Chapter 8: Her Father’s Notice

Bianca would not come inside until I told Valerio to leave the repair room.

He went without asking what she carried.

I brought her a dry coat from the donation rack.

"It's clean," I said. "Mostly."

She looked at the patched sleeve.

"Did you put that on yourself?"

"A resident did. He's much better with engines."

She slipped the coat on and gave me the notice.

Her father's shop had been taken twelve years before.

The oath claimed he had pledged it against money he never borrowed.

The brown print beneath his name had the same smooth edge as my mother's.

"He told me he never signed," Bianca said.

"Did you believe him?"

"I was seventeen. Damon's father said my father gambled it away. Everyone believed him."

I held the page beside our depot oath.

The iron witness seal on both documents had the same nick across its letter R.

Below each seal sat an attesting witness signature.

The signatures matched too closely, down to a hooked final stroke.

"These came through the same desk," I said.

"Can you prove that?"

"I can show the cut. I need originals to prove the ink."

Bianca crossed her arms.

"This is all they gave him."

"There will be a countercopy."

"Where?"

"That's what I'm looking for."

She looked around the room at my glue pots and the torn books waiting in stacks.

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