Marta Voss

Marta Voss has been the cordwainer's apprentice for seven years. She has learned that leather holds memory—the shape of the animal it was, the terrain it walked, the weight it carried. Shoes made from such leather carry that memory forward: the terrain the wearer can traverse, the paths they can find, the way their feet remember routes their minds have forgotten. Some customers want shoes that remember. They come for boots that will find their way home, slippers that will carry them through dreams, work shoes that remember the shortest path to the fields. Marta has learned to read the leather, to match the memory to the customer, to make shoes that carry forward what the animal knew. Some customers want shoes that forget. They come for boots that will leave no trail, slippers that will walk without waking, work shoes that have no memory of any path. Marta has learned to quiet the leather, to still the memory, to make shoes that walk without remembering where they've been. Then a customer comes who wants shoes that will carry them somewhere they've never been. *The Cordwainer's Apprentice* is fantasy about craft, memory, and the question of what leather can carry when it has been made into shoes. It follows Marta through a single commission—shoes for a customer who wants to walk to a place that exists only in the memory of an animal that no longer survives, a place that was known to a species that has been extinct for centuries, a place that Marta has to find by following the oldest leather in the shop. The novel unfolds across four acts: The Commission (the customer's request, the impossibility of what they're asking, the leather that might hold the memory); The Search (Marta's work through the shop's oldest stock, the discovery of leather that predates her master's tenure, the memory it carries); The Making (the construction of the shoes, the craft that will release the memory into something that can be walked); and The Walking (the customer's journey, what the sho