A shy knocking echoed through the corridor of the mayor’s house. Elizabeth looked at the grandfather clock standing in the corner of the room. Ah, that must be Kuum’s and Iuli’s kid. It’s about time he showed up. Elizabeth got up from her comfy armchair in the living room and strode to open the door without wasting as much as a single motion.
A small boy looked up to her awkwardly. She waited a second for him to speak, but he just continued to just occasionally throw a glance up to her. Elizabeth sighed at his dirty, blood-stained clothes and his dusty, bare feet. “Come in, Reiland.” With yet another sigh, she grabbed a pair of indoor slippers from the shoe rack and handed them to the child – better to wash these than wipe the whole floor again.
The boy put on the shoes and hung his dirty mantle on the coat rack, using the shoe stool to reach it. His father had come by a few days ago, with a rather unusual request. His son had told him that he'd taken an interest in learning to read. Cottan lacked a public school, and neither of the boy’s parents were literate, so they were forced to ask for help.
Kuum had done a lot of work for them over the years, and had proven a good and reliable helper with about any tasks they’d given him. It was certainly a bit unusual, but when Kuum requested to trade labor for tutelage of his son, Elizabeth and her Husband accepted happily.
Although Reiland hated to admit it, he was impressed by the huge, luxurious interior of the mayor’s house. The wood-paneled walls of the corridor were covered with expensive-looking paintings. It was well-lit by the sun shining through the milk-glass panel in the front door and the glass door leading to a garden. Additionally, two unlit petrol lamps adorned with brass decorations were mounted to the wall for lighting after dusk. The whole corridor smelt of flowers.
Reiland followed the mayor’s wife, who his father had told him was named Elizabeth, to the double doors at the end of the corridor. Their well-maintained angles were whisper-quiet as she pushed the doors open and led Reiland into the living room, which doubled as a library and study. She signaled him to sit down on one of the upholstered chairs.
Reiland took his time, inspecting the cluttered table while Elizabeth closed the door to the study behind them and sat down as well. Most things on the table were Books, stacks of Paper and writing utensils. Apart from that, there was a glass jug filled with a transparent, golden-brown liquid that Reiland strongly suspected to be apple juice. Elizabeth must’ve noticed him staring at it. “Help yourself. The juice is for you.”
Reiland didn’t have to be told twice. He took and poured a porcelain cup, taking great care not to spill anything. Elizabeth had grabbed a book with big letters on the cover in the meantime and set it down next to him. “The first and most important when learning a new writing system is its alphabet, the letters that all words are built out of. It is also what I will teach you today. In school, you would normally learn reading before writing. This isn’t school though, and Kuum assured me you were clever enough to pick up on it quickly enough. I will be teaching you both reading and writing at the same time.”
Reiland nodded. “That is fair. If it means that I can learn things quicker, I am all for it.” The meekness from when he knocked at the door had evaporated when he noticed that Elizabeth was not giving him any credit for it. Elizabeth had fallen into a strict teaching tonus. “Great. Let us begin, then.”
After ensuring Reiland could hold a pencil properly, Elizabeth started going through the Alphabet letter by letter. First were the vowels and their variations, then the consonants. Although he hardly had any point of reference, Reiland had to admit that Elizabeth was doing her job very well. She was excellent at explaining, but also very strict, not letting even the smallest error slide.
She walked Reiland through the pronunciation of each letter as she pointed them out in her learning booklet. After she was happy with how Reiland said the letter, she showed him how to write it, cleanly and correctly. They soon fell into a steady rhythm, taking fifteen minutes per letter at first, but no more than five minutes soon after. After around three hours, they were done.
Reiland’s head was bursting at the seams with new knowledge. He was sure he’d forget half of it soon. However, his understanding of the matter had increased considerably. There were five vowels and nineteen consonants, for a total of twenty-four letters. The five vowels could each be modified by a dot on top to elongate them, or a left- or right-facing line to mix their pronunciation with another vowel. With these modifications, there were eighteen vowel variations. Reiland’s wrists cramped and hurt, and he desperately fought down a headache.
“You did very well, Reiland. I’ve given you enough input for today, just practice more for now.” Reiland sighed, shaking out his wrists and looking at the pages he'd filled. The first few instances of each letter he wrote were quite shaky, but they slowly improved until Elizabeth had deemed them acceptable. “I see you looking like that, don’t think about slacking now. I will look at your results later, and don’t you dare deliver squiggly scribbles just because you think you’d get away with it. But for now, take a break! I am going to cook something nice now, feel free to stay and eat with us.”
Reiland quickly weighed his options. His stomach had been grumbling fiercely for a while now, as he hadn’t had a chance for breakfast yet – not that there would have been anything at home except some wild berries and mushrooms. He still had the rest of the money his mother gave him, as his mother forgot to ask back for it in the commotion around Arstibal. He could have bought something for himself, but he didn’t really want to spend it – and he had to admit he was more than curious what the mayor’s family would eat for lunch. The only issue was that he would see the annoying son – but he had a feeling that Elizabeth would keep him in check.
“I think I will eat with you, then.” Reiland said, not letting his excitement for some good food show. Elizabeth nodded curtly, and replied: “Good. Would you mind helping me in the kitchen? I could use an extra hand at chopping vegetables.” Reiland had always liked helping his mother with cooking, so he shrugged and followed her into the kitchen.
The thought of a dedicated room for cooking alone seemed like a luxury to Reiland, and that was not even mentioning the plethora of cooking equipment the kitchen was filled with to the brim. Countless pans, pots and trays in all different shapes, sizes and materials were stacked in the wooden shelves on one side. The other side was decked out with vegetables, herbs, spices and other ingredients. There even was something in the corner that Reiland recognized as an Icebox.
“We will be cooking a spinach lasagna. Could you take some onions and tomatoes and dice them for me? Cutting boards are here, and knives here. Pick one that feels comfortable to you. Wash your hands in the sink first. With soap.” Elizabeth pointed to the respective shelves and drawers as she spoke.
Reiland had never heard of a dish called Lasagna before, but he figured that he’d learn of its nature soon enough when watching Elizabeth cook. To his surprise, the kitchen sink had running water. After rinsing and washing his hands, he took a moment to admire the soap’s rich pine scent.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Reiland had no troubles finding the vegetables and the cutting board. His eyes began to sparkle when he opened the knife drawer. Knives in all different shapes and sizes were organized neatly in custom-fitted wooden drawer partitions. The usage of some of them eluded Reiland, like that of an odd knife with a serrated edge, prongs at the front and holes in the blade. Other knifes looked very, very sharp, and he wagered they’d have no issues cutting through skin, muscle and cartilage alike.
The sheath at Reiland’s hip felt awfully empty. He was still certain that the mayor’s son had stolen his knife, and part of him had hoped to find a way of getting it back when he heard he’d be studying at the mayor’s house. Another part of him wanted to snag one of the knives then and there to compensate for his loss, but he held himself back. If he was caught, he might lose his only shot at understanding the book he nabbed from Arstibal.
Reiland decided to postpone any thoughts about stealing knives to a later date, and picked a small kitchen knife with a short, but straight and sharp blade to prepare the vegetables as ordered. His skilled hands made quick work of them while he occasionally glanced over to what Elizabeth is doing. The mayor’s wife had put on a clean apron and a hairnet, and was busy soaking yellow-white rectangular sheets in salted water, grating some hard cheese as well as blanching and chopping spinach.
Elizabeth gladly took the diced onions from Reiland and started frying them up in a rounded steel frying pan with olive oil, herbs and garlic. A delicious fragrance soon started permeating the kitchen, which got Reiland drooling. After she deemed the onions ready, she added the diced tomatoes and some vegetable stock to the sauce and left it to simmer.
On another pot, she added flour and butter, mixing it into a clump of batter. Reiland, now devoid of things to do, got up and stood on a small footstool to get a better view. Once the batter had browned slightly, Elizabeth added a cup of milk and got to whisking it until it was of a smooth, creamy consistency without any chunks. She topped it off by taking a small, brown, somewhat wrinkly nut and grating a little of it onto the sauce. After whisking again, she took it from the fire along the tomato sauce.
She got two little spoons, dipped them into the sauce and tasted one. The other one was handed to Reiland. The sauce was still piping hot, so Reiland had to blow the steam off it a little before testing. He wondered how Elizabeth had tried it without letting it cool, but the middle-aged woman was already testing the tomato sauce which was steaming as well. The white sauce tasted amazing; mild, sweet and a little nutty. He reached to test the tomato sauce as well; it was fruity-sweet, but slightly acidic and had a good tang to it from the garlic.
“Do you have anything to add to that?” Elizabeth asked. When Reiland shook his head, she added a few pinches of salt to the tomato sauce.
Reiland was amazed by her cooking. His mother was by no means a bad cook, but the rather sparse equipment in their ‘kitchen’ severely limited what they could do. Seeing all these steps and different ingredients come into play to form a final result was fascinating to Reiland, even if the final result wasn’t yet clear to him. However, he had one question. “Where is the meat?”
“Excuse me? What do you mean, where is the meat?” Elizabeth seemed perplexed by his question. Reiland sighed, annoyed that he had to explain what should have been obvious. “Meat is expensive, but you are rich. Why don’t you eat meat, then? I would eat meat every day if I was rich. Cow meat, not frog...” Elizabeth sighed. “Even rich people don’t eat meat every day, you know? We could have had meat yesterday, or during the week before.”
Reiland didn’t miss the implication held. “But you didn’t? Why?” Elizabeth cleared her throat. “Have you ever heard of vegetarianism?”
Reiland had heard of it, but the concept of simply *not* eating meat was strange to him. Why would anyone simply choose not to eat meat when it was so delicious? Elizabeth seemed to notice his rather skeptical expression. “If I am being honest, I don’t dislike meat. Sully and Ione don’t, either. It’s mainly Brian... he gets very sick if he sees other people eating it. You know how much he loves animals?”
The thought of never eating meat again was ludicrous, even more so if it was for the sake of the shithead the mayor’s son had been. It seemed like his own family suffered under his reign of terror as well. Reiland nodded, pitying them with all his heart.
They finished cooking without more conversation. Elizabeth showed Reiland how to layer the sheets, which she told him were pasta, with tomato sauce, white sauce and spinach. It got topped off with a thick layer of grated cheese, and went into the hot oven. Reiland helped Elizabeth with setting the table, and it wasn’t long before a delicious aroma filled the whole house.
Reiland hadn’t been the only one who smelt it, though. The mayor’s son came in, beaming with excitement. “Hello Mom! What’s for Lunch? It smells deli-” He paused abruptly when he spotted Reiland. “What the hell is HE doing here?” Ione came into the room shortly after. “Reiland is learning reading from mother. Didn’t she tell you, Brian?” The sour face on Ione’s Brother’s face left no doubt that he hadn’t been informed yet.
“I... you can’t do that! Don’t let this psychopath in our house! What if he murders you, mom!?” His yapping face was red, and he looked like steam was coming from his nose and ears. Reiland would have laughed if the boy wasn’t that much bigger than him, and very much scary and capable of beating him up. Luckily, it seemed like he guessed right when he figured that Elizabeth would help him.
“Brian, stop it! What Reiland did was wrong, but such behavior is still beneath a child of mine! Two wrongs don’t make a right! From how I know him, Reiland is a talented and hardworking boy, who achieved more in learning to read and write in three hours than I got into your thick skull in two years!”
Reiland couldn’t help but grin. He hadn’t expected Elizabeth to be this savage. The mayor’s son was even redder in the face, and looked to be close to hyperventilating. Then, he finally found his words. “Oh, is that so??? Just wait, I will learn it too, and two times as fast as him! Teach me as well!”
Reilands grin fell straight off his face, a single thought in his head: Fuck.
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Hook, line and Sinker. That was easy. No person, a woman even less, who was in political power could make it far without learning a manipulation tactic or two. Elizabeth felt a little bad about using them on her own son, but only a little, considering how well it had worked.
Brian had been actively refusing anything that involved paper for years now. It wasn’t that he was stupid, no – Elizabeth knew for a fact that he was very clever, only overshadowed by his stubbornness. Forcing him to do anything that bored him was frustrating and nigh impossible, as she had learnt a long while ago. She had almost given up on ever getting him literate.
However, when Kuum knocked at the door with his request to teach Reiland, who was famously rivaled with Brian, a plan had immediately started to take from. Paired with Brian’s competitive nature, it was perfect.
She took her time enjoying the lasagna that had just finished baking, with everyone sitting down and even Sully coming down from his office. Reiland had been a good help in the kitchen, again something that Brian would never even consider. Considering his help, it was only fair that he ate almost a quarter of it alone, despite being by far the smallest of the five of them.
She gave her Husband a little kiss, before going back to the library with twice as many students than she had started the day with.
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The next two weeks went in a flash for Elizabeth. Both Brian and Reiland were wickedly smart students, always pushing to outcompete each other. In the little time they had, they learned reading and writing. The writing system was fairly forgiving, with pronunciations of words mapping very clearly to their spellings – even so, both of them soaked it up like a sponge.
Even though Brian got into it to prove superiority over Reiland, Elizabeth felt that he found joy in studying too, much to her satisfaction. A rivalry could bring a person only so far, but she felt the seeds were sown for a real interest in studying to bloom in her son.
After two weeks, she almost regretted letting Reiland go, but he had stated that he needed her help no longer.