Free The Unnaturalists by Tiffany Trent Page A

today? I don’t really care so much except that I wonder what he would think about the boy who stole my toad, about the Waste locked in the box in Father’s office. What should I say about his rescue of Piskel the sylphid? The fact that he is an Architect? Or that he thinks I’m a witch?
    I stare at the steep street filled with people going about their business and long for a life as uncomplicated as theirs.
    Aunt Minta’s arm steals around my waist as her chin presses softly into my shoulder. I grit my teeth, imagining what she would say if she knew what I’m clutching in my fist.
    “Come inside, darling,” she says. The compassion in her voice is almost more than I can bear; she melts my resistance.
    “I should be with him,” I say, nodding toward Father’s retreating figure.
    “I know it seems that way,” she says. “But your father is right; it’sgetting time for you to lay childhood aside and think about your future.”
    She ushers me back through the door and into the hallway with its glowing everlanterns. Even during the day, the lanterns are needed to dispel the eternal gloom of the Refineries. They say every city isn’t like this. Scientia is brilliant with light because of the prevailing winds off the Winedark Sea. Euclidea, which was halfway between New London and Scientia, was once green and rich with hanging gardens before the Waste swallowed it whole.
    Aunt Minta draws me from such gloomy thoughts into the parlor where the radiators hiss with myth -made steam. She’s had a fire laid on too, for she knows how much I love the crackle-dance of true flame. I’ve heard that my mother loved such things too—Father told me so once when I was little and stared too long at the flames. I think again of the lost toad, the only thing I had from her, with a morose sigh. Aunt Minta pats the settee beside her and takes out her tatting as I sit. I watch, trying not to twist my hands in my lap.
    “I’m making this for your trousseau,” Aunt Minta says, smiling. “It’ll make a beautiful collar on a dressing gown.”
    “Aunt Minta . . .” I begin.
    She looks at me sharp as the needle she’s holding in her hand.
    “You heard your father, darling. We need to start thinking about these things.”
    “Did my mother think about them?”
    Aunt Minta’s lips crimp ever so slightly. She doesn’t like talking about my mother. No one does, actually. I learned that when I was very small.
    “Well, of course she did, dear. She married your father, didn’t she?”
    I can hardly imagine my own dear father bestirring himself from his laboratory or experiments long enough to notice anyone. “And she was a proper lady?”
    The fire snaps through the long silence.
    “But of course, dear,” Aunt Minta finally says. “Your father was quite enchanted with her.”
    It’s a rather odd thing to say, considering the position of the Church on enchantments. “Yes,” I ask, “but did your family approve of her? I mean, were they happy with the marriage?”
    Another knot, another loop pulled tight. “It was approved by the Imperial Matchmaker and done with all the proper forms,” she says at last.
    “That wasn’t what I asked.”
    She looks up at me with that same sharpness. “Why are you asking these questions? Have you someone in mind already? Someone you fear is unsuitable?”
    “I . . . just wanted to know about Mother,” I say softly.
    “She found her place. As will you,” my aunt says. She reaches into her tatting basket and hands me an extra shuttle and thread. She pats my shoulder as my fingers fumble, trying to remember the patterns of knots I’d mercifully forgotten since the last time I resisted her teaching. “Don’t worry so much about it all, dear. We’ll help you. Once we finally get you out into Society, I know the perfect match will appear.”
    “But what if he doesn’t?” I ask. “Or what if it’s someone Father disapproves of?” Or someone I disapprove of? No one really seems to