The Summer Schoolmistress

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"The space, halfway between a salon and a classroom, is lit to painful brilliance. The walls are hung with images of the sun. A chalkboard lurks in a corner, surrounded by piles of books. Creatures scamper and frolic at your feet – Whitsun hatchlings of all species and stripes fill the room. The Summer Schoolmistress smooths her skirts, sitting straight in a high-backed chair. When she is seated, you no longer need to crane quite so high to meet her eye."[1]

The Summer Schoolmistress is a mysterious woman who lives in a mansion in the Prickfinger Wastes.

Friend to All Creatures[edit | edit source]

The Schoolmistress is a very tall woman with pitch-black eyes, who is known for adopting and raising the strange creatures born from the eggs of Whitsun.[2] She lives in the Summer Nursery, a sprawling mansion hidden deep within the Prickfinger Wastes, outside of London.[3] Couriers regularly deliver supplies and books of poetry to this remote estate.[4]

The Summer Nursery[edit | edit source]

"A mansion sprawls here, abutting stalagmites at each extremity, as if the house has been crammed into a clearing too small to contain it. A fierce excess of light spills from its myriad windows, casting long-toothed shadows over the Wastes."[1]

The Summer Nursery is an enormous manor, with several wings and a great many rooms. Most of the Whitsun creatures gather to play and frolic in the Candlelit Conservatory.[2] In the Botanical Laboratory, amidst bubbling flasks, the Schoolmistress distills London's poetry in bowls of solvent for her experiments.[5] The Twisted Greenhouse is a bleak and lonely place, filled with Surface plants that miss the light of the Sun, yet stand in the face of the surrounding darkness of the Neath.[6] The first room that most visitors encounter, however, is the Schoolmistress' Parlour, a brightly lit mixture of salon and classroom. Aside from teaching tools, the walls are decorated with paintings of the Sun, and Whitsun creatures mill about.[7]

Daughter of the Tree[edit | edit source]

"I was not born in the usual way. It was a subtractive process: all acts of consumption have their byproducts. Accidents. Waste. I am the remnant of one such consumption."[1]

The Summer Schoolmistress is a very complicated being. She came to be in what the academics of London would call a low birth:[8] her so-called father, the Bazaar, pilfered the memories of the Sun from her "mother," the oldest tree in London when it Fell.[9] This process turned the tree into what the Schoolmistress is now.[10] Unsurprisingly given the context of her birth, she views her "father" with much disdain, calling it a parasite and blaming its pride for the downfall of the four cities that preceded London.[11] She also deeply misses sunlight and its warmth.[12]

Thanks to her unique nature, the Schoolmistress has a talent for botany; for years, she had a deal with London's Department of Parks and Game, in which she helped them grow trees in London's parks and alleys in exchange for supplies delivered to her mansion.[13] Recently, however, Licentiates have been sent to murder her couriers in great numbers,[14] acting on orders from an unknown entity (which seems to have the Bazaar's assent).[15] The Schoolmistress must now venture outside her mansion to retrieve supplies, and may employ outsiders to take care of her Nursery while she is gone.[16]

The Schoolmistress spends her time educating and raising a host of Whitsun creatures. She sincerely believes that they are not being taken care of, and that they do not deserve to blamed or abandoned simply because of the failings of their creator (the Bazaar).[17]

Curiously, the Schoolmistress doesn't seem to feel many emotions herself. In her laboratory, she distills poetry books into colorful liquids, which she drinks (through her fingers, like how a tree drinks through its roots) to experience the emotions evoked by the poems.[18]

Historical and Cultural Inspirations[edit | edit source]

The Summer Schoolmistress exhibits some similarities to the dryads of Greek myth. She was born from a tree, and has many tree-like characteristics. Although she is a notably resilient being, she also shares the dryads' tendency to suffer from misfortunes caused by other, often more powerful, beings.

The Totteridge Yew, located in the London borough of Barnet on the north side of the city, is considered the oldest tree in London and likely already held this title in 1862. It is estimated to be anywhere from 1000-2000 years old.[19]

References[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 The Summer Nursery, Fallen London
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 The Summer Nursery, Fallen London "Beasts, everywhere. This, it seems, is the playroom of the Whitsun children, and all pretense at discipline has been abandoned. They careen about the room and maul the furniture – hatchlings, spindlepups, disorder."
  3. ↑ The Summer Nursery: An Invitation, Fallen London "Beyond the lights of the carnival, the Wastes loom large and sharp. The mansion is out there, somewhere, where the Fifth City does not reach."
  4. ↑ A commonality in the aliases, Fallen London "Then: every one of the targets works as a courier, bringing packages to a sprawling mansion at the edge of Prickfinger Wastes."
  5. ↑ The Summer Nursery, Fallen London "Flasks bubble and boil. Tinctures titrate. Poetry soaks in bowls of solvent. The Summer Schoolmistress has left her experiments running, as though she has only stepped out for a moment."
  6. ↑ The Summer Nursery, Fallen London "The greenhouse is bleak and shadowed; robbed of a sky, the glass lets nothing in but the darkness of the Wastes, and night puddles in soil that has long since had its fill. Stalks stand high and proud in defiance of the surrounding dark. In contrast to the bright chaos of the mansion, the greenhouse broods with quiet menace."
  7. ↑ A commonality in the aliases, Fallen London "The owner sits in a room lit to painful brilliance. The walls are hung with images of the sun. The creatures at her feet are hatchlings of Whitsun. While you watch, she conducts a lesson you cannot hear, but which commands her pupils' avid attention."
  8. ↑ The Summer Nursery: An Invitation, Fallen London ""In the parlance of the so-called academics of your city, my birth is considered a shameful act. One among many, I gather.""
  9. ↑ The Summer Nursery, Fallen London "In some ways, I am my mother. In many others, I am not." Her voice is soft; her gaze distant. "She was the oldest tree in London when it fell. Her roots are my roots."
  10. ↑ The Summer Nursery, Fallen London "My birth was a process of subtraction. All that remembered the Sun was wrung from my parent like water from a sponge, to satisfy his unrequited pining."
  11. ↑ The Summer Nursery, Fallen London "There are organisms that flourish in dark places, and human cities are not among them. But pride's blinkers are persistent. Four catastrophes in, and not a one has seen it yet – the Bazaar is a saprotroph, and drains his cities dry."
  12. ↑ The Summer Nursery, Fallen London "But I can feel the spaces it left behind. When I turn my face towards the stolen sky, I feel an absence of warmth, a wide and golden desertion of comfort. Something is missing."
  13. ↑ The Summer Nursery, Fallen London ""Are you aware of the Department of Parks and Game? I have an arrangement with them." She gestures to the back wall, in the direction of her shadowed greenhouse. "I have a certain facility for botany. In exchange for helping my cousins to grow in your city, they provide me with supplies, and discourage visitors from London.""
  14. ↑ Encounter the Summer Schoolmistress, Fallen London "[...] the Schoolmistress notices you properly. "You are not the courier. You're the one who's been killing them." [...] "No, there's a more savoury name when you carry a permit," [...] "Whoever appears on your list is a necessary killing; someone else has already gone to the trouble of regretting the necessity." [...] She is not the client, then. Someone else is taking her servants away."
  15. ↑ Develop a theory about the enemy of the Summer Schoolmistress, Fallen London "A Licentiate has Bazaar permits for killing: that is the nature of the task. To put a name on the list must, presumably, require the Masters' authority, or at the very least permission from one of their affiliates. [...] Whatever transpires here, it has the assent of the Bazaar itself."
  16. ↑ The Summer Nursery: An Invitation, Fallen London ""I am isolated here. By design – distance from the Bazaar suits me. What I need, I make arrangements to obtain via couriers and deliveries." (...) "But this Whitsun, I find my couriers delayed, my deliveries lost, and my necessaries running precariously low. I believe steps are being taken to prevent me from pursuing my business.""
  17. ↑ The Summer Nursery, Fallen London ""They deserve care. And they were not receiving it. Not properly, in your city, beneath his spires." (...) "The Bazaar's failings are his own, and should not be foisted upon the young.""
  18. ↑ The Summer Nursery, Fallen London "Just as quickly as [it] came, the tenderness drains from her face. She rolls her shoulders in discomfort. "Distillate of gratitude. Its effects are ever so brief. Forgive me – I shall be crabby for hours.""
  19. ↑ Top six things you didn’t know about London’s trees, London City Hall ""The oldest tree in London is the Totteridge Yew. [...] After 24 years of research, it was declared the oldest living thing in London – a staggering 2000 years old.""
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