From beneath the concealment of Johanna's blue skirts, a tiny paw emerged. New claws, sharp as pins, caught at her stockinged ankle. Choking back a giggle, Johanna stared at the parchment spread atop the desk's sloping surface. It was her third lesson in reading. This time she tried, she truly did; she stared at that sheet until her eyes crossed. The parchment was worn, its edges smudged and finger-marked by the countless students who had used it before her. Where her tutor, Brother Mathias, swore there were words, she found nothing save swirling ink stains. Frustration weighed heavily on Johanna's heart. It wasn't the lessons she minded so much, it was Brother Mathias; he liked teaching her no more than she liked being taught by him. But, someday she would marry Katel, Papa's oldest apprentice, and Katel wished her to learn to read and keep the accounts. Johanna reminded herself she was fortunate to be betrothed to one as handsome as Katel, or so said the gaggle of lasses who labored in Papa's house and the apothecary shop.
