Page 124 of Out of Oz (The Wicked Years 4)

“But there’s no light,” said Rain. No, Rainary. She was trying to remember.

“You’ll be here at night mostly. All rooms are dark at night.”

“Not if there’s a moon.”

“You’ll be too tired to stay awake mooning over the moon. It’s too bad that there is no extra bed downstairs but your mother paid no attention to the registration deadlines. You’re lucky we’re accommodating you at all. Call it charity on our part.”

“There’s no light. And no window.”

Miss Ironish seemed not to hear. “You have more catching up to do than any girl we have ever admitted. And believe me we have entertained some real losers in our time.”

Rain reached out her hands. She could touch the sloping beams on either side. This wasn’t a room. It was a coffin the shape of a tent. And it smelled of wood-mold; she could see the blotched rot where rain must come through the slates.

“You’ll want to watch these protruding nails,” said Miss Ironish. “They will rake your scalp if you sit up too fast. Breakfast is at five. There will be a bell, struck once. If you don’t hear it, you miss breakfast. You won’t miss it more than twice, I guarantee that.”

Rain put her small carpetbag down. She thought about the stone in it, the bone, the shell, the feather.

“You can hang your garments on that pair of hooks—I can tell you didn’t arrive with many. That’s proper humility, and I applaud it. I believe we shall get along very well, Miss Rainary.”

“What should I do now?”

“You can spend the evening settling in.”

“Can I get something to eat?”

“Your board doesn’t vest until breakfast tomorrow. However, I am not a monster. I shall send up a girl with a tray. Including water for your creature. What is it, anyway?”

“A rice otter. Its name is Tay.”

“I do not think it will be happy here.”

Rain thought better than to reply with the first thing that came to her mind. Who could? See, she was learning already. “Where is a lamp?”

“We did not budget for a lamp.”

“How can I study and catch up on my learning without a lamp?”

“Very well. I shall begin to keep a ledger and write down all your demands so that your mother can reimburse the academy when she comes on Visitation Day.”

“When is that? And a book too, if you have one.”

“Visitation Day is the month after Lurlinemas. Some eleven, twelve weeks away. As for your reading selections, I shall pick out a volume from my private library of devotional literature. How well do you read?”

“I don’t know.”

“If you can derive any grace and benefit from what I send up for you, I will be surprised.”

Me too, thought Rain. But anything to read was better than nothing.

Miss Ironish retired down the dusty wooden steps—not down one flight but several, as an attic filled with battered furniture separated the aerie from the dormitories in which the other girls slept. As she went she sang something quite cheerfully in a minor key. Rain took out her shifts, her petticoat, and the new pair of pale leather shoes that laced up the sides. A little light lanced through chinks in the roofing tiles, which meant, she suspected, that chill and wind and snow would sift through, too.

When she heard steps again, she went to the door to greet the girl. Mounting to the landing, hauling a lamp and a plate upon a tray, stumped a funny-looking kid with gappy teeth and freckles, and a weedy head of close-cropped ash-brown curls. “Here you

be, then, Miss Rainary,” she said. “All’s you could hope for in the penthouse suite.”

“It’s not a lot. Is that supper?”

“Likewise it’s very nice to meet you,” said the girl pointedly.

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