When Scarly receives a letter from home, she needs Rain to read it for her. This story takes place in the fourth book of the Wicked series, Out of Oz, somewhere between chapters 8 and 9 of At St. Prowd's.
I do not own these characters. Gregory Maguire does. He's awesome.
Scarly had made the ninth mouth to feed, after her seven older siblings, her grandmother and the goat. That's why she'd been bundled off to St. Prowd's to work as a scullery maid just as as soon as she was able.
She had cried at first. What child wouldn't? Being far away from home, from everyone she had known and loved - even if she did not really care for certain of her brothers - stung her deeply. But she found no loving tenderness in the headmistress of the school, one Miss Ironish Clapp. Scarly found that woman's given name to be accurate; she was like a steel trap, snatching all the good and the soft from around her, and replacing it with the cold and the unyielding.
But the tears hadn't stayed for long. Scarly found, somewhat to her surprise, that she was not an overly sentimental girl, and soon enough, thoughts of her far-off family were driven from her mind by the endless drudgery of work and life at St. Prowd's.
So when Scarly received a single letter from home – the first in fact that she had ever received – it shocked her more than she thought possible. She could not read, of course, but one of the other servants sorted it out from the mail for her before Miss Ironish could find it and toss it in the fireplace, as she was wont to do with mail to the servants. "Outside communications will just distract you from your work here," was what she would have said as the edges of the envelope crisped and curled in the fireplace. Would Scarly have stared at it, tears in her eyes, wondering what was written on the pages inside? Or would she have had a bit more grit, fixing her gaze straight ahead of her, hands clasped behind her back? She didn't know, and she was spared the pain of finding out.
But even though the envelope was now in Scarly's hands, that didn't mean she had any idea what was inside it. She investigated the thing. It was a simple and white fold of paper. On one side were black ink squiggles that Scarly recognized as letters ligaturing into each other to form words. She guessed that side must be the address. On the other side was the recognizable postmark of OZMAIL, stamped on the fold of the envelope by some bored officiant's hand.
She hid the thing on her person during the day as she swept and served food and took the dishes back into the kitchen after her betters were done with their dinner before she was allowed to have hers. Cook took pity on her and slipped her an extra scone with her watery porridge, although this wasn't a great kindness, as the scone was hard and two-days stale. Hustling the food back to her room in the haunted boy's dormitory, she hunched into her thin clothes against the icy sting of the winter wind. She pushed the door to the dorm closed with her foot, and set the bowl of porridge down. She sprinkled a bit of water from her jug onto the scone, and heated it over her single candle – no more than two inches now, and she didn't know when she could expect to get another one – hoping that would return some of the freshness to it.
Taking a bite from the scone, she fished the letter from her pocket. She had never received a letter before, and had to wrack her brain for a second before she remembered what to do with it. She had seen the headmaster and headmistress opening letters. Those two worthies had used letter openers, cleverly designed to look like silvered knives, to slice the fold of the envelope without tearing its precious cargo. Scarly didn't have a knife, so after turning the envelope over in her hands three times, peering at it in the dim light of her single candle, she carefully ripped one corner. She slipped her little finger into the opening, working the tear along the edge of the envelope.
When she was done the envelope was no longer a clean rectangle of white. She had deformed it, making it seem as if one end had become a great maw with protruding, irregular teeth. Scarly reached into the envelope and felt another bit of paper in there. She took it out, finding a small slip of faded yellow paper much too small for the envelope it was in. Turning it to face the light from the candle, she saw more black writing on one face. Scarly sighed. She had been hoping that the contents would be some kind of drawing that she could look at, or (as her stomach growled) maybe even something to eat.
Scarly knew what to do. That girl Rainary - the one who had arrived the other week and who was now lodging in her old quarters in the attic - Scarly had heard some of the other students talking about her. She hadn't meant to pry but for some reason when the topic of conversation turned to Miss Rainary, she felt compelled to eavesdrop. Rainary could read, at least a little bit it seemed, and she had been very friendly to Scarly. Scarly didn't have many friends, but now when she thought of the new girl she felt a lonesome ache where there had not been one before.
So Scarly put the slip of yellow paper back into its envelope, tucked the envelope into the folds of her skirts, and headed back out into the night, leaving the scone and porridge and hunger forgotten.
Sneaking back into the house through the servant's entrance was no trouble at all. Cook was asleep in his cot by the smoldering kitchen fire, the big hulk of a man snoring loudly and scratching himself in his sleep. The icy blast of wind from the open door didn't seem to wake him, but Scarly shut it as quickly and quietly as she could. Then she tiptoed past the other servants sleeping in the kitchen, sharing the warmth of the fire, sharing the warmth of their bodies, heading towards the central staircase.
The first flight of stairs was carpeted. It lead to the students' dormitory, where Miss Rainary would have been quartered had she not joined the school while the semester was already in progress. Scarly felt a twinge of happiness at that misfortune, as it was the black-haired girl's isolation that made this nocturnal rendezvous possible. From the second floor on up the stairs lost their carpeting, but so too Scarly her need to be as quiet as a dormouse. The third floor landing fronted the storage area, and Rainary slipped right past it, going faster now, not even worried when the third step up groaned loudly with her slight weight. The fourth floor brought her to the attic corner room. The door was closed; probably Miss Rainary was trying to conserve what little heat she could get in that drafty room.
Scarly paused, suddenly nervous, second-guessing her mission here. She knew Miss Rainary a little, but... well, she liked her, she swallowed and admitted that to herself. She wondered if Miss Rainary liked her too. She thought she did. Whenever Miss Rainary saw her, her face changed into something approximating a smile. Scarly wondered what kind of family Miss Rainary came from, as the girl seemed not quite human, as if she had been raised in the wild. Wouldn't a normal human smile more? What if Miss Rainary wasn't human? What if she was some kind of magically transformed Animal, masquerading as human? Scarly had heard stories about that kind of thing.
But she shook her head to dislodge such fanciful daydreams. Miss Rainary wasn't any kind of wild child, transformed Animal, or daughter of a witch. She was just a normal kid. Peculiar, but peculiar in a way that made her easy to approach.
Scarly put her knuckles against the door. After closing her eyes and swallowing, she rapped on the door: tap tap tap, very softly as if she were afraid she might actually get the attention of the person in the room.
She withdrew her hand from the door. An answering silence stretched out for a long moment, just long enough for Scarly's courage to start preceding her down the stairs. But then she heard a scuffling from within the attic room just before the wooden door opened. Miss Rainary's sharp-featured face looked out the crack in the door. In the shadows cast by the light inside the attic room, Miss Rainary's skin looked abnormal, as if it were a pale shade of gray, or an ashen shade of green.
But the student's face brightened when she saw Scarly standing there. The tension in her eyes and jaw relaxed, a smile flirted about her lips.. Scarly stood there for a few seconds, just taking in Miss Rainary's features, the sharp cheekbones, the dark eyes glittering in the lamplight.
"Uh, Miss Rainary..." Scarly stuttered at last, wringing her hands. The student opened her door wider until Scarly could see Tay sitting up on his back legs, like a soldier at attention. Scarly smiled at the animal. No one was allowed pets at St. Prowd's, but Miss Rainary had a pet. What had she called it? A rice otter?
Without saying a word Rain shuffled out into the hallway, standing up and stretching her limbs. She was wearing nothing but a light shift many sizes too large for her, and as she stretched cat-like the hem of it rose above her knees. Scarly caught herself staring and blushed, averting her eyes. Rain paused, hands above her head, the fingers of one wrapped about the wrist of the other as she stretched out her spine. "Hmm?" she vocalized, perhaps realizing that something was suddenly off kilter, but not being, well, human, enough to realize what it was.
When the silence had stretched beyond Scarly's ability to bear it, she burst out, "You ain't'nt a transformed Animal, is you?" Then she laughed to cover her own embarrassment.
Rain switched sides and continued stretching, "I don't think so," she said, a puzzled expression on her face.
"Oh, I..." Scarly began, but then trailed off. Miss Rainary was right there, right there in front of her, and in the dim light of the lantern, she looked like a sensuous shadow.
"Is that all you came up here to ask me?" Miss Rainary said, and Scarly couldn't be sure if she was being coy, sarcastic, straight or something in between.
"No Miss Rainary, I came up here because I got this letter today and I don't know how to read and I thought of you up here learning to read and I thought you'd like something other than Miss Ironish' books to read from..."
She only paused when she ran out of breath and found that she had fumbled the gap-mawed envelope from her skirts and was presenting it to Rain, holding it out in both hands.
Rain took it without ceremony. She turned the envelope around, first looking at one side, and then the other. She pointed to one side of the envelope, "OZMAIL," she sounded out, indicating the postmark.
Scarly's smile was not unkind. "Yes, I know that," she urged, "But what... else does it say."
Rain puzzled over the writing on the front for a moment. She was still learning her letters, and she struggled to transform the curlicues and slashes into the sounds they represented. Her lips moved as she read. Scarly stood there as if entranced, not looking at the letter, but looking at Rain's lips. She watched them move as they mouthed soft sounds. She was grateful the dim light concealed her blush. Standing there unable to move she realized that she was a little afraid of Miss Rainary too, as one would fear a beautiful carving of a snake that might just turn out to be a real Snake.
After a few moments Rain's face lit up with a large smile of accomplishment, "This is the address. See? Here it says St. Prowd's School, and below it here, this is the street address here." With each 'here', Rain jabbed the envelope with her pointer finger.
"I see," said Scarly, not pointing out that no matter how forcefully Rain thumped the paper, she still would not be able to read. "But inside. The bit inside. What does that say?"
Rain looked a little crestfallen that Scarly wasn't praising her ability to read the envelope, but she brightened up at the realization that there were even more letters inside for her to puzzle over. She hadn't realized there would be letters inside, too. Rain had even less experience with envelopes, letters and the mail-system than did Scarly, who at least understood the basics by cultural osmosis.
Scarly giggled as Rain held the envelope above her head, digging around inside of it with two fingers of her other hand. The hopeful look in her eyes deflated when she pulled the yellowed paper out, its surface too small to contain many exciting letters.
Even so, the few sparse sentences in their blank ink was going to take her a while to chew on, so she moved back into the small steeple-roofed cubical of her sleeping chamber, already an expert at dodging the nails that threatened to snag her clothes and hair, to hunch by the light of her lantern. She didn't dare to dial up the flame in the lantern because she did not know when she would get more oil for it. She peered in silence at the yellowed paper for so long that Scarly became nervous alone on the empty landing. Scarly hunched down, sliding into the small cubicle next to Miss Rainary. The chamber was barely big enough to hold one girl, let alone two plus a rice otter. Tay made room by scampered up Miss Rainary's back.
Then Scarly felt a sudden pain in her hair as one of her close-cropped brown curls caught on a protruding nail. "Ow!" she said, and Miss Rainary responded to the noise, shifting around, sending Tay into a frenzy trying to stay balanced on her; as the dark-haired girl shifted into a squat in her small room, Tay clawed up her clothes until he found safer purchase on her shoulder. The familiar chittered a reproach at its person.
Scarly was trying to get to her hair, but the nail was high up, and with herself half-in and half-out of the small room, she was in no position to get at it. The more she moved, the more painfully it pinched. She looked at Miss Rainary, silhouetted by the lamp behind her. She indicated with vague motions of her hand that her hair was caught. Rain moved close, breaching the other girl's personal space without apology. Scarly felt her heart pitter-patter as Miss Rainary moved so close to her their bodies pressed together, her face up by Scarly's cheek, her warm breath on her neck and ear. Scarly sighed when Miss Rainary's clever fingers disentangled her hair from the nasty hook.
"Oh, Miss..." Scarly started to say, but then her hair was free, and just as easily as she had moved close to her to help, Miss Rainary moved away, bending over the lamp again. Taking more care this time of the protruding nails, which somehow seemed to be in different places than when she had been the resident in this cell, Scarly bent herself over Miss Rainary. Tay looked at her from his perch on his person's shoulders and chittered a little, a sound Scarly took as half-warning, half-greeting.
Scarly studied Rain's back, wondering again at her fantasy of the transformed Animal. Would Rain have wings folded up tight against her back? The shift she was wearing was worn and patchy. Through it Scarly could see the vertebrae of Rain's spine. Maybe the girl was a transformed Snake? That would explain the greenish color she had imagined before.
She lowered her face over her other shoulder, the one Tay wasn't perched on. Both the rice otter and the scullery maid looked on as Miss Rainary struggled to translate the alien squiggles into Ozish.
Scarly was close enough to see Rain's eyes moisten up as her lips sounded out the letters at the end of the short note. She wasn't crying, but her eyes filled with a genuine emotion. Rain turned her face to look into Scarly's eyes. The two girls' faces were so close they were breathing each others' breath. Tay craned to insert his face between the two girls, his mysterious eyes looking first at his person, and then at the scullery maid. But then the sea otter must have decided that the air was bit too thin for him there, and he scampered away.
"What does it say?" Scarly asked, her voice just above a whisper, as if some louder sound might shatter the fragile thing holding them together in this small room, "The letter?"
Rain looked away from Scarly back to the note, as if checking to confirm that whatever terrible thing she had read there seconds ago was written there still. Determining that it was, she looked back at the scullery maid. "Scarly," she spoke, her voice firm, unchoked by emotion, but still careful like handling a pretty flower whose petals are threatening to come off. "This letter.. your grandmother..."
"Granny!" Scarly exclaimed suddenly, and her throat tightened. She guessed the rest of what Rain was going to tell her.
Rain was looking her right in her eyes when she said, "The note says your grandmother is dead."
Scarly's heart sunk into her chest, and she clutched at her breast, her breathing coming in thudding gasps. Her violent reaction shocked her, and she struggled to control her emotions in front of her friend. But even as she regained control of her breathing, tears flooded into her eyes.
She hadn't thought of her family more deeply than an idle thought in several years. Back at home, she had only been one of many, and some of her siblings she had liked, and some of her siblings she had detested, but she didn't miss any of them, not really. But granny... she remembered her granny telling her stories, filling her juvenile head with pretty pictures of the fairy-tale goddess Lurline and her handmaiden Prinella, of the dark font of evil Kumbricia. She even told her once, in a voice breathy and hushed, about meeting the Wicked Witch of the West, and the way her skin was so green.
Scarly choked back the emotion. She had loved her grandmother in the way she hadn't loved her father or her brothers; she loved her in a special compartment of her heart, a place decorated with fairies and flowers, and now that she was dead... Scarly was afraid to open that box in her heart back up and look in it, for fear of what she might find there.
Rain was still looking into Scarly's eyes. She made a sound, not really words but just a small noise in her throat, like the beginning of a sigh. Tay perked up his ears.
When Scarly realized she was looking at the world through a veil of tears she wiped her eyes with her arm, sniffling back her emotions. She smiled weakly at Rain; after a puzzled second Rain returned the expression with her own sad, thin smile.
"I..." Scarly said, turned her face away and beginning to back her body out of the small cubbyhole, "I better go..." she said, sniffling back another surge of emotion within her. She hadn't known that she could feel this strongly, hadn't realized that her slight frame could contain so much grief.
Rain opened her mouth in surprise and reached out to her, her hand pausing before touching the other girl. "No..." she said, "Please..." she swallowed again. A thin, cold mist began seeping through the cracks in the ceiling as outside a drizzle began to fall; they could hear it pattering against the thin wall here, making the wooden support beams creak.
"It's been a long time since I... since I didn't have anyone to sleep next to." Then, as if she were ashamed of the words that she had just said, Rain turned around, lying down on her thin mattress, her back to Scarly.
Scarly looked at the other girl's back. The blanket was lowered down to her legs, and the sea otter was sitting upright on Rain's side, looking at Scarly with its big watery eyes. Scarly stopped moving away. Without consciously making the decision, she lowered herself down to the half of the mattress Rain had left open for her.
She pulled the blanket over them, taking care that each of them had an equal share. It wasn't a very wide blanket, it was not meant for two people, so Scarly had to press her back against Rain's so that the thin material could cover them both.
Without saying a word, Rain turned off the lamp, and the small room was plunged into a cold darkness. The only thing Scarly could see was her own breath crystallizing in the air. She left her eyes open in the darkness, staring out at nothing, listening to the other girl's breathing.
Rain purred, a sound so low and soft in her throat that Scarly wasn't even sure that she had heard it at all. The new schoolgirl wriggled, compressing her body into a small space, forcing her back against Scarly's hard; the other girl found she had to press back just as hard to prevent being pushed from the mattress; but after a moment, she found she didn't mind the pressure at all. It was a nice, comforting solidness. Warmth flowed in both directions across their spines as they pressed together. Scarly blushed; and all of a sudden, the small attic room with its drafty holes in the ceiling felt far too warm.
"Miss Rainary?" she whispered in a quiet voice, less afraid of being heard by someone than of breaking the moment, "Does you think..." she paused. Rain's sleepy voice replied, "Hmm?"
"Does you think you can teach me letters too?"
Rain turned around, careful not to twist the blankets off of Scarly; Scarly moved onto her back and they lay like that, face-to-face again, although in the darkness of the room she could see nothing but the whites of Rain's eyes. Maybe this is where Rain would reveal herself as a transformed Animal; maybe she was a dragon who would devour Scarly as a snack, leaving the rest of the staff to wonder where she had gone off to, never suspecting that she was in the new girl's belly.
But Rain did not change shape, and when she spoke again Scarly heard the eager pride in her voice, "Of course I will teach you letters," she said, "You are my best friend." The rice otter chittered from where he lay at their feet. "Next to you, Tay," Rain added, and both girls giggled.
Scarly blushed. She'd never had a real friend before, let alone a best friend. She wondered if Rain had ever had one before. Rain lay her arm across Scarly's clavicle, resting her hand against her shoulder. Scarly wasn't shocked the way she knew that Miss Ironish wanted her to be; instead she welcomed the pressure of Rain leaning against her side, comforted by the light solidness of the arm across her chest. She squirmed until they were both comfortable, heads resting on each other's arms, the blanket securely tucked in around them.
As she lay there, listening to Rain's soft breathing and her almost inaudible purr, smelling the earthy scent of her skin, Scarly's thoughts drifted off to her tomorrows. Letters - squiggles and lines - danced in front of her closed eyes and escorted her off to slumber. Her last thought before she fell into a warm, dreamless sleep was that Rain's companionship had banished her sudden sadness. She had found her solace in Rain.