern Baldlands, and her manner of dress had never lost its foreign eccentricities. She always tucked a stray flower or clover stem or even an autumn leaf into her buttonhole; today, she wore a wilted violet in her hair. Her face was still blotchy and red, and Sophia understood that the tears had nothing to do with her absence: Mrs. Clay had no lifewatch and no papers.

“Thank you. I’m sorry to have caused you so much worry,” Sophia said, sitting down beside them at the table. “Did Miles leave as planned?”

“Yes,” Shadrack said, rumpling his hair tiredly. “His ship left at twelve-hour. He hardly expected the day to be so momentous, and now he was more eager to leave than ever.”

“He is coming back, isn’t he?”

“Let us hope so, Soph. For now, the plan is to close the borders and deport people from other Ages unless they have papers. The so-called ‘Patriot Plan,’” he said dryly, “is generous enough to permit free travel for citizens of New Occident.”

“So we could still travel in and out?” She glanced apologetically at Mrs. Clay. “I mean, anyone with papers can travel in and out?”

Shadrack nodded. “Yes. For now. What you may not have heard over the commotion,” he went on, “is that they plan to reconsider Wharton’s Protection Amendment at the end of August. They may very well implement it.”

“And close the border for all of us? No one could go in or out?”

“It would be sheer stupidity, of course, but that has hardly stopped parliament before.”

“I just don’t understand why this is happening now,” Mrs. Clay protested, her voice dangerously wobbly.

“Fear, pure and simple,” Shadrack said.

“But my impression has always been—and I know I am still a relative newcomer here—but I had always thought that people in New Occident—in Boston, at least—were rather . . . intrigued,” she said carefully, “by the other Ages. They treat foreigners with curiosity, not hostility.”

“I know,” Sophia agreed. “It makes no sense; people love to see the other Ages. At the wharf, there was this circus with creatures from the other parts of the world. And there was a man selling tickets who had a boy covered with feathers in a cage, and the boy was his prisoner, but he was so calm he hardly seemed to care, even though everyone was staring at him.” She found, despite her rush of words, that there was no way she could explain just how remarkable the boy was, or why he had left such an impression upon her.

“Yes,” Shadrack said, eyeing her thoughtfully. He ran his hand through his hair and frowned. “I think the majority of the people here are intrigued—fascinated, even—by the other Ages. For some that means exploration, for others that means befriending foreigners, for still others it means observing them in cages.” His smile had no mirth. “But many others are afraid—not just afraid of people from other Ages who are different, but afraid, however illogically, for their own safety.”