The Book of Peril

by Melissa McShane

  A spoken augury? I could imagine how embarrassing that might be. I checked the other entries written by Ada; all reported more talking books. The phenomenon went on for two weeks and then stopped, with no clue as to how it had begun or ended and no explanation for why it happened at all. My current problem had only been going on for six days. Maybe I just needed to wait it out. But Ada’s problem hadn’t involved incorrect auguries, just inconvenient ones. I needed something more pertinent.

  Two other custodians had written about the oracle’s odd behavior. Warner Schofield, who was Silas’s immediate successor, reported the same talking auguries, but his had gone on over the course of ten days. Harold Abernathy wrote about a day in 1845 in which the oracle gave out auguries scribed delicately on gold snuff boxes. He never did figure out where the snuff boxes came from. Again, neither of them knew why the oracle behaved so strangely. In fact, neither of them seemed disturbed by it—Harold put it down to “the wind being in the wrong quarter,” but I thought he was joking.

  So three custodians had witnessed odd behavior, and hadn’t done anything about it; the problems stopped on their own. I turned to the records titled History. Maybe a book written by (I hoped) an impartial observer would be more informative.

  History was short for A History of Magic in the World, With Particular Attention to the Long War, and from what I could tell the book was as long as its title. The authors, Lucio Peregrino and Pham Thi Phuong, had written at least five huge volumes—I knew this because the records included citations like “volume 5, page 624”—about the topic, and if the records I had were representative, the whole thing was dull enough to put the most wakeful insomniac to sleep. Several of those records mentioned the events in the journals, but one long one was about transferring the oracle from London to the United States. I was impressed at how the authors had succeeded in making what must have been an exciting, harrowing adventure into something as boring as farm bureau reports.

  The unusual behavior in this entry was the way Abernathy’s had warned everyone of danger coming. It never said anything about Hitler or the invasion of Poland in 1939, but for five days every person who came for an augury, every question asked via mail, had received the same book: an atlas of major cities in the United States, the spine broken so they all fell open to a map of Portland, Oregon. History didn’t say what Silas Abernathy had done to interpret the augury, but the result was moving the oracle from its home in Charing Cross Road to where it stood now.

  How odd that Silas’s journal isn’t on this list. I made a mental note to ask Judy if there was a more interesting history of that event and moved on.

  I managed to read through a third of the files before Judy knocked on the door. “Customer,” she said. “Did you find anything?”

  “It’s not the first time the oracle has acted up, but there hasn’t been anything like this, at least in what I’ve read so far. You?”

  “I know more about the theory of indeterminacy Abernathy’s operates by than any human being ought to. Fortunately about half of the manual is instructions for creating the catalogue, so I’m almost done. Nothing about odd behavior of any kind.”

  Too bad. It was probably too much to hope it would be that easy. “Is there some book that tells about Abernathy’s being moved to the U.S.?”

  “There’s A History of Magic in—”

  I shuddered. “Other than that one.”

  Judy smirked. “You’ve read it.”

  “Excerpts. That was enough.”

  “I’ll find you something.”

  I dipped into the records on and off all day and found plenty of interesting material. An exchange of letters between two magi in the late 1800s, arguing over whether Abernathy’s was alive or not. Were they famous, to have their letters archived like that? Something to ask Malcolm, maybe. There were some newspaper clippings from The Times about strange lights being seen up and down Charing Cross Road. To me, it sounded more like magery than anything to do with Abernathy’s, but I suspected something had happened with the oracle that magi had had to cover up.

  There was the time when all the auguries had been in poem form, even if the books they were contained in weren’t poetry books. Three days when every augury was free, no matter what the subject. The custodian at the time, Rowan Abernathy, suspected it was in honor of the Chinese New Year. Raynard Briggs—

  “Are you still working? It’s 6:30,” Viv said. Her hair was freshly dyed an eye-watering purple, and she had a white denim jacket slung across her shoulders.

  “Listen to this. Raynard Briggs—that’s Mr. Briggs’ grandfather—wrote that he occasionally found books lying around with auguries for people who never came in. People who didn’t exist.”

  “How could he possibly know they didn’t exist? Did he know everyone on the planet?”

  “He didn’t say. I bet there’s a kind of magic that can locate someone. Maybe glass magic—that’s supposed to be about perception.”

  “Okay, so assume he was able to tell they were nonexistent. What does that mean?”

  “I’m not sure. But we’ve had the oracle give auguries for the wrong people. Maybe we should be trying to discover who they are.” I took out my phone and scrolled through my contacts. “And I know someone who can.”

  arry and Harriet Keller lived on the west side, in an almost vertical neighborhood. Blocky, modern-looking homes poked their heads out of the verdant trees and bushes covering the steep slopes. I pulled around the far side of their driveway in my ancient but well-cared-for Civic and parked to one side. Buds on the rosebushes lining the driveway hinted at the riot of color the sweep of the drive would be in a few months.

  “I tried to convince Harriet she didn’t have to feed us, but she insisted,” I told Judy. “Thanks for coming along.”

  “Harriet’s cooking is worth coming for all by itself,” Judy said. “And I want to know what they can find out. Besides, Father is out tonight, and I’d just be eating Consuela’s leftovers.”

  I knocked on the door, and a horrible whining howl went up from somewhere deeper in the house. It sounded like the cries of the damned. “I hope they lock that thing up.”

  “Familiars aren’t dangerous,” Judy said, rolling her eyes.

  “You don’t see what they really look like.” As custodian of Abernathy’s, I had a few magical advantages, one of which was seeing through illusions. Nicolliens, one of the two factions of the magical world, captured invaders and “tamed” them, forcing them to fight their own kind on humanity’s behalf. They put illusions on them that made them look like large, vicious dogs to protect the public. I had to look at them as they were, in all their scaly or slimy or tentacled horror.

  “Even so, you shouldn’t be afraid of them. No familiar has broken control in the seventy-three years we’ve been capturing them.”

  The door opened. “Helena, Judy, welcome,” Harry Keller said. “Please come in. Harriet’s locking Vitriol in the sun porch, but dinner’s almost ready.” His military-short flat top, white as snow, was shorter than I remembered, and he towered over us.

  I thanked him and let him take my light sweater. The day had been chilly, and the night even more so. At least it hadn’t rained.

  Short, round Harriet came in, her wrinkled face beaming. “How nice of you to come.”

  “We should be thanking you,” I said. “You’re really helping us out.”

  Harriet waved that away. “Let’s eat, and then we can talk business. I want to hear all about what you two have been up to. Any romance in the spring air?”

  Judy and I exchanged glances. “No,” I said.

  “We’re too busy,” Judy said.

  “That’s a shame. You’re young, you should be dating. Come, sit down. I hope you like homemade ravioli.”

  The ravioli was divine. I was spoiled by my mother’s cooking—she was a cordon bleu chef in all but name—but Harriet had a side job catering for the gods. We endured the Kellers’ gentle grilling about our personal lives, Jud
y with more tact than I’d imagined her capable of—but then she’d known the Kellers since she was an infant, and was probably used to their ways. I liked Harry and Harriet a lot, my reservations about their familiar notwithstanding, so I didn’t mind. Much.

  When dessert was finished (icy lemon sorbet) Harriet served coffee, and we took our cups into their living room, all pale gray upholstery and bleached silver ash wood. The only color was in the landscape oils hung at intervals around the room. I didn’t know much about art, but I could guess they were as expensive as everything else the Kellers owned. Not for the first time, I wondered how the Kellers supported themselves. They were well past traditional retirement age, but magus wasn’t something you retired from being. Could their income have something to do with their magic? All the magi I knew personally were very well-to-do. That made sense, since they were the ones who came in for expensive auguries.

  “So, you have a problem,” Harry said. “Explain it for us.”

  I summed up what had been going on, and finished with, “We were wondering if the people Abernathy’s gives auguries to—that is, the times when, say, Mr. Jones comes in for an augury, and the oracle gives one for Mr. Smith—if those people really exist. Raynard Briggs said they didn’t.”

  “Raynard Briggs? When did that happen?” asked Harriet.

  “In the early ‘80s.”

  “We never heard a word about it,” Harriet said. “But Raynard was terribly close-mouthed about Abernathy’s. He wouldn’t even talk about the catalogue to anyone who wasn’t on the mailing list.”

  “Kind of a standoffish fellow,” Harry said. “Of course, we were a younger generation, Harriet and I, and he never could stand children. Not even his own. Poor Karen.”

  “Can you tell us if they’re real?” Judy said.

  “Of course.” Harriet put her coffee cup to one side and removed the floral arrangement of dusty blades of thick grass and white lilies from the coffee table. It was the oddest table I’d ever seen, more of a rectangular prism of glass set in a frame of pale ash. It caught the lamplight and reflected a ghost of myself off the side and top.

  “Scoot back, dear,” Harriet told me, and I shoved my armchair back several inches, leaving room for Harriet to kneel beside the table. Harry, groaning quietly with effort, knelt opposite her. Though Harry had on a zip-up gray cardigan and Harriet wore a chintz blouse with pearls, they looked like a couple of ancient pagans worshiping at a strange altar.

  Harry took a rubber-tipped hammer from inside his cardigan. It was the kind doctors use to test your reflexes. “Ready?”

  Harriet nodded. “What’s the name you want us to search for?”

  “Ethan Fifielt.” The name was odd enough I hoped there wouldn’t be more than one of him.

  Harriet splayed her palms against the glass, holding her hands a little wider than shoulder breadth across. Harry brought the hammer down between her hands, what looked like the center of the table, and tapped once.

  The chime of a dozen bells rang out. The glass rippled like water and kept rippling as if a stream of water were dripping into a pool. “Ethan Fifielt,” Harriet said. Her voice was unnaturally deep and resonant, two octaves lower than the chiming bells. Liquid glass lapped against her outstretched hands, waves breaking against a sand bar. I held my breath, afraid of interrupting whatever magic they were doing, even though I really wanted to ask what was happening.

  Only nothing did happen for several minutes. The glass kept rippling. Harry put his hammer away and laid his hands over Harriet’s so the liquid glass splashed against him too. Finally, Harriet said, once again in that too-low voice, “Ethan Fifielt, 726 Caraway Circle, Allentown, Pennsylvania, United States of America. Ethan Fifielt, 23-A Tribune Street, Palestine, Illinois, United States of America.”

  Harry patted Harriet’s hands. “I’ll write those down for you.”

  “Is that it?” I said.

  “The search was simple. Two Ethan Fifielts. Good thing his name wasn’t Brown, or we’d have been here all night!” Harry laughed and left the room.

  “But we don’t know if either of them are Wardens,” Judy said.

  “We could check the mailing list. Our Ethan Fifielt might be on it,” I said. “I should have thought of that before.”

  “Assuming he is a Warden,” said Harriet. “There’s no reason a person receiving an augury has to be one.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.” I sat back in my chair and sipped my coffee, which had gone cold. “At least we know Abernathy’s didn’t make the name up, even if neither of them turn out to be our man.”

  “Sorry to be blunt, but why does this matter?” Harry said. He handed me a small sheet of notebook paper and resumed his seat. “It sounds as if Abernathy’s previous problems corrected themselves with time.”

  “Everything strange Abernathy’s has done before hasn’t interfered with its normal business, just made it more interesting.” I put the paper away in my pocket. “I can’t go on telling people they have to try again with their questions. They’re going to lose faith in the oracle.”

  “That won’t happen, dear,” Harriet said. “Abernathy’s has a sterling reputation.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not sure how far that reputation will take me.”

  On the ride back to Judy’s house, Judy drummed her fingers on the door frame and hummed a tuneless little song until, irritated, I said, “Did you have something to say?”

  “Just thinking.” She didn’t sound offended. “It occurs to me maybe we need to ask the oracle what’s wrong with it.”

  “I can’t ask for an augury for myself.”

  “I can, though.”

  A car swept past me on my right, going much faster than the speed limit and sending up a fine spray of dirty rainwater. “I’m not sure we’re that desperate. That sounds like it could be a very expensive augury.”

  “I was thinking of using Abernathy’s money to pay for it. I think that’s fair.”

  “I’m not sure that’s allowed.”

  Judy smirked. “It can hardly argue with us.”

  I sighed. “All right. Tomorrow before we open. It’s worth trying. Tonight I’ll check the mailing list for Ethan Fifielt.”

  I pulled into the Rasmussen driveway. It had surprised me to learn Judy and her father didn’t live in a mansion, and then I’d felt stupid for assuming that would be the case. Their home was a nice old two-story house, a large one, yes, with a pillared portico, but it wasn’t on a very large plot of land, and the driveway had long cracks across it. “What do we do if the augury doesn’t work?” I said.

  Judy opened the door and came around to my side of the car, requiring me to roll down the window. “Then we think of something else,” she said, but in the light from the garage lamps, I could see she didn’t look as certain as she sounded. She turned and went into the house, and seconds later the lamps went out. Judy’s way of ending a conversation was often abrupt.

  Back at home, I stopped in the office for the mailing list. It was ten pages long, and the addresses were written in three columns, front and back, in a tiny, crabbed hand. I found Ethan Fifielt’s name on the back of the second page. It was the Allentown, Pennsylvania Fifielt. I had my phone out before I realized, one, it was nearly midnight in Pennsylvania, and two, I didn’t have Fifielt’s phone number. And three, I didn’t know what I’d ask him if I had him on the phone right then. I couldn’t remember which book had been his augury. Something about art, maybe. Well, if Judy’s idea worked, it might not matter. I locked away the mailing list and went upstairs.

  I went through my bedtime routine without thinking about it, my mind preoccupied with other problems. Worrying about Abernathy’s was stupid because my worrying couldn’t change anything. But it was impossible, lying in bed in the dark room, not to think What if this gets worse? What if I can’t find a solution? What happens to the oracle when none of its predictions are correct?

  Finally, I got up and made myself some chamomile tea, then sat a
t the kitchen table to drink it. All this worry was my insecurities talking. The truth was, I still didn’t feel like a proper custodian, given how little I knew and how much I depended on Judy and Lucia and even Malcolm to answer my questions. I made myself remember the events of the previous winter, when I’d become the oracle to defend it—defend myself?—against a terrible monster from beyond this world. I had done that, something no one in the history of Abernathy’s ever had before. If that didn’t make me a proper custodian, what would?

  I finished my tea and rinsed my cup, then went back to bed. I’d solve the problem in the morning. No need to fret. But it still took me an hour to fall asleep.

  I searched for Ethan Fifielt online the next morning using his address and found what I hoped was his phone number. I wrote it down as insurance against the possibility that this augury wouldn’t tell us anything. As I was shutting down my computer, someone knocked at the apartment door, and Judy let herself in. “What did I tell you about locking your door?”

  “That it was an act of defiance against the barbarians?”

  “Yes, but what I specifically said was you needed not to forget to do it.”

  “I know. I’ll do better.” I pushed the big leather armchair back from the desk. “Do you have an augury?”

  “Let’s go downstairs, and we’ll see if it works.”

  We trooped downstairs after I made a grand show of locking my door, which made Judy roll her eyes. In the store, she unfolded a piece of paper on the front counter and spread it out for me to read. In her neat handwriting, which was as precise and petite as the rest of her, she’d written Is the oracle malfunctioning?

  “Isn’t this too straightforward? We might as well use the catalogue.”

  “Part of the point of this is to see whether it screws up this augury too,” Judy said. “If it won’t even answer a basic question about itself, that says it’s a fundamental problem.”

  I thought we already knew it was a fundamental problem, but I understood Judy’s meaning. I folded the paper and walked into the stacks. The light changed, and I smelled roses, cloying and sweet the way Guille’s florist shop had been. I rubbed away a sneeze and began searching the shelves.