The fact that
"Wow! It's Wilma!"
"Wilma came!"
The children swarmed around Wilma, cheering, and began excitedly explaining what work they were doing and what they had learned to do.
With the children forming a barrier, there was absolutely no chance for the Gray Priests to get close. And that left no role for me, who had resolved to protect Wilma.
"...Well then, shall we start printing?"
My role in protecting Wilma had evaporated entirely. I shuffled over to
"Lutz, could you print the title page and colophon first? I want to check whether the roller distributes the ink evenly."
"Got it."
Lutz placed paper on the printing stand, then laid the stencil sheet on top. The printing stand was roughly A4-sized, and the stencil was A5-sized.
For this picture book, we had decided to separate the stencils for the illustrations and the text on upper and lower halves. Right now, the title page stencil was on top and the colophon stencil on the bottom.
"Is this right?"
"Yes, that's correct."
After confirming with me, Lutz gently lowered the wooden frame with the mesh, then brought out the ink. On the marble surface, he mixed a small amount with oil and worked it briefly with a palette knife. Then he applied it to the roller, spreading it back and forth until the ink was evenly distributed.
Lutz glanced over at me. When I gave a small nod, he slowly rolled the roller across the mesh, moving it vertically and horizontally several times, then set it down on the marble once.
When he carefully lifted the wooden frame, the inked stencil had adhered to the mesh, and all that remained on the stand was the printed paper.
On the white sheet, the text was crisply printed. No smudging, no bleeding.
"Looks good!"
"No problems at all. Please set it on the drying rack."
After confirming the printed title page and colophon, I handed the paper to one of the Gray Priests. The priest placed the sheets on the shelves. Meanwhile, Lutz set up fresh paper and kept printing away. Since the thick-cardboard stencils couldn't be reused many times, we needed to print everything in one go.
We were printing thirty copies this time. I would take some home and some for the
"Next, we'll print the text and illustrations. Please get ready."
Tension ran across Wilma's face when she heard my instructions.
Lutz swapped out the stencils. He removed the title page and colophon stencils and, in their place, carefully positioned new stencils—the text on the left, the illustration on the right, designed to look like a two-page spread. The center was left with a generous margin of blank space for the sewing during binding.
I felt the gazes of both Wilma and Lutz on me. I looked at each of them, then slowly nodded.
Lutz, his expression no less tense than Wilma's, used the roller to apply ink evenly in both directions.
My heart pounded in time with the roller's movement.
Would it turn out properly?
Would it be an illustration that Wilma could be satisfied with?
As I watched with a prayerful heart, Lutz set down the roller and gently lifted the wooden frame. I could have sworn I heard the people around us swallowing nervously all at once.
"...Wow!"
"That's amazing!"
The first to cry out were the children surrounding Wilma.
The scene where the Darkness God encounters the Light Goddess was rendered in stunning fashion with nothing but black and white. From the moment I had seen the plate, I knew it would turn out magnificent, but once the ink filled in and the image became crisp and vivid, that impression was fully confirmed.
The Darkness God, wrapping the Goddess in a cloak of night-sky black, and the Light Goddess, illuminating the Darkness God who had endured long, lonely ages—both sprang to vivid life. Fine shadows in the hair and delicate wrinkles in the clothing, which were impossible to discern from the cut plate alone, had been rendered with the delicacy that was uniquely Wilma's.
"It's truly, truly wonderful, isn't it?"
When I turned to look at Wilma, she was gazing at the printed illustration with tears streaming down her face.
"Wilma!?"
"I-I'm terribly sorry. It's just... a relief, and I'm so happy..."
Wilma stammered through her words, gently dabbing away her tears. The children fussed around her, patting her back to comfort her and telling her not to cry.
The scene of Wilma, unable to hide her tears of joy, and the children clustering around to console her—it looked to me like a religious painting.
...Wilma, you're practically a saint.
All eyes in the room naturally turned toward Wilma, whose cheeks had flushed to rose-petal pink as she shed those beautiful tears.
Noticing the attention, Wilma blushed all the way to her ears and swiftly turned on her heel.
"Mine, I-I'll go paint the next illustration now."
From that point on, each time Wilma completed an illustration, we printed it right away. In the meantime, the children kept busily making paper, and the Gray Priests threw themselves into ink production.
At the same time, we also began drying the fruits and mushrooms harvested from the forest and stockpiling firewood for Winter Preparations. Since the orphanage needed large quantities, we figured it was better to start preparations early.
"Mine, all the printing is done as of today. What's next?"
One autumn afternoon on the way back, Lutz said that to me. At last, every page had been printed.
"Binding! I'm definitely going to the workshop tomorrow!"
"You don't need to come. I just need you to explain it to me."
"I want to be there for at least the beginning. I want to see it with my own eyes. Once I've confirmed everything's going smoothly, I'll stay out of the way just like I did during printing. Okay, Lutz? Please."
As a Blue Shrine Maiden Apprentice who wasn't allowed to do hands-on work, my presence at the workshop made the Gray Priests uncomfortable and unable to move freely, apparently making me a major nuisance. But I simply couldn't suppress my desire to be involved in making a book. Especially when we were starting a new phase of work.
"...Only for the beginning, though."
"Hee hee. Yay!"
I spun around on the spot in delight, but Lutz grabbed my arm and started walking. As I walked alongside him with a grin still plastered on my face, Lutz let go of my hand and pulled out his writing board from his bag.
"Come on, explain. ...Binding, right?"
"Yes, binding! Once the printed paper is thoroughly dry, you carefully fold each sheet in half. The fold should be along the valley where the illustration and text form a two-page spread—line up the edges and fold it neatly. This is easier with a table, so it might be better to do this in the orphanage dining hall."
Lutz jotted down my explanation on his writing board. Watching his speed, I continued explaining at a measured pace.
"Once all the sheets are folded, stack them page by page with the correct orientation to make a bundle. Make absolutely sure you don't mix in sheets from other pages or flip them upside down or backwards. Oh, right—in the morning, use the cutter to trim the title page and colophon pages in half."
"...Got it."
The following afternoon, the printed sheets we had accumulated were brought one after another into the orphanage dining hall where I was waiting. Every table had been polished clean to make sure the paper wouldn't get stained.
In front of me, stacks of paper were arranged in alternating vertical and horizontal piles. I let out a sigh of admiration. The scent of fresh paper and ink was intoxicating. A book was about to come into being.
"Team leaders, please come and collect your sheets."
To keep things organized, the workshop was divided into groups. This time, each group would be responsible for folding its own pages. A Gray Priest served as team leader, overseeing the apprentices.
Following
Lutz listed the instructions: take great care that the edges stay aligned; pay attention to the folding direction; and after everything is folded, bring it to me for inspection. Then the paper-folding work began.
"Please line up the edges more carefully. Hold down here and here first, and then fold like this..."
I slowly walked from table to table, demonstrating how to fold. In this city, where paper was expensive and not part of daily life, nobody had ever done origami. Not a single one of them. Even the adult Gray Priests couldn't get the edges perfectly aligned. It looked like clumsy foreigners trying origami for the very first time.
...Oh no. This is supposed to become a beautiful book! The pages are going to be crooked!
Grappling with a reality I couldn't bring myself to look away from, I returned to my seat and quietly whispered to Lutz.
"Lutz, I'm not allowed to do this folding myself, right?"
"Just hold back and watch for now."
"Mmph..."
I should have had them practice folding on scrap paper with printing mistakes. That was a misstep.
While I waited with bated breath to see how they would turn out, the half-folded pages gradually accumulated. I checked them and sent back any that were too terrible to accept. They absolutely could not become books in that state.
Once all the pages were folded, the next step was to add the title page and colophon, then lay them out on the table in order. Taking them up one by one in sequence would give us the pages of the book in the right order.
This was the same process I'd gone through back in my student days when I'd been made to create bookmarks for a field trip. It wasn't anything new or special for me, even if it was everyone else's first time actually doing it.
"Now, take the colophon page like this, shift sideways to the next stack, take one sheet from there, place it on top, shift sideways again... and repeat. Please be very careful never to flip a page or grab two sheets at once."
As I spoke, I deftly picked up pages one after another. If we had a stapler, this would be a breeze, but no such convenient tool existed here.
When I had collected all the sheets and returned to my seat,
"...Mine."
"I want to take this home. Sorry for being selfish."
I knew that sigh was saying "don't do the work," but I averted my gaze and let it pass. This was for demonstrating the proper method to everyone. And also to make absolutely sure I secured a copy for myself.
While everyone fumbled their way through stacking the pages, I carefully re-folded each sheet, pressing the crease firmly with my fingernail. I should have prepared a bone folder or ruler. No—actually, given that the sheets could still be re-folded, maybe it was a good thing I hadn't used a bone folder to press the creases too hard.
Since there were only thirty copies, the pages were assembled in no time and stacked in alternating vertical and horizontal piles of ten. Careful not to let them topple, we carried them to the workshop.
"The remaining steps require special tools, so we'll stop here for today. Thank you all for your hard work."
Today, I would head straight home and continue the binding work. I slipped the one copy I had secured for myself into my bag. Lutz had brought back a single sheet of paper with watermarks from the workshop to use as the cover.
"If you're going to keep working at home, I'll help. It's easier to understand when you see it done than just hearing about it."
"Thanks."
Since we didn't have any glue ready yet, I had almost nothing on hand that could serve as an adhesive. For that reason, I planned to bind the book using four-hole stab binding, a basic Japanese binding method.
"I'm home!"
"Welcome back, Mine. You're early. Oh? Lutz is with you today too?"
When I got home, Turi had already returned from the forest. I pulled the stack of pages I had brought back for binding out of my bag and showed them to Turi.
"Turi, look! See? It's the children's Holy Book! We managed to print it!"
"Oh, this picture book is lovely!"
Turi flipped through the pages with a soft rustle and let out an excited voice. She apparently couldn't understand the black-and-white picture book I had made at all. That was fine, I suppose.
"...But they're all loose. Wouldn't this be hard to read?"
"We're going to bind them now. ...Will you help me? It'd be a big help if you came to the workshop and showed me how. I'm not allowed to do hands-on work there."
I pulled the cover paper from the bag and set it on the table while asking Turi. She tilted her head slightly.
"But can I really do it?"
"It's sewing with needle and thread, so I think you'd probably be better at it than me, Turi."
"Really? ...Then I'll help, but you'd better give me a copy of the book too. I want to learn to read and write."
Turi said that with a slightly shy look. She had seen me and Lutz writing on the writing board and on slates, and watched Corina jotting down notes during orders, and apparently she had started wanting to learn her letters too.
That was a small price to pay. I'd gladly become her tutor if it was for Turi's sake.
"I'm planning to keep one copy of this book at home so we can read it together. I'll lend you my slate too. I'm no good at sewing, but I can teach letters. I'm planning to teach the orphanage children to read and write this winter, so why don't you learn together with them, Turi? Having someone to compete with makes you learn faster."
I rummaged through my father's tool set and pulled out the supplies needed for binding, arranging them on the table: a ruler, an awl, a hammer, and a wooden board.
"First, confirm that all the sheet edges are perfectly aligned. This is the last chance to fix it. Once they're aligned, prepare a bone folder and a ruler, and smooth out the fold lines properly. ...Like this."
I demonstrated, sliding the ruler along a fold line. Lutz and Turi tried it the same way with the sheets in front of them.
"Once every sheet has a firm crease, check that the top-to-bottom and left-to-right edges are aligned, then tap the spine—toward the binding side, the side we're going to sew—to make sure it's straight, and punch the holes for the temporary binding."
After I aligned the sheets on the board and measured the size with a ruler, I marked three small points with the Soot Pencil.
"Lutz, I need you to punch holes here. If you hold the awl straight and tap it with the hammer, it'll make a clean hole."
"Right. Here, then."
I held the edge down while Lutz positioned the awl on the mark and tapped it gently with the hammer.
"Turi, thread the needle and pass the thread from the front to the back through the center hole."
"Okay."
Where I would have fumbled with the thread, Turi was already practiced from her work. She threaded the center hole in a flash.
"From the back, pass it up through the top hole, bring the needle out to the front, and put it down through the bottom hole. Then pass the needle from the back of the bottom hole through the center hole."
I had Turi cut the thread at that point, then tied the thread sandwiched between the top and bottom passes. I trimmed the ends short and had Lutz tap the knot lightly with the hammer.
"Why do you tap it?"
"Flattening the knot makes the surface finish cleaner."
After hammering the knot flat, Lutz used the writing board to jot down the order of operations. Meanwhile, I pressed a ruler against the top and fore-edge, using the cutter to trim everything flush.
"Normally, I'd paste on corner reinforcements next, but since we don't have anything that works as glue, we'll skip that step and go straight to attaching the cover. For the cover, we're using the beautiful paper that everyone made from flowers and leaves they gathered in the forest."
As I folded the cover paper—printed with pressed small flowers and tiny leaves scattered across it—Turi leaned in to peek, her face lighting up.
"Wow, that's cute!"
"Right? Cut this in half too, and attach it to the front and back. Then hold a ruler at the binding position, score light lines with the awl, and just like the temporary binding, decide where the holes go and punch them."
I measured with the ruler and this time pressed the awl in to mark the points without damaging the cover paper. The one sad limitation was that I didn't have the strength to punch through by myself.
"My turn, then."
Lutz took the hammer and tapped out the holes. Turi, who already knew what came next, began threading the needle as soon as each hole was done.
"Bring the needle out from the back to the front through the second hole, go around the spine, and come from back to front once more... yes, like that. Then leave about a finger's length of thread, open the book, pull the thread at the center of the pages out once, and tuck it between the pages so it's hidden."
"Like this?"
"Push it in a little more with the needle. Yes, that's good. Once you've dealt with the excess thread, bring the needle from front to back through the third hole, go around the spine, and come from front to back once more."
After that, the fourth hole was done the same way—back to front, around the spine, back to front again. This time, however, the thread was sent around to the back and the needle passed through the fourth hole from the back. Then we sewed from the back to fill in any gaps in the thread along the spine.
"Once you actually try it, it's pretty simple."
Turi murmured as the thread zipped through. Since the holes were already there and you just had to pass the thread through them in order, the binding itself wasn't difficult at all—as long as you didn't forget the sequence, you just had to sew carefully without letting the thread go slack.
"Now that the thread has gone all the way back to the top, place the back cover face-up and finish the last thread. Like this—pass the needle through from here to here, and tie it off."
"Oh, it really tied!"
When the knot formed exactly as I had instructed, Turi let out a small gasp of surprise.
"Pull this thread tight, make sure the knot is solid, then pass the needle through the second hole and drop the knot into the hole. That way it won't come undone easily."
"Whoa, that's awesome!"
While Lutz watched wide-eyed, Turi gently tugged the thread and coaxed the knot down into the hole. When it resisted, she nudged it in with the needle and gave the thread another light pull.
"And now, cut the thread, and... the book is done."
With the finish line in sight, a rush of warmth surged up in my chest. It felt as though my entire body was being squeezed tight, and my throat quivered.
"Mine, cut it."
Lutz held out the thread snips. Turi nodded softly and held the thread between the book and the needle taut. My trembling hands picked up the snips and pressed them against the taut thread. With the slightest pressure, the thread snapped.
At the same moment, the dam broke. Hot tears I couldn't hold back streamed down my cheeks one after another.
"We did it... We did it, Lutz."
Not a clay tablet, not a wooden tablet, not a bundle of memo slips, not a wordless black-and-white picture book—I could say with certainty that this was, at last, a real book.
"...It took so long."
From the moment my consciousness arrived in this world and I resolved to make a book until now—nearly two years. A book had finally been completed. It felt like a dream.
Lutz, who had worked alongside me the entire time, wore a smile brimming with achievement, his eyes glistening.
"We did it, Mine."
I threw my arms around Lutz and hugged him tightly, nodding again and again. I could never have done this alone. It was because Lutz built it together with me that it was finished.
"I have you and Turi to thank. Thank you. I'm so happy. I'm so, so happy. The book is done. My book, the one I always wanted."
Freshly made and too precious to soil, I couldn't even touch it with tear-wet fingers. I simply stared at the book. It was a thin, Japanese-bound picture book, but when I thought about everything it had taken to get here, the tears wouldn't stop.
No stamina, no physical strength, no money, no paper, no ink, no tools. It had all started from nothing, and the challenge had finally borne fruit.
Basking in the happiness of a completed book, Lutz smiled at me challengingly.
"But it's still just one copy. We're going to make lots more, right? Enough that you could read and read and never finish. Tons and tons of books. Right, Mine?"
Lutz's emerald eyes were already fixed on the next goal. And I, too, had to keep pressing forward, challenge after challenge, to achieve my own ambition.
Wiping my tears in rough swipes, I grinned back and nodded firmly.
"That's right. I'm going to make so many that we'll need a library. It's a promise, so remember it."