Life Reader

by Shea, K. M.

  When Brannon returned from football practice, wiping his sweaty complexion, Royce rose to greet him and the two conversed in front of the kitchen door for a few moments.

  There were no other page turners around, and none of the library patrons were at all interested in her, so Raven judged her moment had arrived and discreetly called the elevator.

  She winced when it dinged as it opened, but neither Brannon nor Royce seemed to notice, so she stepped inside and hurriedly pressed the button to close the door. As the doors slid shut she pressed the button for the second floor.

  Cheesy elevator music quietly hummed until the machine smoothly stopped at the second floor and dinged open. Raven stepped out, breathing in the stale air. She reveled in the warmth of the soft sunbeams that sprinkled the second floor, and set out in mind numbing joy to explore the area.

  The inner magic of the book sanctuary pulled at Raven, the endless volumes begged to be plucked off the shelves and handled.

  Raven wistfully ignored the pull and continued walking, occasionally looking up at the elaborate pictures painted on the ceiling.

  “This place was definitely constructed by Kingdom Quest artists,” she said, passing beneath a painted leopard that moved its head to watch her.

  The ceiling stretched impossibly high, and several staircases led to walkways that wound snug against the library walls, making an upper layer of bookshelves.

  On the ground golden brown ladders stretched up to the tallest bookshelves. Little wheels on the bottom of the ladders allowed them to glide along the marble floor.

  Raven walked along, marveling over the beauty of the library while internally debating with herself.

  Waltzing through the fiction section was not going to win her any friends among the page turners, which was supposed to be her goal even if she doubted she would be able to accomplish it. Raven knew it was important that she befriend her coworkers, and yes, perhaps she was overly critical in her prejudice towards them because they didn’t have all sections of the library open, because if the library director ordered it they could hardly go against it. And…

  Raven closed her eyes for a moment, aware she was mentally rambling. What she was trying not to think of was the library’s desperate welcome. It ached to be used, so much so it pushed the boundaries of its magic to reach out to her. Libraries were not sentinel beings. They had magic, yes, but Saint Cloud reacted almost like an entity.

  Forget her mission and her profession, as a person Raven wasn’t sure she would be able to ignore the library’s plea.

  Raven frowned and stopped walking. She furrowed her eyebrows as she concentrated, searching for the library’s magic. She could feel it, warm and gooey like melted chocolate chips, but there was something else there. She could feel the faintest hints of a shadow in the magic, something that felt wrong and tasted sharp and bitter.

  Raven turned to face the wall, intending to put her hand against the stone to further detect the shadowy taint, but she was distracted when she noticed gold lettering protruding from the wall. It read: Hic sunt equus-avis. Her hands traced over the letters, the rough stone felt gritty to her fingertips.

  “That’s Latin. I don’t recognize the phrase, but equus is horse. I think,” Raven said, brushing her bangs aside. Latin was a core course in page turner training, but students were expected to learn only the basics.

  “Yes, and avis is flying. It literately translates to ‘Here be flying horses.’ Rather dramatic sounding if you ask me.”

  Raven twirled around, eyes wide, her hands raised to clasp her throat as she spun.

  Standing behind her was a pretty woman who looked like she was in her early forties. Her hair was a brilliant shade of red, and she had big brown eyes that could give Bambi a run for his money. Her face was a mask of blank expression, although she did have deep smile lines.

  Raven recognized the woman as Alison Morris, the Saint Cloud children’s librarian according to her research packets. “I’m sorry,” Raven nervously said, shifting her weight from foot to foot. “Who are you?”

  The librarian smiled, a gesture that dramatically softened her face. “Alison Morris, the children’s librarian of Saint Cloud. The children call me Miss Morris, but I’ll let you call me Alison,” she said, making her decision with an emphatic nod.

  “Children?”

  “The page turners. Your little coworkers. You are Rachel McCellen, the newest page turner, right?” Alison asked, her deer eyes narrowing.

  “Oh yes, I’m sorry! My manners are totally inexcusable,” Raven said with a high pitched laugh as she quickly settled back into character and held out her hand. “Yes, I’m Rachel McCellen, it’s a pleasure to meet you Alison! Please, call me Ray.”

  The smile returned to Alison’s face as she vigorously shook Raven’s hand. “Welcome to Saint Cloud, Ray,” she said, releasing Raven’s squeezed hand before turning to gesture at the sea of books. “There’s not much happening now, being that all book operations are shut down, but it is still beautiful.”

  “It is,” Raven agreed, pausing before asking. “Am I in trouble for being up here?”

  “Heavens no,” Alison said with a blustery snort. “Why would you be? We might be closed, but we’re still employees,” she said before increasing her volume so significantly her words rang off the walls in echoes. “We can go wherever we please!”

  Alison suspiciously glared into the dimness as Raven ventured another question. “So… after I finish my shifts I can come here? The library director won’t be mad?”

  “Mad? At you, Cream Puff? Never. Mind you, Too Big For His Britches Prefect Daire won’t be delighted, but someone needs to yank him off his high horse anyway,” Alison said, releasing barks of laughter.

  Raven tipped her head and tried to look insipidly stupid. Alison broke just about every piece of conventional wisdom Raven ever heard about children librarians. Raven would have to be careful around her. She was more sly and witty than her profile report analyzed her to be.

  Alison abruptly cut off her laughter when she caught Raven’s theatrical confusion. “Don’t mind your pretty head about it, Sweet Cakes. Just do whatever you like, Daire will manage you until Director Eastgate gets around to finding you. Just do your best to survive, ‘kay?” she said, reaching out to pat Raven on the head before turning and walking off. “Scream bloody murder if you ever need my help. My office is here on the second floor. Tootles!” she said before darting out of view.

  Raven called after the librarian, liberally coating her voice with honey and confusion. “Thanks Alison, goodbye!” Raven smoothed her jeans and continued in a chattery voice, “Such a nice person,” before she clattered through the shelves.

  She made her rounds through the library, thoroughly investigating the shut down circulation stations.

  All checking out services and activities in Saint Cloud were suspended approximately three years ago. Gram’s network had managed to confirm that after the suspension was declared, the department head of circulation had a massive fight with Isaac Eastgate. As a result all of the circulation librarians left Saint Cloud, allowing Eastgate to declare what was supposed to be a month long halt an indefinite shutdown.

  The circulation librarians hadn’t been around since the fight, but all of the circulation desks were immaculate. They were stocked with receipt printers, computers, barcode scanners, cash registers, inks and stamp pads, hold slips, and every item necessary for circulation activity.

  Additionally, in one of the desks Raven found three stacks of newly covered and barcoded books. Books that were released for sale within the last month or two.

  “Even if circulation activities have halted, someone is keeping the library stocked,” Raven said. She raised her hand to rub her eyes before remembering she would smear her eye shadow and mascara. “This place presents riddle after riddle,” she said, brushing her shoulder, as if she could brush off the insistent, whispery library magic that shadowed her every move.

  Raven sighed and
glanced out the back doors—the entry she used the previous day. “I’d better get my bag and sneak out,” she said, sliding out of the well kept circulation desk. “I need to catch Dad this evening.”

  “The full time staff members are?”

  “Library director Isaac Eastgate, reference librarian Kay Conners, children’s librarian Alison Morris, and Tod Micormick serves as the janitorial staff,” Raven answered, scrubbing at her eyes as her father flipped through the information packets Gram had drawn up for her.

  “Jeremiah’s work background?”

  “He was sorted as a page turner at his tenth birthday. He took the typical page turner classes for the required two years before he had a semester co-op at Saint Cloud—an experience he shared with Daire Eastgate—when he was twelve. He worked at the Waukesha Public library for a year on a volunteer basis until he turned fourteen, when he was transferred to Bakertown just a few weeks after Daire. They’ve been there since, slowly working their ways up the ranks, taking the required tests and classes until they reached the fifth page turner rank—a status they earned in the fall semester of their junior year—after receiving the correct KQ qualifications,” Raven said.

  “Excellent, you’re doing quite well, you know. I wasn’t sure how much of this you would have time to read, much less memorize,” Raven’s father said, setting a sheet aside.

  Raven laughed. “I’m a page turner, Daddy. I used a speed reading technique to get through it and managed to memorize a great deal of it in the process. Reading is a talent of mine.”

  “Really?” Raven’s father said in an utterly benign tone as he studied a new sheet. “That’s an interesting observation.”

  Raven winced, well aware he was holding back from speaking his mind. The only topic that never failed to drive Raven and her parents into a shouting match was Raven’s refusal to read out loud.

  Raven was quiet for a few moments and tapped her manicured nails on the tabletop. “Dad… I don’t think the guys are going to warm up to me,” she said, sinking back in her chair to wallow in her guilt.

  “Give them a few days, Raven. They’ll see your charm.”

  “No, Dad. I’m serious. I don’t think I’m going to get any information from them.”

  “Honey, I’m sure—,”

  “Dad,” Raven said. Her father looked up from the papers and met her eyes. “I’m not being humble. I’m going to fail. They are too guarded against me.”

  Her father slid the packet away and clasped his hands, placing them on the table before focusing on Raven again. “Yes, Gram and I expected it wouldn’t work. That is why we created a backup plan.”

  “A what?” Raven asked as her father threw a briefcase on top of the table and opened it up to dig out a spiral bound stack of printed papers.

  “A backup plan, an alternate arrangement if you will.”

  Raven leaned forward to study the papers. “You had that little confidence in me that you prepped a backup plan?”

  “Nonsense. In our business first plans never survive contact with the enemy. One must always have a backup plan!”

  “Do you have a backup plan for this backup plan?”

  Raven’s father hesitated and pursed his lips. “…Maybe.”

  Raven rolled her eyes and leaned back in her chair. “Thanks for keeping me updated,” she sarcastically said. “So what do you want me to do? If the guys won’t talk to me about the cauldron, what can I do?”

  “Easy. You will look for it yourself.”

  “What.”

  “Today Gram sent me the remaining library floor plans via griffon post. They are far more detailed than the plans the public view, although they do not contain any information about those secret tunnels you mentioned.”

  Raven took the spiral bound book and paged through it. “I’m not surprised. A lot of the older libraries have unrecorded architecture,” Raven said over her father’s mewls of irritation. “How do I search it? I’m assuming that’s part of your plan.”

  “Ah, flip to page 34, thank you. That is the start of section 2B, which outlines the strategies you will employ while searching for the cauldron. I sectionalized and color coded the library, using a ratio to estimate the amount of time it would take to search each area. I mapped out both floors, although given the nature of the cauldron I suspect it would be placed on the fiction floor.”

  Raven looked up from the candy colored papers. “The nature?”

  Raven’s father ignored her question. “When you have finished a section you can mark it off and move on to a new spot the next day. Of course I will have to go over search methods with you, and before you start on the fiction floor it would be ideal if you could try and survey it from above. To get a bird’s eye view, so to speak.”

  “There is a path that winds around the upper story to provide more shelf space at the top,” Raven said, pointing to the walkway on her map.

  “That would be appropriate, however, something higher up would be even better. Don’t they have security platforms?”

  “I’m sure they do, but no staff member would ever allow a part time page turner to use them. What reason could I give for needing to see them?”

  Raven’s father thought, his forehead wrinkles going deep. “Couldn’t you be honest and tell them you want a good view of the library?”

  Raven doubtfully frowned. “I could try Allison, but she’s the only full time staff member I know. Daire and Jeremiah wouldn’t have the necessary clearance to get me up there, and I highly doubt they would help if they could anyway.”

  “Try Allison. If it doesn’t work you have the walkway to fall back on,” Raven’s father said. “There are certain tactics you’ll have to use while looking for the cauldron. They are all outlined in this book. Some of them will seem simple, like searching above and below eye level, but you would be surprised how often simple techniques help an emissary find what he is looking for,” he said flipping through the papers.

  Raven followed his example, stopping to study several itemized pictures on a licorice red colored page.

  “Oh,” Raven’s father said when he noticed her looking at a picture of a hallowed out book that had money and jewels inserted inside of it. “You don’t have to worry about diversion safes. It’s unlikely there is one big enough to store the cauldron inside of, although I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to test some of the stone work. They might have created a fake gargoyle or statue to fit in with the décor and hide the cauldron.”

  Raven nodded, her father’s words prodding the memory of Saint Cloud’s over enthusiastic greeting. Raven picked on the corner of the spiral, deep in thought.

  “Something on your mind?”

  Raven shook her head. “I was just thinking. Saint Cloud is lonely.”

  “It feels lonely?”

  “No, I mean the library itself is literately lonely.”

  Her father snorted. “How can a library be lonely?” he asked.

  Raven was not deceived. Although her father scoffed and puttered with his papers he was an intelligence agent. He would wield whatever information Raven gave him to use to his advantage. It irritated Raven to know this, but setting herself against her father was not a wise plan. Besides, she was his daughter. He would help her, if he could.

  “Its magic is unpredictable at the moment. The building should be stable, but it’s not. Paintings peel off the ceiling, magic books can break their bonds, it’s not a good state for the library to be in,” Raven said. “It needs to be reopened to the general public.”

  “Really? I think it sounds like it needs to be shut down.”

  Raven picked at the spiral again. “No, it needs the opposite. Humans using the library resources and facilities allow the library to dispel and use its magic accordingly. We aren’t giving it enough human interaction, the computer usage isn’t cutting it.”

  Raven’s father shivered. “I know you’re a page turner, so you connect with the library on a level I cannot, but it gives me the jibblies when you talk about
it like it’s a living creature.”

  “It is and it isn’t,” Raven said. “It’s not a breathing organism, but it has likes and dislikes,” she paused, catching sight of her father’s horrified look. “Think of it like this, there is holy ground, and there is unholy, desecrated ground. The ground itself isn’t living, but it is lending properties to whatever stands on its soil.”

  “So which kind of ground is the library? Holy, or unholy?”

  “I normally wouldn’t hesitate to say holy, but…,”

  “But?” her father said, straining forward against the table, his eyes fixed on Raven.

  “I think—and this is just my opinion—but I think that some of the library’s magic might be tainted.”

  Chapter 5

  Raven stared at the blinking and chirping computers with a dutiful smile as she internally reviewed her conversation with her father from the previous night.

  After hearing her thoughts, Raven’s father made a speedy and abrupt exit. He made a beeline for his office, closing and locking the door behind him. Raven leaned against the door, able to hear the activation of a portal painting through the wooden structure.

  She didn’t hear her father return. The next time she saw him was when he was sprinting out the door to head to work, a piece of buttered toast clenched between his teeth. It was rather disconcerting to Raven that her news brought out such a strong reaction in her father. He was usually unflappable.

  Raven snapped out of her thoughts when Royce shifted next to her.

  “Here you go, computer number twelve,” he told the older woman who had just signed her name on the sign in sheet after Royce scanned her card.

  It had taken Raven five minutes to convince Royce to allow her to help with computers, and after only a few minutes of working Raven wasn’t sure why he said yes.

  There was nothing to do.

  Without Jeremiah or Daire around the girls chatted and did not trip over each other to make their computers crash or ask stupid questions they already knew the answers to.