by Simon Archer
The four of us ran back to the stairwell we originally came up when an entire wave of books cascaded off the shelves in front of us. They tumbled down the stairs but mostly built up into a big pile, blocking our way.
I halted, extending out my arms to stop my friends who bumped into me, not quite yet used to the lack of light. However, being in the front of the pack, I noticed a sudden shift in the shadows. The books no longer stayed on the ground. They rose like a tidal wave and threatened to crash down around us.
“Run!” I called out, turning and pushing my friends in the opposite direction.
We dashed down the other side of the balcony. I kept my hand on the railing in order to stay on the path. While we had some blue light to guide us, the ever shifting books made it impossible to focus on what was ahead. All I could hear was the rumble of books toppling over one another to not only block our path but chase us also.
“No, no, no!” Daniella called out. She was now in the lead as we turned our marching order in the opposite direction. “This way’s blocked too.”
We turned around and found ourselves in a pickle in the worst way. We were trapped by the wave of books on both sides and a wall on our third. The only free space we had was the balcony.
Getting an idea, I crouched down and wrapped my hands around the metal pickets. For a brief moment, I felt like a prisoner in jail, sticking my head out of the bars to beg for release. But I was going to break out instead.
I spoke to the metal and heard the creaking in response. The balcony detached itself from the wooden floor and flapped like a ribbon in the wind. It descended down to the first floor, creating a ladder out of a fence. The pickets became the rungs, and it gave us a way out.
“Come on!” I shouted over the roar of the tumbling books.
I ushered my friends down first, handing the book like a racing baton off to Jade. She tucked it under her arm like a football and raced down the ladder. I was the last to go down, and I watched as the two oncoming waves of books crashed into one another. It sounded like two thunderstorms colliding. The books spilled over onto the edge and showered down around us like hail.
I paused my descent to lift my arm and protect my head. However, I compromised my tight hold on the makeshift ladder. Several of the books pelted into me, some even hitting a soft spot on the inside of my elbow. The joint bent awkwardly and jerked, causing me to let go of the rung.
My body struggled to regain balance but couldn’t manage to do it. I let out a scream as I fell backwards, freefalling in the air. My arms and legs waved about wildly, looking for anything to hold onto, but there was nothing.
I braced myself for a crash, trying to turn my body so I could land correctly, but there wasn’t any time. The fall was so quick.
Instead of colliding with the hard floor, I fell into a cushiony substance that bent to my weight like a trampoline. I didn’t bounce back up but was guided safely to the floor. When I looked at what had caught me, I saw that it was a gigantic leaf, from one of the huge potted plants near the bookcases.
Bethany grunted from off to the side, and I saw that she was using her multiplication powers to create multiples of the nearby potted plants. She adopted a wide stance and stretched her arms out straight, a bead of sweat trickling down her temple. The Eda soldier manipulated her hands and fingers to create more of the plants, creating a blanket of leaves as she created more of them at her will.
I dropped off the plant and watched as the multitude of plants now acted as an umbrella for the toppling books.
The tomes came from all directions now. They attacked us from the side as well as the top which made me want some kind of weapon desperately.
I reached out a hand and beckoned two of the iron pickets towards me. With a crack, they broke away from the rest of the fence and zoomed right to my outstretched hands. I twirled both of them around me like batons before I dropped into a fighting stance.
“Jade! Daniella!” I called out. “Get the book to the exit. We’ll clear a path for you.”
Bethany hollered her agreement, but I couldn’t make out the exact words over the crashing books. Jade and Daniella did as they were told as they made a break for the front doors.
The daughter of Demeter and myself ran alongside them, doing what we could to fend off the bookish fiends. I spun and whacked against the books, feeling like a dual wielding tennis player as balls pelted at me. Bethany multiplied the plants at the end of the bookcases to act as barriers along the way.
However, just as Jade reached the exit, there was the unmistakable sound of splintering wood. The balcony above the doorway split in half and fell apart under the uneven weight of the books. Jade’s scream rang out over the commotion as she was buried in a pile of pages.
19
“Jade!” I cried out, watching my petite friend crumple under the waterfall of books.
Daniella was on the pile in an instant. The healer yanked books out of the pile to uncover Jade among the rubble. She dragged her out while Bethany covered them with a circle of identical potted plants, to give them an uninterrupted moment. Daniella bent over our unconscious friend and focused on assessing her injuries.
Before I had a chance to join them, something smacked into my shoulder. It felt like one of those jabs from a bully in the school hallway. I leaned on my backfoot to regain my balance before I looked to see what ran into me.
Our blue book floated in midair. It dashed away from us, looking as though it was carried by some invisible being.
Without thinking, I ran after the book. I pumped my arms, the iron rods in my hands giving me strength. I caught up with the invisible thief and hollered as I slashed the iron rods right on top of them. I connected with something solid and I felt the figure crumple to the ground. The book was the only point of reference I had, so when it lowered, I knew I had to have hit the thief.
But then, the invisible figure fought back.
There was a blow to my chin that whipped my head to the left with the force of a car accident. I tasted blood in my mouth as I wiggled my jaw, ensuring that it was still intact. I didn’t let myself focus on the hit for long because I knew I couldn’t give the thief another opportunity.
I aimed one arm high and the other low so that I could hit the arm holding the book and their leg. The iron snapped against their skin and I heard a crack echo throughout the library. Still, the figure held onto the book.
Knowing that the being was weakened, I dove in for what I hoped to be a final blow. I spun in a circle, to gather momentum and landed one of the iron rods down on the soft spot between its neck and shoulder. Or, where I guessed the neck and shoulder would be.
It was a direct hit and the figure crumbled, while the book went flying across the room. I ignored my opponent and raced after the coveted item. It arched up into the air and I reached out to catch it and once I had it in my arms I pumped my legs back to where Daniella and Jade were.
The healer held up the chef, her arms draped over her shoulder, and while she was clearly weak, I was glad to see her upright and conscious. Bethany’s identical plants had created a path through the wreckage of the collapsed balcony so we could finally get out.
The four of us pushed through the door and tumbled out onto the marble steps, like kids on the last day of school. There, we found ourselves in a group of students with Riley at the center. She looked surprised to see us exiting the library, so much so that she let out a little gasp.
“Daniella!” she cried as she toddled towards us. “Why were you still in there? We enacted emergency protocols for evacuation when the lights went out.”
“Guess we didn’t hear it,” Daniella said with a shrug as she passed Jade off to Bethany, since they were more similar in height and she could relieve her back.
“You didn’t hear it?” Riley balked. “It’s a loud siren going off. Don’t you hear it now?”
As she mentioned it, a low rumble faded into my ears. Eventually, it picked up, like someone raising the volume on a
stereo, until it blasted as loud as a fire alarm. I blinked and shook my head, trying to fathom the new onslaught of sound.
How could we have missed that? It was so annoyingly obvious.
“So all of you were outside when that happened?” I asked, pointing my thumb back to the library building.
“When what happened, Cameron?” Riley blinked up at me with confusion.
“The books attacked us,” I snapped. “We barely got out without being buried under them. And then there was some invisible creature trying to steal this.” I waved the blue book Riley had given us around as if it was on fire.
“The books… attacked you?” Riley said slowly, revealing her lack of belief in my statement.
“If you don’t believe me, go and look for yourself,” I said, gesturing dramatically to the library. “It’s a mess in there.”
“A mess?” Riley exclaimed. She toddled up the steps, hiking up her skirt, until she reached the doors. She pushed them open and stood in the doorway.
I waited for her horrified scream, putting my arms across my chest confidently. As much as I didn’t like the idea of the library being ruined, I needed her to know we weren’t liars.
However, there wasn’t a single scream. In fact, Riley stayed completely silent as she spun on her heel and stepped to the edge of the library steps. She stayed on the top one, making her taller than the rest of us.
“While I know you are an Elemental Official, and that means you outrank us, I don’t appreciate being lied to,” Riley said as she put her own hands on her hips. Even with her nasally tone, I could hear the seriousness and hurt in her voice.
“What?” I balked, looking at Bethany in worry.
As if we were thinking the same thing, she passed Jade back to Daniella so we could run forward. Her expression matched my own as the two of us raced up the steps, one of either side of the librarian. We poked our heads in the door, still gunshy from the flying books.
We expected to see the wreckage from the broken balcony, shelves over turned, and the remnants of my makeshift iron ladder. However, none of that was there. The library was dark, yes, but everything was in order. It looked exactly the same as we walked in. The balcony wasn’t broken, there was the right amount of plants, and the books were on the shelves.
“What the fuck?” Bethany cried, unable to contain herself. She looked at me with an open mouth. “Tell me we just dashed through the library while fighting a bunch of haunted books.”
“We did,” I assured her.
The whole thing was unfathomable. It looked as though the last thirty minutes hadn’t ever happened. But I know that my friends and I went through the same experience. There wasn’t a way we could have hallucinated the exact same thing. Could there be?
“I think it’s time for you all to leave,” Riley said with as much authority as she could muster. “While I can’t exactly punish you, Cameron, I’m going to talk to the rest of the Elemental Officials about issuing a ban from the library for the other three for the remainder of the semester.”
Riley turned to Daniella and cleared her throat. Even after that, her voice came out hoarse. “I’m very disappointed in all of you for not following protocol. Especially you Daniella.”
The healer hung her head and didn’t say anything. Jade regained some semblance of strength and patted her on the arm.
“Let’s get out of here,” she suggested.
All of the students that were once in the library, watched as the four of us walked away from the library. We couldn’t make eye contact with any one of them. While they must have thought we were ashamed of our actions, the reason we couldn’t look them in the eye was because we were too consumed with our own whirling thoughts.
The four of us didn’t speak as we made our way back to my house. It seemed that we were all in agreement that it was the safest place to go. When we entered the house, we collapsed in various places in the living room. The dogs sensed the mood and didn’t do their usual bouncing when someone entered the house. Instead, they curled at the foot of the couch, bundling together and bringing a different kind of comfort and security than just the house itself.
Jade stretched out on the couch while Daniella tucked herself into one of the chairs by the fireplace. I mirrored her position while Bethany remained standing, unable to calm her nerves fully.
“Okay, but what the hell?” she said, breaking the silence for the first time in minutes. “There was nothing there. Nothing. No wreckage, so broken shelves, no ruined books. Nothing. How is that possible?”
“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “It doesn’t make sense that we should all go through the same experience and there’s no evidence to show for it.”
“I just want to know what happened,” Jade said as she held her head up with one hand.
“I think something or someone didn’t want us to take the book,” Daniella said as she pointed to the blue book still in my lap.
I ran my fingers over the cover, focusing on the uneven parts. It felt as though someone hadn’t pulled the fabric of the cover all the way around. So I pushed the bubbles around absently.
“Someone doesn’t want us to know where my father is,” I concluded. “There was someone in there with us. It was invisible, but I fought it head on. It tried to steal the book.”
“I think that’s why it attacked me, because I had the book,” Jade reasoned as she rubbed her head.
“Are you okay?” I asked, worried about the pained expression on her face.
“Yeah, Daniella healed me up real good,” Jade said with a weak smile. “But I’m going to be sore for a bit, I’m sure of it.”
“I’m so mad!” Bethany said out of the blue. She chucked a throw pillow into the dining room to emphasize her anger.
“That’s not why they’re called throw pillows, you know that right?” I said, eyeing the pillow now across the room, indicating that she should pick it up. With a grunt, Bethany stomped over and retrieved the pillow. She leaned against the wall and held it close to her chest, like a child snuggling a teddy bear.
“I get that they don’t want us to figure out the riddle or whatever but who would do this?” Bethany lamented. “I mean, do we really have to be on the lookout for another traitor?”
Part of me had a sinking feeling that I knew who had done this. I kept replaying the scene over and over in my mind when Alanna winked at me. How the branch leaders so confidently walked out of the library. And Holly knew we were going there. Kari had told her so when she came to pick her up. Could she have let the other branch leaders know in such a short amount of time?
Even though they made me uneasy, I didn’t have any real reason to bring them up as suspects. There was no evidence. So I kept my mouth shut and scratched the back of my head just to have something to do with my twitching fingers.
“Why don’t we see what all the fuss is about?” Daniella suggested, trying to get us to think about something else. “Let’s solve the damn riddle and worry about the attack later since we don’t have any leads.”
I took her up on her suggestion and opened the book, reading the title once again. Flora and Fauna of the Islands of the Mediterranean. It seemed like a weird and very specific title, but I hoped it held the answers we needed.
I flipped to the back of the book, looking for some kind of index or appendix. “Bingo!” I said aloud as I found it. I ran my finger down the columns of items mentioned in the book.
Daniella and Bethany walked around to the back of my chair to look over my shoulder. Jade opted to stay in place and wait for us to announce the discovery.
I looked up Cypress because it was first alphabetically. It gave a description of the tree and then listed all of the islands it was located on, which was too many to count. Systematically, we went through the seven plants, looking up each one in turn until we found the common thread between all of them.
“Ogygia,” Daniella announced, her breath coming out soft. “All of the plants are located on the islan
d of Ogygia.”
As soon as she announced the word, a ripple of panic went through the room. Daniella gripped the back of my chair with white knuckles as her neck went limp and she bowed her head. I closed the book with a slam and put my fingers to my lips while Jade put her head in her hands. Even Khryseos and Argyreos reacted to the news with a pair of whimpers.
“So,” Bethany said, dragging out the word. “What am I missing?”
“Seriously?” Jade asked disbelievingly. She lifted her head and squinted at Bethany as if she needed glasses to see her. “Did you pay attention at all in Mythology 101?”
“I mean,” Bethany said with an innocent shrug. “I passed, didn’t I?”
“I don’t know how,” Jade groaned.
“Ogygia is Calypso’s island,” I whispered, the words coming out automatically even though I was still distressed by the news. “The same island that Odysseus stayed for seven years while the nymph turned his men into pigs.”
“Oh,” Bethany said as the memory bloomed in her mind. Her eyes went wide and she pointed a finger in the air. “And that’s not good, right?”
“Nope,” I answered, my words sounding foreign to my ears. “My father’s stuck on the very same island.”
“You know it took the gods themselves to rescue Odysseus from Ogygia, right?” Jade reminded me, even though she knew very well that I remembered that. “How are we supposed to rescue him?”
“I think,” I said slowly as I bit the inside of my cheek. I released it with a pop and continued, “I think we need to ask the Elemental Officials for help.”
20
Hailey
The next few weeks at the base were uneventful. So much so that I started to doubt the fact that we were at war at all.
We were hunkered down in the snowy forest, with only other soldiers for company, which didn’t help considering that the rest of the Enka soldiers were still hostile and unwelcoming. Somehow, Irema had entered their good graces and more than once I found them huddled around that stupid crate. Whenever I entered the tent, they would abruptly stop talking and stare at me until I left.
