The Pallet

The pallet was a small brass tool set in a handle of worn wood, and Nyra warmed its face over the lamp before she set it to the spine. The leather lay damp and dark on the bench, waiting to take whatever mark was given. A book gathers what can be set down in a line and counted, and leaves the rest to the one who was there. The girl leaned close to watch the single bright line press itself between the raised bands.

The girl asked how the pallet knew where the line should fall. “The pallet knows nothing,” Nyra said. “It only keeps the heat I give it and the place my hand chooses. The knowing is mine, and the leather is only honest enough to remember it.”

Nyra pressed again, a hand’s breadth lower, and a second line answered the first along the curve of the back. She judged the heat by the faint hiss and by the color the leather took, not by any clock on the wall. Too cool and the line would come up faint and uncertain; too warm and it would scorch and refuse to lift away clean.

“Let me try the next,” the girl said, and Nyra passed the warm handle into her waiting grip. “Press once, and lift straight up,” Nyra answered. “Do not drag it along, or the line will smear and the whole panel will have to be soaked and begun over.”

The girl pressed, and lifted, and a third line joined the others, a little shy of the rest but true enough to keep. Nyra nodded and set the pallet back to rest above the lamp. What a reader would one day see was only the quiet order of lines along the spine, not the warmth or the waiting or the held breath behind each. The book keeps the line, and you keep the lettering of it.