Back to Paper-Making
The snow began to melt and sunny days came in sequence rather than once in a blue moon. It was still cold, but my family permitted me to go the Gilberta Company, so I went there with Lutz to get our pay. We set out with bags we could use to carry the money our winter handiwork had earned.
There was no snow in the middle of the main street, but there were mountains of half-melted snow in the alleys reaching up to my neck that kept the feeling of winter alive. Everyone looked excited for spring, and the people walking along the street all had a skip to their step. There were more carriages and wagons passing along the main street than I could remember seeing for a long time. More people were going to the Gilberta company, too, and despite us aiming for the relatively non-busy afternoon, they were still swamped when we arrived.
Lutz and I began discussing whether we should come back later when we saw Mark walking our way. An employee had recognized us and called for him.
“Hi. Long time no see, Mr. Mark.”
“Indeed. Blessed be the melting of the snow. May the Goddess of Spring’s boundless magnanimity grace you both.” Mark clenched his right hand into a fist in front of his chest and placed it against his left hand, fingers pressed together and stretched out. I had no idea what he was doing and could only blink rapidly in confusion.
“Um? What?”
“...I merely said the traditional spring greeting.” Mark looked confused about why we were confused, which told me that his greeting was commonplace in these parts.
“I’ve never heard it before. Have you, Lutz?”
“Nope, first time I’m hearing it too.”
“...Is it maybe a greeting only merchants say?”
“I have never thought much about it, given that it is so commonplace in my family, but given that my job leads to me primarily associating with merchants, that could be the case. Melting snow means more trade, so it is blessed. The greeting in general is one to bless each other with the good graces of the Goddess of Spring,” said Mark, teaching us how merchants greet each other. Or at least, how they greeted each other specifically the first time they meet after spring. I interpreted it as the equivalent of saying “Happy New Year.”
I pressed my right fist against my left palm in front of my chest as Mark had done and practiced the greeting. “Blessed be the melting of the snow?”
“That’s correct.”
“And then, um, may the Goddess of Spring’s boundless magnanimity grace you,” I murmured the greeting to myself several times, but I was confident I would forget it by tomorrow. Once again, I wished I had a notepad. I had my stone slate in my bag, but it wouldn’t work as a notepad.
“The master is in a business meeting right now. Might I ask in his stead what brings you here today?” asked Mark, to which I replied while counting everything I had to talk about on my fingers.
“Ummm, first is the money for our winter handiwork. Second, I want to confirm if the large suketa has been finished, since I want to start making paper again soon. Third, I need to talk to Mr. Benno about my apprenticeship, but I guess I can’t if he’s in a meeting.”
“Understood. Let us begin with the handiwork payment. His meeting will end before long.” Mark guided us to a table within the store. Lutz and I sat next to each other, and Mark sat in front.
“Um, I present the last of the hairpins. P-Please assess them, sir,” stumbled Lutz as he held out the bag of hairpins, not used to being so polite. Mark took them out and counted.
“There are twenty-four here. Including those you delivered, you have brought us a total of one hundred and eighty-six hairpins. Is that correct?”
“Mhm, perfect.” We had the exact same number written on our slates. Each hairpin was worth five middle coppers. From that Lutz and I put our one copper share directly into our guild savings. We then put the rest into a separate bag we had brought with us, to make it easier to distribute.
Lutz’s three brothers had been making an equal amount of them to prevent fighting, so we owed each of them six large coppers and two middle coppers. Very simple. On the other hand, Mom had made eighty-three hairpins, Tuuli sixty-six, and me thirty-seven, which made things kind of annoying. Mom had earned one small silver, six large coppers, and six middle coppers. Tuuli had earned one small silver, three large coppers, and two middle coppers. I had earned seven large coppers and four middle coppers.
“With this many hairpins, our stock should last until next winter. They are selling fairly well. Our customers enjoy browsing the different colors and selecting their favorites.”
I smiled, imagining a mother and daughter browsing hairpins together. “Really? That’s great. I made a hairpin too, for my own baptism.”
“What kind is it?”
“That’s a secret for now.” I giggled and Mark raised an eyebrow.
“Oh? In that case, I will look forward to its grand reveal. Moving on, then. You wish to resume making paper?”
“Yes. We can’t be sure until Lutz goes to the forest and checks out the river, but now that it’s spring, I want to start making paper again.” Benno would only give us free financial support until the beginning of this summer. The sooner we started, the better.
“Understood. I will speak to the craftsman. You ordered two of these suketa the size of contract paper, yes?”
“Mhm. Thank you.”
Just as we finished the first two topics, Benno’s business meeting ended and several merchants left his room.
“I will report this to the master. Please wait just a moment.” Mark entered the room, then popped back out to gesture us inside.
It was the first time I was seeing Benno this spring, so I put my right fist against my left palm to immediately say the spring greeting I had just learned.
“Hi Mr. Benno, nice to see you. Blessed be the melting of the snow. Ummm, may the Goddess of Spring’s... boundless magnanimity, um... Um? H-How does it go again?”
Lutz, seeing that I couldn’t remember something I learned five minutes ago without a notepad, shook his head and stepped forward. “Blessed be the melting of the snow. May the Goddess of Spring’s boundless magnanimity grace you.”
“Right, that! Blessed be the melting of the snow. May the Goddess of Spring’s boundless magnanimity grace you both.”
Thanks to Lutz, I remembered the greeting and corrected myself. Benno returned the greeting while clearly holding back laughter.
“Yeah, blessed be the melting of the snow. May the Goddess of Spring’s boundless magnanimity grace you. Anyway... you sure messed that up, huh? Do better next time,” said Benno with a grin as he tapped his table. Lutz and I sat down on the other side and began our discussion.
“Mr. Mark just taught me that today. I’ve never heard it before, so at least compliment me for getting most of it right on my first try.”
“...Yeah? In that case, good job, Lutz. Anyway, what’s all this about your apprenticeship?” Benno complimented only Lutz, who had given the entire greeting correctly.
I puffed my cheeks out, pouting, and got to the main point of why I was here. “I’ve decided not to become your apprentice after my baptism.”
“Huh...? Hold up. Where’s this coming from? ’Cause I didn’t compliment you just now? You didn’t say it right, but I appreciate that you tried your best, y’know.” Benno rubbed his temples and tossed out a lukewarm compliment for my greeting.
“No! That’s not it! The greeting has nothing to do with this.”
“Then why?”
“Umm, you know how weak I am, right?”
“Obviously. You’re so weak I can hardly believe it.” Benno’s immediate reply pierced my chest.
“Ngh... You were worried about whether or not I would even be able to work, weren’t you? I think that if a new apprentice takes a lot of days off work and is given all the easiest jobs, the other employees will get upset and everything will start collapsing.”
“Is that all? Why else are you saying this?” Benno glared at me with his dark-red eyes and I thought back to all the important points Otto had talked to me about.
“Ummm, also, isn’t it likely that the profit from my products will lead to me earning a lot more than a veteran that’s been working here for decades? Money can break apart human relationships faster than anything.”
“Who told you that? Don’t try and say you thought of that yourself.” Benno narrowed his eyes and peered at me, so I replied with a big nod. I had a very narrow perspective due to my entire life up until this point being built around reading books. Even now, I was mainly just thinking about my own health. I hadn’t thought about human relationships and all that abstract stuff until Otto pointed it out to me.
“Mr. Otto told me all this.”
“Is that right? Otto, huh...?”
Wait... Is it just me, or did his voice just drop an octave? And is that a violent look in his eyes? I must be imagining things. I tilted my head in confusion at Benno’s sudden shift into predator mode and asked the biggest question on my mind.
“Also, you know that I’m sick with the Devouring, right? I don’t think you should hire an employee that could die before the year is up.” It was very likely that the resources he put into training me would all be wasted. A merchant wouldn’t be willing to do that.
Benno rubbed his temples hard and stared at me with eyes that had sharpened drastically. “So, what’ll you do instead of joining my store?”
“I’ll do paperwork and stuff at home, make new products with Lutz on my days off, sometimes go to the gate to help... Basically, the same things I have been doing. I talked with my family over the winter and we decided that the less work we put on my body the better.”
“Alright. I’ll take you off the future apprentice list.” The strength drained from Benno’s eyes and shoulders. He rubbed his temples and murmured “What am I gonna do about this...?” while deep in thought. I called out to him after he started whispering to himself.
“Um, Mr. Benno. Is there any work you could give me that I can do at home?”
Benno’s eyes immediately flashed with a sharp light. His expression looked calm, but his lips were curved into the grin of a carnivore. “Your handwriting is pretty nice. You could find good work as a stand-in writer for others. So, come to the store with Lutz every once in a while. Alright?”
Um... Why do I feel like a predator has just captured me? I decided not to think about it since he was offering me a job and instead asked another question.
“Um, in that case, what will happen to my guild card? I was planning on selling things through Lutz, but my card is assigned to your store right now, isn’t it? Will it need to switch over to a merchant stand?”
My plan had been to register as an apprentice at the Gilberta Company once my baptism was over, so I had no idea what would happen to it if I didn’t do that. A temporary registration wouldn’t fly after the baptism ceremony, I imagined. But I didn’t belong to any store and I couldn’t do trade without being registered.
“I don’t know how many products you intend to think up, but how about we turn your storage building into the Myne Workshop and make your card into a forewoman’s card? If you sign a contract making it a branch of the Gilberta Company, not much will change from right now.”
“Forewoman?! Wow, that sounds cool. If doing that will keep things the same, it’s what I want. Thank you.” I clapped my hands with joy and Benno nodded with a happy grin.
Then I continued, “Okay, with that settled, I’ll tell you what I told Mark. I want to start making paper again after checking the river. We’ll keep making paper until our baptism, but after that Lutz has his apprentice work and I’ll stop being an apprentice at all, so I think it would be best if you left the paper-making to another workshop. Does that work?”
“If I left it to another workshop? You’re supposed to be the one to pick it, remember? But I mean, whatever works for you.”
The magic contract Lutz and I had signed was meant to ensure us stable, safe work with Benno’s store. Wood paper-making would be a new business, and I could imagine that Benno wanted to select the workshop and workers carefully to maximize his profit. Meanwhile, given that I wasn’t getting a cut of the overall profits, I honestly didn’t care who made it as long as paper ended up mass produced and common throughout the world.
“Well, I don’t know anything about workshops, and I don’t know anybody who wants to make paper. Though since a step involves dunking wood in a river, you’ll maybe want a workshop near the river.”
“Near the river, huh...? That won’t be easy. How are you two managing it?”
Lutz shrugged. “We carry our tools to the river and do our work there, but I’m thinkin’... I believe that carrying the tools there each day would be, er, not good.”
“Mass production will involve larger tools, which would make carrying them close to impossible. But thinking about that is your job and the workshop people’s job.”
“...It sure is.” Benno nodded, signaling that he would deal with choosing the workshop, buying tools, and so on himself.
“Please make these decisions before the baptism ceremony. Lutz will come teach you how to make paper once the baptism is over.”
“Me?!” Lutz’s eyes widened and his mouth flapped.
I smiled and nodded. “Well, there’s a lot of steps I can’t do myself. You teaching him would be for the best. We’ll make so much paper in the spring that you’ll end up memorizing the process whether you want to or not.”
“You’re really abandoning all responsibility here, huh?” laughed Benno in amusement.
I looked away. I knew that I was burdening others by abandoning responsibility. But now that I had mostly ironed out the paper-making process and found a way to mass produce paper, I wanted to advance to the next step. Just paper wasn’t enough to make a book. I needed to make paper for myself over the winter and start getting to work on printing.
I left Benno’s store with my time-limited dream held closely in my heart. Mark was a fast worker and our new suketa would be in our storage building by tomorrow. Hearing that, Lutz went to the thawed-out forest to investigate the river for us.
“How was it, Lutz? Warm enough to make paper?”
“The river’s bigger thanks to all the melted snow, but unless there’s some heavy rain, I don’t think the bark will get washed away,” concluded Lutz, which meant it was time to make paper again.
The next day Lutz left in the early morning to get the storage building key, then we headed there together. We walked along the alleys and I thought about what we needed to do today as still-chilly air pushed against my coat.
We would go to the storage building first and check to see if the black bark and trombe wood we’d left there was safe. Once that was done, we could get to work turning it into white bark while simultaneously using the saved white bark from the volrin wood to start making actual paper.
“Well, considering my health, it would probably be better for us to wait for the water to warm a bit.”
“Aaah, yeah. But we need to start saving money, so the sooner we start the better.” Benno would only fund our paper-making until our baptism. We wanted to earn as much money as possible before then.
“I wonder if the trombe black bark is doing okay...” I murmured.
“It’s been drying since we left it here. It should all be dried out by now.”
“I’m worried that it grew mold since there’s no sun here!”
“Y’know, I don’t think mold really grows on trombe wood.” Luz shrugged, but we had completely skipped the sun-drying process, so I couldn’t help but feel worried. It had definitely dried out given how we left it here for the entirety of winter, but who knew if it would be dried the way I wanted it.
We reached the storage building and unlocked it. The door creaked as it opened. A ton of what looked like ivy was hanging off the shelves of the dim storage building. Add that on the dust everywhere and it looked pretty horrible in there.
“Is this really gonna be okay?”
“Alright, I gotta say I’m a little worried now too.” He poked the black bark with a finger and it was completely crusty, showing that it had finished drying. But since it was black, it was hard to tell by color whether or not mold was growing on it.
“Let’s go ahead and take it to the forest and put it in the river.”
“What else are we bringing?” asked Lutz while dusting off the carrying basket he had left here.
“Ummm, you should take the pot and the ashes, I think? We don’t need something as big as a tub, but a bucket would be nice. And we’ll be in trouble if we can’t find any firewood in the forest, so maybe we should bring some of that too. I’ll carry the black bark and our saved volrin white bark, plus my (chopsticks).”
“I dunno about the bucket, but if you say so.” I prepared the dried-up trombe black bark and volrin white bark, grabbed the chopsticks Lutz had made for me to stir the pot, and put them into my basket alongside several rags. We put our stuff on our backs and hurried to the meeting place where the other kids were.
We arrived at the forest with everyone and scattered to do our own things. Lutz and I went to the riverbed. Once there, Lutz prepared the pot near the river. He placed the pot on top of the hearth of stones and began drawing water with his bucket.
“I get it now. We can get water from the river without going inside of it like this. Good thinking, Myne.”
To get water into the pot directly one had to enter the river, but it seemed Lutz hadn’t thought of a workaround for that. He put the water into the pot and ignited the firewood we had brought with us. As the water boiled, we put the black bark into the water to clean it as much as possible.
Lutz glared at the river flowing with melted snow and murmured about how cold it looked. He had to position the rocks into a circle to keep the black bark from washing away, but only half of the rocks from autumn were still here. Which meant he needed to enter the river and get to work placing the rocks.
“Gaaah! So cooold!” Lutz yelled miserably as he walked into the ice-cold river.
“I believe in you, Lutz!” I would definitely get a fever if I went in there, and if I got a fever my family wouldn’t allow me to go outside for a bit. All I could do here was support him from the sidelines.
I walked around the riverbed and collected firewood for Lutz until eventually he called out to me from the river. “Myne, get the black bark!”
“Okaaay.”
Once he got the black bark into place, Lutz dashed out of the river and squatted in front of the burning hearth. He held out his bright-red hands and feet to the fire and rubbed them together. I scooped up a bucket of warm water from the pot and held it out to Lutz.
“Put this on your hands and feet. If you don’t rub it in enough, you might get frostbite.”
“...Now this is warm. Feels great.” Lutz let out a sigh of relief after getting the warm water on his hands and feet. The water cooled almost immediately, but that had been enough to heat his body up.
We put the ashes and white bark into the now-boiling water, then once it was finished we put it into the river to wash away the ashes. Thanks to Lutz’s tearful yet noble efforts within the cold river, we safely finished the day’s work.
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