Patricia Wrede - Thirteenth Child

“I…didn’t want to be in the way when everyone was so busy,” I said.

“The stacks of notes that have been piling up are much more in the way than you would be,” the professor said. He looked at me over the tops of his spectacles. “I shall expect you on Thursday at the usual time. Do not hesitate to interrupt if I am occupied with persons from outside the college when you arrive.”

The next Thursday I went over to the menagerie office. Professor Jeffries hadn’t been exaggerating by much when he’d said he had stacks of notes piling up. I started with the most recent notes and worked backward. It wasn’t easy, with so many people around. When I was copying out Wash’s notes, I could use a table somewhere else and get away from the visitors, but when I was updating the professor’s map, I had to be right there in the office, and it was very distracting.

Even so, I was nearly finished by the time Lan and William came home at last. Lan was taller again; he said he’d gotten nearly to six feet and he didn’t want to hear any jokes about beanpoles or the air up there from any of us. He’d grown himself a pair of muttonchop sideburns, and he wore a green paisley waistcoat under his single-breasted frock coat. William was taller, too, but not by much—he was a good four inches shorter than Lan, barely taller than me. He was wearing a pair of eyeglasses and a beaver hat, but he was just as sandy-haired and serious as ever. I was quite startled when he greeted me with a bow and called me “Miss Rothmer.”

“What do you expect?” Lan said. “How long has it been since you put your hair up? You ought to be used to it by now.”

“Months,” I said. “And I am used to it, from other people. It just sounds strange coming from William.”

“‘Miss Eff’ would sound even stranger,” William pointed out. “And I don’t think you’d like ‘Miss Francine.’”

I rolled my eyes at him, and then Lan asked William about the school he was attending. The two of them spent a few minutes comparing the larks they’d had when they weren’t in class and the scrapes they’d gotten into. Well, the scrapes Lan had gotten into, anyway. Then William turned to me. “What have you been doing while we’ve been gone?” he asked. “Are you still helping Professor Jeffries?”

I explained how I’d stopped for a while, but now I was back at work and nearly caught up despite all the visitors. William gave me a sharp look, but Lan just nodded and started asking questions. The next thing I knew, all three of us were heading for the menagerie office.

Professor Jeffries was bent over his desk, muttering. He looked up as I hesitated in the open door and smiled at the three of us. “Ah, Miss Rothmer, Mr. Rothmer, Mr. Graham! Come in.”

“I didn’t mean to disturb you, Professor,” I said. “But William and Lan were curious about your map.”

The professor sighed. “I’m curious about it myself. Perhaps one of these days I’ll have time to look at it again.”

“If you’re busy—”

“It’s just more Settlement Office foolishness,” Professor Jeffries said. “Harrison was in here this morning and saw that.” He waved at the wall map with all the colored pins. “Now he wants one that shows where these grubs are.”

“That sounds reasonable to me,” William said.

“Well, that part of it makes sense,” the professor admitted. “But he wants a portable map. With pins. That stay put when he folds it up. The man’s a magical imbecile; does he think spells like that are easy?”

“Could you use an illusion for the pins?” Lan asked.

“That’s an idea,” Professor Jeffries said. He considered a moment, then shook his head. “Illusions don’t last long enough. I’d have to renew the spell every few days, and if I have to trot over to the Settlement Office that often, I’ll never get anything done.”

“I could try it,” Lan offered. “I’ve always wanted to see how long I could make an illusion spell last.”

Professor Jeffries frowned, and I thought he was going to turn Lan down. But then he reached into his desk, fumbled around for a minute, and pulled out a piece of paper. “See what you can do with this map, young man,” he said. “The settlement layout has been out of date these five years, but the geography hasn’t changed. Just duplicate this pattern here.” He spread out a newer map beside the old one and ran his finger along a penciled line.

William and I crowded around to watch. Lan studied the two maps for a minute, then asked, “Might I have some string, Professor? And a couple of those pins you use, please?”

While the professor brought the string and pins, Lan took a small leather case from his pocket. It was full of little vials of powder, held in place by loops of leather. Lan slid one of them out, opened it, and carefully dusted the first map with the powder. He replaced it and dusted the other map with something from a different vial.

“That’s an unusual design for a magician’s case,” Professor Jeffries commented as Lan replaced the second vial. “May I?”

Lan handed the case to the professor, who tipped it this way and that, studying the vials without touching them. “Nice workmanship,” he said. “You’re a bit low on sulfur.”

“I haven’t refilled it since my exams,” Lan replied.

“Do so at your earliest opportunity,” the professor advised. “You don’t want to be caught without supplies when you need them.”

Lan gave him a startled look, but accepted his case back without comment. William, the professor, and I watched in silence as he cast the illusion spell. I was half afraid it would fizzle, but after a minute, a network of pencil lines appeared on the old map, with pins at the places where the lines crossed.

“Well done!” Professor Jeffries said.

“Did you miss a spot?” William asked. He looked at the original map. “No, it’s on this map, too.” He pointed at an area almost in the middle of the map that had no pencil lines at all, and squinted. “Why don’t they have any grubs?”

“What’s that? Oh, that’s just a gap in the reports. The Oak River Settlement doesn’t have a settlement magician, and they’re not on any of the regular circuits for some reason, so I haven’t any information about their infestation level.”

“Oak River is the Rationalist settlement,” I said. “Where Rennie is. My sister,” I added in response to the professor’s puzzled look. “They aren’t on the regular circuits because they don’t use magic.”

“That’s right, one of you girls married that Rationalist fellow Dr. McNeil was so pleased with,” Professor Jeffries said. “So she’s out in their settlement now, is she? I don’t suppose you could get her to send us some data about the grubs in that area? I’m sure they’re as bad as they are everywhere else, but it would be nice to have actual figures.”

“Professor, I’m not sure they are,” I said slowly. “I mean, I’m not sure there are as many grubs there. We just got a letter from Rennie last week, and I remember she said they’d finished planting and it looked like being a good crop this year. She couldn’t have said that if they had grubs all over the way everybody else does.”

Professor Jeffries stared at me for a minute. Then he went to the coat hooks and took his hat. “Where’s your father?” he demanded. “I need to talk to him about this immediately.”

Papa was with a summer class, but the professor collared him as soon as it was over. Then we all had to go back to the house to look at Rennie’s letter, and after that, things really started jumping. By evening, there was a special courier on his way to Oak River. Two days later he was back with word that the Rationalists had had a few grubs, but nothing like what the other settlements had been seeing.