Scottish Rite (Maggie Devereaux Book 1)

by Stephen Penner

  Maggie pulled the key out of her pocket. It was a newer key judging by the shininess of the metal, but it was an older style, reminiscent of a skeleton key without actually being one. Glancing around, Maggie saw no other students at this far end of B-3. She could sense no activity at all. She slid the key all the way into the keyhole and twisted it hard until she could feel and hear the heavy trips of the old lock turn. Maggie turned the brass knob and the latch gave way with a loud 'clack' that echoed through the floor. She pushed the door open and was greeted with a blast of very stale air and a thick, pungent aroma.

  Ah, she thought, breathing in the tangy air, the scent of knowledge. Then, as she fought to control her sudden coughing attack, she added, and mold.

  Peering into the dark room, Maggie could see a stone landing directly in front of her. It was approximately three feet by three feet square, and was cracked and worn at the edges. The light from the room behind her fell down the first few of several stone steps which were then swallowed by the darkness below. Not eager to traverse a rutted stone stairway in the dark, Maggie groped on the inside wall for a light switch. Eventually her hand found a rather large electrical box with a plastic knob protruding. Twisting the knob as hard as she could, it finally gave way with a reluctant click. At first the room was still engulfed in blackness, but Maggie could hear the buzz of electrical circuitry overhead. Then a single light flickered on dimly, casting a faint yellow glow over a large wooden table on the stone floor far below. A second, and then a third light came on, illuminating a second table below her and the near ends of four wooden bookcases, not unlike those directly behind her, except that they seemed considerably older—and considerably better made. The bookshelves on either side were actually pushed flush against the outside walls, creating between the bookcases a total of three narrow aisleways which disappeared into the blackness beyond. Suddenly, the remainder of the lights popped on, both the one over the landing and also a row of lights meant to illuminate the recesses of the bookshelves. However, these had been placed directly over and only inches above the second bookcase from the left, which therefore succeeded in blocking most of the light and casting the far right aisle into almost complete darkness.

  Inspecting the staircase, Maggie was excited to see that it was in fact the same worn stone she had encountered at the beginning of her descent from the reading room. She was less excited, however, by the fact that there was no handrail. Indeed, the right side of the staircase was completely open, no guardrail to speak of. Placing her hand against the cool, dirty stone wall to her left, Maggie carefully descended the rutted stone steps.

  All in all the room was small. Probably not more that ten feet across and only twenty or thirty feet deep. It was hard to tell exactly how far the bookshelves receded because the light was so dim through there. In addition to the two wooden tables to the right of the stairs, there was also a large wooden card catalog pushed up against the side of the stone staircase, so that were one to fall off the stairs for the lack of guardrail, one would land squarely, and painfully no doubt, onto the card catalog. The stone floor was dirty and made of blocks shoved together far less evenly than those of the reading room four floors above. The table tops were also dirty. Maggie walked over the uneven stones to the nearest table and ran a finger over it. This revealed a rich amber wood beneath the thick green dust which stuck to Maggie's fingertip like glue.

  Wiping her finger on her jeans, Maggie crossed over to the other table where someone had left a book. The book too was covered in the sticky greenish-gray dust, albeit a thinner layer of it. 'Ars Magica inter Celtas Antiquos' was its Latin title. Maggie picked it up to look at it, but quickly dropped it as her hand was attacked by the slimy, sticky dust. The impact of the book on the table scattered some more recent dry dust, but the green-gray residue remained on the book and the table and Maggie's palm. The muffled thump of the book hitting the table did not echo, but rather seemed to be swallowed by the very age and stillness of the chamber.

  Extracting several tissues from her backpack, Maggie smeared away the dust on the table to form a work area and set her backpack down on the now semi-clean wood. She then silently placed her books onto the table. It might be dusty, but she would never find a quieter place to study.

  She stood her two dictionaries, Gaelic-English and Modern Gaelic-Old Gaelic, upright about two feet in front of the chair she planned to sit in. A yellow notepad filled the space between the dictionaries and the chairs, and ended up underneath one of her grandmother's books. After removing two pens, one pencil and both a yellow and a green highlighter, she placed her backpack on the floor next to the chair. Finally, she fished out the bottle of spring water she had brought and placed it north by northeast of the notepad.

  After wiping off the chair, she sat down at the table and opened her grandmother's book to the bookmarked page—the one with the author and title of the book alluded to in each of the texts her grandmother had left her. 'The Religious Practices of the Ancient Peoples of Scotland,' by Seumas MacAuliffe. Published by Royal Press in 1689. This would be her first task. The title seemed exceedingly relevant to her research and the fact that not one, but all five of the books had cited to it spoke to its academic value. It would be wonderful to find the book, although she wasn't sure it would be located in this particular room. It wasn't necessarily that old, relatively speaking, so it might just as likely be shelved somewhere above her. If so, she could still bring it down to her quiet, if not a little dusty, work space.

  She stood up and crossed to the card catalog, notepad in hand with title, author, publisher and publication date all printed neatly thereon. As she walked over, she glanced at the several shelves of books to her right. Regardless of whether Mr. MacAuliffe's book was to be found that day, Maggie would enjoy sifting through the volumes in the subbasement. She hoped they were arranged by subject, rather than by author—or as a friend of hers who had studied in Germany had described with horror, by date of arrival at the library regardless of topic or scribe.

  There were no directions or instructions posted near the card catalog explaining the system which had been used to organize the titles, but there were only twelve drawers, each labeled with the letters contained within. Most drawers had two or more letters listed, but 'M' commanded its own drawer. Deciding to start with the theory that they were arranged by author, she tugged open the 'M' drawer.

  The first card was for a book written by a 'Mabury, Colum,' published in 1582. The next card was by an author known only as 'Maoilios Ruadh'—Gaelic for 'Miles the Red.' This jump from 'Mab-' to 'Mao-' with no 'MacAuliffe' in between concerned Maggie and she flipped quickly through several more typed and handwritten cards. The other cards confirmed that they were in alphabetical order by author, and that Seumas MacAuliffe was not among them. However, all hope was not lost. There was not one single 'Mac-' until a 'MacManus' filed directly after a 'Mansfield.' Maggie smiled at herself and shook her head lightly as she pushed the drawer back in with a soft thud and just a bit of dust. She had forgotten that many older alphabetizing systems in Scotland, and Ireland for that matter, routinely ignored the 'Mac' or 'Mc' or 'O' ' when alphabetizing names, instead ordering such entries by the root word; hence '(Mac)Manus' after 'Mansfield.' Really, she should have anticipated this and was slightly disappointed in herself that she had not outthought the ancient librarian, whoever he or she might have been, who had organized this particular card catalog.

  Pulling open the 'A-B' drawer and standing on her toes to peer at the cards, she flipped through them quickly, searching impatiently for 'MacAuliffe, Seumas.'

  'MacAdaidh.'

  'Adamson.'

  'MacAlaisdair.'

  'MacAmhlaigh.'

  'Armstrong.'

  Then the name she had hoped for: 'MacAuliffe, Seumas,' written in that sure, well-taught handwriting of last century, the 'l' and 'f's rising threefold over their neighboring letters. But unlike the other cards, this one listed neither title nor publication date. On the st
iff yellowed paper stood simply the name of the author and what was presumably some form of call number: 'Rel.Gael.-7.'

  Intrigued, Maggie copied down the number on her scratchpad, again in neatly printed letters, and closed the drawer gently even as she turned her head toward the bookshelves to her right. Although no title was listed, 'Rel.Gael.-7' certainly suggested 'Religion, Gaelic,' the exact subject the book was supposed to have dealt with. She walked over to the first of the bookshelves, pressed up against the far left wall, and in the dim light could see that the books had all been affixed with small labels at the bottoms of their spines. The first five books had the call numbers, 'Arch.-1' through 'Arch.-5.' on their labels. Each dealt with some form of architecture and each looked several centuries old. The next book was entitled in Gaelic, 'Deailbh ann an Alba anns a' Seachdamh Linn Deug,'—'Painting in Seventeenth Century Scotland.' Its call number was 'Art.-1.' and on a whim Maggie pulled it from the shelf and opened its brittle pages carefully.

  It was completely in Gaelic, and although Maggie could have read it had she chosen to, she elected instead simply to flip through the pages to get the general feel of the book. Every thirty pages or so the text was interrupted by a half-dozen color plate reproductions of various paintings of the period. There were several landscapes and one or two still-lifes, but the majority were portraits. Maggie supposed the portrait subjects were probably nobles or aristocracy, although few of the plates identified much more than the year painted. Perusing the plates, Maggie was reminded of hearing somewhere that the most successful painters of royalty—at least financially successful—were those who were able to combine the realism needed for quality portraiture with an artist's eye for covering flaws, highlighting strengths and generally improving upon nature, lest a powerful, but perhaps unattractive, client be displeased with his likeness. Many of the noses and mouths and ears and even foreheads seemed to repeat themselves in the faces of apparently otherwise unrelated noblemen, and all of the noblewomen seemed to bear a striking resemblance to contemporary paintings of the Virgin Mary which Maggie was sure she'd seen in one of her college courses. All except for one painting of a young blond beauty dressed in luxurious red velvet, her hair done up in strands of pearls. Whoever the artist was who had painted this portrait had obviously found his subject too beautiful to render anything but the most realistic visage. What struck Maggie the most were the woman's upturned eyes, bright blue and shining cat-like through the centuries. The only notation on the page was in Gaelic, its translation: 'A Healer. 1621.'

  Maggie looked for an index to the plates in the back, but finding none, reluctantly closed the book and inspected the spine. There she found the small red dot sticker which indicated that the book could not be checked out. Pity. Frowning, she stole one last glance at the beautiful blond healer, then replaced the book onto the shelf.

  As she walked silently to the back wall, she watched as the call numbers progressed from 'Arch.-1' to 'Cult.Gael.-3.' Turning around she followed them back to the tables as they rose from 'Cult.Gael.-4' to 'Hist.-16.' She then followed the same path down the middle aisle, even successfully resisting the urge to stop in the 'Liter.' section and pull from the shelf every book marked 'Liter.Gael.' Returning again to the open table area she had reached 'Mil.Hist.-3.' Then, with a purpose, she turned down the last aisle, closing in on 'Rel.Gael.-7.'

  This last aisle was very dark, the overhead lights being two bookshelves away and succeeding really only in casting shadows into the book-lined recess. Maggie had to squint to be able to see the call numbers. 'Mil.Hist.-12,' 'Natur.-4,' 'Pol.Hist.-6.' By now she had noticed that, like the art books, most of the titles were in Gaelic, with a few in Latin and even less in English. This trend continued in the last aisle as well. Although she knew Gaelic and Latin well enough, she found herself having to concentrate intently to read the titles, the dim light preventing quick recognition of the foreign words. As she approached the end of the bookshelf, almost all light was blocked and she put out her hand to ensure she didn't walk into the wall. Assuming she did find Mr. MacAuliffe's work, and assuming it could be checked out, she really didn't want to have to explain to the nice librarian how she had skinned her knee, broken her glasses, cut her forehead open, and bled all over the university's valuable book. Unfortunately, with her focus solidly on preventing a collision with the impending wall, she didn't pay enough attention to the uneven floor beneath her. A jagged stone block jutted up and grabbed her foot, sending her tumbling off balance and crashing into the very wall she had wanted to avoid. She fell indelicately into a dusty, dirty, and thoroughly embarrassed heap at the darkened end of this last aisle of ancient books.

  The brief shriek which had escaped her lips as her foot was caught by the stone was followed by a sincere "Ouch," as her shoulder hit the wall, and an even more sincere "Damn it," as her butt landed on the hard, filthy floor. At least her glasses hadn't been broken after all. She pushed them back up her face. She looked at her hands; although there wasn't enough light to see color, she was fairly certain she had skinned her palms enough that they were bleeding.

  Great. I'm sure this centuries old filth won't infect these cuts in a matter of seconds, she thought, the sarcasm an effort to deflect some small part of the utter indignity she felt lying in a twisted dirty heap on the twisted dirty floor. Looking to her left, however, her heart lifted. On the bottom shelf immediately to her left the call number 'Rel.Gael.-2' could just be made out in the dim light. Her stinging hands temporarily forgotten, she leaned forward onto them and scanned the volumes: 'Rel.Gael.-2' ... 'Rel.Gael.-3' ... 'Rel.Gael.-4' ... 'Rel.Gael.-5' ... 'Rel.Gael.-6' ... 'Rel.Gael.-8'

  "Damn it!" Maggie yelled again, slapping a palm against the cold stone floor. This, however, only served to remind her of the injury to her hands and she fell back again against the hard stone wall, smacking her spine painfully against it.

  "Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!"

  After a moment the pain subsided and she opened her eyes again. A strained scan of the nearby shelves confirmed no 'Rel.Gael.-7' to be seen.

  "Damn it," she said softly, and leaned back gingerly against the wall, dirty and defeated.

  After several more moments, she opened her eyes and looked back over to where 'Rel.Gael.-7' should have been. It still wasn't there, but at least she was in the right section. She reached out and pulled 'Rel.Gael.-6' from the shelf.

  Maybe, she admitted to herself as she wiped her dirty, bloodied hands on her now completely filthy jeans, this won't be a total loss.

  'Rel.Gael.-6' was actually one of the few volumes in English. Entitled 'Superstitions of the Highland Scot,' it held some promise. She opened it to the introduction and began reading:

  Following the Battle of Culloden, wherein His Majesty's troops so gloriously crushed the Papist Pretender Charles Stuart and his traitorous Jacobite supporters, much speculation has arisen attempting to explain how the Gaels might have reached such a depth of depravity as to attempt to overthrow their lawful King. This monograph shall reveal that the Gaels' superstitious devotion to both Charles Stuart and the Roman Papacy finds its roots in the superstitious fears and backwards beliefs held by the ancient Celts before the arrival of the civilizing influence of the Angles, Saxons, and Normans.

  "Uh, nope," Maggie said simply, closing the cover. "Don't think so."

  Setting this text on the stone floor, Maggie pulled 'Rel.Gael.-8' from the shelf. It was entitled, 'Cumhachdan Diadhaidh Luath air a' Chrìosdaichd na h-Alba'—'Early Religious Influences on Scottish Christianity.' Unfortunately, the 'early' influences discussed included Presbyterian firebrand John Knox who preached in the middle part of the 1500s.

  Maggie then pulled 'Rel.Gael.-5' from its shelf. She read the spine—or rather tried to. Although she had never formally studied Greek, she was able to recognize its alphabet.

  Okay, she leaned back against the wall, maybe this will be a total loss.

  Tired, uncomfortable and frustrated, Maggie scooped up the three books she had rem
oved and decided to just shove them back onto the shelf and call it a day. She could always return tomorrow. With a flashlight. But as she went to push the books back into place, they stopped short, blocked by something in the black recesses of the shelf.

  Maggie's first instinct was to just leave the damned books on the floor and leave, but this idea was shouted down by two subsequent thoughts. First, no matter how frustrated she was, she needed to treat these library books with care and respect. And second, maybe—just maybe—the thing blocking the books was itself another book. And maybe—just maybe—it was 'Rel.Gael.7,' Seumas MacAuliffe's book, fallen behind its brethren. And maybe—just maybe—this would in fact not be a total loss.

  Reaching quickly into the blackness of the shelf, Maggie felt a sudden flash of fear as she realized she had no idea what was under there. She could impale her hand on a rusty spike for all she knew. But before she could pull her hand back, her fingers brushed up against the leathery spine of yet another book.

  Maggie stopped for a second, her hopeful heart racing. She took a deep breath. Then she grabbed the book and pulled.

  If the other books she had encountered in this vault had been dirty, the one in her hand was beyond filthy. It was so covered with sticky, smelly dust and grime that Maggie couldn't even find the title on the binding, let alone read it. The sludge stuck to her scraped hands like so must paste. If this was MacAuliffe's work, it had been trapped behind these other books for some incalculable amount of time. Strangely, there was a metal clasp holding the covers together so she couldn't just open it and read the cover page. She would have to take it back to the table and the light to see if she could scrape off enough grime to read the title, and maybe jimmy the clasp open.