The Tranquil Lantern by Nina Carver EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author:Nina Carver
- Language: English
- Genre: Romantic Fantasy
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Sophie raised yet another hide from the tanning vat. The cow skin was
sturdy and flexible, and Sophie’s trained eye knew that it would be suitable
for the market. Unblemished, a good color; perhaps it would even fetch a
whole silver piece.
“Miss Bumdell!” Sophie called into the neighboring room, “This one
looks like a real winner. Would you like to come see?”
“I doubt anything that you tanned could be called a winner,” snarled a
cruel voice from the other room. Miss Bumdell stomped in, her swollen feet
spilling out of their wooden clogs. She fixed her black beady eyes on
Sophie’s work. “Just as I expected, a total disaster. I couldn’t even sell it
back to the cow.”
Sophie didn’t flinch. Though Miss Bumdell always managed to find
something to criticize, Sophie was confident in her work. She knew exactly
what this hide was worth, no matter what her mistress said.
Miss Bumdell scoffed and flicked the hide with two sausage-like fingers.
“Look at these stretch marks. See the lines? They’re not from the cow, you
dunce. This hide has been improperly worked.” The old woman smiled, her
four remaining teeth jiggling nastily in their gums. “Throw it on the trash
pile with the rest of your junk.”
“As you wish, ma’am,” Sophie said. She had learned to keep her head
down when Miss Bumdell was in one of her frequent foul moods. With a
final scoff, Miss Bumdell clomped out of the room.
Sophie set the hide down alongside the other rejects and pulled an
unworked skin from the pile. She began the process anew, working the
animal skin from its raw state into a finished leather. It was a difficult,
tedious, and most of all smelly job. Sophie’s arms and shoulders ached from
the arduous dehairing process, and her hands, perpetually chapped and
peeling, had even started to blister. The stench of the tanning chemicals that
suffused the tannery had long ago permeated her clothes and hair.
Until recently, none of that had ever bothered Sophie. She took pride in
her work and in the quality of her leathers. But over the past few months,
something had changed inside her. It was becoming harder and harder to put
up with Miss Bumdell’s constant degradations. And how the villagers
would plug their noses every time she walked by! When Sophie first
applied to be a tanner’s apprentice, her mother warned her that she would
never find love with such a vulgar job. Now, three years later, she was
starting to think that her mother had been right. At the tender age of twentyfive, Sophie had never known even the sweetness of a lover’s lips.
After a few hours spent working the new hide, Sophie heard a familiar
stomping as Miss Bumdell climbed the stairs to her living quarters above
the tannery. That was Sophie’s cue to set down her work and head back
home. She collected her personal effects and headed for the door
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